An increasing number of retailers want, particularly now, to be on-line. However it may be tough to navigate the varied sorts of e-commerce platforms out there, particularly in case you’re simply beginning out.
Listed here are 5 that now we have prepared to put in as normal on our internet hosting packages, plus two WordPress choices.
ZenCart
ZenCart is simple to put in and arrange, with an honest quantity of templates and some extensions. It’s additionally pretty simple to run, with nice inventory management options and straightforward gross sales choices.
Nonetheless, if you would like your web site to look up-to-date and well-designed, you’ll must know learn how to learn code and spend plenty of time cleansing out ZenCart’s HTML. In any other case, your web site goes to look extremely dated. And if you wish to add plenty of new merchandise instantly, it’s a sluggish course of, that means that the preliminary setup will eat up plenty of time. It’s additionally tough to improve, and, as with most internet purposes, upgrades are an important a part of guaranteeing good web site safety.
CubeCart
Created within the UK, CubeCart is a flexible little e-commerce platform, with loads of options, together with social media plugins, limitless merchandise, classes, and orders, and a responsive template pores and skin that’ll look good throughout a number of units. It integrates properly with third events as effectively, and many of the extensions are free, together with the fee suppliers.
Whereas it may well scale for small to medium companies, it would wrestle with bigger outlets, particularly in case you have 1000’s of merchandise and are planning a world promoting marketing campaign. And whereas the template is responsive, it may be a bit restrictive, particularly in case you’re seeking to have one thing completely different than the generic storefront model.
PrestaShop
A relative newcomer within the e-commerce software program discipline, PrestaShop has loads of choices for customisation, together with a big assortment of themes, detailed reporting and forecasting, and straightforward internationalisation for each entrance of web site and admin.
It isn’t fairly as highly effective as a few of the different platforms on the market, nevertheless, and whereas it does provide the versatility to run worldwide shops, it may not deal with the sources wanted for a bigger operation. There are many additional modules out there, however they’ll run a bit costly, and the prevailing advertising instruments are a bit missing, which suggests you would wish to spend extra to get the identical performance as different e-commerce platforms.
OpenCart
OpenCart is a straightforward to make use of platform that’s perfect for anybody who desires a world retailer – because it has multi-language and multi-currency choices built-in. It additionally has a lot of addons which are pretty cheap, which makes it much more reasonably priced.
Nonetheless, it’s not very customisable, which suggests you’re just about caught with what you may get. It additionally isn’t maintained as actively as different e-commerce platforms, which may trigger issues additional on, particularly if exploits are discovered.
Magento
Magento is a powerhouse of an e-commerce platform, with plenty of options, plenty of choices, and plenty of customisation. A number of huge names use Magento as their e-commerce platform, and it’ll simply develop with your small business.
Nonetheless, as a result of it’s such a powerhouse, it would have points on most internet hosting packages. It’s usually really helpful that in case you’re planning on having a big e-commerce web site, you’ll have to run Magento solely on a devoted server. Plus, it’s not constructed for newcomers – it’s designed for individuals who have the time or sources to essentially get into it and make it do what you need. And now that Magento is owned by Adobe, they’ll push you extra in the direction of their totally managed proprietary model in case you need assistance.
If working your individual e-commerce software program looks as if plenty of work, there are additionally WordPress plugins that offer you e-commerce performance on a WordPress web site. These are nice choices for anybody who already has a WordPress web site, or for somebody who desires to have greater than only a storefront (corresponding to a weblog, assist articles, or your entire web site).
With e-commerce plugins, you’ll be able to set up them on the identical time you put in WordPress or add them on to an current WordPress web site. WordPress is one other considered one of our one-click purposes you could simply set up in your internet hosting package deal, or, if you would like even higher WordPress internet hosting, you should purchase considered one of our Managed WordPress packages.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the large title in WordPress e-commerce plugins. It’s free to obtain and set up in your web site, however, like most WordPress addons, there are extensions and themes that you’ve got the choice of buying. You’ll additionally have to pay for whichever fee supplier you need to use, however lots of them have extensions to make them even simpler to make use of.
Whereas WooCommerce is fairly simple, it is perhaps tough for somebody who’s simply beginning out with WordPress and WooCommerce on the identical time. Nonetheless, in case you’re coming from a web based retail background (corresponding to transferring from one other e-commerce platform), the construction of WooCommerce will likely be straightforward to select up and work with.
Simple Digital Downloads
Simple Digital Downloads is an e-commerce plugin constructed particularly for on-line outlets to promote digital downloads, corresponding to software program, e-books, or graphics. The construction is completely different than, say, WooCommerce, however there’s plenty of assist on the market for folks simply beginning out. It’s free to obtain and set up in your web site, however there are extensions you might have the choice of buying. The extensions are barely pricier than WooCommerce, however there are some nice choices that will make internet hosting on-line information a breeze, corresponding to integrations with Amazon Internet Providers and Dropbox.
With Simple Digital Downloads and the Amazon Internet Providers extension, you might simply run a web site stuffed with giant downloadable information, corresponding to zipped up folders of pictures, with out having these information in your internet hosting package deal, saving you area, bandwidth, and cash.
So there are simply a few of the e-commerce choices on the market for you. If there’s one specifically you want, why not speak about it with us on Twitter or Fb?