Many things have changed since our last rundown post of best eCommerce platforms in 2019. For starters, the Covid-19 pandemic has triggered the biggest digital turning point in history and led to a surge in the eCommerce sector.
Today’s eCommerce landscape is almost unrecognizable compared to how it looked over a year ago. The pandemic has changed consumer behavior in big and small ways — and retailers responded in kind. Ecommerce platforms had to quickly adapt to the accelerated shift and emerging needs of retailers, many of whom are turning to eCommerce platforms to digitize their business and diversify their revenue streams.
If you’re looking to start an online store or switch to a different platform, navigating the sea of eCommerce platform choices can be overwhelming.
To help cut through the noise, Jarvis have broken down the most popular platforms for you. Below are the eight best eCommerce platforms on the market.
Shopify – For the Everyday User
Shopify is the chameleon of eCommerce platforms. It easily adapts to new operating systems and consumer preferences.
It also doesn’t matter if you’re on the go, online, on social media, or behind the counter of a mom-and-pop store because Shopify operates with the same efficiency no matter your location.
As one of the world’s most popular eCommerce platforms, Shopify provides many advantages as your platform of choice. You can sell across multiple channels, from the web to social media and even brick and mortar.
It’s the go-to platform choice of more than half a million companies worldwide. This easy-to-use platform has over one million active users and has generated over $40 billion in revenue.
Check out our Shopify Platform for a more comprehensive assessment of the platform.
Magento – The B2B Superpower
Magento is an Adobe-owned eCommerce website platform specializing in eCommerce websites. It was created using open-source technology. This allows customers to customize their online store’s style, functionality, and content without jeopardizing the purchasing experience.
We cover all the basics in our guide to Understanding Magento as a Beginner.
If your brand is a medium to large-sized eCommerce site and you’re heavily invested in IT development, Magento may be a good choice for your business.
The back-end interface of Magento is extensive, and the features are comprehensive yet complex. Beginners will find Magento daunting, but experienced users should be able to understand how to use the most important features quickly.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud – The B2C Giant
Salesforce Commerce Cloud may be the right choice for your business if you’re looking for best-in-class B2C functionality on a single platform.
As the world’s leading eCommerce platform, Salesforce Commerce Cloud offers everything you need to provide a personalized consumer shopping experience. It has a range of market-leading features, which we wrote more about in our Salesforce Commerce Cloud Review.
The benefits of using Salesforce Commerce Cloud over other platforms are its overall better native functionality around merchandising and better omnichannel capabilities. It delivers a unified eCommerce experience for every consumer across all commerce channels, including web, mobile, social, storefront, and more.
Its powerful omnichannel capabilities and advanced merchandising features are why Salesforce Commerce Cloud is commonly used by fashion and lifestyle brands.
BigCommerce – For Big Businesses with Big Goals
BigCommerce is a premium hosted eCommerce solution that allows online businesses to create an online store, personalize it to their liking, and sell physical and digital products and services. It’s easy to design and manage your store from anywhere as long as you have access to a web browser and internet.
If you want to conduct big business and have big goals for your eCommerce site, this platform is a must-consider.
It is ideal for businesses looking for a powerful and comprehensive eCommerce solution to help them sell a large number of items and reap enormous profits.
Headless Commerce – Best for Content Heavy Businesses
Headless eCommerce has recently been a popular buzzword in the eCommerce industry, but there’s a lot of confusion about the term. We discuss it more in our introductory guide to Headless Commerce.
In its simplest form, headless commerce is an approach to eCommerce that allows businesses to become more agile and flexible by taking all the usual features of eCommerce websites and striping out the need for a front-end, hence ‘headless.’
Despite its technical complexity, Headless Commerce offers many advantages like blazing fast speeds and full customization of any element of your website.
Top brands such as Nike, Lancôme, and Debenhams can attest to the benefits of Headless Commerce. They’ve reported higher buyer conversion rates after making the switch.
IBM Watson – For an AI-Powered Online Store
IBM Watson is an AI-powered eCommerce software that uses modern digital architecture to manage businesses. It offers features that help you innovate quickly, keep pace with fulfillment trends and provide a seamless online shopping experience that is pleasant and personalized to every shopper.
Chances are you’ve interacted with IBM Watson without realizing it. Many companies hide their use of the IBM technology for competitive reasons.
So, why all the secrecy?
It has much to do with the platform’s reliance on Artificial Intelligence and data sourcing.
Watson’s AI technology uses data and behavior to help businesses deliver the best possible customer experience. Many consumers might balk at the thought of this. Most people view the use of AI negatively, according to one report.
Nevertheless, brands like North Face, Chevrolet, Macy’s, and 1-800-Flowers use IBM Watson to power their eCommerce businesses because the technology helps to acquire more customers, gain higher conversions over time, and reduces costs necessary to service each customer.
Oracle Commerce Cloud – An Alternative to Salesforce
Oracle Commerce Cloud is a unified SaaS solution that puts the control in the hands of commerce professionals to innovate quickly, with the ability to deliver connected, personalized experiences and drive customer engagement, sales, and loyalty across channels.
Although not as popular as Salesforce Commerce Cloud, it is reputed for its exceptional customer service and technical support team.
Users also rave about its easy A/B testing, which requires absolutely no programming and allows marketing to optimize the website live continuously.
We take a more in-depth view of the platform in our Oracle Commerce Cloud Review.
SAP Commerce Cloud – For an Attractive Online Store
SAP Commerce Cloud (previously known as SAP Hybris) is a cloud-based omnichannel commerce solution for B2B, B2C, and B2B2C businesses.
It caters to each customer’s unique needs by providing personalized experiences from acquisition to retention while unifying all touchpoints (online, mobile, social, print, POS, call center) on a global scale.
This platform offers design flexibility, plus agility later for innovation and testing—so you can ensure all site changes are precisely what you want before you go live. Its responsive and adjustable user interface works perfectly on every device.
This platform also includes functions and pre-built integrations that support multiple market models and industry verticals.
SAP Commerce Cloud has many features. We discussed them in detail in our SAP Commerce Cloud Review.
Overall, it’s best suited to businesses needing an online storefront that looks great on all devices.
Which Ecommerce Platform Solution is Best for you?
Your platform choice should suit your unique business needs. But when you’re not sure, Jarvis is here to help you understand the pros and cons of your options.
And if you need the staff to make the most of your eCommerce technology, Jarvis can help!
We’re a boutique staffing agency specializing in the eCommerce recruitment. We understand the unique needs of companies through our deep roots in the industry. Our eCommerce recruitment professionals know what it takes to make good employees great.
From web developers to practice leads and project managers—we’ll help you source and recruit highly qualified professionals experienced with your eCommerce platform of choice.
To learn more, Contact us today.