Hold on! You must have these before you go ahead and choose your E-commerce Platform.
- Product Catalog (A list of products to sell)
- Domain Name (Don’t rely on free subdomains)
- Payment Gateway (Is it Paypal, Google Checkout, Authorize.net or etc?)
I’m only including the Hosted or SaaS platforms here. The reason is very simple. They are good enough for Small Businesses. If you’ve a big brand or zillion of products, go for licensed platforms like Magento, osCommerce, Interspire etc.
Time starts now. Here we go!
1) Choose Shopify if:
- Selling for the first time (It’s easiest and has more help docs)
- Need complete CMS (It has blog and page publishing too)
- Need Mobile Store (It has native App and it optimizes your store for mobiles)
- Needs lot of features (Third party integration and apps)
- Want a beautiful store (Great paid and free theme collection)
- Want a Unmetered Bandwidth (Publish and promote as much as you want)
- Transaction fee doesn’t bother you (Add Credit Card Processing Fee + 2% for Shopify for standard Plans)
- Looking for great support
Shopify: Plans start from $29/month.
2) Select Magento Go if:
- Know about the Magneto and its power
- Love less expensive platform with great features
- Wants to sell in other countries (Payment Gateways and Shipping integration)
- Great Integration with many service
Magento Go: Plans start from $15/month.
3) Use Bigcommerce if:
- Looking for more features than any other platform
- You’ve Marketing Background and love to Test (Google Website Optimizer, VWO integration)
- Drag and Drop Interface
- No transaction fee
- Tight Mobile and Facebook commerce
Bigcommerce : Plans start from $24.95/month.
There is still a very long list of Ecommerce Platform which are really good. But as I promised about 5 minutes, so I’m not including them here.
Hello! My name is 
hi,
i have a doubt, if i dont stay in the US but would like to use a hosted platform like Bigcommerce or volusion, what is the solution? espeically as I dont have an US bank account.. more importantly is there somebody who can provide such a US bank account also? the guys I speak to seem to say that I need to spend 1500$ for consultancy+ 200$ for state fee + $3000 for minimum balance.. If I had that kind of money I wouldnt need to open an ecom site?
Why do you need US Bank Account? There are many platform which supports Paypal and Google Checkout. You can link your own bank account there and withdraw money into Bank. US Bank account is not necessary for E-commerce.
Also, try to contact for some local Payment Gateways in your country. Thus, you can charge credit cards and get funds in your bank account and you pay less transaction fee.Thanks for commenting
Feel free to ask any questions..
ankit, thanks very much- you’ve been helpful, now I am off to find out how to integrate shipping to my e-com site.. if you have nay suggestions like the above list, please do tell! bye for now
Thanks for the kind words. Which software did you choose from above?
Hi Ankit,
I want to run a small online store.Problem is with Payment Methods, we wish to add PayPal, CreditCard and Mobile Money Service (where user can pay through local mobile money exchange shop, totally offline).Which affordable platform you would recommend, which can provide us both facilities. Thank you for putting up the information.
Hello Waqas,
Thanks for your comment. Paypal (Website Payments Pro) is also able to accept the Credit Card, right inside your website.
I’m not sure about Mobile Money Service for your demographic. But you can use any popular Platforms such as Magento Go (SaaS) or Magento Community edition (Self-Hosted) . All you’ll need to create a custom extension to get the desired feature.
You can also ask Faisal Khan (http://www.quora.com/Faisal-Khan-1) @Quora
. He is very helpful and knows a lot about Ecommerce.
Thanks Again
Ankit
Thank you Ankit, I shall look into.