Building an e-commerce website now has gotten increasingly more exciting perhaps not only to web designers but most notably to enterprise people because the development in creating a website utilizing an e-commerce website builder along with also other material management procedures becomes more and more common nowadays. The single difference that makes other online purchasing stores get a lot better than their opponents would be the characteristics which make up their site which contributes to a higher conversion speed.

MotoCMS :

MotoCMS e-commerce website builder may become a one-time selection each for beginners and specialists. It gives anybody an opportunity to produce a magnificent fully-functional online store with no lineup of communicating. Whatever services and products you are attempting to sell you will definitely locate a professionally designed template that totally matches your own requirements. Anyway, the practice of including the content in addition to scrutinizing your online store is an object of cake. A potent admin panel supplies you with all the crucial tools alongside using plugins that are used to manually bring some other possible functionality to the company booming.

Weebly eCommerce :

Weebly best e-commerce website builder that makes it simple to construct a professional online presence. But this rely is not all. Since email is becoming really significant, they've enhanced the editor using many features that'll allow you to sell on the web.

The Starter and Give you a precise comprehensible variant of this Weebly e-commerce solution in the place where they control an extra product sales commission. The optimal/optimally answer for aspiring shop-owners is only about the industry program. It has every one of those faculties that you absolutely require.

Shopify :

Shopify is your number one choice in the event that you need a more advanced e-commerce shop. The single real thing with Shopify is it defeats the reason if you are planning to create a regular website before the internet store. This is a platform created for internet commerce before matters such as weblogs and pages that were informational.

Nevertheless, these advertisements online can love the stunning templates, simple builder, and also the fair pricing.

Squarespace :

Squarespace online sites are all properly equipped but it's in eCommerce it is available from its. Squarespace blogs are acceptable for the exact complex pages but in addition, the versatility for extra enhancement, which is very important to all companies, is crucial that you Squarespace's popularity. Squarespace template designs are on the list of very exquisite, clean and well crafted on the online today despite the fact that they don't furnish the absolute volume which other website builders might, you may likely not acquire a premier caliber of style somewhere .Even though it was once regarded as somewhat clumsy, Squarespace has updated their website to such a level that's currently regarded as acceptable for novices within the specialty. Together with its intuitive drag and drop platform, it isn't difficult to leap in without a good offer of website building encounter.

On the other hand, some consistent pests do happen together with the drag and drop system and the sheer amount of possibilities could be a bit overwhelming in the event that you lack familiarity in website building. Most, however, will realize that with a clinic they could manage even the most sophisticated of sites over time.

3DCART :

3dcart is all in 1 solution for those men and women who're searching for shopping cart computer software. Having some easy actions which you can customize your own online shop. You just need to decide on a template, then upload your own logo, upload your own product images, insert outline and establish pricing.

Now you may find each of the essential characteristics to come up with and change your online storefront computer software. This platform gives you the ability to oversee your retail store across the net so no need to install some applications onto your own desktop. You can get a grip on the internet and offline payment alternatives, place up real-time delivery options, contact your clients and manage your store stock and considerably more things, all without creating a single line of code.

Site123 :

Site123 is an eCommerce platform using a pricing system that is very easy to comprehend, and also its own standout attribute is its own sidebar-based website builder, which makes placing pages out much more effective than traditional drag builders. Site123 may be the perfect alternative for those that want to obtain their keep up and running without the development competencies, and that are interested in being sure they won't be priced out of this market as they create their own businesses.

Starting off as a platform for blogging, WordPress has gone on to become a complete solution for developing and maintaining websites. The WordPress architecture is based upon plugins and there are several nifty ones for ecommerce too. Here are some the top WordPress plugins for ecommerce sites.

1. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is one of the most popular free ecommerce plugins for WordPress. This powerful plugin is packed with tons of useful features to help turn your WordPress site into a successful ecommerce store. It is estimated to be powering more than 37% of all ecommerce websites on the internet. It is used by leading brands like Prana Chai, Botanik and Subtype.

Here are the key features of WooCommerce:

• It supports credit cards and PayPal payments using PayPal. BACS and Cash on delivery are also supported
• All leading payment gateways are supported including Amazon payments, First Data and Authorize.Net
• Both free and flat rate shipping are supported
• Supports automatic tax calculations based on shipping, billing or store addresses, also supports configuration of tax settings and levels

2. Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads is an easy to setup, feature rich solution for selling digital downloads on a WordPress platform. Here are some of its key features:

• Provides full shopping cart functionality including Buy Now, Add to Cart, registered user checkout, guest checkout and pre purchase agreement to terms
• Comprehensive customer management functionality includes customer record management, customer account creation, payment history and tracking of lifetime customer activity
• Support for discount codes includes flat rates, percentage based discounts, date setting for discounted campaigns, comparison of value from cart against minimum value for discount and limit setting on discounts
• Powerful reporting capability includes earnings reporting by category and range, filtering by product, tax collections, data export to CSV, monitoring of sales, downloads and API request logs
• Additional support for download logs and access control
• Integrates with payment gateways, affiliate systems, mailing lists and external file storage as needed

3. WP eCommerce

WP eCommerce is one of the most popular ecommerce plugins in the market. Here are some of its key features. Whatever you are planning to sell, physical products, subscriptions, digital inventory or memberships, WP eCommerce can fully enable your efforts.

• The plugin can be customized with any number of CSS and HTML customizations
• WP eCommerce integrates with literally dozens of payment gateways including USA ePay, Stripe payments, Transfirst and Authorize.net
• Supports secure checkouts with SSL
• Provides a number of powerful tools to manage your orders and catalogues
• Provides several tools to support shipping and integration with couriers
• Supports your site with several additional modules such as Gold Cart, Members and subscriptions, Amazon S3 cloud integration and many more

4. Ecwid

The unique aspect of Ecwid is that you are able to take your existing site and easily integrate the Ecwid system into it. Ecwid supports over 1 million sellers across the world and is the number 1 ecommerce app on Facebook supporting over 40000 stores. Here are some of its notable features:

• Sell everywhere solution which allows you to sell on mobile phones, websites, marketplaces and social sites. It allows you to easily add a store to a Facebook page or a site like Tumblr
• Ecwid integrates with over 40 different payment solutions
• Supports promotional pricing, volume discounts, discount coupons, differential shipping rates and carriers
• Ecwid is a fully cloud based service so you do not have to bother about downtime or software installation and it supports site mirroring, including on Facebook

