What solution for its online shop according to Romain L. our eCommerce expert.
The e-commerce field has grown steadily for several years across the world. And this trend is forecast to continue at a strong pace. Consumer habits change over the years. They are increasingly turning toward online stores, which offer a wide variety of products that can be bought with a single click. Online sales are exploding, reaching the trillion dollar mark. By 2016, the global e-commerce market exceeded 3 trillion dollars. Following the results and the significant market demand, more and more online merchants tend to embark on this profitable and successful market.
So what are the best tools to create a successful e-commerce website that stands out from the crowd? Which solution to choose? What platform will best satisfy your needs? Today e-Commerce solutions are numerous and it is not always easy to decide which one to choose because each of the solutions has its own characteristics. To help you make your decision, here is a ranking of the 5 best and most coveted platforms in e-Commerce sector, according to our eCommerce expert Romain L.
Magento
Let’s start with the major eCommerce player – Magento. It is a very powerful and performing open source platform and eCommerce solution leader at international scale. Despite the large number of existing solutions, Magento has been able to differentiate itself and attract numerous e-retailers. More than 250,000 online stores operate with Magento solution. Launched in 2008, it offers a wide range of functionalities for websites including management of promotions, management of thousand product catalogs or marketing tools. Moreover, the platform offers multilingual, multi-currency and multi-store management that gives users the ability to manage multiple sites at once from the same back office.
However, Magento also has some limits in terms of ergonomics. The platform is simple to use as a free version but the support of experienced developers is necessary when creating an extensive online store with various functions. Indeed, Magento is a quite complex solution and requires a rather advanced knowledge in IT.
PrestaShop
PrestaShop is a free Open Source solution, written in PHP and accessible to all. Founded in 2007, the platform is today ranked among the best e-Commerce solutions in the world. PrestaShop is translated in over 65 languages and provides a variety of modules and other features. Unlike Magento, PrestaShop solution is quite easy to install and use. It has great capabilities in terms of innovation and has thousands of product catalogs. Indeed, this solution also offers a highly efficient multi-shop function that allows users to share and manage the same stock between several sites.
Despite the positive points mentioned above, PrestaShop solution has some disadvantages such as of its themes and plugins that most of them are paid services and not always really well-developed. Obviously it makes sense to use free and easily usable solutions, but this advantage becomes a drawback as soon as an e-merchant wants to create an advanced and interactive website without blowing the budget (code cleaning, optimization and performance).
Symfony
And what if your eCommerce solution was 100% tailor-made? Launched in 2005, Symfony is an Open Source solution written in PHP programming language. With its large international developer community, it has had a strong presence on the eCommerce market for over 10 years. This solution is known for its ability to regularly innovate and improve site performance. Symfony allows to create customized eCommerce projects with specific features, perfectly reflecting users’ vision and ideas. The platform gives rise to unique projects adapted to the needs of each user. It is the guarantee of having an online store that does not look like any other. Symfony is used for complex projects and offers online shops that respond to specific requests: atypical products, management and flow of particular orders …
But the ability to provide 100% custom websites makes the process of customization slow. Despite the efficiency of Symfony solution, some period of time is necessary for the development and delivery of a website. It is up to you to decide what is more important for you: customization or fast development.
Drupal
Looking for a safe online shop? You have come to the right place! Established in 2001, Drupal Commerce is a revolutionary Content Management System and eCommerce Open Source solution. With its many efficient and various modules, the latter adapts to any type of web projects, including e-commerce. Drupal, which is powerful and flexible, has the advantage of being fully customizable thanks to its ability to manage large content and provide a full structure for high-end online stores. Thousands of developers from the Drupal community, enabling the platform to regularly be updated and improved. Reducing the risk of bugs or any vulnerabilities, these updates give Drupal maximum security. It is precisely this safety question that has enticed and attracted big names such as the White House or the Louvre Museum. In addition, the eCommerce platform is SEO-friendly for merchant sites, which leads to excellent referencing on search engines.
Yet, Drupal has also some disadvantages regarding its use, which seems somewhat complex and requires an adaptation period. But thanks to its security aspects and great ability in terms of eCommerce, Drupal is indeed a very good choice for those whose top priority is not rapidity .
WooCommerce
WordPress, favorite Open Source solution for beginners, provides a high quality extension to support you throughout your projects: WooCommerce. This CMS is suitable for those who are taking their first steps in online store establishment. With nearly 30 million downloads, WooCommerce is one of the most popular solutions in e-commerce field. Its features are easy to use, allowing its users, who do not have advanced technical knowledge, to smoothly create their first WooCommerce. Moreover, despite its efficiency, it does not require significant financial resources and can therefore meet the requests of small low budget start-ups.
Thus, on one hand, if you are a beginner in online shops design, WooCommerce is your solution! It allows to fully enjoy the flexibility and accessibility of the platform. On the other hand, this solution would be of insufficient level for those looking for advanced options.
As you can see in this article, there is no best solution even if our team focus mainly on Magento, PrestaShop and tailormade Symfony 😉
All solutions are different and each of them has its own characteristics, advantages and disadvantages. The most important is to choose the one that best meets your needs and fits your dream eCommerce project.
If you have an eCommerce project, hire our highly experienced developers who will help you to choose your solution and make your project come true.
