Which eCommerce Platform is Best in Australia?

These days everyone is online, whether it is for entertainment purposes, socialising or carrying out their day-to-day activities like shopping, making appointments etc. With smartphones and other smart devices becoming an essential part of everyday life for people, this new trend is sure to improve over the months and years to come, which is why for a business that is selling products and services, an ecommerce website is of vital importance. These types of websites can be quite complex, and the reason why you will need the help of a company with immense experience in ecommerce web development for Melbourne and Sydney businesses, if you are also thinking of taking your brick-and-mortar store to the online arena.

Why is ecommerce so important for business?

With the shift in consumer behaviour from physical shopping to online shopping, businesses have found the need to create a presence for themselves online if they want to keep up with their competition. This trend took a sharp upward turn during the global Covid-19 pandemic when many countries were under lockdown, and the only way that businesses could manage to stay afloat was if they sold online. People too began to see the convenience and ease offered by these online stores, and have continued with the trend, post pandemic as well.

According to experienced companies who carry out web design and development for Melbourne and Sydney based businesses, there are many benefits that a business can enjoy by having an online store. These include:

● Broaden your horizons: While a traditional brick and mortar store limits a business’s operations into one specific geo location, with an ecommerce store there is no restriction on whom you can reach. Businesses can even reach global customers with an online store, increasing their potential to earn higher revenue and profits.

● Accessible to customers at any time: An online store is always open, and customers can buy goods and services at any time convenient to them. This allows for more opportunities in terms of sales, as there is no closing time, like in a physical store.

● Highly scalable: When looking to scale your physical store, you will need to consider the costs and time and so many other factors as well. However, with an online store, scaling your business with an enhanced product range is simple and easy, and costs just a fraction of what you would spend growing a retail store.

● Better marketing opportunities: An ecommerce website will open up more marketing opportunities for a business at just a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing techniques.

How to get an ecommerce website developed?

There are millions of ecommerce websites around the world, and one of the most important factors when getting one developed is that it offers a great user experience that will keep your customers coming back to it over and over again. This is why you need to hire a company that has a lot of experience in web design and development.

A good web development company will understand your business goals, your industry, your products or services and will create an ecommerce website that suits your specific requirements. They will also give you a choice of how you want to get it done; whether you want it built from scratch or customise an existing website design according to your business specifics. In addition, they will also discuss with you and make recommendations for the most suitable ecommerce platform available for your website.

What are the different ecommerce platforms available in Australia?

There are many different ecommerce platforms that are being used in Australia by companies that provide web development services. However, not all of these are the same, and what is ideal for one business may not be good for another.

According to Kosala Indrasiri, the Founder and CEO of Sanmark Solutions, “At Sanmark Solutions, we have helped many Australian businesses succeed online by building custom ecommerce solutions. While there are many great ecommerce platforms available, we believe it’s important for business owners to carefully consider their options and choose a platform that offers the features and support they need to achieve their goals. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to upgrade your existing ecommerce platform, we can help you find the solution that works best for your business.”

So, what are some of the more commonly used ecommerce platforms in Australia? According to articles published by Ecommerce Platforms (Best Ecommerce Platform Australia (Jan 2023): Top Picks – Ecommerce Platforms) and Mobile Transaction (6 Best Ecommerce Platforms in Australia) the following are some of the best ecommerce platforms used for Australian businesses. Let’s have a look at each of them!

1. Shopify

Shopifyis one of the most used ecommerce platforms on the market, because of its great user friendliness. It is a subscription-based platform that offers different plans according to different business needs, and is ideal for small businesses who want to leverage the benefits of going online, while still keeping their overheads low.

This platform offers many benefits, such as:

• Ease of use.
• Affordable pricing modules.
• Highly secure technology.
• Mobile compatibility.
• Email marketing features.
• Fantastic growth potential.
• Ability to deal in any currency.

While there are so many benefits to using Shopify, there are a few drawbacks as well, such as:

• Basic and limited themes.
• Fewer SEO options.
• They incur a transaction fee if you do not use their Shopify Payments feature.

2. BigCommerce

BigCommerce, based in the USA, is another fast-growing ecommerce platform that many businesses in Australia are using, and is suitable for small businesses to large corporations. This platform allows businesses to set up their store, and start selling an unlimited number of products and services through it. Similar to Shopify, this too is a subscription-based platform, but rates tend to be a little higher than the former.

Users can enjoy many features offered by BigCommerce, irrespective of which subscription plan they choose, which is why many businesses are favouring this platform. However, it is not for beginners, because they offer complex functionality and operating and maintaining your store means navigating both the backend and frontend.

The pros of using BigCommerce include:

• Many standard features that can actually help you save money.
• Adding products and product variants is very easy and flexible.
• Scalability.
• They do not charge any transaction fees.
• They offer great SEO features and options.

Some of the cons associated with using BigCommerce includes:

• Their subscription plans come with an annual sale limit, and you will automatically be upgraded to a higher plan if you exceed that limit.
• They do not offer any email marketing tools.
• This platform does not allow for subscription-based sales or recurring payments.
• No built-in feature that supports multilingual options.

3. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is essentially an ecommerce plugin for WordPress, that makes designing and creating your online store a simple and easy process. They offer many features that are extremely useful for businesses such as inventory control, secure payment options, shipping integration and even tax management. In addition, they also offer features such as order tracking, delivery updates etc.

WooCommerce is open source and hence they offer fantastic customisation options for your ecommerce site, and the best part; it is a free plugin! In addition, it is very easy to learn how to use it, which makes it the ideal platform for anyone.

