Best PHP e-commerce platforms to develop advanced e-commerce websites

An e-commerce platform is a software application that allows online businesses to deal with their website, sales and operations. Ecommerce business isn’t just about the profit, but has operational and technological challenges, so e-commerce platform plays a vital role in online business. Let us see the best PHP e-commerce platforms to develop advanced e-commerce websites.

Best PHP e-commerce platforms –

1. Magento-

Magento is one of the most popular open source e-commerce platforms. It is identical to that of WordPress, where you can choose themes among thousands and also there are a large number of extensions available, and hence allows easy integration of third party apps with e-commerce website. It offers complete flexibility and control over the look, content and functionality of an e-commerce website. Magento also controls multiple websites from one admin panel.

Benefits of Magento-

• It is free and its paid versions are also available, if you want to upgrade.
• Magento platform lets you to make separate multi-lingual site that will load depending on the location of user.
• You can customize the user interface and also admin area to look unique.

2. Opencart-

Open cart is very scalable, powerful e-commerce platform. Opencart is easy to use and lightweight as compared to other open source platforms. It has very strong professional community. It has 2500+ attractive themes so that you can customize your website. Its interface is not only visually tempting but also easy to use.

Benefits of Opencart-

• Its startup cost is very low, download is free and most of the themes are also free.
• The features of Opencart are solid. Its large catalog functionality works great for order processing.
• A person with average knowledge can setup Opencart because it doesn’t need much skill. Also, it can learn within less time as compared to Magento.
• Opencart offers multiple gateways such as PayPal, amazon payments, worldpay and many more.

3. Shopify-

Shopify is one of the easiest e-commerce framework. It features a customer menu to keep a record of the customer for marketing campaigns. It allows you to add multiple catalogues. Shopify platform is mobile friendly and also it can be edited in HTML and CSS directly. It offers unlimited bandwidth, multiple payment gateways and order management features likewise a Magento.

Benefits of Shopify-

• Shopify is easy to setup and use.
• Shopify itself offers the software and hosting that is needed for launching the website.
• Another benefit of Shopify is security and reliability it offers.
• Shopify has a reliable infrastructure with optimized hardware and software. As a result, this gives a fastest loading speed to the platform.
• The basic version offers SEO features with advanced e-commerce analytics.
• Shopify themes are mobile responsive. This is the key of the website’s success.
• The most significant thing is client support and shopify offers 24/7 customer support. There are a few different ways that get in touch with  are Live chat, email, phone, twitter.

4. WooCommerce-

WooCommerce is the most popular ecommerce platform that’s based on PHP programming language. It is an extension of WordPress CMS. It is easy to install by a beginner and also is easy to use. WooCommerce is entirely open source, which implies you can modify and customize anything and everything. It has thousands of themes available just pick the one that works with your prerequisites and you can customize your site from the homepage to the buy button. Sometimes you might face a difficulty where your store not being displayed like you want them to in such cases you may be compelled to change the theme to make everything fit. 

Benefits of WooCommerce-

• WooCommerce is open- source.
• It is professional and standard. It can be easily customized with a variety of themes. Also these themes can be further modified.
• Woocommerce offers a wide range of analytic tools.
• This platform is highly secure and this is because of the regular updates.
• Woocommerce offers a lot of flexibility. Using the plugins in WooCommerce, you can make changes in content more easily without any effort.
• It has a plenty of APIs available that users and developers can use to build extensions to improve size and capabilities.
• WordPress has a very large community.

5. Drupal Commerce-

Drupal Commerce is one of the most common options for ecommerce website development. It is a PHP open source ecommerce solution. Drupal Commerce allows you to build your e-commerce site rapidly with your already existing website. And it is the best solution if you are planning to scaling up your site quickly.

Benefits of Drupal Commerce-

• Speed and performance of Drupal Commerce is better than other open source e-commerce platforms.  
• It has its own  built in security system. It gets updated frequently to fix the bugs reported by the user.
• Drupal Commerce has a wide community for help. Also it has a video library and help guide is available on Drupal’s website.