5. Jigoshop

Jigoshop is a leading ecommerce solution which comes with functionality optimized for search engines and easy migration options. Here are the unique aspects of Jigoshop:

• The solution comes with powerful SEO features and advanced SEO tools
• It has a nimble dashboard which can help to setup and manage your shop in a matter of minutes
• Jigoshop supports powerful marketing tools for coupons, gifts, vouchers and shipping
• Jigoshop provides over 70 customizable themes to help you get your store live rapidly with a great interface
• The solution supports comprehensive store management and advanced reporting including sales graphs and stock reporting
• The plugin supports a number of extensions for various types of functionality including credit card payments, CSV export

6. MarketPress

MarketPress is a leading WordPress ecommerce solution that provides a complete solution for everything from digital products to physical goods. A couple of unique aspects with MarketPress are a quick setup wizard which can get your store going in minutes and several built in features. Here are some of its key features:

• MarketPress features adaptive design which means that it can operate with any ecommerce WordPress theme that has been coded to standards. Widgets and shortcodes allow you to display elements on the website anywhere.
• Supports a number of built in themes for easily building your store
• Provides support for 15 different payment gateways including PayPal, Stripe and Authorize.net
• Supports coupons and PDF invoicing via addons
• Provides support for all major currencies, tax and VAT calculations
• Provides complete integration with Google Analytics

7. iThemes Exchange

iThemes is a simple and extendable WordPress plugin for ecommerce. This product uses WordPress’s own user system for adding customer information. Here are some its unique features:

• Exchange supports Stripe, Authorize.net and PayPal as payment gateways
• The memberships add on permits you to create and manage any number of membership levels with specific rules associated. This addon also gives you the ability to organize content for any daily, weekly or monthly courses as needed.
• Exchange supports umbrella memberships for offering group membership requirements
• The software supports an addon in the form of Gravity Forms Checkout Pro to permit you to create a fully customized purchase form for any of your products
• The software supports invoice generation, bulk discounts, commissions and table rate shipping
• Tax functionality supported includes US sales taxes, Canadian GST and EU VAT

8. Cart66 Lite

Cart66 Lite is a WordPress shopping solution. Here are some of its key features:

• It has a billing engine that supports more than 50 payment gateways
• Supports membership functionality which allows you to require memberships to access specific pages or post categories
• Drop content functionality is supported which allows you to delay access to membership content for a particular number of days
• Supports timed emails functionality which permits you to send product specific emails at specific intervals
• Also supports order notification, HTML email receipts, the receipts can be customized based on content
• The software supports customer account history including order history and billing information
• The plugin supports order variations, coupons, promotions and taxes. Manual tax rates can be setup as needed.
• Price and weight based shipping is supported with real time quotes from FedEx, UPS and USPS. Also supports address verification and printing of address labels.
• Free services are supported including Amazon S3 for storage
• Supports multiple integrations including with Google Analytics, Facebook and iDev affiliate

9. Shopp

Shopp is a professional, high performance ecommerce plugin for WordPress. It offers both an ecommerce development kit and a product showcase, along with secure cart functionality. Here are some of its notable features:

• Shopp supports PCI vulnerability scanning
• Offers integration with more than 50 payment gateways including PayPal, 2Checkout and an offline payment processor
• Shopp has been specifically architected for high performance meaning that your WordPress site will run really zippy
• Full support for promo codes and associated rules, shipping and tax estimates
• Provides support for product variations and associated prices
• Shopp comes built with Related products functionality which helps customers find other products in the catalog, which match the current product selection or the product most recently added to the shopping cart. This is a valuable feature given that related product functionality is normally available only in large scale ecommerce players websites.

10. EShop

EShop is a powerful shopping cart and ecommerce extension software. Here are some of its unique features.

• Supports a number of themes to help you build a fully functional site in a jiffy. Several attractive layouts are available for shopping cart pages, wish list pages, compare and product detail pages.
• EShop supports more than 45 different payment gateways including Authorize.net, Stripe and SecurePay
• More than 10 shipping methods are supported including Free, flat rate, US, USPS, Australia Post and Weight shipping
• Advanced sales reporting is available including total sales, viewed products and purchased products
• Full support for SEO including custom page titling and intelligent URLs
• Support for multiple tax rates, an email system, social sharing, related products and product wish lists

11. Table rate shipping for WooCommerce

Table rate shipping for WooCommerce is a premium shipping solution for WooCommerce. The plugin is compatible with WooCommerce 2.1 and above. It has these key capabilities:

• Creating unlimited number of shipping zones based on postal code, state or country. Unlimited number of country groups are supported.
• Setting unlimited number of base rates based on dimensions, weight, price and quantity. Complex rules can be set for creating shipping classes.
• Several shipping options are supported. Tiered shipping costs based on weight or cart subtotal are supported
• Volumetric shipping and handling fees are supported
• Premium features include shipping classes for all products, delivery options, advanced tax and VAT support.

12. Social coupon for WooCommerce

Social coupon is an extension for WooCommerce that gives you the ability to add a social coupon system to your website that gives instant discounts to users as a reward for sharing links to your product pages. It makes it easy to setup a rewards system for social media based promotion.

You can opt to display a Social coupon on your cart page, product pages or checkout pages. When an action is completed on social media, a coupon of your choice is immediately applied to your cart. These are some of its salient features:

• The coupon can be created in WooCommerce and its usage can be tracked there too
• Supports multi discounts which gives users discounts for each social action completed
• Allows you to set custom URLs for cart, checkout and product pages and customized expiration dates too
• Full HTTPS support means that all plugin assets are loaded securely
• Complete support for mobile layouts with auto shrinking of coupon pages

13. PayPal for digital goods

The PayPal for digital goods plugin provides you with a shortcode that can be used to generate a PayPal payment button. The button, in turn can be used to instantly pay for an item using the PayPal digital goods gateway.

