Best E-Commerce Platforms: Volusion vs Shopify vs BigCommerce vs PrestaShop vs Shift4Shop vs Godaddy vs Selz & More

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Ready to dive into your online store, but lost in the sea of e-commerce platforms available? Selling online has never been easier, but with endless options, it’s hard to know which one will best grow your business on the web.

You want a platform that’s easy to set up and operate, a seamless shopping experience for your customers and, of course, a platform that’s financially safe and secure for everyone involved.

Article Overview

• Best E-Commerce Platform Winners: 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Others
• Comparison Table
• Terminologies & Definitions
• Open Source Options
• Multi-Vendor Platforms
• Website Templates

What Is The Best E-Commerce Platform?

Unlike in years past when your feature options were limited, you might be amazed at what you can do with an online store today. Most of the best e-commerce websites deliver built-in marketing, SEO, shipping integration, social media selling, sales reports and a host of other tools to enhance your ability to manage your online store and engage with customers.

Read our reviews of the leading e-commerce platforms, including available features, pros and cons and pricing to help narrow down your choices.

Winner: Shopify Review

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Simple, sleek and seamless, Shopify wins our first place spot for best e-commerce platform for small businesses. Shopify has been in business for more than a decade and has blazed over much of its competition. They operate in more than 150 countries and boast $72 billion in sales through their platform.

Shopify’s value is unmatched, with attractive pricing and sophisticated features. Shopify offers more than 100 beautifully designed mobile-friendly templates, unlimited bandwidth and tech support customers rave about. Perhaps the most impressive feature is the ability to customize the templates easily. The amount of detail you can tweak and alter is second to none, which is why it’s among the best e-commerce sites for small businesses.

Key Features

• All 100+ template themes fully (and easily) customizable; 10+ free templates
• Use your own domain name or purchase a new one for $11, lower price than most
• Unlimited online storage and bandwidth
• Full-featured content management system
• Built-in blog and article section
• Integrates with all major U.S. shipping carriers, including UPS, USPS and FedEx
• High 256-bit encryption level (bank-level security)
• New and improved Fraud Detection and partial returns
• Automatic inventory updates
• Built-in analytics and reporting; Google Analytics integration
• Mobile apps for Android and iPhone to manage your store on the go

Pricing & Tech Specs

All plans include unlimited bandwidth, 24/7 customer support and no transaction fees if you use Shopify Payments. You can save 10% with their annual plan and 20% with a biennial plan. Shopify offers a fully functional free trial for 14 days, no credit card required, so you can see if they’re the solution for your online store.

Read our In-Depth Shopify Review | Read our In-Depth Shopify Plus Review

How Do You Drive People To Your Online Store?

So, you’ve launched your online store. Congratulations! The next step is to get potential customers to notice you. Check out Shopify’s video to get tips on how to generate traffic to your new online store.

Runner-Up: BigCommerce Review

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BigCommerce, our number two choice for best e-commerce platform, has gained a lot of traction in these last few years. BigCommerce gives Shopify a run for its money, offering unlimited products, storage and bandwidth, 24/7 customer service and straightforward set-up and administrative tools.

They also offer a wealth of conversion tools like product reviews, wish lists and more. But where BigCommerce falls short compared to our top pick is in its versatility with template customization and shipping features. Still, BigCommerce is one of the best out there for small and large businesses alike.

Key Features

• Unlimited products, storage and bandwidth with every pricing level
• Single-page checkout
• WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) and full HTML editors
• Sell on eBay, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, Google Shopping and Pinterest
• 150+ integrations, including Google Analytics, QuickBooks and MailChimp
• Mobile apps for Android and iPhone
• High 256-bit encryption level (bank-level security)

Pricing & Tech Specs

All plans include unlimited products, storage and bandwidth. And you get 10% off the following monthly pricing for Plus and Pro if you pay annually. Try them out with their 15-day free trial – you get to test out the full functionality of their platform.

3rd Place: Shift4Shop Review

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Shift4Shop is our 3rd choice for best e-commerce platform. It has one of the most feature-rich platforms we’ve seen for a relatively low price. Founded in 1997 as 3DCart (and acquired in 2020 by Shift4, a payment technology provider), it is based on of the oldest e-commerce platforms on the market, but it’s kept up with the times. While they do have product limits, Shift4Shop includes unlimited bandwidth and storage in all of their pricing plans.

