The best ecommerce platforms for your business in 2023

When consumers arrive at your digital storefront, they expect a frictionless experience that allows them to transition from page to page, explore product offerings, and place their orders with ease.

But that’s not all. Today’s consumer also wants a personalized journey incorporating multiple touchpoints, including social media interactions, ads, emails, and on-page web experiences. They want to be able to purchase products quickly and efficiently, and an increasingly large percentage of them want these transactions to take place solely online.

In 2022 alone, ecommerce spending surpassed $1 trillion. This marks a continuation of a multi-year shift toward online-first or, in many cases, online-only shopping habits. With more consumers flocking to the internet to make purchases, businesses adapted to capitalize on this ongoing trend.

Whether you’re a B2C, B2B, or hybrid merchant, you must keep pace with the competition by delivering hyper-personalized experiences consistent with consumer expectations. To do so, however, you’ll need a modern ecommerce platform that supports customer acquisition, strengthens sales volumes, and fuels your long-term growth.

There are numerous options to choose from when it comes to ecommerce platforms. As such, it can be confusing to figure out which one is right for your business. This helpful guide will highlight several of the most popular ecommerce platforms and lay out their pros and cons so you can feel confident choosing the best one for your store.

More specifically, this post will cover:

• What an ecommerce platform is
• How to choose an ecommerce platform
• Important ecommerce platform features
• Adobe Commerce — best overall
• Squarespace — popular for WYSIWYG editing
• Shopify — best for beginners
• Wix — popular for small businesses
• Square
• BigCommerce
• WooCommerce
• Weebly
• Best ecommerce platforms for 2023 and beyond

What is an ecommerce platform?

An ecommerce platform is a software solution that helps business owners deploy and manage their online stores. The best ecommerce platforms include a dynamic array of tools to support your needs and those of your customers. Such a platform creates a centralized hub through which you can manage all operations related to selling services or products online.

Ecommerce platforms can assist with managing your store by providing hosting services, payment processing capabilities, inventory management tools, and web design functionality. Leading options will also support the creation of review and product pages, allow you to fulfill orders, and facilitate returns processing.

How to choose an ecommerce platform

Choosing an ecommerce platform to use requires you to take stock of your business needs and clearly define your organizational objectives. Think about how your business functions and what you need — and don’t need — from an ecommerce platform.

For instance, you may not need robust inventory management if you have a smaller inventory. Or if you operate a hybrid company with physical locations and an online store, you need something that can support all facets of your business model.

When searching for the best ecommerce platform for your business, you should consider some important factors.

Budget

As you’ll see in our exploration of top ecommerce platforms, the price point of these solutions varies widely.

When you’re considering the cost of a prospective solution, don’t simply focus on the dollar figure. Instead, consider what sort of value you’re getting in exchange for your investment. Saving a few dollars on the front end may seem like a good business move, but not if those savings come at the expense of critical functionality.

To balance your budget with your organizational needs, make a list of must-have features, along with some optional “nice-to-have” functionalities. The platform you ultimately go with should include all must-have capabilities, plus as many add-on tools as you can work into your spending limit.

Functionality and architecture

Coding and programming the back end of your digital commerce platform is one of the most significant costs you’ll incur when running an online store. Fortunately, you can keep these costs in check by opting for a headless commerce platform.

Under the headless model, the front-end and back-end systems are decoupled. To communicate, they use an application program interface (API), which includes a series of definitions and protocols that tell the two systems how to exchange information.

Configuring, modifying, and managing an ecommerce platform with a headless architecture is far less expensive than going the traditional route. More importantly, a headless solution gives you the freedom to create more personalized and engaging experiences for your audience.

Security

When customers visit your store and put in their payment information, they expect you to do your part to protect it. To fulfill your obligation to your customers, you must choose a commerce platform equipped with the latest cybersecurity features.

Prioritizing security will make your business less susceptible to cyberattacks and enable you to preserve your brand image. You can also earn and keep your customers’ trust by providing a safe, worry-free shopping experience.

