The best online platforms for commerce

The origins of modern e-commerce lie in the collapse of the dotcoms that happened in 2000. Despite the sinking economy, companies that survived the crisis began to actively develop new sales channels, realizing that the Internet came into the business world for a long time and seriously.

Only 15 years have passed and the US Bureau of Statistics already cites the following figure: for the first quarter of 2015, the volume of the e-commerce market amounted to $ 80.3 billion. A report published by the agency demonstrates the ongoing positive dynamics in the development of this sector of the economy. The modern buyer is already used to saving time, as he is used to the convenience of online trading and is more likely to purchase your product through the site than in a classic store. Especially if you are a small or medium business, and are not ready to spend money on maintaining the outlet, optimizing the budget and developing your online platform.

However, in order to play in the major league of online trading, you will have to use the right tools. To create an optimal sales channel, a number of factors have to be considered. There are no trifles: if your business needs the opportunity to pre-order goods, then it should be on the site, and if customer comfort depends on your inventory management, this module should be implemented on your platform.

Editorial fi edition Ia Entrepreneur was a list of the six best platforms for e-commerce because of their convenience, functionality, user interface and a landmark for the needs of small and medium-sized businesses.

1. Symphony Commerce

This platform belongs to the category of SaaS -solutions ( Saas - Software-as-a-Service, software as a service), the company's marketing positioning is “business as a service”, in essence, a “turnkey” business. What's the point? Not all companies can easily and quickly go online and start trading on the Internet. Such companies have to look for specialists in the IT sphere, hope for their professionalism and level of knowledge. Symphony Commerce takes care of all the issues, providing its customers with services to create a common project architecture and solving all technical issues. Business owners will only have to focus on the main nuances of doing business.

At the same time, Symphony Commerce can hardly be called a public service. The business model of the platform does not imply free, which makes it an ideal solution for a small but rapidly growing business. For those who are still at the “founder-employee” stage or just trying to set up a business, this platform is not suitable. But another will do - for example, Squarespace.

1. Squarespace

This platform is designed for small businesses and takes into account all the needs of a small business. Among other things, the work does not require technical knowledge. You just need to select a template, upload product cards (the platform offers downloading an unlimited number of products) and start working by managing inventory and clearly monitoring the state of the warehouse using the platform tools.

Squarespace is the perfect e-commerce platform for a business that runs from home, a small business. The platform does not offer optimization modules for search engines ( SEO) and customer relationship management systems ( CRM ). However, this platform is ideal IT for aspiring entrepreneurs and professionals offering their services.

1. Magento

A very flexible and customizable e-commerce platform - according to many, the most scalable platform to date. Magento is further enhanced by its open source code, making it easy to add a lot of features. For example, you can add the free Nosto extension , which allows you to analyze user behavior and offer visitors products based on their online activities.

Despite the fact that Magento would be a good solution for growing companies, this platform is quite difficult to use for beginners of online retail. Before introducing this online platform, you should weigh all the pros and cons of this step and enlist the support of technical experts.

1. CommerceHub

CommerceHub is a cloud-based service that allows retailers to dramatically increase sales and improve inventory management. The essence of the service is that it helps owners and managers of online stores meet suppliers. Working with reliable and responsible suppliers is something that almost all sellers who do not have a well-developed brand yet achieve.

This platform is more suitable for start-ups in the field of e-commerce, which already have major suppliers and now want to increase quarterly profits, as well as for medium-sized companies optimizing work with suppliers.

1. Drupal Commerce

According to practitioners, Drupal Commerce is the most powerful and efficient platform of recent times. Its feature is the fact that it is part of a larger content management system. With Drupal Commerce, it’s easy to set up workflows that appeal to users who don’t have much experience in online commerce.

The platform also has amazing flexibility and scalability of settings. However, in order to get the best result, you will have to hire a developer to bet, since setting up and optimizing components requires certain professional skills that are hardly present among online entrepreneurs.

Drupal as a whole can be considered one of the most powerful e-commerce tools that does not require separate costs, which makes it one of the most profitable participants in the rating.

1. Shopify

As the name suggests, the Shopify platform allows you to create and configure an online sales platform. The platform is one of the most popular on the market - according to the development company, more than 100,000 stores are already operating on its foundation.

Using Shopify, you can download an unlimited number of items. In addition, you can use the system of discounts for free, you also do not have to pay a percentage of transactions. A distinctive (and excellent!) Feature of Shopify is its own application store, where you can choose one of more than 1000 free and paid applications for every taste and for any task. Among them, for example, there are plugins for SEO, applications for customizing the list of goods and extensions that simplify working on social networks.

As it becomes clear from the review, the possibilities of modern e-commerce platforms are almost endless. The only investment required to start online trading is some money and a lot of time. In order not to spend more than necessary, before starting work it is worthwhile to conduct a very thorough internal audit in order to clearly determine the needs that need to be met.