Perhaps not the best choice for e-commerce beginners – once you get past their set-up wizard, their multiple features can be overwhelming to navigate. But their price points are among the best for what you get. Shift4Shop continues to evolve, coming close to taking our number two spot this year for best shopping cart. Learn more about their foundation and start as 3DCart in our interview with CEO Gonzalo Gil.

Key Features

• Unlimited storage with every pricing plan
• No transaction fees
• Fully customizable feature set
• Free advertising credits for Amazon, Facebook and Yahoo Bing
• Free domain registration
• Free 256-bit SSL encryption level
• 24/7 tech support
• Facebook store and mobile storefront capabilities

Pricing & Tech Specs

All plans include unlimited storage. If you pay annually, you save 10% off the following monthly pricing, and they offer discounts for nonprofits. Try Shift4Shop to see if it fits your needs with their 15-day free trial period.

Read our In-Depth Shift4Shop Review

Comparison Chart

Use this comparison table to help you make an informed decision on which online shopping cart service best meets your needs. If you click on a link under the company name in the header, you will be taken to that company’s homepage to explore further. Please note that there are two tables, since there were too many e-commerce platforms to fit in one. You can jump to the second table using the navigation links below.

	Winner: Shopify	2nd Place: BigCommerce	3rd Place: Shift4Shop	Ashop Commerce	Big Cartel	GoDaddy Online Store	PrestaShop	Selz	Volusion	Xcart
Lowest Price per Month	$9.00	$29.95	$9.99	$25.00	Free	$19.99	Free	Free	$15.00	None
SKU’s Included in Lowest Price	25	Unlimited	10	500	5	Unlimited	Unlimited	5	100	Unlimited
Activation Fee (One-Time)	None	None	None	None	None	None	None	None	None	195
Per Transaction Fee	None	2.2-2.9% + $0.30	None	None	None	2.9% + 30 cents	None	None – 2%	None	None
Storage Space	1GB – Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	1GB – 5GB	Limited	Unlimited	Depends on the server you choose	Unlimited	Unlimited	20GB – 160GB
Bandwidth	Unlimited	Unlimited	2GB – 250GB	Unlimited	Limited	Unlimited	Depends on server	Unlimited	1GB – 35GB	1TB – 6TB
In-House Credit Card Processing						Integration Only
PayPal Compatible							Extra Cost
Social Media Integration							Extra Cost
Live Online Chat
24/7 Support
Free Trial	14 Days	15 Days	15 Days	14 Days	Free Plan	30 Days	Free Plan	14 Days	14 Days	Free Edition
Mobile Storefront
Sales and Inventory Reports
Payment Gateways	70+	60+	140+	70+	2	10+	50+	3	30+	75+
Advertising Credit
Free SSL Certificate	Shared	Shared	Shared		Unlisted	Shared		Shared	Extra Cost
Unique Domain Name	Extra Cost	Extra Cost	Free	Extra Cost		Free	Extra Cost	Extra Cost	Extra Cost	Extra Cost
Amazon & eBay Sync							Extra Cost		Extra Cost

Terminologies & Definitions

As you build your online storefront, you’ll come across acronyms such as API, CMS, CDN, SSL, and more. Whether you’re a one-person shop or have dozens of employees or contractors, it’s going to make your life easier to know what these mean. Visit our guide on how to start an e-commerce business to find out.

More E-Commerce Platforms

Click below on the e-commerce platform you’re interested in to jump to our review on that service. Several other platforms deserve mention that didn’t make it into our top categories. Each has its strengths, and we encourage you to consider all your options.

Ashop Commerce | Big Cartel |GoDaddy Online Store | PrestaShop | Selz | Volusion | X-Cart

Core-Commerce | Fortune3 | Pinnacle Cart | Shopping Cart Elite | Yahoo Merchant | Comparison Table

Ashop Commerce Review

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Ashop gets high marks for customer service, security features and overall experience setting up your e-commerce site. Ashop makes designing and creating your website easy and has a great guide for new users on how to get your shopping cart set up and accepting credit cards that very day. You also get unlimited site hosting with Rackspace. A Shop Commerce is best suited for small businesses with low volume sales.

It’s not as feature rich as other top e-commerce sites, and there’s a cap on the number of products their highest plan allows (10,000). But if your business doesn’t require all the bells and whistles, they’re a solid, secure platform and one of the good e-commerce platforms for small business.