6. OsCommerce-

OsCommerce is one of the oldest and most popular PHP e-commerce frameworks. It is Open source and easy to setup and maintain. It has a wide range of strong community with extensive support. Many plugins are freely available, if you have to upgrade with features some payable themes are also available.

Benefits of OsCommerce-

• OsCommerce is open-source.
• Various plugins are freely available.
• You can make more advanced customization.
• Beginners can also make changes, this is not that much difficult task.

7. X-cart-

X-cart is growing very rapidly over the years. It is free, open-source and self hosted. X-Cart offers shipping carrier integration like FedEx, UPS, Canada Post and Australia Post. It has awesome design templates.

Benefits of X-cart-

• It is open-source.
• It has various design templates.
• X-cart is fast and secure.
• There’s a very active community of many developers and e-commerce industry professionals.
• It is flexible and scalable.

8. Zencart-

Zencart can be used by the beginners without having a specific knowledge. It is more friendly than any other open-source platforms. Zencart is easy to install and able to support thousands of products. It supports multiple languages and multiple currencies.

Benefits of Zencart-

• Zencart has a wide range of features and full customization options.
• Community of Zencart is going strong.
• It has multiple payment options, shipping and tax options available.
• Multiple templates are available.
• It has a wide range of product management tools.
• It is secure.

9. PrestaShop-

PrestaShop is open source and one of the fastest leading and professional e-commerce frameworks. It has 310 dynamic e-commerce features including on page-checkout, downloadable products, features cross selling and one page checkout. You can use PrestaShop’s mobile theme to create a mobile version. It has 3500 modules and themes are available. It doesn’t need more experience to install the plugins. Prestashop is available in 63 different languages. It has a large number of community members.

Benefits of Prestashop-

• PrestaShop has a user- friendly interface
• It supports multiple languages and currencies.
• It is a lightweight e-commerce platform so that your site will not slow down.
• PrestaShop has the best collection of themes.

10. JigoShop-

JigoShop e-commerce is used for both small and big projects worldwide. If you are looking for a clean, simple yet very advanced e-commerce site, JigoShop is the best option for you. It is easy to use and also has a clean interface. It can expand functionality of site with large number of plugins. JigoShop is easy to use even for beginners. It has a basic dashboard with incredible themes and speedy interface.

Benefits of JigoShop-

• It is Open-source.
• It has a large number of themes.
• Code can be easily edited by yourself.

Final Words-

Now you have studied the best e-commerce platforms so you can choose the best one to develop your e-commerce site. You can build e-commerce website with basic functionalities in zero cost, because most of the platforms mentioned above are free. But if you want some advanced functionalities then you can proceed for upgrade plans. All these platforms have different functionalities, so selecting the best one is completely depends on your requirements.

Please contact us if you have any Web Development projects. We have got plenty of experience in Web and mobile application Development service.

Comparison Between E-commerce Platforms

In 21st century shopping ends up simpler by the use of internet and e-commerce. E-commerce, also known as electronic commerce or internet commerce. It refers to the buying and selling of goods or services using the internet, also the transfer of money and data to execute these transactions. First of all, E commerce business is not just about the profit, but it also has operational and technological challenges. Therefore E-commerce platforms plays a vital role in online business.

https://solaceinfotech.com/blog/comparison-between-e-commerce-platforms/

What is E-commerce Platform?

An e-commerce platform is a software application that allows online businesses to deal with their website, sales and operations. Regardless of whether you’re extending an clothing store, electronic store or starting any business with a small scale with no foundation, your choice of E-commerce platform has a big impact on the benefit and strength of your business. Also E commerce platforms gives businesses the ability to customize product data. Also it allows the approaches to best fit their own online retail needs, which can be a shared benefit for both the business and its customers. There are many E-commerce platforms available such as wix, Shopify, Woocommerce,  BigCommerce, Magento, Jimdo, LemonStand, Opencart, osCommerce, 3dcart, Weebly. Selection among them is a crucial work. Let us study the Shopify, Woocommerce, Bigcommerce and magento.

