We all do online shopping, isn’t it? 2019 E-commerce Statistics shows that the total value of global retail e-commerce sales will reach $3.45T in 2019. E-commerce retail sales are anticipated to account for 13.7% of global retail sales in 2019. By 2040, about 95% of all shopping is expected to be through e-commerce.

E-commerce platforms are software technology solutions that allow you to create storefronts. And what is a storefront? A storefront is any customer or business facing position relating to the trading of products and services. Some merchants extend fully combined platforms and some others pre-integrate with outside solutions, which means that one solution can be plugged into another with very limited development work. They are normally based on a standard programming language. Java is becoming the most extensively used programming language to create E-commerce platforms due to its object-based, standards-based nature.

Best Free E-Commerce Website Builder

The following are the findings I would like to share with you. These are the E-commerce platforms which are free in some way.

Shopify
It is a commonly used cloud based shopping cart. Shopify is one of the most successful e-commerce platforms in the world. It is best for quick launching of new stores. This gives Shopify likeliness among smaller e-commerce brands doing a lower order volume. Depending on combined characteristics and order volume, Shopify’s monthly pricing can range from $29 to $299. Notwithstanding inadequate customization options, Shopify is an excellent choice for SMB e-commerce merchants. Shopify allows a free trial.

Wix
Wix is one of the most fundamental e-commerce platforms, delivering it as a great option for brand new online stores. With free themes and easy settings, Wix is an option that offers just sufficient features for small sellers to get begun without many decorations, but can’t significantly graduate along with the fast-growing businesses. Wix’s online store hosting is also one of the most economical e-commerce platforms. This platform is free to create.

Big Cartel
Big Cartel is an e-commerce platform customized to artists looking to sell their work. Merchants can tailor Big Cartel’s free themes or code their own individual design. Other highlights include the capacity to use a custom domain, inventory tracking, real-time sales stats, and the option to combine promos and discounts to specific items.
Monthly pricing is based on how many merchandises a retailer lists, commencing at a free membership for 5 products or fewer and going up to $29.99/month for 300 listed products. With the few peculiarities and scalability, Big Cartel is a great option for creative merchants with a more modest product catalogue.

BigCommerce (Free Trial)
With an array of built-in features and customization choices, BigCommerce invites both enterprise-level e-commerce traders and those start-ups.Highlights of BigCommerce include advanced security, payment, industry-leading uptime, and order satisfaction partnerships, and a wide diversity of built-in integration with prominent e-commerce apps. BigCommerce can be a costly choice with a bit of a sheer learning curve, but it’s famous for a reason, it offers a complete store without complicated back-end difficulties, making it a great choice for a wide variety of traders.

Squarespace (Free Trial)
Squarespace is recognized for smooth drag-and-drop templates that give it easy to create stunning websites. On top of that, they allow many of the tools and features required to build an e-commerce store. While Squarespace is favorite for artists and creative people with more petite product catalogues, they contribute countless product listings, including many alternatives and SKUs.
They also maintain recurring remittances and subscriptions, marketing tools for empty cart recovery, and a mixture of other more advanced features.

Volusion (Free Trial)
Volusion is comparatively a smaller e-commerce platform mending newer e-commerce sellers. Volusion gives a variety of pricing ranges, leaving it more affordable for smaller merchants and more costly as you rise. All cost tiers support reduction code creation, a wide assortment of free themes, and in-site blogging capacity too. Nonetheless, its mixtures and app alternatives are insufficient, making it more of a standalone tool.

Woocommerce
WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin that permits e-commerce merchants to transform their WordPress sites into online stores.One of the most successful e-commerce platforms in the world that is the WooCommerce incorporates its individual secure payment processor and shopping cart. The open source platform can be an excellent choice for smaller brands with WordPress developing support on-hand.
WooCommerce is one of the only free e-commerce platforms, though it requires extra money to fully integrate the shopping cart.
If you presume your business to scale swiftly, consider picking a different platform. WooCommerce can slow down as extra customers and products are added to your store.

