Best Ecommerce Platform for Small Businesses: 5 Top Platforms to Consider

Things You Should Look for in Ecommerce Platforms for Small Businesses

Prior to diving into the 5 best ecommerce platforms for small businesses, let’s talk about the key features of good ecommerce platforms. There are certain tools and features that are essential in an ecommerce platform, particularly when you intend to use it for your small business. It is crucial for you to know those features and stay on the lookout for those when picking a platform for your business.  

User-Friendly Navigation

  Being a small business owner comes with many responsibilities and limitations. Often, you need to wear multiple hats and take care of many tasks. That’s mainly because you either have a small team, or are managing most things on your own. This is why your ecommerce platform must be intuitive and easy to use. Make sure to look for the following features in the ecommerce platform you’re considering using for your business.  

• User-friendly interfaces
• Simple setup process
• Drag-and-drop builders
• Quick and easy integration with third-party apps and tools
• Seamless content management system (CMS)
• Straightforward product management systems

  Many platforms offer a 7-day trial period. If possible, opt for the trial period and try to excessively use the platform during that period. Frequently using the potential ecommerce platform will help you evaluate these features, and assess its ease of use.

Cost-Effectiveness

  Typically, budget is a major concern for most small business owners. Setting up a biz doesn’t just come with the initial set-up costs. There are ongoing running and maintenance expenses too. When you decide to opt for an ecommerce platform for your business, do consider its price and fees involved.   You need an affordable and functional platform—one that works efficiently, but doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg. Take a look at the different factors you should evaluate to ensure you choose an affordable platform.  

• Monthly subscription fees
• Payment gateway costs
• Transaction charges
• Scaling costs for the future
• Development and design expenses
• Extension and/ or app fees

  Many ecommerce platforms nowadays offer free trials or plans. Others have different tiered pricing models according to their sales volume or features. Don’t forget to calculate the overall cost of the platform so you can make the right call.

Customization Flexibility

  People love brands with a personality, and those that resonate with them. Your brand must have its own unique personality. What’s equally important is for your online store to reflect that beautifully.   When you are shopping for an ecommerce platform for your small business, seek one that provides the following features:  

• Design and layout flexibility
• Option of adding unique, custom code 
• Plenty of attractive and customizable themes and templates
• Option of modifying email templates
• Tailored checkout processes
• Customizable product pages

  Keep in mind your brand identity, story, goals, and audience so you can then decide on a platform that aligns with these aspects.

Payment Gateway

  An online store is never complete without a payment gateway, right? Just make certain that the ecommerce platform you choose offers seamless payment gateway integration. Ideally, it should support numerous payment selections to better address your customers’ needs and preferences.   Typically, the best ecommerce platforms for small businesses support the following payment gateways:  

• Google Pay
• PayPal
• Square
• Stripe
• Apple Pay
• Amazon Pay

  Additionally, check if the platform also allows you to integrate the local payment options used by the local market, such as Afterpay, Klarna, and Sezzle.

Ease of Scalability

  Even if you are starting from a small scale, wisdom demands you select a scalable platform. The ideal platform should grow as your business scales. Consider the following features in the potential ecommerce platform for your business:  

• Multi-channel selling option
• Inventory management
• API access to make custom integrations
• Advanced reporting and analytics
• Mobile responsiveness
• Capacity to manage heavy traffic
• Option to support multiple languages and currencies

  If a platform offers these options, it certainly has the ability to grow forward as you expand your business, and is likely to be a good long-term option.

Mobile Responsiveness

  In 2022, around 79% of those in the US engaged regularly in online shopping. This makes it about 266 million people. According to research on consumer buying behavior, this figure is likely to increase to 285 million in 2025.   Considering how more people prefer shopping from mobile devices, it is crucial that your e-store is functional on different devices and looks great on them too. This includes mobile phones, tablets, laptops etc.   The key factors to consider are:  

• Fast loading times
• Mobile application so you can manage your store when you’re on the go
• Checkout process optimized for smartphones
• Touch-friendly buttons and navigation
• Adaptable responsive design

  A good way to take care of these aspects is to engage an expert marketing agency that specializes in ecommerce and digital marketing.