The greatest advantage from this plugin is that the entire checkout process happens in a pop window, obviating any need for the customer to leave your site. This plugin is perfectly suited for selling digital downloads through PayPal. The key features of this plugin are:

• Perfect for selling eBooks, music, video files, images
• Allows a user to download the file once the purchase is completed through PayPal
• The transactions can be reviewed directly from the WordPress admin dashboard

14. All in One SEO pack

The All in One SEO pack is a plugin that automatically optimizes your site for search engines and is among the most downloaded WordPress plugin with close to 30 million downloads. These are some its most notable aspects:

• The plugin supports the submission of your sitemap to leading search engines in order to improve SEO. It also automatically notifies search engines whenever your site changes
• Provides support for Google Analytics and advanced URLs
• Automatically generates meta tags and optimizes titles for Google and Bing
• Provides many intricate options for advanced SEO users

15. Product countdown wireless plugin

This plugin is an easy way to insert a countdown into the product pages for your store and utilize it to highlight unique offers or deals. Countdowns are a great way to draw customer attention to a product which is unexpectedly lagging in sales. Of course, countdowns are anyways commonly used during big sales days and at the time of holiday sales.

This is a plugin created for WooCommerce. All you need is a few clicks to create a limited time offer countdown timer for any WooCommerce product on sale. The key parameters to be set are the sales date and the sales price.

16. Clicky Analytics

The Clicky Analytics plugin shows Clicky web analytics data on your WordPress site. This plugin uses a widget to display detailed user statistics including online users, count of visits, bounce rates and organic searches on your admin dashboard. Various types of tracking are supported including username tracking, email tracking, video action tracking for YouTube and video action tracking for HTML5.

17. Bootstrap CDN

Bootstrap CDN is one of the top caching plugins in the market. It can greatly aid in lowering the load on your servers, helps your website load faster and save on bandwidth. Nothing quite annoys a customer or prospect more than a slow website and Bootstrap CDN can help avoid prospects and users dropping out when entering your website. Most caching plugins work well but it is important to use a plugin that does not spoil the user experience. This is particularly true of websites that create and load lot of content dynamically, like ecommerce websites. These are the key features of the plugin:

• Dynamically rewrites URLs on the fly without any modifications to source code
• Enables automatic updates for all bootstrapped code
• Integrates with other caching plugins
• Integrates with FontAwesome

18. WooCommerce Currency converter

WooCommerce Currency Converter is the most feature packed currency converter software for WordPress. This plugin allows users to choose the currency they prefer. Alternatively, the plugin settings also allow you to choose from the available currencies. There are two conversion methods offered by the plugin:

• One in which the conversion is made only for user reference, with payment still happening in the base currency
• The other method facilitates complete conversion, which means that the actual payment is converted and made

The plugin is completely compatible with PayPal and all other payment gateways. Exchange rates can be set to either update every 24 hours automatically or manually. Each currency can be provided individual settings such as format and decimal resolution.

19. WooCommerce social login

The WooCommerce social plugin is an extension that gives users the ability to login and perform transactions with social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter and Google. It also provides the ability to set a custom URL for redirection after the user completes the login through the social media application. Several useful reports are available including number of signups per network and pie graph reports for social media registrations. The plugin also provides account linkage on the My Account and Order received pages for future checkouts.

The way the plugin is designed is that all social account registrations get tied into WordPress user accounts. This ensures that even if social media accounts are deactivated, the corresponding user accounts can be utilized.

20. WooCommerce Zapier

WooCommerce Zapier brings the power of Zapier to WooCommerce by enabling you send WooCommerce customer, order and subscription data to more than 500 web services. This plugin saves you a lot of effort and money by providing you one platform to integrate your store with many popular services including Google Drive, ZenDesk, Dropbox and MailChimp. These are some of the many excellent features offered by Zapier:

• Automate flows and triggers for handling orders, purchases or status changes of an order
• Supports all WooCommerce shipping methods, currencies and payment gateways
• Provides support for WordPress filters to enable other WP plugins customize or override WooCommerce data before being sent to Zapier

Before anything, let's throw some numbers at you.

• Bigcommerce is serving businesses spread across more than 150 countries across the globe.
• The Bigcommerce ecommerce engine has powered more than $9 bn worth of sales (by November 2016)
• It supports business portals with net worth ranging between a few thousand dollars to tens of million dollars
• More than 95,000 business websites use Bigcommerce for selling products and services and empowering online financial transactions

The point is – Bigcommerce is, well, really big. Next up, let's take a quick look at the most prominent highs and lows of Bigcommerce.

Bigcommerce is up there with the best in terms of range and impact of ecommerce centered functionalities it offers, such as coupons management, sales and promotional campaign management, social media signals, unlimited product variations, tax and shipping rule configuration, stats and analytics, and what not. The, it is a fully integration centered platform, allowing you to put your product in front of maximum eyeballs, through channels such as Facebook, eBay, ShopZilla, MySimon, PriceGrabber, and more. Its App stores extends a database of ever increasing widgets and modules for your ecommerce store to extends its powers, across functionalities such as advanced sales and promotion schemes, automation of daily operations, order management, live chat and customer support, and accounting.

On the flipside, there are considerations such as the fact that Bigcommerce puts a cap on the annual sales figure you can achieve for a subscription package; if your business grows, you need to move on the higher placed Bigcommerce service plan. The Bigcommerce Starter package is priced higher than comparable plans from other big boys of the ecommerce website creators. The absence of a dedicated mobile app for managing your Bigcommerce store is a turn down for many entrepreneurs who like to work on the move. Then, there are concerns with the actual ease with which one can contact Bigcommerce phone support out of the standard business hours of 9 am to 5 pm, Monday to Friday.

Nevertheless, with all its ups and downs, Bigcommerce is bound to be the centre of your attention if you are considering an ecommerce platform for your business. In the beginning of 2016, it has undergone a major revamp, and transformed into a more contemporary, future, proof, integration centered, and scalable ecommerce platform, relevant for businesses of all kinds. The Bigcommerce logo resembles a graph depicting upward trend, a closer reflection of what the platform intends to deliver customers. Then, the website interface is much improved, more intuitive than before, and easier access to information. More on its valuable features; read on. The Power of Automation For All Business Processes.