Web design

Rudimentary ecommerce platforms feature generic themes that allow you to quickly get your page up and running. However, these themes and templates don’t produce a unique user experience, meaning it can be challenging to differentiate yourself from the competition.

The best ecommerce platforms have dozens of free themes, as well as premium themes and templates you can choose from. Investing in a premium theme will set the stage for an engaging and dynamic customer experience. Once you pick your theme, you can customize it to align with your brand image.

Hosting

The best ecommerce platforms provide cloud-based hosting services as a monthly subscription. However, some platforms don’t offer hosting, meaning you’ll have to find a third-party entity to obtain these services, which will involve additional recurring fees.

Alternatively, you can self-host your store. While this approach gives you maximum autonomy, you’ll take on the hassles associated with hosting your own site. What’s more, self-hosting can be quite costly.

Maintenance

Ecommerce sites, like virtually any other digital assets, require ongoing maintenance to ensure they continue operating at peak performance. Most ecommerce platforms include maintenance-related expenses in your monthly hosting fee. However, you’ll likely incur several other upkeep costs, such as a recurring fee for your domain name.

Another fee to be mindful of is your secure sockets layer (SSL) certificate. The SSL is a cryptographic protocol that provides communications security between your platform and a consumer’s device.

Important ecommerce platform features

After considering each of the factors outlined above, you can shift your attention to the various features that different ecommerce platforms provide. It’s important to take the time to familiarize yourself thoroughly with each potential solution’s features to make sure it’s appropriate for your store.

Some features to consider include:

1. Payment processing. An all-in-one ecommerce platform that includes payment processing capabilities will help you effortlessly track cash flow and sales volume. Additionally, consolidating payment processing, inventory management, and other ecommerce functions into a unified solution will yield a frictionless customer experience.
2. Shipping. Ideally, you want an ecommerce platform that also assists with shipping and fulfillment. The solution should provide shipping management capabilities to prevent stock-outs, avoid overselling, and expedite fulfillment processes.
3. Inventory management. Consolidating inventory management with other ecommerce functions provides real-time visibility into product availability. You can use these insights to engage in demand forecasting and better serve your customers.
4. Analytics. Adapting to shifting consumer trends is critical to the success of your digital store. That said, you need an ecommerce platform that provides sophisticated analytics capabilities to monitor business performance and track consumer behavior.
5. Marketing. Combining marketing and store management into a unified solution will allow you to cultivate dynamic, consistent customer experiences across all touchpoints, from social media and email to your digital storefront.
6. Security. Make sure your ecommerce platform includes tools to strengthen your cybersecurity position. The ideal solution will integrate with your existing technologies and feature safeguards that reflect the latest security best practices.
7. Web design. The best ecommerce platforms simplify the web design process by providing users with drag-and-drop tools and a broad selection of themes and templates. Whether you’re an experienced web designer or a newcomer to the digital commerce space, you should be able to effortlessly create an engaging online store on your chosen platform.

A platform that checks all the boxes by providing the above features will effectively meet your company’s needs and help you provide a more engaging and holistic customer journey.

Now that we’ve provided some tips on choosing the right solution for your business and touched on a few of the features you should look for, let’s shift our focus to the best platforms of 2023.

As a bonus, we’ve made a note of who each solution is best suited for or what its most popular functionality is to help you quickly identify the right option for your business.

Adobe Commerce — best overall

Although there are many different platforms available for digital retailers, Adobe Commerce stands out as the best overall ecommerce platform, especially for enterprise-level organizations. That said, it’s versatile enough to meet the needs of virtually any business, thanks to its dynamic assortment of features and capabilities.

Formerly Magento, Adobe Commerce boasts powerful tools to help you launch, manage, and grow your digital store effortlessly.

You can host multiple instances on a single platform and deploy directly on the cloud to maximize scalability. Commerce boasts native integrations with the expansive Adobe ecosystem, including Adobe Creative Cloud, Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Target, and Adobe Analytics. Cumulatively, these products empower you to deliver an unparalleled level of personalization.

