Top 5 E-Commerce CMS Suggestions for Online Stores
As we have already pointed out in a previous article, there is a lot to be done to consolidate your company’s online presence and the crucial role of a website on it. Similarly, capitalising this presence in the ever-increasing e-commerce environment is even more complex and equally important. When you start building your e-shop, there are important things to consider, such as payment processes, relationship management/customer service and product management. The first and one of the most critical steps in building an online store is to choose the right e-commerce CMS, as it will determine how you deal with the components mentioned above and the overall capabilities of your online business.
Therefore, through this article, we will present the necessary features that a CMS must have to support your online store and manage your digital content most efficiently. Also, we’ll offer you a list with some of the best e-commerce CMS options to start working with.
Must-Have CMS’s Features for Your Online Business
An extensive collection of plugins: As mentioned in a previous article, plugins are software components that can add additional functionality to a site. When it comes to your e-commerce site, CMSs that provide a wide collection, or the ability to create your plugins, give you the opportunity for broader customisation and innovation.
SEO capabilities: E-commerce websites are made up of vast amounts of content and tons of other items such as permalinks for product categories and pages, canonical tags, metadata etc., that require the effective use of both on-page and SEO techniques. That’s why the significant e-commerce CMSs provide multiple SEO solutions in the form of extensions and plugins. Brilliant examples belonging to these categories are Yoast WooCommerce, SEO Space extension, LinkPatrol, WP caching and Compete SEO Package.
Design/Responsiveness: It is essential to choose an e-commerce CMS solution that maintains an extensive collection of intuitive and well-structured templates, that can offer excellent user experience to visitors. Additionally, as your online store has to work with customers on different devices, it’s just as important that your CMS responds to different screen sizes.
Analytics: Data provision should be at the top of your list when evaluating a CMS for your e-commerce business. Your E-commerce CMS will provide you with detailed and targeted analyses on the performance of different product/page categories and in-depth information about the overall interactions between your e-shop and users.
Advanced payment options: It is crucial for customers to pay the way they want. Therefore, you must choose an e-commerce CMS that can integrate different payment methods and payment gateways such as PayPal, Google Checkout, Amazon payment, etc.
Order Management System: An OMS can help you manage your e-shop orders in an accurate and timely manner. This system can help you locate orders, track inventory levels and manage omnichannel orders from customers who have ordered online and want to collect their items from the mortar shop.
Internal Search Engine: Perhaps one of the most valuable assets that the right e-commerce CMS will offer to your e-commerce site. It will improve the UX as consumers want to complete their purchases quickly and with the lowest possible cognitive effort. It is also beneficial for your site’s SEO, as the internal search engine will reduce the abandonment rates and enhance some metrics, for example, the average duration per session or pages per visit. Furthermore, it will reduce customer support costs.
Our Top e-commerce CMS picks
Many CMSs can help you build your online shop. Taking into account several parameters and the necessary features mentioned above, we present to you the list of the top five systems for 2019 from our point of view.
#Magento
It is probably one of the most successful e-commerce CMS out there. Magento is an open source system, fact that making it highly customizable. It offers multi-currency and multilanguage functions. Magento comes in three versions: Community Version (free), Enterprise Version (paid) and Magento Go, which is both funded and hosted on Magento servers.
STRENGTHS
– It offers a broad set of features and more than 13,000 extensions.
– OpenCart provides a vast collection of appealing free and paid themes.
– It supports multi-currency and multilinguistic functions.
– Probably provides every imaginable payment gateway and the most common shipping options such as UPS, Citylink, FedEx and Parcelforce.
– It is an e-commerce CMS providing the opportunity to run multiple stores.
– There is an active community with more than 550,000 members and well-structured technical support team.
– As it is using virtual file system/structure, it gives to the user the ability to edit the core of the CMS if it is necessary.
WEAKNESSES
– The biggest pitfall regarding SEO is that it is continually generates duplicate content, that means multiple URLs for the same webpage.
