With flea markets and swap meets closing their doors all over the country, many vendors are left unsure of what to do in this situation. The fact of the matter is the only way to sell during this pandemic is through online sales. Online shopping has surged 25 percent across the country as residents throughout California and other states are forced to stay home to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
In order to keep business thriving and products moving, if you haven’t already set up an ecommerce storefront for your business, now is the time to do so. Many vendors who sell general merchandise can continue selling on sites such as eBay and Amazon, but if you have a more curated selection or even make your own products, you’ll want to create your own ecommerce site to distinguish your business from the rest.
Here are some of the best financially-friendly and user-friendly ecommerce platforms to start building your online business:
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is one of the more popular platforms because it has several advantages over other platforms, such as an unlimited number of products, no transaction fees, a wide array of features, and a decent mobile speed store. The only problem is it falls a bit flat in terms of load time, which can frustrate shoppers, but a lot of up-and-coming brands use BigCommerce as their starting platform.
The overall rating for BigCommerce is 4.3 stars, out of 5. Some pros for BigCommerce include being flexible and scalable, excels with multi-channel selling, and a strong SEO performance. Some cons for BigCommerce include inconsistent loading speed, high volume stores have to pay more for the platform, and there’s no one-click selling.
Shopify
Shopify is another popular platform that many up-and-coming resellers use because it’s very close to the top in terms of performance. Shopify has a close relationship with Amazon, which allows sellers to sell directly on Amazon from their Shopify store.
The overall rating for Shopify is 4.1 stars. Some pros for Shopify include fastest load time, super easy setup, and one-click selling apps available. Some cons for Shopify include weak SEO, the checkout is not customizable, and apps can become costly.
3dcart
3dcart is just about as good as Shopify and just shy of the leading platform, BigCommerce. With 3dcart, sellers get a fast load time, no transaction fees, more features than Shopify, unlimited product listings, a wide selection of payment gateways, and a good mobile store speed.
The overall rating for 3dcart is 3.9 stars, and there are some cons to factor into your decision. The templates feel dated, there are negative reviews on their support, and upgrading has potential issues. The company sees many of their customers leave them for BigCommerce, but there are also many customers coming to them from BigCommerce.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the best single platform to run both an ecommerce and an affiliate site under one roof. One of the things with WooCommerce is it’s definitely not for beginners, and you have to manually do things yourself, such as buy hosting, worry about SSL, and purchase a domain name. This platform is more for experienced sellers.
The overall rating for WooCommerce is 3.8 stars. The platform is the best for SEO, has one-click selling apps available, and offers lots of service providers. The downsides with WooCommerce are the hosting can be expensive, it’s difficult to troubleshoot, and it needs a lot of extensions.
These are just some of the top ecommerce platforms to start selling your products on, but there are so many other platforms to use as well. There’s Volusion, Prestashop, Weebly, SquareSpace, Magento, and tons more. If you’re looking for something a little easier to use, wholesale sellers can also try Wholesale Central and Closeout Central.