Starting an eCommerce website in 2018 has become easy, all thanks to the amazing eCommerce development platforms. Not only that, most of them are free-to-use and open source.
For a business, it is important to choose a platform according to their requirement. One particular framework or platform may be famous, but that doesn’t guarantee that it will work optimal for your business. To help you better choose, today, we will list the top 5 eCommerce development platform one should choose from in 2018.
If you haven’t taken the plunge into the eCommerce market, it is the right time to do so. According to RedSeer, the Indian eCommerce market alone will grow by 60% in 2018 alone. This means that new players can take advantage and enter the market. Let’s get started with the list.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is one of the leading eCommerce solutions right now. It works with WordPress and is a free plugin. WooCommerce is known for its plethora of features. It supports online payments, shopping cart, page customization and so on. The biggest advantage of using WooCommerce is its connectivity with WordPress. WordPress is a free and open source, and so is WooCommerce. This gives you ultimate customizability and control over your product.
Features
- Free to use.
- Easy to maintain.
- Offers great admin panel.
- Supports all major payment gateways.
- Offers add-ons that further extends WooCommerce capabilities.
Magento
Magento is one of the oldest eCommerce platforms out there. It released in 2008. Also, it is open source. Magento screams performance, scalability, and reliability. That’s why it is still one of the most popular eCommerce platforms right now. Many prominent websites use it to power their business. Some of the notable names include Pepe Jeans, Liverpool F.C., and others.
Features
- Open source and free to use
- It has more than 9000 extensions and plugins to choose from.
- Social media extensions are free to use.
- Easy to manage.
- Unlimited customization options.
Shopify
Shopify is a Canadian-based eCommerce solution. It is also one of the oldest players in the eCommerce platform segment. It started its journey in 2004. However, it stood the test of time and is currently thriving in the current market. In short, it kept evolving and changed itself according to the latest eCommerce technologies and trends. Shopify is not open source and hence offers limited customization compared to other open source solutions.
Features
- Offers a great collection of themes, extensions, and plugins.
- Support abandoned cart recovery.
- Websites created using Shopify are completely responsive and mobile friendly
- Have a great support. The community is also lively and helpful.
OpenCart
If you are looking for a lightweight and easy-to-use eCommerce platform, then OpenCart is perfect for you. It is also open source which means that you don’t have to spend a lot in getting the underlying technology. This also means that it is customizable to the core. OpenCart can be a great starting platform for startups. By using OpenCart, startups can get the ground running fast and also don’t have to run into any unwanted complexity.
Features
- A great admin panel.
- Supports payments, reports and shipping
- Mobile responsive.
- Hundreds of OpenCart modules to choose from.
- Supports 3rd party integrations
X-Cart
X-Cart is relatively new eCommerce development platform. It powers more than 35,000+ stores all over the world. Not only that it is open source and free to use. So, why use X-Cart? It is one of the fastest eCommerce platforms out there. It also has a good feature-set compared to other eCommerce development platforms. It also comes with a premium plan which offers better support and features. You can grab it for just $495 one-time payment.
Features:
- Install the packages that you need.
- Open source and free to use.
- A lot of payment gateways are supported.
- X-Cart is PCI compliant and completely secure.
Conclusion
Today, we discussed the top 5 eCommerce development platform. All of them are excellent platforms. You can pick up anyone. The only thing that you need to find out which platform offers you better value. Once you do, you are set. However, sometimes, it is not possible for you to choose or develop an eCommerce platform. That’s why we recommend hiring an eCommerce app development company to develop an end-to-end eCommerce platform for your needs.
So, what do you think about the platforms? Comment below and let us know.