The e-commerce industry is on the edge of expansion as the year 2018 observed around 50% growth of the digital buyers. E-commerce companies must search the support, functionality, extensions, cost of development and maintenance of the website. As till now, we have almost used every E-Commerce CMS Platform we always ask the client to let us know his current and future expectation that he/she having from the Website so can suggest him/her the best E-Commerce CMS.
Market share of leading e-commerce software platforms and technologies worldwide as of April 2020*
WooCommerce
28.3%
SquareSpace
17.7%
Shopify
10.80%
Monster Commerce
5.9%
Wix Stores
4.6%
Magento
3.9%
Opecart
1.6%
E-commerce platforms market share worldwide 2020
WooCommerce was the worldwide leading e-commerce software platform in 2020, with a market share of 28.24 percent. Squarespace Online Stores and Shopify ranked second and third, with shares of 17.69 and 10.98 percent respectively.
E-commerce software
E-commerce software is the technology that manages the online store processes, from managing inventory, to adding or removing products, to calculating taxes and fulfilling orders. The e-commerce software application market had an estimated value of around 5.1 U.S. dollars in 2018 and is forecast to grow to approximately 6.3 billion U.S. dollars by 2023. Given the fast growth of e-commerce sales – global retail e-commerce sales are forecast to reach 6.5 trillion U.S. dollars by 2023 – it is hardly surprising that the e-commerce software market is also expanding.
Online shopping
Smartphone is the device that consumers use the most when shopping online: 64 percent of retail website traffic comes from the mobile device. China and South Korea are the countries with the highest online shopping penetration rate: in both countries, 83 percent of the consumers are used to shopping online. Given the size of the Chinese consumer market, it is no surprise that Chinese companies are the leading e-retailers worldwide – Taobao.com, Tmall and JD.com ranked first, second, and fourth, with a combined market share of 37 percent in 2018. With 10 percent market share, the American e-retailer giant Amazon came as a third.
So which eCommerce Platform is best still?
Your question might be still there as which eCommerce Platform is best still even after seeing statistics. We will tell you basic advantages and disadvantages of each platform.
Magento eCommerce Development Platform
Magento is mainly not used by small business houses. Magento is built to be flexible and scalable. eCommerce consultants tout it as one of the premier open source eCommerce solutions in the game. With over 125,000 sites and Fortune 500 companies under its name, it certainly is popular. However, is it right for you? Here are some advantages and disadvantages to consider.
Advantages
1. It's big and it's growing Fast.
2. The Community edition of Magento is loaded with so many features that are not available in other ecommerce solutions such as the ability to manage multiple storefronts, multi-language and multi-currency support and is mobile and search engine friendly.
3. Magento is built to scale from 1 to a million, avoiding common pitfalls for developers. Code re-use, maintainability, debugging, support, etc. are all huge, expensive problems that eCommerce solutions providers must tackle. Magento makes them all a breeze.
4. The administration area is one of the most user-friendly panel we’ve come across amongst all platforms. A simple back-end with intuitive navigation and well-organized store management features.
5. Magento handles concepts properly and in an organized manner. Magento Stock & Inventory module comes with Simple, Configurable, Grouped, Bundled, Virtual and Digital Products.
6. Magento completes all of the requirements of any store owners which includes products, site design, shipping, payments and more.
7. There are lots of Magento extensions and widgets offered in the market. It’s really an interesting that the script will permit for running the more stores at the same time by using the panel of one administration.
8. As previously mentioned, Magento is built to scale so whether you’re selling 10 products or 10,000, Magento can handle it.
Disadvantages
1. Good Magento developers are hard to find. Magento is an extremely large system (over 15,000 files and 250 database tables) so it needs an experienced magento developer with a good understanding of object-oriented development and experience with the core software to really know what they’re doing.
2. Community version is free but if you want to support, the Enterprise version is way expensive and has recurring cost that starts from US$15,000/year approximately. Good Magento developers are often much pricier than the average ones.
3. Magento eCommerce Website need expensive servers so as to decrease loading time and should only be hosted on dedicated servers that you can configure or providers who specialize in Magento hosting. Running Magento on normal shared hosting will create a slow and frustrating user experience for visitors. A major disadvantage of Magento is using the PHP. At some stage the heavy process the Magento application may use more gigabytes of RAM.
4. Magento’s flexible architecture also makes it complex. It usually requires more time to make the same customizations as in other solutions. Magento is completely made by an application of enterprise Java, but the codebase is in PHP. The development team needs to be well capable to know about the PHP Zend Framework or Java they will take some months to know about Magento and to exploit the platform. It usually takes developers more time to get up the learning curve than other solutions.
5. Certified and Experienced Magento Developers are hard to find, though everyone says they can do it, they just merely install the theme purchased from after marketplace and then you are on your own. Hire the best certified magento ecommerce developers who are also experienced in mobile app development for ecommerce solutions from here.
WooCommerce eCommerce Development Platform
WooCommerce is an E-Commerce development platform on WordPress. The WooCommerce is an open-source platform that provides various plugins for eCommerce websites. It works well for the small business houses or the individuals who have low budget at startup and want to grow.
Advantages
1. It doesn't cost you a thing. You just need to download it and wait a few minutes to have it.
2. WooCommerce’s greatest strengths is its flexibility – it adapts like a glove to all kinds of online shops, regardless of their market niche or their products! There are many themes with further modified color for you to customize your website. So you can build your unique website for your own business.