SEO Features

  SEO is critical for your store’s visibility, both online and offline. Select an ecommerce platform that comes with integrated SEO tools. With this option, you will find it easy to rank your products in the search engine results, primarily those of Google.   Look for features such as:  

• Automated XML sitemaps
• Support for Schema markup
• Flexibility to customize URLs
• Custom meta descriptions and titles
• Integration with Search Console and Google Analytics
• Image Alt text

  You can consult the SEO and digital marketing experts at ITechSole to find an ecommerce platform for small businesses that works well for SEO too.   Now that you know the features to look for in ecommerce platforms, let’s analyze some of the best ones for small biz owners.  

5 Best Ecommerce Platforms for Small Businesses

  Choosing the right ecommerce platform for your business is not that hard. But yes, this process does require you to analyze different platforms in detail. As mentioned before, do consider consulting an expert on the subject to make a well-thought-out decision.   Here are 5 of the best ecommerce platforms for small businesses that we absolutely love and recommend to our clients.

Shopify: The Ideal Ecommerce Platform

  Shopify has gained immense recognition over the past two decades. It is indeed an all-in-one ecommerce platform that caters to the needs of businesses of all shapes and sizes.   Let’s weigh the pros and cons of Shopify.  

Pros	Cons
User-friendly interface	Certain advanced tools and features demand expensive apps
Drag-and-drop store building options	Limited options for customization if you lack coding knowledge
24/7 customer support through live chat, email and phone	Transaction fee between 0.5% and 2.0% according to plan if you don’t use Shopify payments
Solid inventory management system	No free plan 🙁
Platform updated regularly
Integrated SEO tools
Built-in analytics
Built-in payment processing via Shopify Payments
Facilitates multi-channel selling

  The comparison above shows that Shopify is indeed a brilliant platform. This is why many regard it as the best ecommerce platform for small businesses. You can easily build your store with the drag-and-drop functionality. Plus, their customer support representatives are really helpful, and friendly. You’ll also love the integrated SEO features that do help with increasing your online store’s visibility and search rankings.    Yes, it does have a few limitations so you should prepare for it accordingly. If you don’t have any prior coding expertise and knowledge, onboard a marketing agency with expertise in website development and SEO.   While we personally love Shopify, we do feel it should offer a free plan too. Currently, it does give you the option to start with $1 for the first 3 months. That is often not enough for small business owners. A free plan with limited options would be much appreciated.   

Shopify Pricing and Plans

  The basic Shopify plan costs $29/ month. There is another plan which is an upgrade of the basic one and costs $79/ month. The Shopfify advanced plan is around $299/ month. Shopify also offers an enterpris-egrade plan which starts at $2,000/ month.  

Real-Time Case Study

  The Alaskan King Bed company benefitted massively by switching to Shopify as their ecommerce platform. It was able to experience a huge 43% increment in its sales in the first six months of using Shopify.   Alaskan King Bed had a decent store before too, but its visual appeal became even better after shifting to Shopify. Its checkout process became smoother than before, which gradually enabled it to get an edge on its competition.   Moreover, the brand leveraged the built-in SEO tools in Shopify. Consequently, their traffic and organic search results began improving. As Shopify offers many integrated marketing tools, the company was successful in starting their social media and email campaigns too.   As it is clearly evident from the discussion above, Shopify is a fantastic ecommerce platform for small businesses. Do consider using it to effectively scale your store.  

WooCommerce: A Robust Ecommerce Solution

WooCommerce currently powers more than 6.3 million websites across the globe. Of all the websites, 2.8 million are from the US alone.   These stats clearly exhibit the popularity of WooCommerce. It is undoubtedly a wonderful ecommerce platform that can seamlessly integrate with your current website as well.   Let’s analyze its pros and cons.  

