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The coronavirus pandemic gave the ecommerce industry an unprecedented boost and it shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, the global ecommerce market is expected to exceed $6.54 trillion in sales by 2022. Let that sink in.

If you’re interested in starting or expanding your own ecommerce business, there is a wide array of ecommerce tools that can help you – from all-in-one website builders to various plug-ins and add-ons. Where and how to host your online store is an important choice that will have a lasting impact on your site’s visibility and the monthly fees you’ll have to pay for the hosting service.

Other factors that come into play are your technical skills, SEO, mobile-friendliness, scalability and the list goes on. Finding the right solution for you could take some trial and error. To save you time and money, we compiled a list of the best ecommerce tools and solutions. We can confidently say these tried and tested tools will help you grow your ecommerce business.

1. Shopify

If your technical skills are minimal and you don’t have the resources to hire a developer, Shopify is a good pick. This all-in-one ecommerce solution has everything you need to start a website from scratch including shopping cart software. 

Benefits of Shopify

• Easy to set up and use straight away.
• Shopify has its own app store with 1,500+ helpful apps you can add to your shop. Whatever you need, Shopify has an app for that – loyalty programs, print labels, accounting software, social media selling integration, marketing, and not to mention apps designed to reduce cart abandonment and product page optimization.
  Note that while many of these apps are free, over half are charged for.
• Every Shopify theme is optimized for mobile services. Additionally, you can always build a Shopify mobile app with tools like BuildFire.
• Shopify is extremely versatile and can fit the needs of any organization, from small businesses to large-scale retailers.

Pricing:

• Basic Shopify: $29/month
• Shopify: $79/month
• Advanced Shopify: $299/month

You can try Shopify for free with a 14-day trial.

2. BigCommerce

BigCommerce is another ecommerce platform provider, which offers absolutely everything you need to start your online business. It’s one of the most popular ecommerce tools out there, used by businesses in more than 120 countries around the world. And there are good reasons for that.

Benefits of BigCommerce

• Compared to other ecommerce tools on the market today, BigCommerce has the most built-in native features. That includes high-quality tools for inventory management, SEO, and conversions.
• Customer support is available 24/7 via phone, email, and live chat. 
• BigCommerce is an industry leader in ecommerce performance. It is second to none in terms of page loading speed and security.
• BigCommerce supports B2B wholesale websites and provides enterprise-level ecommerce solutions too.

Pricing:

• Standard Plan – $29.95/month
• BigCommerce Plus – starts at $79.95/month
• BigCommerce Pro – starts at %299.95/month
• For Enterprise solutions you’ll need to contact the sales team

3. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a good choice for store owners who are familiar with WordPress and comfortable with it. Unlike the previous tools we listed, WooCommerce is not an all-in-one ecommerce solution, but a plugin you can install on an existing WordPress website. It has everything you need to add ecommerce capabilities to WordPress, from selling products to enabling subscriptions and memberships.

Benefits of WooCommerce

• It integrates with popular payment platforms like PayPal, Amazon Pay, and Stripe.
• It has useful extensions for things like printing shipping labels and integrating with your email marketing platform.

Pricing:

Probably the most attractive feature of WooCommerce is that it’s completely free and open-source. However, some extensions to customize the WooCommerce plugin do cost money.

4. Wix

Wix is an exceptional website building platform, which allows anyone to build a new website from scratch, regardless of their technical skills. If you want to create an online shop with Wix, the platform offers a fully customizable storefront and shopping cart. You can also add features like a shopping wishlist, related product galleries, a quick add-to-cart button, and more.

Benefits of Wix

• An intuitive drag-and-drop builder, which allows you to design a high-quality website in minutes including images, videos, and other media types.
• Wix has over 500 customizable templates.
• Your site will automatically be optimized for SEO and mobile web browsers.
• Wix allows you to set up custom shipping rules. You can choose your preferred carrier, manage international orders, and give customers real-time delivery estimates. 
• If your budget is strapped, Wix is a strong option.

Pricing:

• Ecommerce plans with the ability to accept online payments range from $23 to $49 per month.
• Enterprise solutions start at $500 per month.

5. Squarespace

Squarespace is another top-rated easy-to-use website builder. Unlike Wix, Squarespace has integrated ecommerce properties built into all of its business plans.

Squarespace is known for its beautiful, clean templates which made it especially popular among creatives like fashion designers, artists, and photographers. It’s the perfect solution for those who want to create a portfolio website and monetize it with ecommerce capabilities.

Benefits of Squarespace

• Integrates with popular online selling tools like PayPal, Stripe, FedEx, and Apple Pay. 
• Integrates with popular accounting software solutions like Xero and Quickbooks.
• Squares space offers automatic shopping calculator tools, inventory management, and a rich product display.

Pricing:

• Business Plan – $23/month
• Basic Commerce –  $27/month
• Advanced Commerce – $49/month

6. OpenCart

Open Cart is not a website builder, but a free and open-source platform that adds ecommerce functionality to existing websites. Besides enabling you to sell products online, OpenCart will also give you access to 13,000+ modules and themes.

Benefits of OpenCart

• You can integrate OpenCart with an extensive list of payment options and shipping providers. 
• OpenCart has a thriving community support forum with more than 550,000 posts from 110,000+ registered members.

