Sell Online Like a Pro: eCommerce Platforms Comparison for 2018

Are you thinking about building an eCommerce store? If you’ve just started researching your options, you’ve probably realized there are many eCommerce platforms out there — and it can be difficult to know which one to choose.

The good thing is that you’re in the right place to get informed before making your decision. Our team has helped many of our clients implement eCommerce solutions, choosing from a range of platforms including WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Shopify, Magento, X-Cart, and more.

In this blog, we’ll be providing a comprehensive eCommerce platforms comparison for 2018, and we’ll break down our picks for best eCommerce platform across three major categories. Have questions for us after reading? Simply leave a comment below or send us a message.

What is an eCommerce Platform?

An eCommerce platform is a software solution that allows you to build a digital storefront where your customers can view your products, select their purchases, and make payments online with the click of a button.

If you have any prior experience with eCommerce, you’ll know that a great eCommerce platform needs to be more than just a standalone piece of software. Top eCommerce platforms will integrate seamlessly with your inventory management system, your point of sale (POS) system, your payment gateway, and your shipping provider to deliver a streamlined experience for both you and your customers.

In addition to these integrations, many eCommerce platforms will also double as content management systems (CMS). This allows you to update your site’s content and imagery, post blogs, and optimize your site to earn better visibility on search engines.

When choosing an eCommerce platform you should take all of these requirements into account, so your eCommerce site will meet all of your business needs going forward.  

What is the Best eCommerce Platform?

Identifying the best eCommerce platform is tricky. So much depends on your existing situation and the specific needs of your business. Here are some examples of factors that will influence what eCommerce platform will be the best fit:

• Your existing systems for inventory, payment, and shipping
• Whether you operate an online store or also a brick-and-mortar store
• What kinds of advanced functionality your product database requires
• The number of transactions and the volume of traffic to your site
• And more

Instead of trying to pick one site to use as a jack-of-all-trades, we selected the best eCommerce platform for three specific use cases: small business, startup, and custom. Read below to learn more about the rationale behind each choice.

Best eCommerce Platform for Small Business: WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a plugin that can be added to any site using a current version of the WordPress CMS. WooCommerce allows you to add a detailed and customizable database of products to your website for customers to view and purchase.

WooCommerce is currently the most widely-used eCommerce platform, with nearly 1 million sites using the platform across the entire Internet. Part of the reason for WooCommerce’s success is the popularity of WordPress itself, which holds a 60% market share for CMS platforms.

At Intrigue, we know that building in WordPress is an excellent eCommerce option for small businesses that want to slowly move into this space and start out by selling their most popular products, before scaling up.

WooCommerce gives you the ability to add functionality to your eCommerce storefront by integrating with most POS and payment systems — which makes it a good choice if you’re already using a system for your brick-and-mortar store and you’re not ready to fully commit to a hosted solution.

Due to its flexibility and affordability, we rate WooCommerce as the best eCommerce platform for small businesses.

Best eCommerce Platform for Startups: Shopify

Shopify is a hosted eCommerce platform that also functions as a CMS, POS system, and payment gateway, making it a full-suite solution for a prospective eCommerce business owner. It’s also a great choice for businesses that operate both a brick-and-mortar store and an online store.

Consistently ranked as the top eCommerce platform by industry reports and powering over 500,000 online stores, Shopify’s popularity has only continued to grow in recent years.

However, using Shopify in tandem with your own POS or payment system can be tricky to navigate and expensive. Shopify charges per transaction fees for external payment gateways and uses third-party software for some integrations, which can be unreliable. That’s why we recommend Shopify as the best eCommerce platform for startups — if you’re starting from scratch, this platform will work great for you.

Best Custom eCommerce Platform: X-Cart

X-Cart is a versatile, open-source eCommerce platform, available in downloadable and cloud-hosted formats. X-Cart offers a one-time license payment, making it a very affordable option, and a high degree of customization — so it’s easy to sell the way you want.

X-Cart is our ‘dark horse’ for this list. It’s a platform that’s often overlooked by the general public, due to the programming knowledge required to implement complex functionality. However, with the support of an experienced team of developers, X- Cart can be a great solution for challenging eCommerce projects.

X-Cart offers robust integration with major marketing tools, POS systems, payment gateways, and more — allowing it to do everything you’d expect from a mainstream platform. At the same time, its developer-friendly approach makes it perfect for complex eCommerce functionality, which cannot be accommodated by other platforms.

eCommerce Platforms Market Share

Although it’s difficult to gauge the exact market share of eCommerce platforms, sites like SimilarTech report that WooCommerce is the most widely-used eCommerce platform today, with Magento and Shopify coming in second and third respectively.

W3Tech shows that WordPress holds the highest market share among CMS platforms, with both Magento and Shopify in the top 5 (rounded out by non-eCommerce platforms like Drupal and Joomla).

If we look at Google Trends, we can see that Magento has been a popular eCommerce platform for some time now, while both Shopify and WooCommerce have gained popularity within the last five years. Magento has lost some market share to these other platforms in 2017, but still remains roughly on par with WooCommerce.