As a headless platform, you also have the ability to combine Adobe Commerce with your choice of third-party applications. You can build your version of the ideal technology stack to support business growth and meet customer needs.

With Commerce, you gain access to real-time inventory control capabilities. You can track stock levels using up-to-the-minute insights, place just-in-time reorders, and maintain adequate inventory based on the latest consumer trends.

Additionally, the solution’s built-in artificial intelligence tools facilitate advanced reporting for an illustrative top-down view of your operations. You can easily transform complex datasets into rich reports and visualizations that make performance data more digestible and applicable.

Pros

Commerce provides a plethora of benefits, including smart product recommendations, flexible inventory-management capabilities, and easy page-creation processes.

Owing to its versatility, Commerce can support the needs of B2C, B2B, hybrid, and direct-to-consumer (D2C) merchants. You’ll also benefit from the platform’s multichannel functionality, which is designed to support the modern consumer journey and facilitate lead nurturing across multiple touchpoints.

Perhaps most notably, Commerce features thousands of extensions, making it a great addition to your SEO strategy. With Commerce, you also gain access to a thriving community of experts, which you can connect with to accelerate your time to value and maximize your ROI.

Cons

Commerce is an incredibly sophisticated and versatile ecommerce platform, which is why it’s so effective at meeting the needs of enterprise-level merchants.

However, capitalizing on its complexity to support business growth typically requires the support of more experienced developers. Taking advantage of the many powerful features of Commerce also involves paying additional hosting fees, which is an important consideration for businesses working with restrictive technology budgets.

Commerce may be somewhat costly for small businesses, such as independent merchants and local stores that have recently transitioned to digital sales. While Commerce is by no means off limits for these businesses, they must count the costs of implementing it to ensure that the platform aligns with their current level of maturity.

Squarespace — popular for WYSIWYG editing

Since 2004, Squarespace has provided businesses with easy-to-use web hosting and creation tools. Although it didn’t enter the ecommerce arena until several years later, the provider has since become a staple in the digital retail space.

Despite its popularity, Squarespace includes a relatively limited list of capabilities and features. Its selection of templates and themes is equally scant.

Even with these shortcomings, though, Squarespace is a good fit for many small businesses.

Less tech-savvy individuals find “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) editing capabilities especially appealing. The WYSIWYG editing format allows users to edit their site in a form that closely resembles what end users will see. This approach takes the guesswork out of creating websites, meaning small business owners can quickly get their platforms up and running.

When signing up for Squarespace, users will receive free domain registration and an SSL certificate. Squarespace helps businesses manage their ecommerce platform expenses by consolidating these costs into a single fee.

While Squarespace doesn’t offer all that many themes, its library does include several award-winning templates. These have been recognized for their user-friendly design and engaging layout.

Pros

Squarespace is likely to be particularly appealing to small business owners due to its excellent price point. As one of the most affordable ecommerce platforms on the market, it makes hosting a digital store accessible to virtually any merchant, regardless of size or revenue.

Additionally, Squarespace provides 24/7 customer support. Should a customer encounter an issue with their platform, they can quickly connect with someone to remedy the problem.

As an added benefit, the platform offers unlimited storage and bandwidth at a fixed monthly fee. This is just one of the many ways it helps small merchants minimize their ecommerce overhead.

Cons

As noted, Squarespace has its share of drawbacks, which is to be expected with an ultra-affordable ecommerce platform. Its biggest downside is that it doesn’t support multichannel selling, meaning users must funnel all prospective customers to their web stores — they can’t support social media transactions or other popular sales methods.

While Squarespace excels in terms of customer support accessibility, the capabilities of its support agents are somewhat limited. As such, users are often left to their own devices (no pun intended) when it comes to resolving site glitches. Lastly, Squarespace doesn’t provide a free plan.

