Shopify, Woocommerce, Squarespace or Big Cartel?


E-commerce is all about selling and buying of goods and services over the internet, but do you know in-depth about it? Let's explore the commonly used e-commerce platforms. In addition, a comparison has been made among top e-commerce platforms to better guide you. You will find the complete information about Shopify, Woocommerce, Squarespace and Big Cartel in this article.

Shopify

Shopify was founded by Tobias Lutke, Daniel Weinand, and Scott Lake, in 2006. It is a very good e-commerce platform that provides all the functionalities that you might need. It helps a person in launching his new company or site within minutes by providing all the tools. With Shopify, you don’t need any particular web-development skills in order to run your business or site. This is because everything is readily available there for you and you just have to choose what you need. For the beginners, it provides a wide range of tools to create their product, manage their inventory and promote their site and offer promotions. It also offers plenty of themes to its customers or users to enable them to make their companies more attractive. Click to try at 14 day trial.      

Woocommerce

In order to build your own online business, the name of Woocommerce has always been on top. Among all the online stores, almost 30% are being powered by Woocommerce which is a great achievement. In November 2007, the three great persons, Mark, Adii, and Magnus, started talks about developing an e-commerce platform. After years of struggle, the finally launched Woocommerce in September 2011. Woocommerce provides the opportunity to build a store according to your requirements and your customers’ demands. No matter whether you are skilled in web developing or not, you can easily build your own site by using all the tools and guide by Woocommerce. It gives you the control to sell anything to anyone beautifully and with greater ease. It helps you in designing your site in such a way that would attract more customers and hence, more profits. A number of people are using the Woocommerce and they rated it 10/10, as the best among all e-commerce platforms.  

Squarespace

In 2003, Anthony Casalena successfully developed Squarespace which was greatly appreciated and liked by people. Just like other top-e-commerce platforms, the Squarespace offers you the opportunity to build your online business successfully and efficiently. If you are new to the field of web design and developing, Squarespace will help you by providing everything that you need. It empowers the individuals in creating and developing amazing things. It offers a number of e-commerce tools, analytics, domain name services, and also the amazing drag and drop features.

Big Cartel

Big Cartel was developed in 2005 as a very easy to use e-commerce platform which helped people all over the world. Since its creation, it is assisting the artists, painters, new business operators and a number of online stores and brands. It helps them in the opening and managing their stores for the sake of earning a good livelihood. Big Cartel provides you with a number of features such as opening an online store, inventory management, sell in person, digital products, promotions and discounts, and no fees from your customer’s payment. All these features make the Big Cartel as one of the top-rated e-commerce platforms.  

Shopify, Woocommerce, Squarespace or Big Cartel?

Although all of these sides are the best platforms for e-commerce activities, there are noticeable differences among all. If we compare the pricing among Shopify, Woocommerce, Squarespace and Big Cartel, it would be apparent that Shopify is a bit expensive than the other platforms. Therefore, it is recommended that if you are just creating a new company, try to look for other cheaper e-commerce platforms such as Woocommerce, Squarespace and Big Cartel.

If you are going to create your online store for the first time and have no experience of web-developing, no worries. This is because these platforms provide a complete guideline and ease of access or use to the customers. If we make a comparison among these four companies, you will see that the Big Cartel is the beginner level in ease of use. Shopify and Squarespace are for beginner to intermediate level in ease of use. However, the Woocommerce is intermediate level in ease of use. Depending on your skills and requirements, you can choose any one of them but make sure to look at their details. A data chart has been given below which shows complete details about each of these e-commerce platforms. 

Shopify

Woocommerce

Squarespace

Big Cartel

Price

$29

$6.95

$12

$9.99

Pricing Type

Monthly Fee

Monthly Fee

Monthly Payment

Monthly Payment

Features

-Unlimited Bandwidth

-You can easily create promotions and discounts

-Easy Inventory Management

-Wide range of templates and designs

-Completely Customizable

-Unlimited products, users and orders

-Built on world press

- Easy Inventory Management and built-in blogging.

-Image Manager such as adobe image editor.

-Modern Template Design and Template Switching.

-Connected Services such as Amazon Associated Support and social links.

-Unlimited products and inventory management

-Unlimited orders and Bandwidth.

-Point of sale

-Promotional Tools

-Real Time Stats

Self-Hosted Vs. Hosted

Hosted

Hosted

Hosted

Hosted

Ease of Use

Beginner or intermediate level

Intermediate level

Beginner to Intermediate Level

Beginner Level

Pros

The best thing about this platform is that you can use your own domain name. You can also get mobile-commerce ready. Other advantages include Point of sale services, multiple languages, unlimited bandwidth, and band storage, inventory management and sell on Facebook feature.

One of the biggest advantages of using this platform is that it is very flexible and offers almost all the vital features that you might need for creating and managing your online business. For example, it offers best inventory management tools, tax management tools, and shipping integration as well as secure payments.

Modern templates, Built-in-mobile website, style editor, template switching.

Another best thing about this platform is that it offers All-in-One platform where every feature is built-in which gives you an amazing experience.

Quick setup, Digital Products, Best to use for artists, Sell in person and on Facebook. One of the biggest advantages of the Big Cartel is the Ease of Use. Whether you have a knowledge of web-developing or not, you can easily develop your site.

Cons

The biggest disadvantage of this platform is that if you transfer or move to a new address, the products will not transfer over.

One of the biggest disadvantages is that the update their software frequently due to which you get frequent Woocommerce Updates.

The major disadvantage is that any changings to CSS may initiate a warning that you may break your package.

The disadvantages of Big Cartel include the lack of stability and inability to make the demand stabilize.

Payment Methods

You can pay through PayPal, Stripe, WorldPay, and Cardstream.

Accepts online payment and accepts different currencies.

Accepts online payments. You can use Credit Cards, PayPal, and Apple Pay.  

Accepts Credit Cards, PayPal and Online Bank Transfer.

Theme or Design

Themes are professionally developed on Shopify. You may use a free theme or may pay for a pro-theme.

It offers countless themes, especially the word press themes for each year.  

Great looking templates, themes and designs in a great variety. You can switch among themes.

A wide range of themes to be selected. Some of them are free and some are paid.

As the data chart depicts, each of these platforms varies in their features. There are some features that are the same for all of them such as the online payment method. All of these websites offer online payments either through credit cards, PayPal or so. All of them ensures secure payments and no violations are present in these platforms regarding safe and secure payment. However, they differ in other features such as the pros and cons of using each platform. For example, the biggest disadvantage of using Woocommerce is that they update their platform thoroughly and frequently. Due to this, you will receive a number of updates frequently and you may feel irritated. This is because installing the updates every time require time and it would take your extra time. However, the other platforms do not send too many updates at frequent intervals which is good for customers.

 

No matter which platform you choose for creating your new online company or online business, make sure you go through the above data chart first and then decide.  Which is your favorite platform and why? Comment below!

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Shopify, Woocommerce, Squarespace or Big Cartel?






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