Bigcommerce is all about your enablement and empowerment, and the platform achieves it by providing you functionalities dedicated towards the most important aspects of sales, accounts, and operations management. With its functionalities and focused widgets from the App store, Bigcommerce covers most of the heavy lifting tasks of routine business, and automates them. Whereas this implies a significant learning curve, it's all for your benefit. Once you are comfortable with the basic functionalities, you can begin to activate, configure, and expand them to put your business on auto pilot. Here's a quick look at the kind of tools, functionalities, and apps that Bigcommerce offers:

• Apart from tangible products, you can sell event tickets, services, digital content, and basically, everything that's sellable.
• Unlimited product variations across attributes like sizes, colors, styles, and pricing rules such as + x dollars depending on size, discount on orders exceeding a threshold amounts, and what not.
• Easy categorization of products and customers into groups, and controlling operational parameters such as pricing, shipping, etc based on category.
• Easy payments, with more than 60 supported payment processors, and processes for events such as refunds, replacements, store credits, etc.
• Real time snapshots of your inventory, with actionable info to help you plan reordering and production
• Real time reporting of order statuses (pending, shipped, invoiced, etc.), with options to do tasks like printing delivering notes, bills, etc.
• Identify highest spenders, highest selling products, for specific time frames, for deeper understanding of how things are moving for your business

If you face any problems while working with Bigcommerce apps, there's the Client Success Team you can reach out to via chat, email, phone, and get things sorted out.

Much Improved Range of Premium Templates

A clutter free, aesthetically pleasing, and relevant business storefront template is critical to the success of an e-store. Conventionally, Bigcommerce had been a laggard, not really competing with the best in the business, in terms of offering responsive, contemporary, and cutting edge templates. After the 2016 revamp, however, it has a more relevant range of high quality storefront designs, although the number of free (and even premium) templates on offer is on the lower side.

If you're contemplating serious business, you'll invariably need to go for one of the more sophisticated premium templates, which could cost anywhere between $170 and $200. Though the given basket of storefront templates from Bigcommerce is not the best in the market, it is still enough to serve most business requirements.

If store design is a highly sensitive aspect for your online business, you have the option of hiring a design expert to work with the HTML and CSS of the Bigcommerce template and customize it. Or, you can reach out to Bigcommerce design experts, and either have a new theme created for your store (it's a costly affair) or ask them to tweak the design of an existing theme (less costly, but not free).

Free and Premium apps – Enabling You to Expand Your Store's Capabilities

Apps are an integral part of the new and revamped Bigcommerce experience; these offer you standalone advanced features focused on independent aspects of your online store management. Whether it's about advanced analytics to understand sales patterns, or live chat apps to offer 24 x 7 customer service to your end users, apps do it for you.

You can take your online Bigcommerce shop's sales and marketing activity planning to the most intricate level of control using apps. Then, administrative tasks like order fulfillment, shipping and inventory management, and accounting can all be automated to a great extent using dedicated apps. These apps save your time, help you get things done, give you tighter control over process that are most critical, and make it, in general, more fun to manage your online store using Bigcommerce.

These apps could come free, or at monthly subscription fees. Some of these have such focused functionalities, that it's worth the price for any business to activate them and reap their benefits. These apps make Bigcommerce a truly flexible and user focused platform for online store management, as you can get more sophisticated in business areas and aspects that are most critical for you with the help of advanced apps.

Mobile Friendly Ecommerce Storefront Themes, Though There's No Store Management Mobile App

Reliable reports on mobile internet usage have, for years, predicted how the share of global web users opting for mobile browsing of e-stores will continue to surge every year. In US, close to 50% of annual ecommerce sales are completed through smartphones. For any ecommerce website owner, having the e-store mobile-responsive and mobile friendly is not an option, it's a necessity. Thankfully, with Bigcommerce, you're taken care of.

Bigcommerce themes are accompanied with a mobile version, which translates your e-store into a mobile friendly version for users accessing the website on their smartphones and tablets. This enables users to purchase products from your e-store conveniently from their mobile devices. You can have a preview of your Bigcommerce mobile website from the ‘Preview' option in the Dashboard.

A point of concern, here, however, for Bigcommerce users. Whereas it used to offer a mobile app that allowed website owner to make changes on the move, there is no such app now, at the point of writing this review. This puts Bigcommerce behind other online ecommerce store creator giants.

Store Hosting, Security and Data Backup – Comprehensive Coverage from Bigcommerce

The criticality of website security, hosting, and backup processes can't be overstated for e-stores. Bigcommerce offers you the best of all worlds here:

• Bigcommerce offers unlimited bandwidth, which is pretty standard these days. This means that if your e-store witnesses, for instance, a sudden ten times increase in traffic influx, the necessary computing resources will be made available without any additional charges.
• Bigcommerce takes complete care of the web store hosting process for you; which means you can invest your time in activities of higher value.
• Bigcommerce is dedicated towards ensuring server safety, and carries out regular security upgrades, ensuring that your website and all its data resources remain secure, always.
• E-store security has got to be a top priority for any businessman; Bigcommerce has you covered here, offering PCI Level 1 compliance and SSL certificate. This helps you communicate a sense of trust among users.
• Regular data backups ensure you are always safe, even in the case of an unforeseeable data loss situation.

The best part – all this is covered in the monthly subscription packs, which means you don't have to hire anybody to help you with the hosting housekeeping.

Administration as Easy As 1 2 3

Handling administrative tasks with Bigcommerce is a breeze, because it has single click options for most of them. For instance, you can upload and download CSV format lists of product and customer information using bulk import/export future. You can segment customers into categories based on their purchasing preferences, demographics, geographies, and more parameters. In-built and integrated blogging helps you leverage content marketing for increasing store traffic. Basic and advanced SEO tools like URL optimization, microdata, sitemaps generation and submission, tags and metadata, etc. help you get you product pages up to speed with SEO expectations. Then, advanced Bigcommerce subscription comes with Insight tools to help you analyze traffic and customer purchase behavior.

Deliver Enhanced Shopping and Checkout Experiences

Bigcommerce allows you to use tools and functionalities that benefit your business every time. For instance, you can enable social sharing for customer to post their purchase information on their social profiles. Bigcommerce interface supports high resolution images to go on your product pages. Faceted search allows users to find their desired products sooner, via a sidebar that allows filters like color, price, and size. Product reviews and Wishlists can be enabled to deliver more fulfilling shopping experiences to customers.