Pros	Cons
Free installation (requires WordPress hosting|)	Big learning curve
Customization flexibility with plenty of plugins and themes	Costs can go higher if you use premium hosting, plugins and themes
Zero transaction fees	Performance optimization, security and hosting aren’t provided by WooCommerce
Works great for integrating content marketing	More hands-on effort for enhanced security and updates
Gives complete control over hosting environment and data
Huge community to offer development help and support
Smooth integration with WordPress pages and blogs

  The platform is indeed great primarily because of its huge customization capabilities. You get access to tons of free plugins and themes that make it super-easy for you to tailor your e-store. Plus, there are no transaction fees too.   That said, you need to spend a few weeks getting the hang of WooCommerce. While it does have a free plugin, you have to spend on its hosting, adding layers of security, and performance optimization. Consequently, that increases your overall expense, particularly if you opt for any premium theme, plugin or hosting option.

WooCommerce Plans and Fees

You can get the WooCommerce plugin for absolutely free. You will need to get hosting. WordPress hosting generally costs between $5 and $25 per month, but does vary according to the provider.   To get a domain name, be ready to spend around $10 to $15 annually. The SSL certificate is generally given for free, and is offered by most of the hosting providers. As for the premium plugins and themes, they can cost around $200.

Real-Life Case Study

  Tonal is a renowned home fitness company. Powered by WooCommerce, the company is doing great in terms of traffic, engagement and sales.   Their WooCommerce store is clean, beautiful, captivating and loads quite fast. Tonal channelizes the customization flexibility offered by WooCommerce to create a methodical checkout process and interactive product pages. Moreover, they have a fantastic blog that is supporting their content marketing and SEO efforts.   If you are someone who enjoys playing with different plugins, and are interested in using content marketing to widen your store’s reach, WooCommerce is a suitable fit for you.

Square Online: Integration Expert

  Square Online is a popular ecommerce platform for small businesses. Not only can you easily create your e-store on it, but you can also integrate your payment and checkout systems with its offline point-of-sale (POS) system. If you are using Square’s POS for your offline store, it can sync your sales, customer data and inventory across the offline and online channels.   Let’s take a look at its strengths and weaknesses.  

Pros	Cons
Free plan	Limited customization features for design
User-friendly interface	Fewer shipping options
Integration with its POS	Fewer advanced features
Automatic syncing of items, orders and inventory across offline and online channels	Transaction fees is applicable even on its free plan
Built-in tools for SEO
Commission-free option to sell on Facebook and Instagram

  Square Online is a suitable ecommerce platform for your small business, especially if you are already using its point-of-sales system in your offline store.   Yes, when it comes to advanced features, shipping options and customization flexibility, it is lagging behind the other ecommerce platforms.

Square’s Plans and Pricing

The platform does offer a free plan. Its ‘Professional’ plan costs around $12/ month. If your online store gets a good flow of traffic, consider using its ‘Performance’ plan that has a monthly fee of $26. You can also try its ‘Premium’ plan that will cost you about $72 each month.

Real-World Case Study

Indigo Wolf is an Australian clothing store, best known for its premium sportswear and leaverswear. They rely on Square Online to align with their brick-and-mortar store. With Square, the brand finds it rather easy to manage their inventory across their offline and online channels. As a result, their customers enjoy a seamless shopping experience. Moreover, Indigo Wolf also benefits from Square’s option of picking up the online orders in their physical store. This option has helped their foot traffic grow to a huge extent.

BigCommerce: A Scalable Platform

If you are someone who prioritizes scalability, you’ll enjoy BigCommerce a lot. It comes with robust features and tools that bring in good business growth. Ambitious biz owners with big dreams of expansion will definitely love this ecommerce platform.  