BigCommerce has never been hugely popular and has lost traction over time, while X-Cart remains largely unknown to the general public, but is a very powerful platform that is affordable and versatile. Going into 2018, Shopify looks to be the top eCommerce site, in terms of popularity.

eCommerce Platforms Comparison Chart

The four categories selected to assess platforms were hosting, pricing, user-friendliness, and functionality. While there are other important factors to consider, these four particular categories reflected the most important factors for the businesses that Intrigue has worked with.

These factors don’t necessarily make a platform good or bad — but they will make a platform a good or bad fit for your business. See the full breakdown of each eCommerce platform below:

Shopify — Industry-Leading Hosted eCommerce Solution

Hosting: Shopify is a hosted solution, which means that everything is provided for you, including website, hosting, and 24/7 technical support by email, chat, or phone. It’s easy to get started and the vendor provides you with ongoing support for their platform.

Pricing: Shopify uses a monthly payment plan for its hosted solution. Additional fees are charged for transactions, which will be eliminated if you use the native Shopify Payments as your payment gateway. Shopify also offers enterprise-level packages.

User-Friendliness: Shopify is an incredibly user-friendly platform, designed to be used by anyone in the marketplace. It is simple to customize the look and feel of your site by choosing from a range of free and premium design templates.

Functionality: Shopify offers a great platform for basic eCommerce stores, but it falls short when it comes to advanced product functionality. Add-on applications are available at an additional price and Shopify can be customized, but its template language (Liquid) is not used by programmers outside of Shopify.

BigCommerce — Hosted eCommerce Solution with Advanced Functionality

Hosting: BigCommerce is a hosted solution like Shopify, which means that everything is provided for you, including website, hosting, and 24/7 technical support by email, chat, or phone. It is easy to get started and the vendor provides you with ongoing support for their platform.

Pricing: BigCommerce uses a monthly payment plan for its hosted solution, with packages that are very similar to Shopify in price. The major difference is that they do not charge transaction fees. However, you must upgrade plans based on your total volume of online sales per year, which can become expensive for certain businesses.

User-Friendliness: BigCommerce is another user-friendly platform, designed to compete with Shopify for the wider eCommerce market. Although it has fewer templates than Shopify (particularly when it comes to free options), it is just as straightforward to design and set up.

Functionality: BigCommerce comes with more out-of-the-box solutions than Shopify, making it a better option if you have some advanced functionality in mind for your store. However, the platform is still limited and add-ons may need to be purchased.

WooCommerce — Wordpress eCommerce Plugin

Hosting: WooCommerce is a self-hosted eCommerce platform. It does not require any hosting itself, as it is hosted directly through your WordPress website. At Intrigue, we offer dedicated WordPress hosting and provide ongoing support for your website, based on your plan.

Pricing: WooCommerce is an open source software, which means that it is free to download and implement. Certain WooCommerce add-ons will require additional investment for monthly billing, payment gateways, and member access. However, these options are all relatively affordable.

User-Friendliness: WooCommerce is similar to WordPress in its learning curve. Basic functions, including editing products or uploading imagery, can be simple to do. More advanced setup or customization can be challenging to implement if you are not a developer.

Functionality: In combination with other WordPress plugins, such as Gravity Forms, WooCommerce offers a wide range of customization, making it a great option for businesses with atypical eCommerce models. If you cannot find a solution on Shopify, WooCommerce may be a good solution for you.

Magento — Top Enterprise eCommerce Platform

Hosting: Magento is an open source eCommerce platform that also doubles as a CMS. You will need to set it up on your website, likely with the help of a developer, due to its high degree of technical complexity. Support is available in online forums or through the enterprise version of the software.

Pricing: Although Magento offers a free community version of its software, we do not recommend this option due to its limited functionality. Pricing for the trial version of Magento’s enterprise software starts at upwards of $2,000/month, making Magento by far the most expensive eCommerce option on this list — and best reserved for enterprise eCommerce applications.  

User-Friendliness: As far as eCommerce solutions go, Magento is not very user-friendly or accessible for business owners. Online documentation exists to help you navigate this platform, but you will definitely want the support of experienced developers when implementing.

Functionality: Magento’s main benefit is the degree of customization that it provides users. If you are looking to build advanced, custom functionality on your eCommerce store, then Magento offers a great solution — provided you have a developer to help you.

X-Cart — Customizable Open Source eCommerce Platform

Hosting: X-Cart is an open source eCommerce platform that doubles as a CMS. You will need the help of a developer to set it up on your website due to its technical complexity. Robust company support is available for certain license types, as well as online support in the X-Cart forums.

Pricing: X-Cart offers lifetime licenses for various versions of its core softwares, which means you can purchase it once and you won’t have to pay again. You may have to buy add-ons for specific features, but these apps are all affordably priced. The licensing model makes X-Cart one of the most affordable eCommerce platforms on the market.

User-Friendliness: As an open source platform, X-Cart is not very user-friendly or accessible for business owners. Online documentation exists to help you navigate this platform, but you will definitely want the support of experienced developers when implementing.

