Online commerce is the new way of doing business, no matter what your market niche is you can always take your business to the Internet, but if you don’t know how to do it don’t worry because today we have for you the 3 best online sales platforms.
Today you do not have to be a programmer or web designer to make your own online store because there are platforms to create online stores very easily, as simple as dragging or selecting items, if you want to know what are the best platforms for online sales read on because today we will compare the three platforms that are considered the best.
Shopify
Shopify is one of the most famous platforms for selling online. It was founded in 2004 by Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand and Scott Lago, after they tried to open a store dedicated to snowboarding. At that time they were not able to find any platform that fully met the needs of their business.
The easiest thing to do at that time was to build their own software, to make sure everything was exactly as they needed it to be. Luckily Lütke was a computer programmer so he got to work and within a couple of months he built his own software that helped him launch Snowdevil, which would be the first online store built with Shopify. Today, around the world, more than a million sellers already use Shopify.
Shopify is a CMS that allows you to create an online store without the need to know programming. After signing up and choosing the payment plan that best suits your needs the first thing you have to do is choose a template, and precisely this is one of its most important features because you can choose from over 100 templates both free and paid, sorted by type of business: fashion, technology, etc.. If you know a little bit of web design or programming you can customize the template you choose.
With Shopify you have a 14-day free trial, then you can choose between three types of plans. The first, the Basic plan is priced at 29 USD per month, although it is the simplest you can create unlimited products and categories, plus 2 accounts for employees. The Shopify plan costs 79 USD per month, in addition to the benefits of the previous plan it gives you 5 employee accounts and includes the creation of performance reports. The last plan is the Advanced plan with a cost of 299 USD gives you the possibility to have up to 15 employee accounts. You have to keep in mind that if you decide to use Shopify Pay you will have to pay between 2.4 % and 1.8 % for each payment received by credit and debit card.
Advantages
Shopify has earned its place as one of the best platforms for online sales due to the following advantages:
- Easy to create and manage. This is undoubtedly one of its greatest advantages, because its use is very intuitive and in a few minutes you learn to design your online store, the best thing is that it is also very easy to maintain and manage it. This makes it the ideal option for those who want to set up an online store and do not have time to learn how to use a complicated tool.
- Dropshipping. It is a friendly platform if you want to start with this business model, as it integrates with Apps such as Ordoro or Inventory Source.
- Customer support. If you have any problems or doubts regarding the operation of your store Shopify offers forums, emails and even chat to solve all your doubts. In addition, you can access the Shopify Academy completely free, this is a platform of courses to help you get the most out of your eCommerce.
- Automatic tax system. Shopify wants to make your life as easy as possible, so the platform automatically takes care of state and federal taxes according to your location.
- Hosting included. This way you don’t have to worry about hiring an external hosting, paying an extra fee, because the platform already has one included in the cost of your package. The best thing is that this hosting is very fast, so your customers will love the speed with which they can browse and buy in your store.
Disadvantages of Shopify
It’s not hunky-dory, despite its significant advantages it also entails some disadvantages such as:
It is not open source. So if you know anything about programming you won’t be able to make the necessary changes, until you pay for your monthly plan.
Extra fees. In addition to the monthly fee you must pay for your plan, there are some extra fees such as the use of the payment platform or the fee for adding other payment methods.
Tiendanube
Another of the most important and popular platforms is Tiendanube, this platform emerged in 2011, as a startups Argentina, perhaps because of this is one of the preferred platforms among eCommerce in Latin America, because they understand better than anyone the needs of the region, in fact today are about 90,000 businesses throughout Latin America that have chosen it to build their store.
Advantages of Tiendanube
Tiendanube knows well the Latin American public and therefore can provide solutions with a more particular approach than other platforms, among some of its advantages are:
- Ease of creation and management. Tiendanube, like other platforms, allows you to create an online store from scratch in a short time and without knowing anything about programming. It is a very intuitive platform, which takes care of the most complicated technical aspects such as hosting, domain and SSL certificate that are included, so that you only have to worry about uploading the photos of your products and their prices. The best thing is that you can create and edit it from your cell phone. If you are programmed you can modify your code by enabling FTP access.
- Pricing. Unlike Shopify, Tiendanube offers a longer trial version, as it gives you 30 days free so you have time to try all its features and decide whether it suits you or not. After the free trial you only have to pay 99 pesos per month.
- Integration of payment and shipping methods. Another great advantage of this platform is that it allows the integration of the most used online payment methods in Mexico, as well as shipping methods.
Disadvantages of Tiendanube
Of course, like other platforms there are some points in which the platform can improve, here we leave you some for you to value them when choosing:
- Few templates, although you can select the color and fonts or change the code, the truth is that the platform only has 10 templates, so if you do not know how to program you will not be able to customize the store according to your needs.
- Extra fees despite its low cost some extra fees may surprise you, for example fees for payment methods integration.
WooCommerce+WordPress
If you have experience in creating a website then you already know what WordPress is. This platform that revolutionized the way websites were created, gives you the opportunity to design your online store with the same ease with which you create a website, only that for this you have to install a plugin, the most complete and recognized for this is WooCommerce. Today more than 2 million online businesses worldwide are built with this pair of tools. Here are some of its most important advantages:
Advantages of WooCommerce
Both WordPress and WooCommerce are among the world’s favorite tools for creating all kinds of online stores, and we’ll explain why below:
- Completely free. WordPress is a platform that allows you to create a website from scratch and without paying anything and the same goes for installing the WooCommerce plugin.
- 100% customizable if you have a perfectly placed image, you can take it to your web store without being limited by templates.
- Simple to use once you download and install the plugin packages, in a couple of minutes you can have your store online, it’s just a matter of uploading your products and integrating the payment methods.
- Analysis of products and sales since recently with this plugin you can see in a simple graph how your products are selling, also allows you to provide customer service without installing an extra plugin.
Disadvantages of WooCommerce
Surely with what we have learned so far you can already imagine what they are, but here we will detail them:
- Extra costs unlike other platforms, with WordPress you have neither hosting nor domain integrated, so you must rent these services and pay extra fees.
- You need to know programming although it is very easy to use, as it is an open source you need to know programming to get the most out of it.
We need to detail more platforms for online sales, including the importance of marketplaces platforms such as Mercado Libre or Amazon, but we believe that with these platforms you can start your business professionally, in a short time and without spending so much, tell us, do you recommend another online sales platform?
