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The Best eCommerce Platforms for Small Businesses
A reliable eCommerce platform is the foundation of any online business. Learn about four of the best eCommerce platforms for small businesses.
Once upon a time, if you wanted to start a new business, one of your first steps was to find a physical storefront to hang your sign in front of and wait for the customers to roll in.
In 2020, that step should rank much lower on your priority list—if it’s on there at all.
This summer, we surveyed more than 550 consumers and found that 72% of respondents were not comfortable resuming activities that involve groups of people in public spaces. Conversely, 60% of respondents reported shopping online more frequently since COVID-19, with 73% of those online shoppers expecting to keep up their increased rate even when the pandemic has subsided. (You can find our methodology at the bottom of this page.)
In other words, if you’re starting or growing your retail business, selling online should be a top priority. And if you’re selling online, eCommerce software is the foundation that your online store will be built upon.
What is eCommerce software?
eCommerce software makes setting up your digital storefront, managing the shopping cart and payment process, and keeping track of your inventory easier and more efficient
But as a small business, we understand that you don’t have the same resources as larger corporations. Thankfully, there is eCommerce software designed (and priced) specifically for small businesses like yours, and in this article, we’ll look at the best of the best.
Every year, GetApp ranks the leading business apps within our most popular categories to help software buyers quickly identify the top options, which are rated based on ease of use, value for money, functionality, customer support, and likelihood to recommend. These ratings are determined based on approved user reviews, public data sources, and data from technology vendors. Click here for complete methodology.
The following four products are the only small business eCommerce apps in GetApp’s latest Category Leaders for eCommerce to receive a score of 90 or higher out of a possible 100. They are listed in alphabetical order.
What makes these apps suitable for small businesses?
Each of these options scored at least 19 out of 20 on ease of use and customer support in our Category Leaders ratings—which is important considering that many small businesses lack a dedicated IT department. They also each start at less than $100/month.
Let’s take a closer look.
1. Bookmark is budget-friendly and AI powered
The Toronto-based Bookmark is built around an AI-powered website builder named AiDA (Artificial Intelligence Design Assistant). It’s targeted at small businesses with the claim that it can build a brand new website in less than two minutes, and then walk the user through setting up their business.
Key features
Multi-channel eCommerce ready (Facebook, Instagram, Google Shopping, Ebay, Amazon, Tumblr, and more)
Mobile responsive
Reviews management
Price: $24.99/month for the eCommerce package. Bookmark also offers a small business website plan for $11.99/month, but this plan lacks the eCommerce features.
2. CS-Cart earned a perfect rating in our analysis
Founded in 2005, CS-Cart has been used by more than 35,000 online sellers in 170 countries. CS-Cart is not a SaaS product, meaning that when you buy it, you own the code and can customize it to suit your needs. If you’re not so technically inclined, you can just use the product out of the box; CS-Cart includes limited technical support.
It’s worth noting that CS-Cart is the only eCommerce product in our Category Leaders to earn perfect 20/20 ratings for ease of use, value for money, functionality, customer support, and likelihood to recommend.
Key features
Open source code
Special promotions management
Multiple payment provider support
Price: $385 (perpetual use license) comes with 50 technical support credits. The B2B package is $2,450 and adds B2B features and offers 30 days of unlimited tech support. The B2B and B2C plan is $4,750 and offers six months of unlimited tech support.
3. Lightspeed POS is much more than a point of sale
Founded in 2005 in Montreal, Lightspeed POS bills itself as a “complete point of sale and inventory management tool” and the company takes pride in powering independent businesses. More than just a retail point of sale system, the Starter plan also includes everything you need to set up an eCommerce store online. The system is designed for brick and mortar retailers who also want to sell online.
Key features
AI-powered inventory suggestions
Free onboarding and 24/7 chat, email, and phone support
Built-in customer rewards program (available in the Advanced plan)
Price: $99/month for the Starter plan. Upgrading to the Standard plan ($119/month) adds accounting features. Upgrading to the Advanced plan ($169/month) adds customer loyalty features. Upgrading to the Pro plan ($229/month) adds analytics.