Pricing & Tech Specs

All plans come with unlimited bandwidth. Give them a try with their 14-day free trial.

Big Cartel Review

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Bigcartel is a niche e-commerce platform for artists, musicians and hand craftsmen to sell their wares online (although others business types are welcome!). This unique model makes it difficult to compare to other e-commerce platforms we’ve reviewed. Bigcartel’s primary strategy is simplicity and ease of use, and it delivers on both fronts with a free starter plan, only five templates, just the basic features to get you selling and a quick setup process.

What doesn’t BigCartel deliver? If you want to sell more than 300 products, look elsewhere. You also are very limited in shipping options – it’s handled through Paypal and not customizable. Big Cartel is a basic but fresh platform, so if that’s all you need check out their free forever Gold plan.

Pricing & Tech Specs

Bigcartel does not have a free trial, but they do have a free plan that is limited to 5 products.

GoDaddy Online Store Review

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GoDaddy Online Store is one of many products offered by web hosting/domain name giant GoDaddy. And while the company is a major player in the web hosting arena, its Online Store platform isn’t what you’d consider the “Daddy” of all e-commerce platforms.

GoDaddy Online Store does offer competitive pricing, unlimited products, storage and bandwidth, but its transaction fee is a very high 2.9% plus 30 cents per sale – especially considering most top platforms don’t have transaction fees at all. But if you’re a small business, the cost could be worth it. Go Daddy does have a good number of solid features and great security options.

Pricing & Tech Specs

• $29.99 per month
• Unlimited products, bandwidth and storage
• 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction fee
• A free 30-day trial, longer than most.

PrestaShop Review

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Open source marketplace PrestaShop’s main “selling” point? It’s entirely free, with no monthly or transaction fees. But once you download the software, you still have to find a web host for your online store. You’ll also need a merchant account and/or a credit card processing service (not free!). And many of their plentiful customizable features are add-ons for an additional fee.

It’s not the easiest platform to install and configure yourself unless you are a tech wiz or have developers on hand. But, Presta Shop could be a viable option if you already know what you want in an e-commerce platform and don’t want to pay a huge monthly fee, which is why it’s one of the best e-commerce platforms for SEO.

Since our last review, PrestaShop has added a free Cloud version, which they host on a subdomain. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any information about the amount of storage, bandwidth, level of security and other necessary information needed to make a sound choice about recommending this version.

Selz Review

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Selz is a relative newcomer to the e-commerce market, but it’s come out of the gate running. Selz’s niche is for entrepreneurs and start-up companies, and its monthly price is right for its target market. Selz offers free and starter plans to get you up and running — and you get some solid features for little to no cost. Its top two plans (Plus and Pro) are impressive for what they charge per month.

One major drawback is that Selz charges transaction fees for all but their Pro plan. And Selz doesn’t have enough gusto for larger companies, but that’s not their target. If you’re just getting started with an online store, Selz is certainly worth consideration. Their pricing is hard to beat.

Pricing & Tech Specs

Selz offers a free plan, but they also have a 14-day free trial for any of the following plans.

Volusion Review

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Volusion’s features stack up well against their competition – unlimited storage, no transaction fees, solid shipping and inventory tools and competitive monthly pricing.

But as we delved into our research, we noticed that there are a lot of “hidden” fees, from having to purchase an SSL certificate and SEO capability to hefty migration charges.

While Volusion has a good-sized customer base, the number of negative customer reviews we found on the web about the product quality and customer service gives us pause to recommend Volusion.

Pricing & Tech Specs

All plans come with unlimited storage and no transaction fees. If you pay annually, you get 10% off the following monthly pricing. They offer a free 14-day trial so you can see for yourself if Volusion might be right for you.

X-Cart Review

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We like X-Cart for its wide range of features and functions, but the website is hard to navigate and the prices are steep (especially for small businesses looking for something easy to understand).

You can purchase X-Cart as stand-alone, cloud-based software and host it elsewhere or go with their monthly hosting prices, which can get expensive. But if you sign up for their high-volume hosting plans you get their software included.

Before you decide on X-Cart we recommend talking with a representative. It would be easy to end up with a product that doesn’t fit your needs as most of their pricing is a la carte.