Pricing

Squarespace offers tier-based pricing with the following four levels:

1. Personal — $16/month
2. Business — $23/month
3. Basic Commerce — $27/month
4. Advanced Commerce — $49/month

Since the platform bills on a month-to-month basis, users can cancel, upgrade, or downgrade their subscription at any time.

Shopify — best for beginners

Shopify is known for its simplicity and intuitive design, which is why we consider it the best option for beginners and small businesses. While some will view its simplicity as a limitation, others are drawn to it precisely for this reason.

Shopify features a host of digital tools that can be used on mobile or standard websites. The platform can also support hybrid business models and generate traffic for brick-and-mortar stores.

Millions of independent merchants and small business owners leverage Shopify to support their ecommerce needs. The platform includes dozens of free themes, as well as premium templates. It also features a multitude of integrations that users can leverage to facilitate dropshipping, streamline payment processing, and optimize their sales model.

Pros

Shopify allows for a quick and frictionless setup process and backs its platform with 24/7 support. You can also hire experts within the Shopify ecosystem to help you optimize your digital storefront. As an ecommerce platform and point-of-sale (POS) system, Shopify can be integrated with your existing sales hardware, such as card readers.

The Shopify platform pairs your preferred selection of front-end systems with its robust back-end software using headless architecture. This approach yields nimble, responsive websites that align with modern consumers’ shopping preferences.

The cherry on top is Shopify’s headless approach, which lets you add other applications to your ecommerce ecosystem as your business evolves.

Cons

Shopify relies heavily on drag-and-drop inventory-building processes, which makes managing a large selection of products on the platform impractical. While you can import inventory and pricing data using third-party integrations, you’ll have to pay additional licensing fees to access these capabilities.

Compared to many other ecommerce platforms for small businesses, Shopify is more costly once you account for the various add-on fees you’ll ultimately incur. Between payment, processing, and transaction fees (not to mention the need for third-party integrations), you can easily find yourself paying thousands per month to use Shopify.

Pricing

Shopify’s pricing model includes three tiers:

1. Basic — $39/month
2. Shopify — $105/month
3. Advanced — $399/month

In addition to the price of the plan itself, you'll also pay a per-transaction credit card fee. The fee includes a $0.30 base charge plus a percentage rate that ranges from 2.4%–2.9%.

Wix — popular for small businesses

In the early days of Wix, the platform’s sites were rudimentary at best. However, it has since expanded its offering and now offers users access to a diverse assortment of tools and functions. It’s a favorite among small businesses, as its intuitive tools allow newcomers to build and deploy cloud-based websites with ease.

Today, Wix is known for an all-in-one ecommerce platform for solopreneurs and small businesses. It has plenty of visually appealing templates and back-end tools for managing inventory, processing payments, and maximizing sales revenue.

With these sorts of perks, Wix helped level the playing field for up-and-coming merchants interested in making their way into the digital retail space.

Pros

Wix users gain access to a thriving app market and dozens of captivating templates. From fun and whimsical to crisp, clean, and professional, Wix has a template to align with the brand voice of nearly any retailer. The platform is also known for providing comprehensive security, solid support, and exceptional site speed.

From a creativity standpoint, Wix gives you the flexibility to build your site however you see fit. You can use its drag-and-drop tools to deliver a unique web experience without writing a single line of code or saddling yourself with exorbitant web development fees.

Cons

Creating your initial Wix store is a frictionless and efficient process. However, if you decide to go back and switch to a different template later on, be prepared to encounter some difficulties. You may lose some important customizations and have to recreate site features that get lost in the transition.

Another aspect of Wix that many business owners will consider less than ideal is that it offers limited SEO functionality, meaning you’ll need to rely heavily on other applications to build your online presence.

Pricing

The Wix platform is available at the following three price points:

1. Business Basic — $27/month
2. Business Unlimited — $32/month
3. Business VIP — $59/month

Wix also offers enterprise plans, but pricing information isn’t readily available for these.