4. X-Cart offers the flexibility of open source or SaaS
While CS-Cart earned perfect marks across the board in our Category Leaders analysis, X-Cart wasn’t far behind, losing just one point each on Features, Ease of Use, and Value for Money for an overall score of 97/100 in our analysis. Originally developed all the way back in 2000 by a Russian development team, X-Cart is now headquartered in Athens, Georgia and used by more than 38,000 online stores in 111 countries.
Also like CS-Cart, X-Cart offers an open source option for companies that want to take total ownership of the code, or a fully hosted SaaS version (called X-Cart Cloud) for companies that want a little more guidance.
Key features
Advertising and marketing email integrations
Real-time shipping quotes
120+ payment gateways
Price: $49/month for X-Cart Cloud. Contact X-Cart for enterprise (source code) pricing.
More eCommerce apps for small businesses
Hopefully one of these options is exactly what you need. But if you’d like to keep browsing, there are lots of other options in our eCommerce directory of apps, where you can filter by free options, iPhone support, company size, industry specialization, and more.
Methodologies
Survey methodology The GetApp COVID-19 Consumer & Employee Impact Survey was conducted in June 2020 to understand how the priorities and preferences of people—as consumers, employees, and patients—have shifted due to COVID-19. We surveyed 564 consumers making up a representative sample (by age and gender) of the U.S. population.
We worded the questions to ensure that each respondent fully understood the meaning and the topic at hand.
Category Leaders methodology
Category Leaders rankings highlight top-ranked North American software products based on ratings from end-users in five key areas: ease of use, value for money, functionality, customer support, and likelihood to recommend.
To create each Category Leaders ranking, our research team may evaluate hundreds of products in any one category. Only the products with the highest scores become Category Leaders.
Data sources include approved user reviews, public data sources, and data from technology vendors. Please refer to the GetApp Community Guidelines for more information.
Inclusion Criteria
To be eligible for inclusion in a category, products must meet the following criteria:
Product has at least 20 unique product reviews published on GetApp within 24 months of the start of the research process for a given report. Two years of reviews provides a sample that we have determined is large enough and recent enough to be valuable to buyers. The criteria is also set low enough to ensure emerging vendors can be represented.
Product achieves a minimum normalized rating in each of the 5 key areas (ease of use, value for money, functionality, customer support, and likelihood to recommend) after application of the Category Leaders method for normalizing and weighting review recency (see description under “Scoring” section).
Product shows evidence of offering required functionality as demonstrated by publicly-available sources, such as the vendor’s website.
Product serves North American users, as demonstrated by product reviews submitted from that region.
Product is relevant to software buyers across industries or sectors—in other words, no “niche” solutions that cater exclusively to one specific type of user, as determined by our analysis of user reviews and/or market research.
Scoring
To arrive at a final score per product:
Scores are calculated for each of the five dimensions (ease of use, value for money, functionality, customer support, and likelihood to recommend) based on average user ratings.
User ratings in each dimension are provided on a scale of 1 to 5.
Newer ratings are weighted more heavily, and products with more ratings are advantaged over those with fewer, to provide a sample large enough and recent enough to be valuable to buyers.
Scores for each dimension are scaled to a maximum of 20 points, resulting in a total maximum score of 100.
Although two products may sometimes receive the same total score when rounding to the nearest integer, true ties are rare when we consider decimal points; however, in the event of a true tie, products with tying scores will be listed in alphabetical order.
Products are represented, included, and/or scored solely based on user reviews and independent of any relationship that GetApp has with vendors.
As a seven-time award winner in the Maryland, Delaware, D.C. and Suburban Newspapers of America editorial contests, Andrew’s work has been featured in the Baltimore Sun and PSFK. He lives in Austin with his wife, son, and their rescue dog, Piper.
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