The growth scale of eCommerce business has been steadily moving upward and it is no wonder that many eCommerce websites are being established every day. Just a few years ago the idea of online shopping or eCommerce was just starting to trend but now it has become of the fastest-growing networks over the years. Buying something online is quite easy. This applies if you’re a customer. But making this process possible takes a lot of effort. Putting those products up for grabs needs a lot of work to be done behind the curtain. There are many ways that you can make use of, to build your own eCommerce website. But CMS is one of the easiest solutions that will make your task easier, even after the website is built completely.
Which is the Best eCommerce CMS?
There are numerous CMS, but when it comes to running an e-commerce website, the CMS you would want to make use of must come with all of the features and functionalities that will make building and managing your website a cakewalk. Some websites are specialized for powering blogs and magazine types of websites. Those are not so ideal for building and running e-commerce websites. For that, you’ll need an e-commerce specialized CMS. When you choose a CMS that specially serves the purpose of eCommerce, you can make the most out of it to display all your products, manage their private and cart details, take orders and process payments, and provide support, etc. Let’s take a brief look at some of the Top eCommerce CMS
Magento
Magento is one of the most popular CMS. Even though there are multiple other CMSs giving tough fights to Magento, none of them is as sophisticated as Magento is. And Magento???s flexibility is next to none. You can just do whatever you will ever have to do while building and running your eCommerce website. Magento has all the basic features and functionalities covered and just in case you need any extra features, the plugins, and extensions in the Magento plugin directory come to your aid. You may take a bit more time to get used to Magento but once you get going, you can use it very easily to its full potential. If you record more traffic and require more resources, then you might have to think about going for the Premium Version. And Magento is an open-source platform. Hence you will have to buy web hosting from third-party web hosting providers. It is recommended that you should go for specialized Magento hosting.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is an eCommerce plugin that can transform your WordPress website into a fully loaded online store. All you have to do is install WordPress and then install the WooCommerce Plugin from the WordPress plugin directory. And within a matter of a few clicks, your online store is ready for a spin. WooCommerce is an open-source solution unlike Shopify, BigCommerce, and most of its competitors. To have a WooCommerce website, all you need to do is to buy a specialized WooCommerce hosting plan or buy hosting from WordPress or, set up your WordPress website, and then you can install the WooCommerce plugin and use it immediately. As it is a part of WordPress and due to its popularity you can find great support from the large community of developers. And there are plenty of plugins available to ease your job and to provide additional features and functionalities. You can also make use of the best of the themes from the theme store or from other premium theme providers.
Read: Magento v/s WooCommerce- Which is the right choice for your e-commerce store?
PrestaShop
PrestaShop is one of the simplest yet most useful eCommerce CMS??? that has ease of use as its USP. Even if you are just a beginner with very low technical skills, PrestaShop CMS does not let you lag behind. It has a very user-friendly interface with the most basic and much-needed options easy to access. With more than 4500 themes at your fingertips, you can easily make your online store stand apart from other online stores. But PrestaShop is not the ideal option if you are planning to take your website to next level, as the scalability of PrestaShop is quite limited. And PrestaShop can be enabled to design your online store on its own, which can save you quite a lot of time. PrestaShop is an open-source platform and will require you to buy a PrestaShop web hosting plan to make your website accessible over the Internet.
Shopify
Shopify is arguably one of the most popular eCommerce website builders. But what makes it more special is its CMS functionality. Shopify lets you create your online store easily and start selling your products straight away. With this website builder, you can make SEO-friendly listing very easily. You get drag-and-drop management. And all the statistics about your online store are accessible easily right from the dashboard. You get full customization options using which, you can customize your website even to the smallest element of it. It also comes with an in-built payment gateway, which comes with no transaction fees. You can choose from 100+ optimized online store designs that are highly customizable. Shopify is a hosted platform. Hence you are free from buying web hosting from other web hosting providers.??
OpenCart
OpenCart is yet another complete eCommerce solution that lets you create your online store, add/manage products, process orders, and more. OpenCart comes with lifetime free support and free software updates. You can download OpenCart easily from the official website. But getting started will need a bit of experience and beginners with no technical knowledge might find it difficult initially. You can add an unlimited number of categories, products, and manufacturers. And you can also sell digital products. It supports more than 20 payment gateways. You can easily get sales reports to analyze the performance of your online store. Open Cart is a self-hosted platform, which means it requires you to buy your own web hosting and domain. Conclusion Now you almost have an idea about which CMS to go forward with. But to have your eCommerce website accessible over the internet, you will need an eCommerce hosting plan which supports your CMS. These days the majority of hosting plans include 1-click CMS installs. And make sure to choose your web host wisely and select the most suitable web hosting plan for your eCommerce website. Always go for a web hosting provider that has highly scalable web hosting plans. Because, if you have started on a small scale, gradually when your website grows, it will need more resources. And highly scalable web hosting plans can save your day in such cases.