Comparison of top four e-commerce platforms-

1. Magento-

A standout among the most prominent e-commerce platforms above all is Magento. Being user friendly is important thing of every platform and Magento completely fulfills it. It also offers a subscription based service. It has 100+ selection of themes which results in attractive appearance and collaboration of a website. Determination and controlling of data to share over various online stores from a single admin is almost easy in magento. For this, it offers a selection of assigning roles and permissions across users. Magento has one page check-out feature in payment. So customers can get through the final steps of purchase more quickly.

Magento allows multiple payment services integrated with Amazon Payments, PayPal, Authorize.net and also google checkout. Keeping the statistics of business made simple due to great analytics module with reports and stats available in magento. Magento becomes more user reliable because it has unlimited bandwidth. The higher the bandwidth results in the faster your information will be accessible to you customers.

2. Shopify-

If you don’t have a website yet and you’re a small to midsize business then you should try out shopify. It is more popular for not only its user friendly but also for alluring appearance which has more impressive and  good-looking designs and should be able to cover any speciality and kind of a business. Shopify platform is mobile friendly and so can be edited in HTML and CSS directly.

It offers unlimited bandwidth, multiple payment gateways and order management features similarly as Magento. The most significant thing is client support and shopify offers 24/7 customer support. There are a few different ways that get in touch with  are Live chat, email, phone, twitter. Shopify offers the ease of use for signup, dashboard, product listing and setting therefore it offers user friendly platform. It has different sales channels, likewise point of sale, Facebook module and simple buy button. Also it offers gift cards facility which separates it from other E-commerce platforms. 

3. WooCommerce-

WooCommerce is entirely open source, as a result you can modify and customize anything and everything. Since you have full oversight, you can add unlimited products and users, and take unlimited orders. When you get started with WooCommerce, first you need to find a good host, install WordPress on your account, and then you can proceed to the WooCommerce part of the deal. From physical products and digital downloads to subscriptions, similarly content and even appointments, you can sell anything with WooCommerce.

It has thousands of themes available, so just pick the one that works with your requirement and you can customize your site from the homepage to the buy button. Probably you might face a difficulty where your store not being displayed like you want them to, in such cases you may be enforced to change the theme so that everything get fit. WooCommerce underpins various payment gateway methods. As this runs on word press, therefore it perceived as best for SEO practices among all. It can maintain a public knowledge base so that you can use to help yourself. It offers support for all the paid extensions.

4. BigCommerce-

BigCommerce resembles a shopify, both are cloud-based e-commerce platforms. Both are something that you sign up rather than you download and then install yourself which means is a Standalone Software. It is a subscription based service. The way BigCommerce approaches themes is likewise to Shopify’s strategy. You can also get fully customizable  free and paid themes with built in HTML, CSS and Javascript. It allows you to make your site mobile responsive with any bigcommerce theme. Bigcommerce underpins various payment gateways such as Amazon Pay, PayPal one touch and more. Bandwidth of the BigCommerce is relies upon host. You can keep statistics of reports and store activity. Because the core WooCommerce plugin is a free open-source tool, there’s no single “support” source for itself.

Comparison-

	Shopify	Woocommerce	Bigcommerce	Magento
Features	10/10	9.5/10	9.5/10	9.5/10
Designs	9/10	10/10	9/10	7/10
Customer Support	10/10	7/10	10/10	7/10
Ease of use	10/10	8.5/10	9.5/10	7/10
Pricing	10/10	10/10	9/10	7/10
Overall Result	9.8/10	9/10	9.4/10	7.5/10

Conclusion-

The  hidden details are the main problem. So when picking the best E commerce platform for yourself, you should probably focus on things that are more niche in their nature yet can mean the world to your business. And the complete list of those can be huge. Therefore I suggest you to do your own research and in detailed comparison, once you have a general idea of the platform you’d like to try out.