An increasing number of retailers want, particularly now, to be on-line. However it may be tough to navigate the varied varieties of e-commerce platforms out there, particularly in the event you’re simply beginning out.
Listed here are 5 that we have now prepared to put in as customary on our internet hosting packages, plus two WordPress choices.
ZenCart
ZenCart is simple to put in and arrange, with a good quantity of templates and some extensions. It’s additionally pretty easy to run, with nice inventory management options and simple gross sales choices.
Nonetheless, if you would like your website to look up-to-date and well-designed, you’ll must know tips on how to learn code and spend a number of time cleansing out ZenCart’s HTML. In any other case, your website goes to look extremely dated. And if you wish to add a number of new merchandise instantly, it’s a gradual course of, which means that the preliminary setup will eat up a number of time. It’s additionally tough to improve, and, as with most internet functions, upgrades are a significant 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 nicely, and a lot of the extensions are free, together with the fee suppliers.
Whereas it may well scale for small to medium companies, it’d battle with bigger outlets, particularly when you have hundreds of merchandise and are planning a global promoting marketing campaign. And whereas the template is responsive, it may be a bit restrictive, particularly in the event you’re trying to have one thing totally different than the generic storefront fashion.
PrestaShop
A relative newcomer within the e-commerce software program subject, PrestaShop has loads of choices for customisation, together with a big assortment of themes, detailed reporting and forecasting, and simple internationalisation for each entrance of website 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 address the assets wanted for a bigger operation. There are many additional modules out there, however they will run a bit costly, and the present advertising and marketing 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 simple to make use of platform that’s best for anybody who needs a global retailer – because it has multi-language and multi-currency choices built-in. It additionally has a lot of addons which might be pretty cheap, which makes it much more inexpensive.
Nonetheless, it’s not very customisable, which suggests you’re just about caught with what you will get. It additionally isn’t maintained as actively as different e-commerce platforms, which might trigger issues additional on, particularly if exploits are discovered.
Magento
Magento is a powerhouse of an e-commerce platform, with a number of options, a number of choices, and a number of customisation. Numerous huge names use Magento as their e-commerce platform, and it’ll simply develop with your enterprise.
Nonetheless, as a result of it’s such a powerhouse, it’ll have points on most internet hosting packages. It’s usually beneficial that in the event you’re planning on having a big e-commerce website, you’ll must run Magento solely on a devoted server. Plus, it’s not constructed for inexperienced persons – it’s designed for individuals who have the time or assets to actually get into it and make it do what you need. And now that Magento is owned by Adobe, they may push you extra in the direction of their absolutely managed proprietary model in the event you need assistance.
If operating your individual e-commerce software program looks as if a number of work, there are additionally WordPress plugins that provide you with e-commerce performance on a WordPress website. These are nice choices for anybody who already has a WordPress website, or for somebody who needs to have greater than only a storefront (corresponding to a weblog, assist articles, or your complete web site).
With e-commerce plugins, you possibly can set up them on the similar time you put in WordPress or add them on to an present WordPress website. WordPress is one other one in every of our one-click functions that you would be able to simply set up in your internet hosting bundle, or, if you would like even higher WordPress internet hosting, you should buy one in every 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 website, however, like most WordPress addons, there are extensions and themes that you’ve the choice of buying. You’ll additionally must 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 easy, it could be tough for somebody who’s simply beginning out with WordPress and WooCommerce on the similar time. Nonetheless, in the event you’re coming from a web-based retail background (corresponding to shifting from one other e-commerce platform), the construction of WooCommerce will likely be simple to select up and work with.
Straightforward Digital Downloads
Straightforward 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 totally different than, say, WooCommerce, however there’s a number of assist on the market for individuals simply beginning out. It’s free to obtain and set up in your website, 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 recordsdata a breeze, corresponding to integrations with Amazon Internet Providers and Dropbox.
With Straightforward Digital Downloads and the Amazon Internet Providers extension, you might simply run a website full of massive downloadable recordsdata, corresponding to zipped up folders of photos, with out having these recordsdata in your internet hosting bundle, saving you house, 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?