The kind of control Bigcommerce offers you for checkout design is awesome. Implement one page checkout to deliver quick transaction completions and reduce cart abandonment. Then, the abandoned cart saver functionality helps you recover up to 15% of abandoned purchase value. You can offer guest checkout and login account based checkout. Then, you have complete control over category and product specific coupons and discount codes. Bigcommerce enables you to accept payments via 60+ payment processors, which means that you are able to deliver the most flexible payment options ot users.

Highly Integrated Ecommerce – A Differentiator for Bigcommerce

Bigcommerce's 2016 revamp has put it in the league of highly scalable and integrated ecommerce store creation platforms. On a shipping management front, it allows you to integrate the store with ShipperHQ shipping calculator that cures your calculation headaches in a jiffy. You can use real time quotes from hipping service providers like FedEx, UPS, Royal Mail, Australia Post, Canada Post, USPS, etc. Of course, you can also offer rule based free shipping option.

Blessed with native eBay integration, Bigcommerce offers you all you need to increase product exposure. Integrate your store with Alibaba, Square POS, Amazon, Etsy, Jet and Rakuten, among others. Using ChannelAdvisor, you can manage all your sales channels right from the Bigcommerce admin dashboard. With Facebook Shop and Buyable Pins (Pinterest), you can extend e-commerce to your social profiles. Support for multiple currencies and international shipping and taxation mean you can take your business global in a true sense using Bigcommerce.

Decent Customer Service and Awesome Technical Support

Bigcommerce excels on both fronts. If offers, eventually, 24 x 7 support over email and chat, and to a great extent, over phone too (if you're willing to call our service desks across other time zones, without toll free option). Plus, the range and quality of technical documentation to help users make the most of the platform and get past common hurdles are commendable. Apart from these options, you can reach out to Bigcommerce on its Facebook and Twitter pages.

Check out Bigcommerce Resource Center and Knowledge Base; two repositories that capture maximum knowledge about using Bigcommerce functionalities. Then, there are frequently uploaded Youtube videos and Webinars to help subscribers get visual guidance on using advanced Bigcommerce functionalities. Common questions and concerns are addressed at Community Forum, and there's a Design Guide to help you get all the technical design info you need on the old Blueprint themes and the latest Stencil themes.

A Word on Bigcommerce's Pricing Structure

Bigcommerce offers monthly plans – Standard, Pro, and Enterprise. Each of these comes with increasing suite of features, for instance, Enterprise plan gets you a dedicated team for data migration, priority support, and more. Bigcommerce does not charge any per-sale commission or transaction fees, which is getting increasingly common with the real big boys of ecommerce platform marketplace.

However, Bigcommerce does necessitate you to move on to its subsequent subscription package if your sales figure crosses a threshold, which is pretty uncommon. Bigcommerce does not push itself as a free or cheap ecommerce platform; it's all about high quality service and top notch ecommerce functionalities, at corresponding prices.

Final Verdict

The cream of ecommerce store creation service marketplace is made up by three or four high market share competitors, and Bigcommerce has been in the reckoning from years. With the revamp it has undergone in early 2016, however, it has upped the game a few notches, and is a serious contender for the market leader's spot. Though the price hike that's accompanied the revamp has caught merchants by surprise, they can expect returns on their differential expenditures over long term.

From a merchant perspective, there's hardly anything that Bigcommerce does not offer. Basic e-stores can be set up in a jiffy, sophisticated e-stores can be set up in a few days, and with some more time investment, you can activate a whole gamut of functionalities, integrations, and apps that make Bigcommerce equivalent to a CMS and CRM for your e-store.

We'd certainly recommend you give the free trial a shot, and get a feel of the high intensity e-store management and promotion experience that awaits you on the other side of the Bigcommerce landing page. It's as sophisticated as any ecommerce platform out there, and if you are serious about making your business successful over the web, Bigcommerce will back up your aspirations with the technology you need.

With regards to the creation and launch of an online ecommerce store, there's a hundred and one different things to consider, right from basic theme to advance functionalities. The most critical aspect, however, will also be the base on which you're going to build your online empire. And of all the dozens of free and paid platforms, Shopify is one of the most popular, mainly because of the depth of customization and competitive pricing. The customisation options are so comprehensive that they allow you to change almost any aspect of the set templates. Shopify is also a preferred option for web developers thanks to its top-notch security features and fully responsive design. Even the process of building and launching your website is simplified with Shopify, let us see how.

Step 1: Sign Up & Registration

For starters, you'll have to visit the Shopify.com website and create a quick account via the signup page. Just enter a few details on the signup form and click on 'Create your store now'. Make sure to create a store name that is unique to your brand or products, otherwise the platform will simply ask you to select alternative names. After your initial signup, you'll be prompted for other details, like your name, current address, country of operation and a mobile number. The platform will also ask you about your products.

If you're still in the early trial phase of your online business, you can simply choose 'I'm just playing around,' from the 'Do you have products?' field. Once you're done updating the relevant data, just click on 'I'm done'.

Step 2: Start Setup

Once you've signed up with Shopify, you'll be automatically directed to your online store admin interface, which allows you to begin customising the look of your store's, upload product info & images, and set up payment and shipping options for customers.

Step 3: Choose & Apply a Theme

Before you can set up your store's products and other design elements, you're going to have to apply a basic theme that will set the overall look of your ecommerce website. Shopify has a proprietary theme store that gives you themes that are guaranteed to offer full customer support by trained professionals.

All of Shopify's themes feature with a detailed list of modifications that can be applied without any coding knowledge whatsoever. Shopify's premium themes naturally come with more modification options, but the platform's free themes are more than enough for most business needs. Shopify's USP is that it allows you to modify pretty much every aspect and design element, with little or no limits on what you can achieve through HTML, as well as CSS.

Make sure you find the right theme for your store by:

Browsing the Store - Log on to Shopify and check out their theme platform at themes.shopify.com, and browse from nearly 200 variations before making a choice between free and paid. You can filter the themes by industry, price and most recently used, or as paid or free.

Checking practical functionality – Your website's theme will set the overall mood for your website, which makes it important to choose the right one. The theme should also be responsive and scalable, among other flexible features. Read some of the user reviews for the theme you like, to ensure that it's a practical option.