Functionality: What sets X-Cart apart is the ability to exercise total control of the design and backend of your website. If you are looking to build advanced, custom functionality on your eCommerce store, then X-Cart will be a great solution.

Recommended POS Systems for eCommerce in Canada

If you own a brick-and-mortar business and an online store, you’ll want to consider whether your chosen eCommerce platform offers full integration with your point of sale (POS) or point of purchase (POP) system. This type of integration is extremely important in ensuring that inventory stays consistent between your eCommerce store and your physical store.

Whenever possible, we recommend avoiding third-party integration and staying with a native solution. That means if you’re using Shopify, you should be also using the native Shopify POS. Software updates for POS systems can be disruptive for integrations with your eCommerce platform — with native solutions, updates are rolled out in tandem for these platforms.

Here are a few POS systems in Canada that we’d recommend for eCommerce applications:

Vend

Vend is a retail POS system for multi-outlet retail with solid integrations for a eCommerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce. Vend also provides an inventory management, reporting, add-on options, and 24/7 support.

Shopify POS

If you’re using Shopify as an eCommerce platform, then we’d recommend using the Shopify POS. Shopify’s native system offers support for credit card payment, inventory management, refund processing, and more.

X-Cart POS

The X-Cart POS is another native solution that we’d recommend if you choose to go with a custom eCommerce platform from this provider. X-Cart POS offers inventory management, barcode scanning, and more. They also provide a list of recommended hardware, compatible with their POS system.

Payment Gateways Comparison Chart

Payment gateways are a crucial part of any eCommerce setup and most platforms will offer integrations with several different platforms. When choosing a payment gateway, the main consideration is how to reduce your fees, while still getting the service you require.

Every payment method comes with additional charges: per transaction fees, refund fees, chargebacks, and so on. Some payment solutions will charge monthly fees to use their system, and others will only accept certain payment methods. Check out the payment gateways comparison chart below to see the breakdown of our top four options.

PayPal

PayPal is still the biggest name in online payment software. It accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and native PayPal payments, as well as 25 currencies from 202 countries.

The issue with PayPal is that the Pro Package is required if you want to keep visitors on your site throughout the checkout experience, which is highly recommended. It is also difficult to customize, which can be problematic for certain sites.

Moneris

Moneris is a leading eCommerce payment solution offering hosted and API options for businesses. It accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Interac, as well as other payment methods.

Moneris has a scaled model of transaction fees, which can become quite expensive for eCommerce sites with a low volume of transactions. For this reason, it is not recommended, except in very specific cases.

Stripe

Stripe is our recommended eCommerce payment gateway, offering the best platform for a business collecting payments online. Stripe accepts Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Android Pay, Apple Pay, Bitcoin, and AliPay.

Stripe is a great fit for startups or small businesses as it offers versatile customization, many integration options, low transaction fees, and 24/7 support.

Braintree

Braintree is a division of PayPal, which specializes in offering modern solutions to the marketplace. It accepts Visa, MasterCard, American Express, PayPal, Venmo, Android Pay, Apple Pay, and Bitcoin.

One special feature of Braintree is that there are no fees for the first $50,000 processed — which makes it a great option for low volume businesses.

Shopify Payments

Shopify Payments is the native payment gateway for Shopify, which is highly recommended for users with Shopify websites. It accepts Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover credit cards.

Business owners with Shopify Payments will not be charged transactions fees for purchases — whereas Shopify will charge 0.5-2% for external payment gateways, depending on your monthly subscription level.

Recommended Shipping Providers in Canada

Finding shipping providers is typically the last step in planning out your future eCommerce store, however, it should be done before you commit to any course of action, as shipping costs can have a major impact on the success of your online business.

When selecting shipping providers, there are two basic options in Canada:

1. Canada Post, the primary postal carrier for Canada.
2. Private shipping companies, such as FedEx, UPS, Purolator, or DHL.

Canada Post offers great options for eCommerce businesses, including API integration for platforms such as WooCommerce, Shopify, and X-Cart, and it has the ability to customize your user’s experience. We recommend Canada Post as a shipping provider, due to its reach within Canada and robust integration options.

Among private companies, you will find that most shipping options are more expensive — and all private shippers will require a business account. One advantage of private companies is that they offer expedited and international shipping, although these private services can be accessed through Canada Post as well (at an additional cost).

If your business is looking to build an eCommerce store, reach out to our team for a project quote.

Special thanks to our in-house experts, Mike Bernier and Pranay Sheth, for their technical advice and collaboration on this article. Please feel free to connect with them on LinkedIn (Mike, Pranay) or Twitter (Pranay).

Intrigue is a Canadian digital marketing company delivering solutions to help businesses get noticed and found. Guided by a commitment to empower leaders to strengthen communities, Intrigue offers website design and development, branding, online advertising, content marketing, graphic design, video production, SEO, and analytics. Take your marketing to the next level and Get Noticed. Get Found.® intrigueme.ca