Pricing:

OpenCart is free to install, but certain extensions will cost extra.

7. QuickBooks Commerce

QuickBooks Commerce is an excellent inventory management tool for SMBs. It will help you organize products, orders, payments, customers, and insights on one platform. Aside from the convenience, QuickBook is mainly worth it for the insight it provides. Detailed reports and forecasts are essential to make the right decisions and scale your business.

Benefits of QuickBooks Commerce

• QuickBooks offers native integrations with Shopify, Amazon, eBay, Etsy, WooCommerce, and Magento.
• Easy access to customer data, inventory, and sales data and to the creation and management of orders.
• Barcode scanning option.

Pricing:

• Founder – $39/month
• Small Business – $199/month
• Business – $599/month

8. Oberlo

Oberlo is an inventory management tool that helps ecommerce store owners import, customize and track drop shipped products. It’s an extremely useful resource for drop-shipping store owners. Other features include help with locating alternate suppliers, tracking sales, and automated inventory updates.

Benefits of Oberlo

• Intuitive and user-friendly interface which allows for smooth processes.
• Oberlo provides full integration with Shopify and AliExpress. 
• Oberlo produces educational blogs, online courses, and even one-to-one coaching services on how to grow a drop-shipping business. 
• Oberlo is optimized for a global audience. It works with multiple languages, multiple currencies, and worldwide shipping to enable you to buy and sell products anywhere in the world.

Pricing:

Oberlo is free to use for stores with up to 500 products and 50 orders per month. Their most advanced plan costs $79.90 and allows unlimited orders and 30,000 products.

9. JungleScout

Unless you manufacture your own goods, one of a store owner’s top concerns is where to get the most reasonably priced high-quality merchandise. JungleScout is a product research tool designed to help you identify the top products in your niche and track their performance on Amazon. If you are selling on Amazon and from your own site, JungleScout would be a great choice for you.

Benefits of JungleScout

• It shows you exactly which terms and keywords to use to optimize sales.
• Shows you the history and number of sales of an item, so you can make informed decisions.
• Helps you estimate your PPC budget.

Pricing:

• Jungle Scout: Monthly – $49/mo / Yearly – $39/mo
• Chrome Extension: Monthly – $39/mo |/Yearly – $19/mo
• Package: If you buy both together, you save big. Monthly – $69/mo | Yearly – $49/mo.

The ‘catch’ of JungleScout is that the more you sell, the more you pay for the software. The payment for the Chrome extension never changes. Here’s an example of different payment levels for the package deal (monthly/yearly):

• 501 – 2,000 sold items: $89/mo | $59/mo
• 2,001 – 5,000 sold items: $119/mo | $79/mo

10. Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads is an ecommerce tool designed for selling digital products, as you might have guessed. Just like WooCommerce, it’s a plugin for WordPress websites. EDD makes it easy to restrict file access, track download activity and create discount codes.

Benefits of Easy Digital Downloads

• There is no limitation on how many digital products you can sell with the EDD plugin. 
• EDD integrates with other popular ecommerce tools and other extensions you might be using, such as PayPal, Stripe, Slack, Zapier, Dropbox, and Amazon Web Services.
• EDD comes with a built-in shopping cart feature that allows shoppers to purchase multiple downloads at once.

Pricing:

All the EDD plugin license plans are billed on an annual basis until canceled.

• Personal Pass – $99.50/year
• Extended Pass – $100.50/year
• Professional Pass – $299.50/yearAll Access Pass – $499.50/year
• All Access Pass – $499.50/year

11. Sourcify

Sourcify is a matchmaking service for companies looking to manufacture a product and manufacturers looking for clients. The software also includes project management tools to smooth the production process and provides users with bids from thee different manufacturers for each project.

Benefits of Sourcify

• It reduces the risk associated with the manufacturing process (loss resulting from failed or inadequate internal processes, data breaches, etc.) by vetting their manufacturers.
• Sourcify provides a money-back guarantee if store owners aren’t happy with the final project. 
• Provides access to review and monitor production lines.

Pricing:

There are three different plans, based on the number of units per production run, starting at  $399.

12. Mitto SMS

Mitto is a multiple-channel communication solution to engage with customers. Their SMS offering is particularly relevant for ecommerce – it allows you to send order confirmations, customer support responses, and promotional messages in bulk. Text message notifications are a channel that should be utilized carefully, but it’s an important feature that could help you stand out from the competition.

Benefits of Mitto

• SMS verified by Google, showing customers that your communication is legit and they can trust you. 
• Mitto offers plenty of custom SMS templates
• Friendly interface

Pricing:

Pricing depends largely on the services you need and the volume of customers, starting at $10/month.

Final Thoughts

So what is the best ecommerce tool? It very much depends on your unique situation.
Do you want to create a website from scratch? Are you planning to sell digital or physical products? Or maybe it’s a wholesale B2B business? All of these details will impact how you choose your ecommerce solution. We did our best to include something for everyone in this guide.
 

When you first set up your ecommerce business, take the time to assess your budget and your goals and plan carefully. Choose tools and platforms that can scale with you, and invest where it counts.