Applying theme - Once you decide on the right kind of theme for you store, click on the green tab that will prompt you to reaffirm the theme installation. And when you're sure, just select the 'Publish as my Shop's Theme' option. If you don't like the overall feel of the theme or would want to change it at a later time, you can do so via Shopify's theme manager.

Step 4: Customizing Shopify

As mentioned earlier, Shopify's popularity stems from its depth of customization, which allows users to make the minutest changes that could potentially change the entire look of your ecommerce store. This means that any extra effort put into your website's design will ensure a uniquely authentic website, one that stands out from the ocean of websites.

You can reach your theme's customization options by clicking the 'Themes' button in the navigation bar, found on your admin interface. This will lead you to two buttons on the top-right edge of your screen; one which contains three basic settings, and the other that allows for theme duplication. It is recommended that you duplicate your theme, just in case you make a mistake when configuring your website. There is another button called 'Customize Theme', which will direct you to the page where you can fine tune your store's basic functionalities. You can get the right combination with a little bit of trial and error.

Additionally, some themes enable users tore-locate certain design components on pages that enable you to display the product images, either on centre, left, or right alignments. You can even choose to display numerous social media widgets on your site.

Step 4.1: Adding products

Your products are your livelihood, and uploading product information on your platform should be done with diligence. You can begin the process by accessing the navigation menu on your left, and pressing the 'Products' button. This will direct you to a blue 'Add a product' button, on the top right corner of your page. You can use this option to upload an entire catalogue of your inventory, including images, videos, item descriptions and user reviews. You can upload images in an order because you can organize them later on, allowing you to perform bulk folder uploads.

Make sure to pay special attention to content that will improve your SEO ranking, including item name, keywords in descriptions and URLs. Detailed information about different product variants will ensure that customers are fully informed and your listings are unique.

Clear and realistic product images typically make the difference between a sale and a pass, so ensure that the images you upload showcase your products in their best light. Make sure to highlight appealing angles and specifically mention any unique features. Try keeping all your images within the same or similar dimensions in order to maintain consistency throughout your website. This shouldn't be a problem, especially if you're using proprietary images. Once you've filled up all the relevant details in your listing, make sure you click on the 'Save product' button at the upper and lower right corners of your screen, otherwise you might lose the progress you put into creating the listing.

Step 4.2: Configuring Collections

Collections are groups of products or services that have similar features, which appeal to site visitors, and are created in real time from users search history and shopping patterns. Items can be featured in an unlimited amount of collections, because they are based on user search patterns. Collections can be placed anywhere on your website, but are typically placed on the homepage, and on the navigation menu bar. Showing customers products that they might already be interested in will save them the time of going through your entire catalogue, and might also foster a quicker sale!

You can add new collections to your store in two ways; manually, buy creating individual manual collections, or by assigning pre-set conditions that will automatically include the products or services that meet specific search requirements.

Step 4.3: Payment gateways

This is the section that makes it all worthwhile, and needs special attention. Payment gateways allow you to receive payments customers, with your website being the point of sale (POS). Setting the rate and commission limit is crucial, but consider the features you get from every gateway, as all of them are not created the same. You might have to offer a certain payment method simply because it's the most commonly used. Consider these factors when deciding on the kinds of payment gateways you want on your website.

Transaction Fees – Pretty much every payment gateways charges some sort of commission or flat rate for using their services. Some charge a lot more than others, so choose one that will fit with your predicted sales numbers.

Card Types – Credit cards and PayPal are the two most common forms of online payment in the United States. There are a number of cards provided by payment solution providers like VISA, MasterCard and American Express. It's best to choose a service that gives you all three.

Offsite Checkout - Certain gateways redirect users to their own payment interfaces on their host servers. This third part remote payment gives you more control over the entire checkout process.

It is important to remember that payment gateway fees are exclusive of Shopify's transaction fees, so it's important to factor in all the additional overhead costs because customers don't want to bear that burden. Thankfully, U.S. and UK-based Shopify customers are allowed to use the 'Shopify Payments'' feature to help save on the additional costs. U.S. or UK ecommerce stores will use this payment method by default, once you've completed the 'Complete Shopify Payments account setup'. You can also enable third party payments by selecting the 'enable payment gateways' link.

Step 5: Taking your Store Online

One you've set up your theme, uploaded your product data, and configured payment gateways; you're almost ready to take your site live. But before that happens, you're going to have to provide a some more data, including additional details of your business, tax payments, and logistics.

General - Ensure you've filled up all your relevant business contact information on the 'General' page. It is recommended that you use the in-built Google Analytics, which you can later use to track visitor patterns.

Taxes – Being a business, you're going to have to make a provision for tax payments on all your transaction. You can do this by going your admin interface's Products page, choosing a specific product and selecting the “Inventory & variants” option. Select 'edit' next to the 'Product Variant; this will open a new dialog box. Depending on whether you need to charge tax and shipping, make sure you check the boxes next to the respective “Charge taxes” and “Requires shipping” options. To help with logistics, ensure that you mention the product's weight along with the item description.

Shipping – Setting shipping rates is another sticky issue- too low and you risk having overheads eat into your profits, too high and you risk discouraging customers from making a purchase. Shopify only calculates rates based on predefined rules set by you in the admin's Shipping page.

• From your admin interface, access your shipping page via the settings menu.
• Check for any weight-specific shipping rate within the “Shipping rates” page, and make necessary adjustments where necessary.

Step 6: Domains

The final step in taking your ecommerce website live is to create a domain name. You can do this via two options; buy your own domain name from Shopify. Or purchase a third-party domain name from domain service providers. Buying Shopify's domain will automatically apply them to your ecommerce store, saving valuable development time.

With an average cost of 9-15 USD a year, Shopify's domain service offers convenience at a price. Third party domains can be purchased for as low as 1.99 dollars per year, the only issue being that you need to manually redirect DNS records. A third party domain is recommended because its costs a fraction of Shopify's plans, here's how to get it done:

1. Attach new domain – You'll have to add the new third-party domain manually, via Shopify's control interface. Choosing 'Settings' from the navigation menu on the left, then choose domain, and add a personal domain name by selecting the 'Add an existing domain' option.

2. Update DNS data – Updating your DNS records is a must for third-party domain access. Do this by logging in and making the following changes to your domain registrar:

1. Change the main default A data with this IP address: 23.227.38.32
2. Replace the Shopify 'www CNAME', using 'storename.myshopify.com,' which is basically your Shopify url without the 'http' extension.

