Today’s market is saturated with different e-commerce vendors that offer a variety of shopping services. This makes it difficult for e-commerce businesses to figure the best shopping cart software, which suits their needs. All e-commerce platforms, including Shopify, WordPress, BigCommerce, and Volusion state that they offer the best services. Hence, most new entrants struggle to find the best platform to set up their e-commerce businesses. Based on consumer reviews, vendors such as Shopify, BigCommerce, Volusion, Magento, and 3dcart rank favorably among e-commerce traders. This article discusses and compares some of these top e-commerce vendors.
Over the past few decades, e-commerce platforms have innovated and delivered a variety of features to ensure that online store owners have a pleasant experience. Currently, the number of these vendors keeps increasing. However, research shows that a few of the platforms are more popular than the others. Here are some of the top sites based on our research
- Shopify – Founded in 2004, Shopify is a Canadian e-commerce vendor, which hosts more than 500,000 merchants. Shopify is currently one of the biggest e-commerce website vendors, with an active audience of approximately 325000 shoppers. The vendor focuses on mobile shopping as well as social media commerce. Over the past few years, the vendor has evolved in a bid to meet the changing demands of the e-commerce stores.
- BigCommerce – Introduced in 2009, BigCommerce is a technology and e-commerce website vendor, which hosts approximately 55000 merchants. The vendor is well known for hosting big names, such as Toyota and Martha Stewart. The website has a list of impressive technical features and add-ons, which aim to improve their customer’s experience. In spite of this, BigCommerce is currently considered as one of the friendliest e-commerce websites since users do not require technical knowledge to use the platform.
- Magento – The vendor holds approximately one-quarter of the market share. Due to its large market share, Magento is considered one of the leaders providing e-commerce platforms. Some of the biggest brands like Burger King, Liverpool F.C, Huawei, and Pepe Jeans use the Magento’s platform to host their e-commerce stores.
- Volusion – Created 18 years ago, Volusion specializes in delivering custom websites for e-businesses. The vendor has over 30000 merchants and $26 billion in sales
- 3dcart – This vendor provides e-commerce solution for medium and large businesses. Currently, 3dcart has approximately 17000 active stores, which utilize their platform in developing custom e-commerce solutions.
At one time, most e-commerce store owners probably searched for a platform to run their sites and stumbled upon one of the vendors mentioned above. Even though popularity should not be used to make business decisions, it is important, given that most people seek quality solutions to their problems. Based on google trends, Shopify is the clear winner of the popularity contest. Magento is at a close second and BigCommerce is a distant third. At the bottom of the list is 3dcart, followed by Volusion in the second last position. All the five vendors show a dipping trend in their popularity. However, 3dcart and Volusion are barely registering in popularity trend, as fewer people search for the vendors.
The popularity of the vendors from different regions of the world is shown below:
• Shopify – Based on google trends, Shopify is very popular in Australia and Canada. The United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Mexico, and Russia showed mild interest.
• BigCommerce – Very popular in Australia, mildly popular in Canada and the US, and very low interest from India and the UK
• Magento – Extremely popular in China, Mild popularity in Russia, Australia, Canada, US, and Mexico, and very little interest from Africa
• Volusion – Strong interest from Canada and the US, mild interest from the UK and Australia and very little interest in Asia
• 3dcart – Strong interest from the US and mild interest from Australia and Canada
A critical issue when selecting an e-commerce vendor is the ease of use. Other aspects, such as features, and add-ons, usually come after determining the ease of use.
Below is the comparison of the websites based on the ease of use:
- Shopify – The dashboard area is set up in a manner that makes it easy to access and use. Website owners can easily customize their sites, add products/services, and install add-ons from the dashboard. The vendor also provides an option to import your posts from other sites. The site is easier comparatively easier to use than Volusion and the other options because it offers clear fields for the title, description, and cost of the product or services.
- BigCommerce – Like Shopify, the dashboard has been set neatly and has clear directions on how to build your site in a few minutes. The BigCommerce dashboard shares a lot of similarity to Shopify, particularly on the credit card module and customization options. The vendor also provides coding options for store owners willing to customize their sites further
- Magento – The vendor’s dashboard is neatly set up. Immediately you access the dashboard; you can see information on sales, last search terms, and average order on the left-hand side of the screen. You would need to familiarize with the dashboard to use it properly. Hence, it is not as straightforward, as BigCommerce and Shopify’s dashboard. Nevertheless, once you understand the meaning of all the icons, it becomes easier to use.
- Volusion – The dashboard’s main merit is its product creation area. This area is clean and easy to use. However, it’s not as easy as Shopify or BigCommerce but does the job. When changing out the site’s layout, one would require a little coding knowledge. This is a major challenge to basic users who possess no knowledge of coding.
- 3dcart – The dashboard is a little bit outdated. However, it is expected to change shortly. The site’s product posting area borrows a lot from WordPress and has numerous features packed in the area. Beginners might find it difficult to use, and it would take some time to learn how to use it. In spite of this 3dcart offers a lot of tutorials to familiarize new users with the site.
E-commerce website vendors face stiff competition in the contemporary markets. This is particularly true, as technology and ICT improves. Despite the increase in competition, modern e-commerce vendors such as Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce are claiming their market niches. These vendors attract merchants by offering beneficial attributes such as neat, easy to use dashboard, plugins, and extensions, which can be used to improve the customer’s experience.