E-commerce website development is a difficult task. It requires a proficient team that understands the technical details deeply. A good team comes at a high cost and needs time to create the solution. 

You start an online store for the following reasons - maybe you have different reasons.

1. Show your customers the product catalog with ease.
2. Online purchase through multiple sales channels.
3. Ease of doing business with you.  

In the end, you want to earn profit from your store.

Since developing a custom online store requires a long time, I highly advise using one of the available options. You can hire our e-commerce website development service if you need a fully personalized website. My team and I will help you create your custom solution.

If you search the internet, you may find that many companies have created their solutions and hosted them on the cloud service. They offer a good deal to start your website. 

I looked into many options and found three good options for a small or medium online store. 

You do not need to have technical savvy to use them. You can create your store within an hour after following their technical guide. These options have everything you need for any online store. You can read this guide about what various features should any e-commerce platform provides.

Once your store is ready, you can focus on product marketing – the most critical function of any business.

I reviewed these platforms on the following criteria and compared them.  

1. Easy to set up an online store.
2. Products import and export features. You do not want to lock in the platform.
3. User interface customization options. Your store should be different from others. Right?
4. Payment gateway integration. And how easy can you add any third-party payment gateway?
5. In-built marketing and SEO tools.

I figured that Shopify, Bigcommerce, and Wix are three e-commerce platforms. You can choose any one of them to build your small online store. Why? I have the following reasoning.

1. Wix: An option for a small online store.
2. Shopify: You can use it if your store is medium and the user base is not big enough.
3. Bigcommerce: You can use it if you want a large online store.

 All three platforms have many features in common that are easy to use. The difference lies in the infrastructure and the ease of scaling in the future.

Wix and Shopify require no or less learning. But Bigcommerce requires learning in the beginning. Once you are comfortable using them, you can effectively scale your store.

These platforms have valuable technical support, and you will not find any trouble in the future.

These e-commerce platforms give you many benefits. But the following are some benefits you can get from the above options;

1. Self-hosting store - you do not need to purchase any hosting service.
2. SEO and marketing tools out of the box.
3. Technical support.
4. Payment gateway integration from different players.

My team and I develop e-commerce and CMS websites using Drupal and Joomla frameworks. You can book our IT outsourcing service when you have custom requirements and need a personalized solution. We will contact you as soon as possible.