Square — best for mobile payment processing

Square began as a portable POS solution for mobile merchants and service providers. Since then, it’s evolved into a full-fledged ecommerce platform, recurring payments processor, and payrolling solution.

Although its ecommerce capabilities are relatively limited compared to some of the other platforms on our list, it has much to offer independent entrepreneurs and merchants looking to gain traction within their respective niches.

Square boasts transparent, affordable pricing. It’s also constantly expanding its selection of features and applications, which has allowed it to become a major player within the ecommerce platform space. Square supports contactless payments and traditional card-based transactions, enabling merchants to adapt to evolving consumer preferences.

Pros

Square provides flat-rate pricing, which is a valuable service for low-volume merchants.

The platform provides free online selling tools and affordable card chip readers that can be purchased upfront or via installments. This gives merchants leeway to spread out their business expenses while accessing the payment processing hardware they need to generate sales.

The Square platform has several tiers, including a no monthly fee option. Under this model, merchants only pay a flat fee whenever they conduct a transaction.

Cons

Although Square charges a flat-rate fee, the per-transaction cost is quite high. As such, the platform probably isn’t a good match for enterprise companies with a high transaction volume.

Square does offer some fraud and identity theft protection features. However, these features aren’t robust enough to meet the needs of high-risk industries.

Pricing

Square has three plans, which are as follows:

1. Free — $0/month + processing fees
2. Plus — $29/month + processing fees
3. Premium — Variable monthly rate + processing fees

Card readers and software solutions are billed separately.

BigCommerce — popular for managing large inventories

BigCommerce is trusted by some major ecommerce organizations. The platform prioritizes scalability, stability, site performance, and security while enabling merchants to create engaging customer experiences. The all-in-one solution supports payment processing, marketing, and a wide variety of other digital commerce functions.

As a headless solution, BigCommerce enables you to create a digital retail experience that aligns with your long-term growth goals and vision. The platform is versatile enough to meet the needs of both enterprise-level newcomers and existing brands looking to reinvent their digital presence.

Pros

BigCommerce equips users with an extensive selection of tools to address the basics of digital commerce, such as building dynamic product webpages. However, it also addresses more complex aspects of online retail by providing tools to support omnichannel sales and international transactions.

BigCommerce is equally suited for B2B, B2C, and hybrid applications. With BigCommerce, you can access a wealth of functionality and capabilities to achieve organizational objectives. The reasonably priced platform features flexible distribution channels, brand-building capabilities, and analytics tools so you can align your sales and marketing teams.

Cons

BigCommerce can meet the needs of small businesses, but it was designed as an enterprise solution. As such, the price tag may be too large for small merchants.

There are also some issues with the platform’s SEO tools. For instance, it lacks integrated CRO and CTA tools, and creating subdomains for your blog can be tedious. These sorts of inconveniences can hinder your long-term awareness-building efforts and make it difficult for you to gain traction with new product offerings.

Pricing

BigCommerce provides pricing data for its three core subscription tiers:

1. Standard — $29/month
2. Plus — $79/month
3. Pro — $299/month

BigCommerce also offers custom enterprise pricing.

WooCommerce — best for WordPress users

WooCommerce isn’t a standalone ecommerce platform. Rather, it’s an open-source plugin that WordPress users can employ to add ecommerce capabilities to their existing sites.

That said, WooCommerce and WordPress are a great pairing for small to midsize businesses (SMBs) that want to create a simple, streamlined digital commerce experience for their customer bases.

Due to its open-source nature, WooCommerce offers users a great deal of flexibility and control. You can customize nearly every aspect of your hybrid platform, provided you have the time and skills. If you lack these talents, you can tap into WooCommerce’s global community and seek outside support.

Pros

Any WordPress users can avail themselves of WooCommerce for no cost, which is a major draw all its own. In addition to being free to use, WooCommerce provides a holistic picture of ecommerce data, allowing users to maximize their site security and perform crucial analytics to measure business performance.