Pros of using WooCommerce for ecommerce web development for Sydney and Melbourne businesses:

• Flexibility.
• Unlimited customisation options.
• High security.
• Better user experience.

Some cons of using WooCommerce includes:

• It can only be used on WordPress sites.
• Although it is a free plugin, certain extensions will need to be paid for in order for your site to work at its peak performance.

4. Wix

Wix.com is a cloud-based website building platform that also offers design features as well as web hosting facilities. It is one of the most user-friendly platforms available with tools that allow for drag and drop features. They also offer hundreds of templates which can be used to easily design and create your ecommerce store. Wix is not only easy to use when it comes to web design and development, but is optimised for mobile as well, which is great for businesses that want to expand even further.

This platform is ideal for both small and medium scale businesses and they offer three different pricing plans, with different features and storage. Their pricing is quite affordable for the features and options that they offer.

Pros of using the Wix platform include:

• Affordable pricing.
• Professional design and templates.
• Live editing feature that is easy and highly flexible.
• Great customer support.

Some of the cons of using Wix include:

• Slow page loading speed which can have a huge impact on user experience levels.
• The platform only offers basic analytics, so if you are someone who wants deeper insights, then this is not the platform for you.
• You cannot change templates after you go live with your site.

5. Squarespace

Squarespace is another USA based company that offers a very simple and easy to use website building tool. There is no coding required at all for this platform, which means anyone can use it to create their website or ecommerce store. This platform, although offering very simple tools, boasts on their ability to create fantastic websites that will stand out, and that are also SEO friendly. The design templates they offer are award winning and their platform has been used by celebrities as well, including UK fashion designer Sadie Williams and the site for Arch Motorcycle founded by Keanu Reeves (see article What is Squarespace? Everything You Need to Know – Ecommerce Platforms (ecommerce-platforms.com)).

Advantages of using Squarespace:

• Easy to use templates.
• Photography based templates.
• Backend design is easy to use.
• All-in-one platform that includes apps, widgets and plugins already built into the builder.
• 24/7 customer support via email and live chat.

Disadvantages of using this platform:

• No phone support available.
• More expensive pricing.
• No advanced marketing tools.
• Although third-party apps, plugins and widgets are available, they do not offer any support for these.
• Adding and editing content is difficult.

6. Square Online

Square Online is another popular ecommerce platform for web design and development, that offers in built inventory management, POS system and online payments. These features help you to sync up your online store and physical store, especially in terms of inventory control and management. They offer a very cost effective and easy way to create your online store.

Square online has an initial free package (although you will still be asked to pay for payment processing etc), as well as paid packages, but the features available on the paid ones are far better and more advanced. The paid packages however, can be a bit more costly than Squarespace.

Pros of using Square Online:

• Free package included.
• Great features.
• You can sell unlimited products on both the site as well as through social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
• Easy-to-use dashboard with analytics.
• In-built marketing features that support email marketing as well as paid advertising.
• Higher plans offer advanced reporting features.

Cons if using Square Online:

• Limited customer service.
• Transaction fees are charged.
• Very limited options to customise your website.

7. Weebly

Weeblyis a very easy to use website builder, which is now a part of Square. This platform allows you to create highly responsive ecommerce sites that are both attractive and engaging. They offer a starting plan that is free of charge, and if you need to upgrade, the paid plans are extremely reasonably priced.

Creating an ecommerce site using Weebly is easy and flexible as they offer integrated ecommerce tools with a simple interface for building sites.

Advantages of using Weebly include:

• Offer a free package.
• Easy to use drag-and-drop feature.
• Easy page management.
• Highly attractive and responsive design themes.
• Can sell any type of goods or services.
• Good page loading times.

Some disadvantages if using Weebly include:

• Limited customisation options.
• No ‘undo” feature.
• Customer service is very slow to respond.
• Mobile feature is not up to the mark.

8. Sellfy

Sellfy helps you to sell a diverse range of products online, and is very easy to use. In simple terms, you can build your site within just a few minutes (so they claim)! In addition, they offer in-built marketing tools that keep track of performance as well as providing incentives to customers to spend more on the site. All these features and the fact they offer very simple website building tools, have made Sellfy quite a frontrunner when it comes to popular ecommerce platforms.

Some pros of using Sellfy:

• They offer a 14-day free trial period.
• Multi-currency online payment processing options.
• Adequate security features.
• They offer upselling, cross selling and coupons and discount tools.
• Comes with tracking and analytics tools, since it integrates directly with Google Analytics.
• It is mobile responsive.
• SEO friendly.
• You can sell an unlimited number of products and diverse product types including digital products.

Some cons of using Sellfy include:

• They support only two payment processors (PayPal and Stripe).
• After the trial period you will have to purchase a premium plan, which can be quite expensive.
• Restricted website customisation options.
• Limited app integrations.

In choosing the right eCommerce platform, consider the unique requirements of your business. For those looking for tailored solutions that leverage the full potential of technology, hiring Laravel developer services can develop a custom eCommerce platform that perfectly aligns with your business goals.

Conclusion

As you can see, when it comes to ecommerce web design and development for Sydney and Melbourne based businesses, there are quite a few options of suitable platforms that are available, each with their own pros and cons, and choosing the right one for you can be quite an overwhelming decision. This is why it is always best to consult with and hire an experienced web development company like Sanmark Solutions, because we have the right expertise and know-how when it comes to all things related to web design and development, and we will consider your requirements deeply, prior to recommending the best ecommerce platform for your Australian business.

There is no doubt about it that an online store is essential for your business if you want to enjoy enhanced reach, traffic and sales. So, speak to one of our friendly representatives today, and let us see how we can help you get the best services in ecommerce web development for your Melbourne or Sydney based business!