Pricing & Tech Specs

Cloud-based X-Cart 5.0 software for download

• Free Edition
• $495 – Business Edition
• $1,495 – Multivendor Edition
• $3,995 – Ultimate Edition

X-Cart Classic 4.0x software for download

• $195 – Gold
• $495 – Gold Plus
• $1,795 – Platinum

Basic Hosting plans: $29.95; $49.95 or $89.95 per month

High Volume Hosting plans: $199; $299 or $399 per month (comes with free 5.0 Business Edition or Classic Gold Plus Edition software)

Core-Commerce Review

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Core-commerce has added a number of features since our last review, making it a much stronger contender as one of the best e-commerce sites out there. In addition to its high 256-bit SSL encryption level, Core-commerce offers an easy to use interface, a good choice of free mobile-ready design themes, more than 95 integration options, unlimited bandwidth and more.

There’s room for improvement in some areas. There are limits to your storage space with all but the highest plan, and they’re among the most expensive platforms. If your site requires a lot of storage space, you’ll probably want to look elsewhere; otherwise, Core-commerce is a feature rich platform.

Pricing & Tech Specs

You get 10% off the monthly pricing below with annual plans. Nonprofits get a whopping 50% discount (higher discount than most). Core-commerce has a 15-day free trial that does not require a credit card.

Fortune3 Review

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Fortune3 is a powerful, full-featured e-commerce platform that receives largely solid reviews from users.

So, why isn’t it among our top three picks? Fortune3 requires you to use their payment processing tool; otherwise, you incur a 1% per transaction fee. And they don’t offer some of the most advanced features that top services do, including fraud detection, a built-in blog and more.

Fortune 3 is still an excellent platform that gives you more features than you’ll probably use.

Pricing & Tech Specs

Try them out with their 30-day free trial (twice as long as most competitors).

Pinnacle Cart Review

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PinnacleCart has made a name for itself as a solid e-commerce platform for more than 20 years. It has several well-known clients like HBO, Discovery Channel, Mike and Ike, A&E and the NBA.

One of its major strengths is its marketing tools – Pinnacle Cart works with large search engines like Google and Bing on Meta Tags, SEO friendly hyper-tags and “hot-button” keywords aimed at moving you up to the top spots on search engines. Another huge plus is its high security level, which gives you and your customers safe shopping transactions.

The one major downside to Pinnacle Cart, however, is its limited storage space. Even at the highest pricing level, you only get 50GB. This is most likely a deal breaker for companies that have a large number of pages, products and images.

Pricing & Tech Specs

All plans include unlimited number of products and no transaction fees. Try them out with a 14-day free trial.

Shopping Cart Elite Review

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Shopping Cart Elite has been the gold standard for online shopping cart solutions for years. It has tons of advanced features and functions, but the high price keeps it out of our top three spots.

Shopping Cart Elite might be just what you’re looking for if you have a company in a competitive market and you want every advantage you can get on your competition. Data mapping, competitive price monitoring, and even marketplace modules are all included with standard SEO marketing and inventory tracking.

What it boils down to is that Shopping Cart Elite has more tools than you’ll likely know what to do with, but because it costs you’ll end up paying for more tools than you’ll likely use.

Pricing & Tech Specs

All plans come with unlimited bandwidth and storage and no transaction fees. Shopping Cart Elite offers a 14-day free trial.

Start-Up Plan

• $49/month per employee (up to 3 employees)
• Up to 3,000 products

Enterprise Plan

• Starts at $99/month per employee for up to 20,000 products and 6,500 orders per month limit

Yahoo Merchant Review

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Yahoo sold its Merchant web hosting support to Aabaco Small Business since our last review. According to many long-time customers, the hosting change is anything but a sweet switch. We found many online forum complaints about a major downturn in website reliability and customer/tech support.

On top of our previous mediocre review of Yahoo Merchant, this isn’t good news for consumers looking at Yahoo Merchant as an easy alternative. Although you get unlimited bandwidth, storage and number of products, Yahoo Merchant still lacks administrative tools and functionality that are fairly standard for ecommerce websites.

Pricing & Tech Specs

All plans include unlimited number of products, storage and bandwidth and $450 worth of Yahoo ads for free.