3. Disable Storefront Passwords – Make sure your remove any domain access passwords, failure to do so will restrict access to your website even after it goes live! This will discourage visitors, or worse, make them think that your website is fraudulent.

4. Set a relevant primary – Select your primary domain name from the dropdown list in the 'Domain' menu, accessible from the 'Settings' tab.

5. Adding additional domains – Optionally, you can reiterate steps 1 & 2 and add other domains that you might possess. Remember that all the domain names divert to the 'Primary' domain specified, which can be changed at any point of time via the 'Set as primary' located next to every domain name. Just remember that the quantity of domains you possess will have no bearing on your SEO results.

In all practicality, you can design, populate and launch a sophisticated website within an hour using Shopify's easy to use interface. The best part is that you don't need to possess expert level web skills to use it, allowing you to create an ecommerce website quickly, so that you can focus on other core aspects such as marketing and logistics. Using Shopify couldn't be any more tempting as the company offers a 14 day free trial period, which doesn't begin charging you until the 14th day!

Every organization, big or small, requires online presence; website builders are the ideal means for small and medium companies to create their own web store where they will be able to sell their wares to consumers and expand the scope of their business. Ecommerce website builders are extremely cost-effective and can help save the company a lot of many as opposed to hiring a professional website designer. Most of them are easy to use and you can create the ecommerce website of your choice without having any sort of technical knowledge. Nowadays, you will also be able to find free ecommerce website builders and though they lack all of the features offered by premium web builder tools, it gives you all the basic tools at your disposal.

Weebly.com

- create free online store

Weebly promises to offer users a full-fledged e-store without the need for any complex coding skills. The main selling point of Weebly is its free ecommerce store builder; you do not have to pay any money to access the basic package. However, a small ad for Weebly will be featured on the footer of your website. The interface is easy-to-use and the menu on the left-hand side makes it convenient to access main features. All you need to do is simply drag and drop text, images or forms to create your website.

• Weebly provides the user with an amazing collection of flexible design templates, and this will enable you to automatically create a mobile-friendly web store.
• You have the option to create your website using Weebly in English and 11 other languages. However, you will enjoy support in English only.
• Widgets for videos and music players, photo galleries can be easily added to your web store and a drop-down menu is automatically added to your navigation bar.
• The free ecommerce package on Weebly lets you set up a competent website, but you are limited to adding and selling up to five products on your site, and for every sale you make, Weebly will make a 3% fee cut.

Jimdo.com

- create free online store

The Jimdo website builder attempts to provide you with easy ecommerce website creation for free and the tool removes all restrictions so that you can create your own professional web page, irrespective of the type of store you want. Jimdo enjoys a great deal of popularity and the main reason for this is the free use. You do not have to pay to access the well thought-out features of the website builder and once you get your web store up and running, you can accept orders from international buyers. The simple system offers new features on a regular basis.

• The interface of the web store builder is well-organized and intuitive and you can enjoy drag-and-drop functionality. The editor works fast and smooth and all the changes you make are saved directly to the live web store. The website builder also enables you to edit your site from mobile gadgets.
• Plenty of mobile-optimized templates to choose from and you can change style sets easily.
• In terms of navigation, two sub-levels are available at Jimdo and you can add video widgets as well as photo galleries to improve the appearance of your website. You also have the option to integrate social media services.
• When using the free version of Jimdo, you are permitted to add up to 5 products to the web store of your site.

Squareup.com

- create free online store

Squareup is a professional website builder that allows you to create your ideal ecommerce site for free on your tablet or smartphone on the go. You can easily develop web stores that excel at handling your inventory, digital receipts, sales reports, and offers valuable feedback and analysis so that you can concentrate on the needs of your customers. You can unlock the potential of the free Squareup website builder to cater to the needs of businesses, both big and small. Regular updates make the free ecommerce website builder more efficient and effective.

• You can use the free web store to track sales in real time by recording cards, cash and other payments. Sales trends may also be monitored to create sales reports and you can issue refunds.
• Your new web store can facilitate easy inventory management. You can set it up easily and will be able to send alerts when items are close to going out of stock.
• The web store will be able to keep track of the going-ons in your business.
• There is no fixed limit on how many products you can sell via but for each transaction you will have to pay a 2.75% fee.

Storenvy.com

- create free online store

The Storenvy website builder allows you to develop free ecommerce storefronts to display your products on the Internet. The online tool will help you build an actual business presence through a web store that offers a fun and innovative customer experience. You will be able to attract the right kind of traffic with your Storenvy site and easily allow your customers to surf between different stores at the time of shopping. You will find categories at the top of your web store which will help with convenient navigation and your customers will be able to find their way. All the features can be accessed for free and this increases the appeal of Storenvy ecommerce website builder among the users.

• Plenty of ecommerce customization features are available with the free Storenvy website builder and this will help your web store achieve a unique look. The website builder comes with a dashboard that lets you change the colour, font size and background.
• Product listing is extremely easy and you can upload product details to your store without any problems. However, every variant of your product needs to be listed separately if you want to change variable prices based on the model.
• Storenvy provides free and easy optimization to improve the performance of your web store and you will not require any training to set up your free ecommerce site.

Miiduu.com

- create free online store

If you are looking for a fast and powerful online ecommerce store builder that lets you operate for free, Miiduu is your best bet. You will be able to develop your personal online site in minutes and can begin to start selling your products. Miidu has a basic package that lets you create a free multi-lingual web store with proper support. The process of store setup is easy and does not require detailed knowledge of design. All you have to do is drag and drop the content of your choice into your website.

• You can sell up to 15 products on your web store but it supports unlimited number of visitors. You can get in touch with customers easily via newsletter management.
• Free themes are a huge plus for Miiduu and they complement the flexible coupons that may be customized for product categories, customers, and time. The Template Editor is convenient while the dashboard for the web administrator allows you to get a sales report overview featuring meta-information for various categories and products.
• The single administration panel lets you take control of numerous stores with support for localization and multiple currencies. The free web store contains a built-in management system for informational pages and you can add product tags and discussions along with multiple images per product.