Magento Ecommerce platform – Explanation
Magento is an e-commerce platform developed on open source technology which gives online merchants with a compliant shopping cart system and control over the content, appearance, and serviceability of their online shop. Magento allows robust marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and catalogue-management tools.

Magento’s capacity to size allows stores with few products and simple requirements to quickly develop to a huge number of products and complex custom style without switching platforms. It allows many plug-ins and themes which can simply magnify a customer’s experience. There are a lot of features to the online store which requires to be configured, and how well that is achieved is often reliant on business insight. When it comes to custom functionality, though, that is where more complex programming is needed.

Magento is devised to be utilised as an application by someone who isn’t a developer. The Magento community is remarkably large and very helpful. Still, at some point, the common person is going to find some issues.
There are plenty of reasons why developers are asked upon to customise a Magento website. It is a very strong system even at its most fundamental state. Once you start to integrate with other systems or propose tens of thousands of goods, enterprises usually need the help of expert developers. The functionality can be modified only up to a point, ahead, it requires to be customized by an expert who really knows Magento, and ensues best practices..

Skilled developers will also tell you that momentum is the basis in e-commerce. Customers do not want to wait for orders to reload when you’re beginning a lot of online shopping. With such a strong list of features native to the application, efforts can be put on your server.

Advantages OF Employing MAGENTO
• Simple to install and add additional layouts and plug-ins
• Open source technology that allows resilient, scalable e-commerce solutions
• Efficient and cost-effective program
• Permits for many discounts and promotions during check-out
• Gives more than 50 payment gateways

Some more best open source e-commerce platforms

Unlike many other free open source solutions, the following has its own built-in advantages.

Prestashop
With more than 250,000 online shops using the e-commerce platform, PrestaShop is very successful due to its easiness of use.
It is easy to place and customizes the software, and everything is so spontaneous. Prestashop allows to download a fully-hosted or self-hosted version, so one can determine their own level of technical control and both are free.
That directs us into the most serious downside of PrestaShop, not a lot of customizing can be done. It has not given a lot of space with graphic elements. More customization requires extra cost and that will purchase additional themes and templates or search into the code.

OpenCart
OpenCart is particularly popular with modest businesses that don’t have anyone on the team with a lot of programming background. It’s somewhat manageable, without a lot of the other functionalities seen in other shopping cart software.
But, you can still do a lot with OpenCart, though to actually open this program up you’ll require a programmer to assist you to get around some of the code. You can also pick from a collection of different plugins to give your site more versatility.
One of the other fabulous things about OpenCart’s integrity is the point that it doesn’t drag on your server. You can slow everything down by supplementing a ton of plugins, but for most people, this should be one of the faster options.

Zen Cart
Zen Cart has one big benefit. it’s got a grand product management system. Easy to do things from controlling inventory to building specials and sales are easy and available. Still, the system does tend to procrastinate if you’re combining a bunch of new products, so it may not be excellent for businesses that do large volumes.

Drupal Commerce
Drupal Commerce is both adjustable and SEO-friendly. It highlights an easy-to-use control system, and it is able of managing some of the more complicated payment models, such as those that are subscription-based.
Just as WooCommerce is privileged to WordPress and VirtueMart is restricted to Joomla, Drupal Commerce can only be done with Drupal.
Whether you’re watching for a basic e-commerce solution or one that you can charge with third-party add-ons, Drupal Commerce is a viable solution as long as you employ Drupal as your content management platform. Its honesty and customizability have executed it the favoured e-commerce solution for even big retailers

Finally, it’s unlikely to say what the “best” platform is, as your particular requirements will decide which traits will serve you most. If you’re trying to do basic e-commerce, and you don’t want a scalable or customizable option, then one of the smaller, more manageable e-commerce platforms could be ideal for you.
On the other hand, if you necessitate a lot of versatility or you’re ready to pay for a developer, then one of the wider high-performance platforms is more suitable to fit your demands.

NdimensionZ offers comprehensive IT solutions in short span of time without compensating the quality. Our E-Commerce Development in Cochin can present you and the target people the best experience in every stage, commencing with the development and through shopping to payment integration and more.