Comparison Table

	Winner: Shopify	2nd Place: BigCommerce	3rd Place: 3dCart	CoreCommerce	Fortune3	Pinacle Cart	Shopping Cart Elite	Yahoo Merchant
	Winner: Shopify	2nd Place: BigCommerce	3rd Place: 3dCart	CoreCommerce	Fortune3	Pinacle Cart	Shopping Cart Elite	Yahoo Merchant
Lowest Price per Month	$9.00	$29.95	$9.99	$40.00	$9.95	$29.95	$29.00	$29.00
SKU’s Included in Lowest Price	25	Unlimited	10	300	20	Unlimited	25	Unlimited
Activation Fee (One-Time)	None	None	None	None	None	None	None	None
Per Transaction Fee	None	2.2-2.9% + $0.30	None	None	None – 1%	None	None	0.75% – 1.5%
Storage Space	1GB – Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	1GB – Unlimited	Unlimited	1GB – 50GB	Unlimited	Unlimited
Bandwidth	Unlimited	Unlimited	2GB – 250GB	4GB – Unlimited	Unlimited	2GB – 100GB	Unlimited	Unlimited
In-House Credit Card Processing						Extra Cost
PayPal Compatible
Social Media Integration
Live Online Chat
24/7 Support
Free Trial	14 Days	15 Days	15 Days	15 Days	30 Days	14 Days	7 Days
Mobile Storefront								Integration Only
Sales and Inventory Reports
Payment Gateways	70+	60+	140+	50+	50+	30+	100	10+
Advertising Credit
Free SSL Certificate	Shared	Shared	Shared	Shared	Shared		Shared	Shared
Unique Domain Name	Extra Cost	Extra Cost	Free	Extra Cost	Free	Extra Cost	Extra Cost	Extra Cost
Amazon & eBay Sync					Amazon Only			eBay

Why Not Sell Online?

It’s a no-brainer that your business should have a virtual store, with so many people shopping and buying online. In 2020, e-commerce sales accounted for over 14 percent of all retail sales in the United States and were forecast to rise to nearly 22 percent by 2025, based on projections from Statista.

Join the e-commerce world today using one of the easy and affordable e-commerce platforms we’ve reviewed here. Most offer free trials, so it’s worth your time to explore your options and make the choice that is right for you!

Is An Open Source Marketplace A Good Option For My Business?

You have to be pretty tech savvy (or be able to hire a developer) to go the open source route. Open Source Marketplaces require much more tech knowledge and typically are harder and more time consuming to set up. Here are the basic differences between open source marketplaces and e-commerce software:

• Website hosting: Proprietary e-commerce software, like Shopify, includes website hosting in its pricing. Open source options don’t, so you’ll have to find your own hosting service and website security. Checkout our best website host reviews to find a good fit for your business. Most of the e-commerce solutions we review here are e-commerce software with hosting included.
• Tech support: e-commerce software provides you dedicated technical support for your storefront. Open source marketplaces don’t, but they often have excellent developer community forums where you can get a lot of help. Again, you have to be pretty tech savvy.
• Customization: Open source marketplaces give you more freedom in the number of apps you can integrate into your store. e-commerce software limits your customization ability, but those limitations vary with each platform. The best e-commerce software can still give you a lot of customization options.
• Pricing: Although open source marketplaces don’t charge a monthly fee (like software options), you still have to pay for a hosting service and all the apps you’ll want to integrate into your storefront. Most of the popular apps charge a monthly fee, so you may end up paying more in the long run than you would with e-commerce cloud-based software.

What Are Some Other Open Source Options?

Prestashop is the only open source marketplace we reviewed here, but there are a number of solid options, including,

• CS-Cart
• Magento Marketplace
• Virto Commerce
• WooCommerce – Read Our Full Review

What If I Want A Multi-Vendor Storefront?

Multi-vendor e-commerce platforms are booming these days. As the site owner of a multi-vendor marketplace, you can earn big money through fees you charge for vendors to sell on your site. eBay and Etsy are the big guns right now, but you now have more options than ever to create your own multi-vendor marketplace. Some of our top picks include:

• CS-Cart Multi-Vendor Edition
• ShareTribe
• X-Cart Multi-Vendor Edition

What About The Appearance Of My Online Store?

Some e-commerce solutions are fully loaded. For those that are not, however, you’ll need to choose your own website theme (also known as a template) so that you look good and can impress your customers! Read our best website template reviews for the scoop.

It’s also important that your theme be responsive. This essentially means that it will look good on any device. Find out more about responsive website design in our tutorial.