Ecommerce, Decoded

Author

CPG MBA
August 01, 2023

Which ecommerce platform should you choose?

With a plethora of options on the market, it’s easy to get a bit overwhelmed. We’ve compiled a list of pros and cons of some of the most popular platforms out there to help you make an educated decision and get you on the road to DTC dollars.

Pros:

  • Combined ecommerce and CMS platform

  • Easy to use—perfect for less tech-savvy people

  • Great admin reporting features

  • Lots of storefront themes to choose from

  • Functionality makes it great for larger businesses looking to optimize their ecommerce sites

  • Dedicated 24/7 support team

  • Huge app ecosystem to support just about any desired functionality

  • Substantial design and development community to help with customization and functionality

Cons:

  • It’s a bit pricey when you need more advance functionality—the basic plan starts at $39/month, but it jumps up to $399/mo for the advanced plan

  • Adding necessary apps can quickly increase the monthly cost even more

  • It’s not the optimal platform for blogging and traditional SEO if your business relies on organic Google traffic from a blog

Pros:

  • Combined ecommerce and CMS platform

  • Cheaper—The core plan is only $27/month, and the larger “business” plan is $32/month; both plans include ecommerce management tools

  • User-friendly drag-and-drop editor, making it perfect for beginners or people who don’t have extensive coding experience

  • Perfect for business owners who want a small site without the hassle of maintenance

  • Over 800 templates to choose from

Cons:

  • A lack of analytics tools/data

  • You can’t switch templates after taking a website live—if you want to update your site’s look and feel, you have to take it down and start from scratch

  • Design isn’t as polished as other platforms

  • SEO tools are dated

  • Wix is more tailored to a small shop. You’ll hit the ceiling and want to switch once you hit a certain point.

Pros:

  • Combined ecommerce and CMS platform

  • Like Wix, it also uses a user-friendly interface with drag-and-drop site editing

  • Very affordable—their “business” ecommerce plan is only $23/month, and their basic “commerce” plan is only $27/month and offers 0% transaction fees (versus the usual 2-3% for most other ecommerce platforms)

  • Templates are very sleek and visually appealing

Cons:

  • Only around 155 templates to choose from

  • Customizing templates is limited for those wanting to create a fully unique user experience

  • Shortage of plugins compared to other platforms

  • Only 2 payment gateways (Stripe and Paypal)

  • 24/7 support is only available through email and Twitter. True 24/7 live chat support is only available on most weekdays.

Pros:

  • Combined ecommerce and CMS platform

  • The standard plan is more expensive at $39/month, but it’s better than a lot of competitors in terms of “bang for your buck” because of available features

  • Doesn’t work with “themes” like Shopify and other platforms, so there are more options for customization

  • Multi storefront functionality, which allows you to make different storefronts for different clients (B2B, B2C, etc.)

  • Accepts multiple payment methods, including credit cards as well as services like Apple Pay or Google Pay.

  • 24/7 support

Cons:

  • Online sales on the standard plan is limited to $50k per year; you have to get the plus plan to bump that up to $180k, which costs $105/month

  • Abandoned cart saving is not available on the standard plan

  • Limited number of fonts (only 3 or 4 web fonts, and 8 web-safe fonts)

Unlike the rest of the ecommerce platforms on this list, WooCommerce doesn’t also function as a CMS. Instead, it operates as a plugin on Wordpress.

Pros:

  • The plugin itself is free, Wordpress costs money; that said, the “Business” plan is relatively cheap at $25/month

  • Easy to set up site with the WooCommerce wizard without knowledge of HTML/CSS

  • Thousands of plugins available

  • Large communities online that can help you solve issues, develop your site, etc.

  • Allows you to integrate ecommerce functionality into an existing Wordpress website

  • Gain the benefit of optimal SEO performance from Wordpress with eCommerce functionality

Cons:

  • If you want the added features of the “Commerce” plan, you’ll have to shell out $45/month.

  • Regular maintenance is required to keep up with update testing, etc. If you aren’t able to do this yourself, you’ll have to outsource to a developer, which adds to your costs

  • Less functional than platforms like Shopify

  • While WooCommerce is free, extensions are usually not, adding to your monthly costs

  • Installing too many plugins can quickly decrease the load speed of your site

  • No customer support team… at all

All of these platforms have positives and negatives, but we recommend Shopify in most circumstances if you’re serious about your online DTC efforts. You can get up and running quickly and your site can grow with you. Feel free to reach out if you’d like some additional ecommerce resources.

Until next time,
The CPG MBA Team

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