Different Types of E-commerce Platforms Trending in 2024

E-commerce is vital for any business to survive in the current market scenario and in the future. Operational efficiencies, quality products, and customer satisfaction are key to achieving success in your business. An efficient e-commerce platform is one that has features like easy navigation, a wealth of product listings, fraud detection, online security, and speed, thus, making it vital for your business. Different types of e-commerce platforms include open source e-commerce, SaaS e-commerce, and on-premise e-commerce.

However, when it comes to building a web store, a few things should be taken into consideration. And, one of those important things is having a robust platform that not only suits your pocket but also, helps you stand out in the crowd.

The market is full of different platforms and, choosing the best one can be a daunting task. Therefore, we’ve mentioned a list of the best e-commerce platforms.

Each and every e-commerce platform has its own specialties and features. So, it is necessary for you to recognize your business requirements before selecting any eCommerce website builder platform.

Types of e-commerce platforms:

Open Source e-commerce

The startups that cannot spend huge amounts as e-commerce giants do, make use of the open-source e-commerce platforms. Some of the open-source e-commerce platforms that are great to use and are less resource-hungry are mentioned below.

SaaS e-commerce

SaaS e-commerce is a cloud-based service and a subscription e-commerce platform. These solutions include e-commerce like Demandware and Shopify. They are affordable and scalable. A few of these are also mentioned below.

On-premise e-commerce

On-premise e-commerce requires an initial investment. These businesses need to take regular maintenance and data migration into account when developing an online store using On-premise eCommerce.

Some of the On-premise eCommerce platforms include IBM WebSphere, Sana Commerce, InterShop Communications, Hybris, and Oorjit. These are more reliable and secure, and also offer the best performance. We will discuss a few of these below.

Best E-commerce Platform Comparison for Online Businesses in 2024

1. WooCommerce

WordPress is free, popular, and quite easy to adapt to your business. It allows plug-ins like WooCommerce to establish an online store without spending all of your fortunes.

WooCommerce has a lot of features and can be customized to suit your business needs in nations across the world. It supports most of the payment gateway, can be downloaded with ease, and is installed quickly to establish your online presence.

You need to just populate the WooCommerce with your product listings, price, tax details and you’re ready to go. It is one of the best and easy ways to use e-commerce platforms available in the market.

The Goods: 

• Good shopping cart
• Secure payment gateway
• Unlimited product categories
• It has an easy-to-manage admin panel
• Extensive range of plugins and extensions of all sorts

The Bads: 

• Lack of scalability is one of the biggest downsides of this platform
• The integration of the shopping cart completely with the system needs additional investment
• If you’re unaware of the WordPress functionality, you can’t operate WooCommerce

2. Open Cart

The firms looking for a lightweight and easy-to-use online store can make use of Open Cart. It is the best e-commerce platform for startups with its robust features, facilitating faster order processing.

Open Cart is based on PHP and supports the MS SQL database. It also provides support for different currencies and languages. The users can download this e-commerce platform under the GNU General Public License.

It also requires a web server for proper functioning. The required modules / PHP libraries include XML, Zip, Curl, GD Library, Mbstrings, and Mcrypt.

The Goods: 

• Easy to learn
• Good documentation
• straightforward and simple Interfaces
• A good mechanism for order processing
• A good set of features with powerful catalog functionality
• The cost of setting up a store with OpenCart is quite approachable

The Bads: 

• It’s not very easy to customize
• It might be constricting for some businesses.
• Zero promise of high performance unless the user opts for additional plugins
• Caching needs to be added using an extension to improve the performance.

3. YoKart

YoKart is a popular e-commerce platform to easily launch multi-vendor marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, or Flipkart. As compared to other multi-vendor platforms, YoKart is the most affordable multi-vendor e-commerce platform.

It comes with many advanced features such as payments through digital wallets, a real-time shipping cost calculator, a product catalog system, inventory tracking, etc. The platform also provides 1-year free technical support & free installation on all packages.

The Goods:

•     Multiple payment options
•     Multilanguage, multi-currency
•     Responsive Design & SEO Friendly
•     1 year free technical support
•     Lifetime license
•     Fully customize solution

The Bads:

•     Limited themes
•     No free add-ons
•     Not easy to upgrade

4. The Best E-commerce Platform – PrestaShop

This well-known open-source e-commerce platform – PrestaShop commands a user base of 8,500,000. It has a nice interface and a lot of features necessary for the seamless operation of your online store. It is lightweight and provides support for multi-vendors.

PrestaShop is ideal for intermediates and beginners. The admin panel can be used to change contacts and preferences. The users can also change the themes and logos with ease, allowing for an easy setup of the online store.

It has built-in features for payments, product listings, suppliers, manufacturers, and shipping. Additional features can be added using add-on modules.

5. Magento

It is one of the well-known and free open-source platforms out there. It commands a user base of 2,000,000. The user interface can be customized to suit your business needs and is also multilingual. A paid version of this renowned e-commerce platform is also available.

Magento is one of the best open-source e-commerce platforms for small businesses and developers. It comes with improved security and has integrated capabilities to expedite sales. It also comes with ready-to-use extensions to improve your store capability and boost sales.