Supadupa.me

- create free online store

Supadupa is an amazing free web store builder for anybody who desires a mature ecommerce storefront. The customization options are detail-oriented and you can categorize your products easily. Building an online web store has never been easier and every product type comes with its share of unique options. Simplicity seems to be the major focus of Supadupa since the default options for various product types are a nice touch. You have to be creative and flexible when it comes to creating and naming custom product options with the free website builder.

• The product manager for the web store can be simple with buttons and text boxes being big and easy to spot. Sections can be marked off clearly and due to the convenient layout, it is also easy to use.
• There are vast themes to choose from the ecommerce site builder for free and most of them are bright, modern, airy and great for attracting visitors. Theme customization is easy with free Supadupa website builder and you can customize the typeface, font colour and size.
• You are able to put up to 12 products for sale on your free web page.
• Supadupa offers unique apps and when downloaded, these apps can expand the functionality of the web store.

Shoptsie.com

- create free online store

Setting up a quick and simple online store for selling your products to big groups of consumers is easier than before thanks to Shoptsie website builder which allows you to create your own web store without any hassle. You no longer have to rely on professionals to devise an ecommerce website for your business since Shoptsie is capable of handling all your needs elegantly, and the best part is that you will not be required to pay a cent for creating the web store of your choice. The instructions of the service are easy to follow.

• All you will require to get started with the Shoptsie web builder are images of your products, and some time to upload and categorize them neatly. Free users are allowed to upload a maximum of two images per product and you can showcase up to 20 products on your web store.
• Your web store once completed will boast of all the bells and whistles you can possibly require to operate a good ecommerce web store, including payment modes, social networking options, coupons, currency converters, and more.
• There are tons of nice themes to select from and all of them are functional. You may also add apps to your web store in order to increase the functionality. For example, the addition of a language app will increase the appeal of your store to foreign visitors.

Bigcartel.com

- create free online store

Bigcartel is a superb ecommerce website builder catering mainly to artists and helps you develop an efficient and customizable web store for selling products online. The dashboard is simple and you will have no trouble navigating the web store thanks to the intuitive interface and the descriptions and buttons which are minimal but labelled clearly. Big Cartel focuses on creating a web store that is basic and fulfils all your requirements; there is a noticeable lack of clutter and unnecessary features. You get simple and informative pages which work well with the overall goal of attracting artists.

• You can display up to 5 products on your new web store and there are also five different themes to choose from. Most of the themes are fully responsive and are compatible for viewing on mobile deivces.
• The addition of an admin panel has made the process of creating your web store even more convenient. You are free to customize your themes for a unified feel. Backgrounds, button colours and even body text may be altered easily and the website builder is great at narrowing down items that create the largest impact.
• A logo for your web store may be uploaded and you can select the size of product images. There are two payment options available and your web store gets a simple orders screen which provides essential details at a glance.

Neueshop.com

- create free online store

Technical knowledge is extremely important for the purpose of website creation but now with the help of Neueshop you can finally get the web store you always wanted and that too for no cost at all. Easy to use and fast, Neueshop is a great way to develop your own web store to sell your products on the Internet. Mobile support is available for the free web store and you should have no trouble with the navigation features. The main feature of Neueshop is its simplicity, which makes the website builder highly accessible, and the fact that it supports a free version.

• Neueshop website builder supports real-time editing which means any changes you make to your web store, including font, background and colour will immediately be visible on the live site.
• The website builders allows you to add several important elements to your web store in the form of product pages, stylish basket pages, slideshows, contact forms, collection pages, legal text, and more. Your only job is to upload the product images and begin selling your stuff.
• For every purchase made by the consumer, Neueshop will charge you a transaction fee of 3%.

Madefreshly.com

- create free online store

Madefreshly is the perfect option for users who are looking to create a lightweight web store for small and mid-level businesses that is capable of displaying up to 10 products for free. The basic option of this website building tool offers a perfect solution for creative professionals who crave for their own website, complete with logotype and domain name. Madefreshly.com offers simple solutions to everyone willing to get their products online in short order at affordable rates and it helps you save a lot of money.

• The ecommerce website builder is highly intuitive, offering an uncluttered interface and easy-to-use and innovative editing environment. You gain a clear understanding of the structure of the web store and every section is labelled, ensuring convenient navigation.
• You need to use the control panel to configure fonts, colours, logos, background images.
• You get a suitable ecommerce feature set with Madefreshly that supports 500 products but for the free version, you can only advertise 10 along with a 1 image for each product.
• Products and categories in your web store can be managed easily and you can conveniently change the status of product (from Live to Sold Out to Hidden to Coming Soon), switch on the inventory tracking feature, add new product options, duplicate products, choose the type of shipping, add advanced descriptions, and more.

Yokaboo.com

- create free online store

Yokaboo is a simple and fast way to create a web store where you are free to promote, sell and manage your products. The website builder is meant to serve the needs of mainly creative businesses and individuals with innovative products. The management tools available with the tool are all easy-to-use and they can help you decide how the final look of your web store will be. The service has a free version and you will find that it comes with all the necessary resources to create an efficient web store according to your specifications.

• The admin panel in Yokaboo helps you access different pages on your web store and travel to the stores of other people.
• Navigation is simple and fast and you can return to the homepage of Yokaboo without any hassle by simply clicking on the logo.
• The home page of your web store will be extremely trendy looking thanks to the various customization options available to users and will display your products. Free users will be able to advertise and sell up to 6 products at the store and can easily add up to 1 image per product.
• Any customer to your web store will be able to enjoy multiple modes of payment.

Getshopflow.com

- create free online store

If you wish to create a free online web store in a short amount of time, then Getshopflow.com is one of the best website builders available. It allows you to create and effective and efficient web store quickly where you will be free to sell your products in a simple and beautiful manner. The major reason why Getshopflow boasts of loyal users throughout the world is that it allows you to create a global web store for no cost. You do not need to pay any money to use the responsive design themes.

• Customization is a huge part of Getshopflow website builder and the ecommerce tool helps you come up with your own design themes along with complete access to CSS and HTML.
• No coding or design skills are necessary to complete your web store and you can launch it as soon as it is done.
• Apps cost money but they are necessary if you want to add any extra features to your online web store. Activating the apps is extremely easy once you require them. You will be able to upload files using the Cloud Storage app, get a Custom Domain, use thumbnails with the Thumbnails app, and also Whitelabel.