Pros	Cons
No transaction costs	Sales limits on all the plans
Powerful SEO tools	Can seem costly to high-volume sellers
Option to sell on multiple channels	Steep learning curve involved
Excellent API for different custom integrations	Free themes are quite limited
Robust B2B features
Limitless bandwidth, products and staff accounts on every plan

  BigCommerce is a solid platform for sure. You get great B2B features along with powerful SEO tools that can do wonders for your search engine rankings. Also, if you plan to execute some custom integrations in your e-store, you’ll love its API. At the same time, it has certain limitations. There are very few themes to play around with, which means you’ll have to most probably buy a theme. And there are sales limits on all of its plans, which does affect your expenses.

BigCommerce’s Pricing

It doesn’t have a free plan. Its ‘Standard’ plan will cost you around $29.95 per month. The ‘Plus’ option has a basic expense of $79.95/month. For the ‘Pro’ plan, you’ll have to spend around $299.95 each month.

Real-Life Example

Ollie is a dog food company based in Reno, Nevada. Specializing in human-grade dog food, the company leverages BigCommerce for their e-store. The brand loves BigCommerce’s scalability as it has enabled them to rapidly grow without the need to change their ecommerce platform. Additionally, the brand makes use of BigCommerce’s API to efficiently integrate with the subscription management system they use. As a result, they can easily offer a variety of personalized meal plans to their customers. Ollie also uses the platform’s features for multi-channel selling that help them widen their reach in multiple social media platforms and marketplaces. All these features have improved their sales quite significantly.

Squarespace: Design-Centric Ecommerce Platform

Squarespace is another ecommerce platform that is particularly famous for its range of gorgeous templates. If yours is a small biz in home decor, apparel, accessories, jewelry, arts and crafts, and other goods that focus on aesthetics, you’ll adore Squarespace. The platform does help you build a harmonious and appealing brand image. Let’s discuss its strong suits and drawbacks.  

Pros	Cons
Responsive and stunning templates	Very few third-party integrations
User-friendly navigation	Limited support for multiple currencies
Built-in SEO tools	Restricted customization options
Integrated features for marketing	Unavailability of app store for expanding the features
24/7 customer support
Helpful features for blogging
Email marketing features
Zero transaction fees involved

  Squarespace is an appropriate platform for you if your focus lies on having an impeccable and breathtaking design for your online store. It does have a great customer support team that is literally available around the clock. Plus, it is quite easy to use and has supportive features for blogging and SEO. Having said that, it doesn’t offer many third-party integrations. Plus, it doesn’t offer multiple currency options as well. And yes, customizing your e-store is a bit tricky using Squarespace too.

Squarespace’s Pricing and Plans

Squarespace’s ‘Business’ plan costs $18/month. Its ‘Basic Commerce’ package costs around $26/month. The platform also has an ‘Advanced Commerce’ plan that has a monthly expense of $40. All the plans by Squarespace are billed annually.

Real-Time Example

Minna is a brand that collaborates with artisans in Latin America to provide a stunning variety of contemporary tabletops, pillows, rugs, and various goods for modern homes. It has an aesthetically pleasing online store structured on Squarespace. Minna’s design aesthetic aligns well with Squarespace’s design-centric approach. In addition, the brand benefits greatly from Squarespace’s features, such as quick product view and the functionality of image zoom. These features improve the visitors’ shopping experience. Moreover, Minna regularly shares its brand story through engaging blogs and uses this strategy to interact with its audience, which automatically increases its sales.

Conclusion: Empower Your Business with A Fitting Ecommerce Platform

Choosing the right ecommerce platform is quite an important decision to make for your small business. We have discussed 5 of the best ecommerce platforms for small businesses in this read. Your job is to analyze them in detail and weigh the pros and cons of all the platforms against each other. If you are struggling to make the final call, feel free to reach out to ITechSole’s competent team. Our marketing and ecommerce experts would love to guide you with this decision. We offer FREE preliminary consultation, and would love to help you put your best foot forward.