3. This platform is regularly updated with upto date cybersecurity and hacks updates.
4. Large community support: the other pros of WooCommerce WordPress platform is the community support where you can find solutions for all your problems.
Disadvantages
1. The frequency of WordPress updates is too much hence it sometimes poses a threat to update. You have to keep the WordPress plugin up to date with your current browsers. But sometimes the WooCommerce plugins needs to updated manually in this case that can be problematic for non-technical user.
2. It's not absolutely free though. Installation of some extensions may require payment or monthly fees.
3. Capital costs for a WooCommere site need to be budgeted for. It is not cheap.
4. E-commerce Specialists are needed in order to implement a robust WooCommerce eCommerce website. Sometimes when you want to update the store, it is hard for you to do by yourself if you don’t have the knowledge of both Woocommerce and WordPress.
5. WooCommerce plugin does not include elements such as the SSL certificate (Secure Sockets Layer) or backup tools, to make backups.
6. On-going maintenance is the responsibility of the store owner
7. WooCommerce by itself will not fulfill the E-commerce funnel
Shopify eCommerce Development Platform
This Shopify eCommerce platform is used by the top 11% of the companies worldwide. The Shopify eCommerce has a great support base, as it is one of the earliest open CMS platforms. Top 100,000 sites are built on this open-source technology.
Advantages
1. Simplicity of usage
2. Big choice of storefront themes
3. Shopify app store
4. 24/7 support
5. Marketing and discounts
6. Shopify is not a content management system and it’s optimized for only selling products. If you want to add a lot of rich content like videos, carousels, and what not on your site together with the stuff you want to sell, don’t go with Shopify.
Disadvantages
1. If you’re looking for more functionality for your store you might consider some of Shopify’s competitors, such as Magento or WordPress, because they’re self-hosted platforms that are challenging to work with.
2. There are only ten free theme templates. If you don’t have any of the free templates you will need to pay a one-time fee to use any of the other themes. If you want extensive customization you will need to understand Shopify’s Liquid code or hire an expert if you don’t.
3. You will need to pay fees associated with using these apps. However, without these apps you will need to manually insert your data into your own software which takes time.
4. If you are having technical issues you may not always be able to receive direct help from the general support. Instead, you may need to post your question to a forum in order to receive an answer from a developer.
5. There are a number of businesses prohibited from using the Shopify platform, including:
a) IP infringement, regulated or illegal products and services; such as gambling, pharmaceuticals, investment and credit services, virtual currency, and adult content and services.
b) Video game or virtual world credits
c) Social media activities
d) Multilevel marketing and pyramid schemes
e) Event tickets
Drupal eCommerce Development Platform
Drupal falls in second place after WordPress as a CMS platform in terms of popularity among site development agencies for building an e-commerce site. Drupal Commerce is the plugin for designing E-Commerce based websites. It is simpler to build a forum or blog with Drupal as compared to other Content Management Systems.
Advantages
1. For content marketing and blog integration, Drupal CMS platform works well over other platforms
2. Easier Implementation of the SEO strategy
Disadvantages
1. The main drawback of using Drupal as the community is not much active.
The Other Ones!
Shopify eCommerce Development Platform
This Shopify eCommerce platform is used by the top 11% of the companies worldwide. The Shopify eCommerce has a great support base, as it is one of the earliest open CMS platforms. Top 100,000 sites are built on this open-source technology.Advantages
1. Simplicity of usage
2. Big choice of storefront themes
3. Shopify app store
4. 24/7 support
5. Marketing and discounts
6. Shopify is not a content management system and it’s optimized for only selling products. If you want to add a lot of rich content like videos, carousels, and what not on your site together with the stuff you want to sell, don’t go with Shopify.
Disadvantages
1. If you’re looking for more functionality for your store you might consider some of Shopify’s competitors, such as Magento or WordPress, because they’re self-hosted platforms that are challenging to work with.
2. There are only ten free theme templates. If you don’t have any of the free templates you will need to pay a one-time fee to use any of the other themes. If you want extensive customization you will need to understand Shopify’s Liquid code or hire an expert if you don’t.
3. You will need to pay fees associated with using these apps. However, without these apps you will need to manually insert your data into your own software which takes time.
4. If you are having technical issues you may not always be able to receive direct help from the general support. Instead, you may need to post your question to a forum in order to receive an answer from a developer.
5. There are a number of businesses prohibited from using the Shopify platform, including:
a) IP infringement, regulated or illegal products and services; such as gambling, pharmaceuticals, investment and credit services, virtual currency, and adult content and services.
b) Video game or virtual world credits
c) Social media activities
d) Multilevel marketing and pyramid schemes
e) Event tickets
Drupal eCommerce Development Platform
Drupal falls in second place after WordPress as a CMS platform in terms of popularity among site development agencies for building an e-commerce site. Drupal Commerce is the plugin for designing E-Commerce based websites. It is simpler to build a forum or blog with Drupal as compared to other Content Management Systems.Advantages
1. For content marketing and blog integration, Drupal CMS platform works well over other platforms
2. Easier Implementation of the SEO strategy
Disadvantages
1. The main drawback of using Drupal as the community is not much active.