– Many of the features offered conflict with each other, making the customisation process difficult and downgrading the overall functionality of the e-commerce site.
– It supports multi-currency and multilinguistic functions.
– Probably provides every imaginable payment gateway and the most common shipping options such as UPS, Citylink, FedEx and Parcelforce.
–Also, the features are not so extensive or appealing when is compared with those of Magento and WooCommerce.
– Adding new products to the existing inventory is challenging although that there are plugins that can be used, the system it keeps requiring adding products directly to MySQL. To do it even worst, OpenCart doesn’t allow you to add new products without to remove already existing ones.
Like each of our picks, OpenCart has its negative points, but it doesn’t mean that it is not an excellent e-commerce CMS. It is easy to set up, free and with many features giving it the appropriate flexibility and scalability. It is great for SMEs and also, efficient for big companies that employing personnel with extensive developing/coding skills.
#WooCommerce
In reality, WooCommerce is a free open source plugin that transforms your website into an online store. Its success derives from the leading position of WordPress among CMSs.
STRENGTHS
– It offers an extensive collection of themes, plugins, extensions and add-ons that make it highly customisable.
– WooCommerce provides comprehensive products’ and information management capabilities, making processes such as adding, deleting or editing categories and attributes, as well as reviewing and rating, easy jobs.
– It is mobile-friendly and through WordApp Mobile Plugin allows users to convert their sites into mobile applications.
– As a WordPress product, users can proceed with search engine optimisation in the same way and with the same tools as provided in WordPress CMS.
– WooCommerce offers the opportunity for in-depth analytics regarding the performance of an online store through numerous reports in areas such as stock levels, reviews, incoming sales, amount and so on. Also, various plugins are offering more extensive analysis and reporting option about transactions and of course, the ability for integrations with analytical tools like Google Analytics.
– WooCommerce offers the opportunity for in-depth analysis of an online store’s performance through numerous reports in areas such as inventory levels, reviews, inbound sales and so on. There are also many add-ons that offer more extensive analysis and reporting options for transactions and, of course, the ability to integrate web analytic tools such as Google Analytics, Mint analytics and Kissmetrics.
WEAKNESSES
– It does not support the valuable multi-currency and multilingualism functions.
– WooCommerce does not support the management of multiple online stores.
–Run an e-commerce site with WooCommerce is limited only to WordPress users.
– Although that offers many free plugins and features, in order to fully take advantage of WooCommerce CMS capabilities, there is a need for some paid adds-on and extensions that can be costly for SMEs.
–For users without previous WordPress experience, it takes time and effort to set up their e-commerce business with WooCommerce.
Our view is that WooCommerce is an excellent choice for users who have increased knowledge and skills in WordPress, as they can use this e-commerce platform without wasting much cognitive effort. On the other hand, WooCommerce has its limitations when it comes to huge online stores that require extensive scaling.
#OpenCart
It could be an excellent choice for companies that employ staff with development/coding skills. OpenCart is the lightest and fastest CMS on our list and does not require expensive hosting facilities. The platform is based on PHP, MySQL and HTML with CSS.
STRENGTHS
–It offers a broad set of features and more than 13,000 extensions.
–OpenCart provides a vast collection of appealing free and paid themes.
– It supports multi-currency and multilinguistic functions.
–It is an e-commerce CMS providing the opportunity to run multiple stores.
– There is an active community with more than 550,000 members and well-structured technical support team.
– As it is using virtual file system/structure, it gives to the user the ability to edit the core of the CMS if it is necessary.
WEAKNESSES
– The biggest pitfall regarding SEO is that it is continually generates duplicate content, that means multiple URLs for the same webpage.
– Many of the features offered conflict with each other, making the customisation process difficult and downgrading the overall functionality of the e-commerce site.
–Also, the features are not so extensive or appealing when is compared with those of Magento and WooCommerce.
