The 5 best e-commerce platforms in 2024

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Choosing an e-commerce platform is important to sell well online. But it is also a powerful tool to manage your business and optimize your marketing. Discover the 5 best platforms to create an online merchant site in 2024 and the specificities of each.

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Looking for an e-commerce platform for your business? In this article, we review the best e-commerce platforms and how to determine which one is best suited to your needs.

Indeed, to support your e-commerce business and sell on the Internet, it is not just about creating an online store. Beyond an online sales site, savvy entrepreneurs are looking for the best e-commerce platform with an ecosystem of integrated tools to manage their business and growth.

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What is an e-commerce platform?

An e-commerce platform is a way to build and create an online experience to make sales, allowing your customers to buy your products anywhere, anytime.

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But a true e-commerce platform goes far beyond a tool to showcase your products and accept online payments. It’s a command center from which you control your entire business, from inventory management to marketing.

What are the different types of e-commerce platforms for your online store?

To make your online store accessible, you need to have a hosting solution . Hosting stores your information on a server, allowing people to visit your site and view all of its content.

Every website is hosted somewhere, which means it has dedicated server space with a hosting provider or web host. Some e-commerce platforms have hosting built in, while others require you to use self-hosting or open-source hosting.

Hosted e-commerce platforms

Some website builders offer a hosted platform. In this case, you don’t have to worry about the hassle of self-hosting or third-party hosting – and the extra costs that come with it. Shopify stores, for example, include hosting in every plan.

All Shopify updates are automatic, so your site is always up to date. Using a hosted ecommerce platform gives you more freedom to focus on running your business, not on technical issues and potential bugs.

Self-hosted platforms

Self-hosted, or unhosted, e-commerce platforms require merchants to use their own server space or pay to rent space from a hosting provider. This makes managing your website more complex, as you are responsible for updates, maintenance, and bug fixes. This can quickly become a time-consuming and energy-intensive process.

These third parties charge fees for their services, and these fees can quickly increase the cost of your e-commerce platform.

Additionally, these hosting services often use tiered pricing structures, which means that users of the cheapest plans don’t get much customer support. You run the risk of running into issues and not finding solutions at crucial times, such as when your site traffic spikes after unexpected media coverage.

What are the best e-commerce platforms in 2024?

Here’s a look at some of the best e-commerce platforms in 2024 to help you evaluate the best option for your business:

Shopify

Wix

WooCommerce

PrestaShop

Squarespace

Shopify

Shopify e-commerce platform

Shopify is a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) e-commerce platform with advanced tools and features for multichannel selling, so you can sell directly on your website, in-store, on social media, marketplaces, and everywhere in between. You can choose from over 100 paid and free e-commerce themes to get your store up and running quickly.

Plus, Shopify manages every aspect of your business—you can use our suite of marketing tools to create a command and control center.

The Shopify platform also offers unlimited bandwidth and online storage, so you don’t have to pay more as your traffic increases and your business grows.

You can also tap into our extensive library of third-party apps that can help you grow your business further. Plus, Shopify offers free email marketing ( Shopify Email ), abandoned cart recovery , SEO , and other tools for entrepreneurs.

Shopify’s mobile app lets you run your business on desktop or mobile with nearly the same functionality, from fulfilling orders to adding products, real-time sales, inventory updates, and more.