You can easily find partners, as well as developers in case you need any assistance in developing your e-commerce store. It also improves return on investment.

The Goods: 

• Unlimited customization options
• Usability and Manageability
• Free social media extensions.
• Thousands of plugins & extensions to make room for scalability.
• Extensive resource library for demos, new plugins, store management

The Bads: 

• To get an enterprise version you’ll need to spend at least $20,000/year.
• If you’re not a programmer or don’t have a team of programmers, it’s not for you
• If you don’t have programmers on staff, be prepared to invest in third-party programming costs.

6. Shopify

It is one of the very useful e-commerce platforms that come with excellent online support.

The developers have listed a lot of useful plugins to develop the best online store using Shopify. It facilitates easy customizations to suit your business needs. Furthermore, it has great extensions to build your store with just a few clicks in minutes.

The Goods: 

• An Impulsive cart recovery
• The surplus of themes, plugins, and extensions
• A mobile-friendly shopping cart,
• The seller’s mobile apps and many other mobile-based features
• 24/7 technical support via live chat/ phone/tutorials,
• A powerful Shopify community forum

The Bads: 

• Additional transaction fee you’ll be liable to pay if you do not use Shopify Payment.
• Plenty of useful and practical extensions require additional investment.
• The most challenging downside is “Liquid,” Shopify’s own coding language

7. YoRent

YoRent is a prominent rental eCommerce platform that helps budding entrepreneurs launch their single vendor and multi-vendor eCommerce businesses with renting as well as selling functionalities. The software comes with dedicated modules such as Agreement management, Product inspection, Order management, Tiered pricing, Inventory management, and Product comparison.

It is online rental software available at a one-time cost with free technical support for 12 months. To know how Yo! Rent software helps you materialize your rental business idea, you can request a free personalized demo on Yo!Rent’s official website. 

The Goods:

• White-Label Solution
• No Recurring Charges
• Advanced renting as well as selling functionalities
• Free technical support for 12 months
• Pre-Integrated APIs
• Caters industry Specific Niches

The Bads:

• No Over-the-Cloud (OTC) upgrades
• Plugins not available

8. Subbly

It is the best ever e-commerce platform and is highly flexible. No coding experience is required to set up an e-commerce store here and you can use this cheap website builder to instantly establish an online store.

Subbly’s features include Drag and Drop designer, multiple themes, unlimited hosting, and excellent customer support.

It is an all-in-one e-commerce platform for your business needs. It provides security using SSL and can be optimized with ease for mobile commerce.

The load time here is very fast. Also, customers can request a free trial before staging a buy decision for their business.

9. IBM WebSphere e-commerce

It is also referred to as the WebSphere commerce suite. It consists of order processing, sales, and marketing.

The IBM WebSphere e-commerce is scalable and customizable according to your business needs. Thus, e-commerce is developed using the Java EE Platform.

10. BigCommerce

Another one of the best e-commerce solutions for wholesalers, manufacturers, and vendors. It is highly flexible and promotes easy navigation of the products.

It comes with a responsive and intuitive design and allows ordering of products from across the world.

Its features include storefront design, multiple currencies, multilingual capabilities, product listings, ERP integration and development platform, etc.

The Goods: 

• There is no transaction fee.
• Ease of store integration with Facebook, eBay, Google shopping, etc.
• Responsive themes & consistent user experience on desktop mobile as well.
• Unlimited built-in features including coupons, shipping, tax, newsletters, and analytics, etc.
• Easy setup wizard, detailed guides, tutorial videos along with visual illustrations and demos.

The Bads: 

• You may find it lacking some of the available support other platforms offer if thinking to build a store like Amazon.
• With a lack of free themes, it lags behind other e-comm platforms.

11 – WIX

This e-commerce platform helps in developing a functional web store that will enable you to sell out your products. Wix website builder is well-known for its simple website builder and a drag and drop interface.

It can be easily integrated with advanced eCommerce tools in the store like social media, third-party applications, etc.

It offers ready-made templates and is best suitable for all small-level enterprises that want to have a simple and clean online store.

The Goods: 

• easy intuitive drag and drop option
• Designer-Made Templates
• Customizable Designs
• Free and Reliable Hosting
• Optimized Mobile View
• One-Pagers
• Drag n’ Drop Website Editor
• Image Editor
• Text Editor & Free Best Google Fonts
• Add and Organize Pages
• HTML Embed Code
• Page Protection
• One URL for website & mobile site
• Easy-to-add blog

The Bads: 

• You can’t switch templates
• Sites based on this platform load slowly
• Google is not a fan of Wix as it uses Flash technology
• It is ideal if you don’t want to have an Amazon-sized store
• you’ll have to add and customize all your content again from scratch
• you’ll get Wix branding on your pages and in your URL (web address)

Final Words

These are only a few of the many e-commerce platforms available on the market. These e-commerce platforms are trending quite heavily this year.

So, Business owners, who are looking for the best online presence to boost sales can choose any of these e-commerce platforms, considering the benefits and efficiency based on their needs.