– Adding new products to the existing inventory is challenging although that there are plugins that can be used, the system it keeps requiring adding products directly to MySQL. To do it even worst, OpenCart doesn’t allow you to add new products without to remove already existing ones.
Like each of our picks OpenCart has its negative points, but it doesn’t mean that it is not an excellent e-commerce CMS. It is easy to set up, free and with many features giving it the appropriate flexibility and scalability. It is great for SMEs and also, efficient for big companies that employing personnel with extensive developing/coding skills.
#Shopify
Shopify it is an excellent hosted solution for businesses wanting to build their online stores fast and without any stress for its development. It comes out of the competition due to its focus to keep up with the latest e-commerce trends. It has developed to a greater extent than any of its major competitors, social and mobile shopping and it allows customers to complete their purchases without leaving the social media platform at any point. Shopify offers different versions and pricing plans, ranging from €26/month to approximately 265€/month.
STRENGTHS
– It has an extensive collection of applications, adds-on and ready to use templates that make the building process easier and quicker.
–There is no limit to the number of products and the size of the inventory that a user can handle.
–Shopify delivers detailed analytical reports and offers an intuitive control panel to keep everything up and running. It can also integrate Google Analytics to check how the e-commerce site works and which channels drive traffic to it.
–It also saves significant time for a user as it has an SEO ready structure.
– Another advantage is that it can support different languages.
–The biggest advantage that Shopify has to offer are the expanded possibilities for social commerce. It enables sales through Facebook and messenger. Also, Shopify gives the opportunity to manage both Amazon listing and Shopify products in the same place. It becomes even better, as it also enables users to place their products on eBay through their e-stores.
The most significant advantage offered by Shopify is the expanded social commerce potential. It allows sales via Facebook and messenger. Shopify also gives you the opportunity to manage both Amazon listings and Shopify products simultaneously. It is even better as it enables users to place their products on eBay through their online stores.
WEAKNESSES
– The basic version of €9 is very limited.
– Shopify payments are restricted to certain countries and the additional getaway options charged with an extra transaction fee.
–The ability to customise the checkout page/process is limited, as Shopify is a hosted solution.
– The overall cost increased if we estimate some substantial investment on very critical extensions that are unavoidable for building a successful online store with Shopify.
– The total cost increases if we consider some significant investments to purchase some necessary extensions to improve your online store’s performance.
Shopify is particularly convenient for companies that want to launch their e-commerce websites in a timely and inexpensive way. In addition, it is the perfect solution for businesses that are investing heavily in their marketing efforts and want to take advantage of Shopify’s potential for social and mobile commerce.
#Prestashop
Prestashop is an open CMS that has low development requirements. The marketplace includes more than 3,500 features and themes, making it a very attractive CMS to create your e-commerce site.
STRENGTHS
– It offers an intuitive interface and numerous plugins.
– The one-page checkout feature speeding up the whole purchasing process.
–There are multiple getaways options.
–Products suggestions, discounts and coupons.
– Recently viewed products’ function.
–Prestashop has a large community with more than 1 million members contributing to the development of the platform.
- Multicurrency and multilanguage (40+ languages) support.
- SEO friendly.
- E-mail follow-up automation.
WEAKNESSES
– The absence of multiple store management option leads to scalability limitations.
– It does not focus on marketing efforts, as there is no opportunity to input attributes and cross-sell products like other e-commerce CMS.
–The cost of Prestashop is rising when it comes to larger businesses that will need to invest more in adds-on and other features.
Prestashop is a great e-commerce platform to build an online store. It has some constraints, notably in terms of scalability, most of which are manageable through proper choice of paid modules and the appropriate development interventions.
Conclusion
Through the list, we do not invent the wheel as the specific e-commerce CMSs are already well known in the market. Our general purpose is to highlight the main strengths and weaknesses of each of them and some necessary information that can help you make your choice. Every business must take its decision on the basis of its objectives, its financial and human resources, the product inventory size and its ambitions for future expansion. We will be pleased if our article helps you make a well-educated decision compatible with your business.
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