More than $9 billion was spent on Cyber Monday last year. A third of that spending happened on smartphones.
If you want to score with online shoppers, you need to make sure that you provide a great website experience. That experience begins with your website’s foundation.
You may not think that the back end of your website matters, but the best ecommerce CMS platforms will give you an edge over the competition. They’ll help with SEO, site speed, design, and make your business easier to manage.
Out of all of the CMS platforms available, which ones are the best for ecommerce? Before you make any decisions about your website’s CMS, read on to find out more about the top CMS platforms for ecommerce.
1. WordPress
WordPress is the standard CMS solution that is behind a third of all websites online. That includes ecommerce sites.
This platform initially started as a blogging platform. People caught on and discovered how easy it is to use and the community grew. Now, the platform is used for ecommerce, database management, and so much more.
The power behind WordPress is its ease of use and the number of plugins available for the platform. In ecommerce, a plugin like WooCommerce will turn your website into an ecommerce store.
There are plugins for security, SEO, and some programming functions. That saves you time from learning code.
On top of all of that, WordPress is open-sourced. That means the source code is available to the public and it’s free to download and install. You do need to have a hosting account, though.
2. Joomla
While WordPress has a large portion of CMS market share, there are plenty of other top-quality CMS systems. Joomla is one of them.
There is a higher learning curve to Joomla than WordPress, but you get better security options right out of the box. With Joomla, you can turn your site into an ecommerce store through the use of extensions. Extensions in Joomla function the same way that plugins do in WordPress.
Like WordPress, Joomla is a free platform. You do need to pay for hosting and possibly certain extensions.
3. SuiteCommerce
If you’re looking for a CMS that will serve as a complete business solution, you’ll want to check out SuiteCommerce by Netsuite.
SuiteCommerce is cloud-based, meaning that you don’t need to install software locally on your systems. The big advantage of using SuiteCommerce is that it is customizable to fit any business need. Another advantage is that you get detailed reporting for your ecommerce business.
SuiteCommerce is usually intended for enterprise-level ecommerce businesses. There is a monthly fee to use SuiteCommerce.
4. Magento
Magento is another open-source platform. The difference between Magento and the others is that it was built with ecommerce in mind.
This ecommerce CMS is highly-customizable, or you can opt to use themes to build your store. On the downside, Magento isn’t as easy to use, and there is a steep learning curve.
There is a large community of developers and users who help provide support to users.
5. Shopify
Shopify has become popular because it’s a one-stop ecommerce solution. It provides hosting, ecommerce capabilities, and payment acceptance methods on one platform.
This CMS is meant to appeal to users who don’t know much about programming or hosting and don’t want to invest the time to learn. It has a low learning curve, and you have access to a customer support team 24/7.
You will pay for that support and simplicity. Shopify costs start at $29 a month and can go up to $299 a month. You may also be charged transaction fees unless you use the Shopify payments platform.
6. Drupal
Drupal is widely known as a complex CMS platform, but it’s not as difficult as it’s made out to be. Drupal is another open-source platform that packs a lot of power for ecommerce sites.
It’s a fast platform and easy to customize according to your site’s needs. The big reason to use Drupal over other ecommerce CMS platforms is security.
Drupal is also a great platform if your business has a lot of products and customers. On the backend of your site, that data needs to be stored in a large database. Many CMS platforms can handle a large database, but Drupal was built to do that.
7. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is another hosted CMS just for ecommerce businesses.
What’s the difference between Shopify and BigCommerce? The main difference is in the functionality of the platforms. BigCommerce has everything that you need to run a large ecommerce business.
Shopify takes another approach. You can start out small and then scale up by adding apps to your store as you need them.
BigCommerce gives you more of what you need for the same amount. BigCommerce costs between $29 – $299 a month.
8. OpenCart
You can guess by the name that open cart is open source ecommerce software. It’s free and built specifically for ecommerce. There is a learning curve to learning OpenCart.
It may not be the best choice if you’re new to building websites. However, if you have some programming experience, this is a viable option.
9. Squarespace
Is the design of your ecommerce store important to you? Squarespace has the simplicity of Shopify with a lot of design power behind it. It’s easy to create stunning websites with Squarespace.
It’s not as powerful as BigCommerce, but it will give you basic functionality. The pricing is favorable, too. It ranges between $26 – $40 a month.
The Best Ecommerce CMS Platforms
The best ecommerce platforms are easy to use and focus on performance. Even if you have little to no programming experience, you’re able to create a beautiful ecommerce website. Then you can integrate your website with other business systems to manage your contacts, inventory, and business finances.
The ecommerce solutions listed here can do all of that, and even more. To choose the best ecommerce CMS for your business, evaluate your needs and the systems you want to integrate.
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