As an open-source solution, the platform is also highly scalable, making it versatile enough to meet the needs of small businesses, rapidly growing companies, and enterprise-level organizations.

If you already use WordPress, WooCommerce will feel pleasantly familiar and have a shallow learning curve. You can also access WooCommerce through its intuitive mobile app, which makes it possible to manage tasks from anywhere.

Cons

While WooCommerce provides exceptional flexibility via its open-source design and community of passionate members, it presents something of a trade-off — since there are so many extensions, the only way to discover which ones work and which don’t is by trying them.

As you might imagine, this process can quickly become tedious, especially if you’re attempting to add a popular feature to your WooCommerce site.

On top of that, WooCommerce has to be added to WordPress. If you’re using a different hosting solution, you'll have to make the switch to WordPress or choose another platform.

Pricing

Describing WooCommerce as “free” is a bit misleading. While you won’t pay anything to use the WooCommerce plugin or its extensions, you need a WordPress site that can support plugins, which comes at a cost.

Weebly — popular for ease of use

Weebly is perhaps the most user-friendly solution in our guide. It gives you the option to create free digital storefronts that are visually appealing and responsive. Weebly also offers integrated ecommerce tools, free hosting, a library of customizable templates, a personalized email address and domain, and a number of support options.

Unsurprisingly, you'll have to upgrade to a paid version of Weebly to access its premium features. The free version is also filled with in-app ads that can disrupt your workflow and hamper productivity.

Still, Weebly is a great introductory-level ecommerce platform that offers digital retail newcomers a risk-free way to build their first store.

Pros

Weebly’s many templates, designs, and themes are modern, attractive, and easy to implement.

The platform provides unlimited data transfers and offers a seamless purchasing experience for your customers. You can also switch themes without engaging in a full-scale site rebuild, which is a nice touch.

Cons

Weebly provides limited customization options and little storage. Moreover, some customers have voiced concerns about the platform’s customer service (or lack thereof). Poor response and ticket resolution times were among the chief complaints.

If you use the free version of Weebly, you can’t use your own domain name. You'll also be targeted with in-add ads until you upgrade to a paid plan.

Pricing

Weebly’s billing model includes four competitively-priced tiers:

1. Free — $0/month
2. Personal — $13/month
3. Professional — $16/month
4. Performance — $29/month

All three paid plans can be billed month-to-month or annually. If you opt for annual billing, the Personal plan will cost $120 per year, while the Professional plan will cost $144, and the Performance plan will cost $312.

Best ecommerce platforms for 2023 and beyond

The best ecommerce platform for your business is the one that aligns with your unique needs, challenges, and growth goals. While having a feature-laden ecommerce platform may seem beneficial, it’s important to focus on the tools and functions that will deliver measurable value for your business, not flashy bells and whistles.

If you haven’t done so yet, collaborate with your team to identify precisely what you need from your ecommerce platform and which capabilities will provide the strongest return on investment. Use this checklist to rule out unsuitable contenders and accelerate your search for the right solution.

As you'll quickly realize, Adobe Commerce is the most versatile, agile, and adaptable ecommerce platform for businesses of all sizes. Commerce is a great choice for virtually any business, regardless of what your store demands.

You can build pages using intuitive templates, manage multi-store inventory, and sell through multiple channels, all from a centralized hub. It’s especially well-suited for enterprise-level organizations but also includes a host of tools and features geared toward the needs of small to midsize businesses.

As part of Adobe Experience Cloud, Commerce includes an array of cloud-based omnichannel solutions that empower both B2B and B2C brands to seamlessly combine physical and digital shopping experiences.

To derive even more value from your Commerce deployment, you can pair it with other solutions within the Adobe ecosystem, including Adobe Marketo Engage and Adobe Analytics.

Take a product tour to learn more about why Adobe Commerce is the ideal solution for your ecommerce business. You can also watch the overview video for a detailed explanation of how Adobe Commerce can power your business through 2023 and beyond.