Puzzled with e-commerce сhoices? Pick our brains to do the right things. The Article # 1 – The Beginning of Everything.

Chicka Chicka boom boom! 

Will there be enough room? 

Here comes a question  – will there be enough places to sell online?

The eCommerce boom is here. Before, analysts estimated that it would take ten years for online shopping to overtake traditional retail. However, moving the ecosystem to its current location took two years. But covid changed everything. Online shopping habits that have been widely accepted will be the norm for the ensuing ten years. Online shopping is becoming more and more commonplace among consumers. eCommerce sales will undoubtedly keep growing by double digits in the future.

And as a result, we can see how eCommerce is being adopted more widely around the globe. The new era gives rise to a request for new commerce features as well as sales platforms. The eCommerce space presents so many choices that small and medium-sized business (SMB) store owners are simply puzzled. 

And we are here to support you, at the EDIY blog.

To understand what is a good platform to sell, let’s look back to see how it started. 

How did the grandmother from England institute E-Commerce?

eCommerce started with the simple shopping list by Jane Snowball – 72 years old grandmother. That was 1979 year when she typed on her television a grocery list to send to a local Tesco supermarket because she had broken her hip and couldn’t walk to the store. 

The first online order became possible by connecting a modified domestic TV to a real-time transaction processing computer via a domestic telephone line. The creator of this method was Michael Aldrich. He rightfully can be considered an inventor of online shopping – later famous as E-Commerce. 

Then: 

• The Boston Computer Exchange launched the online marketplace in 1982. The goal was to help people buy and sell used computers. It was the first e-commerce company.
• Book Stacks Unlimited became the first online bookstore in 1992. We may view it as the first eCommerce platform. Yes, yes, you can see that the bookstore didn’t appear on Amazon alone. And only three years after, in 1995, Jeff Bezos launched Amazon.com. Granted, Amazon became a bigger online retailer – within 30 days the company organized international shipping to 45 different countries.
• In the same 1995 year, the American entrepreneur Pierre Omidyar launched eBay. This is an eCommerce platform where buyers and sellers can come together to trade everything. By 1997 the-commerce marketplaces Amazon and eBay had completed one million transactions.

Then it was time for other innovative solutions to make eCommerce more user-friendly.

• 1998 — The E-commerce payment system PayPal launched.
• 2000 — Google AdWords provided the possibility for e-commerce businesses to advertise through the Google search tool.
• 2009 — Square launched, allowing retailers to accept debit and credit payments through an app.
• 2014 — Apple enabled mobile payment. Still, let’s not give all the glory to Apple. Quite earlier, in 1997, the mobile payment of services or goods was introduced for the first time in the world when Coca-Cola in Helsinki came out with a beverage vending machine. So the users could pay for the beverage with just an SMS message. Voilà.

So, everything progressed.  After observing the growth of online retail demand, the ecosystem came up with the next custom solution.  Helping people run their internet businesses was the prime priority. The increasing demand from aspiring merchants paved the way for eCommerce software. This tool allowed users to build and host their own online stores with little technical skills using a web browser.

So there was a need for a simplified path to start selling online. The number of new eCommerce companies and startups was growing in leaps and bounds. There are some projects that stood at the origin of eCommerce software. Would you like to discover more?

First wave to start e-commerce

Have you heard about Viaweb – the first application software? 

We think Yahoo is easier to remember. The company bought Viaweb in 1998 to play the big game in eCommerce.  

Yahoo story

Yahoo was founded in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo, graduate students at Stanford University in California. First, it began as a collection of Yang and Filo’s favorite websites grouped by category. Yahoo platform included features such as a people search and email service. It was the first site to add news, sports, and finance feeds to its web directory. It offered games, travel, weather, maps, celebrity chats, and an online magazine.

Later, in 1998, with the Viaweb acquisition, Yahoo started an eCommerce software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform also called “Stores”. SaaS stands for software as a service. In the article, we’ll talk more about SaaS choices. Keep reading.

Yet, we shouldn’t forget that Viaweb was the first maker of tools for building and operating e-commerce sites. It was hosted by Paul Graham – a big fish who founded Y Combinator. And if it turns out that you do not know, let us tell you. Y Combinator is a true Graduate school for startups. It has been used to launch more than 3,000 companies like Stripe, Airbnb, Cruise, PagerDuty, DoorDash, Coinbase, Instacart, Dropbox, Twitch, and Reddit. Highly recommended to apply to and test ideas. Come on, come on, ideas, ideas.

Both Yahoo, as well as OsCommerce, Zen Cart, and CRE Loaded stores, created the first wave of eCommerce. These platforms were the driving forces of eCommerce. It’s time to discuss them, too.

OsCommerce, Zen Cart, CRE Loaded

OsCommerce  – an open-source platform to build an online store. It was developed by the programmer Harald Ponce de Leon in 2000. He used “os” – open source in the name to focus that anyone can inspect, modify, and customize his online store to meet e-commerce requirements and suit clients’ needs. The platform now includes over 8000 add-ons to extend store features. That makes it still popular, and this is by far the best proof of why around 46,036 members are still using OsCommerce for stores.

OsCommerce was one of the oldest open-source eCommerce builders that have inspired other developers to create similar online store-management software programs. Thus branches appeared: Zen Cart and CRE Loaded. 

Zen Cart is a fork of OsCommerce since 2003, but with a significant difference – a template system, a CSS-based layout, and additional included features in the core. Zen Cart community is around 150k active members that provide support for different languages. More than 8,534 companies still use Zen Cart.

This platform doesn’t need strong web dev knowledge. It is for beginners to understand. In the eCommerce category, Zen Cart has a market share of about 0.4%. Later we’ll discuss the platforms with a 26.26% share. You will be interested to know.

CRE Loaded is another platform based on osCommerce, founded in 2002. It runs on any LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) web server. Among the advantages of osCommerce, you may see a wide variety of features, numerous developing partnerships, and an active international community of users and developers to support its customer base.

Although it’s rare to see new projects made possible by the mentioned platforms, still thousands of stores are using them.

Bingo. Here we become closer to the platform with a 26.26% share in the eCommerce market. We talk about Shopify. This and other well-known software program followers prepared the stage for eCommerce’s second wave of exponential expansion.

Second wave to boost e-commerce

Shopify

Shopify appeared in June 2006. The platform was founded by computer programmers Tobias Lütke and Scott Lake. Initially, it was designed as an online store for snowboarding equipment with the name Snowdevil. And later, after a few months of development and improvements, the store was transformed into a specialized eCommerce platform Shopify.

An interesting footnote is that Shopify created an open-source template language called Liquid, which is written in Ruby. 

Let’s briefly list the main Shopify contributions to e-commerce:

• The application programming interface. It allowed developers to create applications for Shopify online stores and then sell them on the Shopify App Store.
• Free mobile app on the Apple App Store with a possibility for store owners to view and manage their stores from iOS mobile devices. 
• Implemented Shopify payments to allow users to avoid payments through third-party payment gateways.

Nowadays, Shopify has 16 offices around the world which let them serve 175 countries. In our next articles, we’ll take a close look at the secrets that made Shopify the second-largest e-commerce platform after Amazon in the US. Let us always be helpful to you.

BigCommerce

This is a platform that is often compared to Shopify, but it’s worth more compliments due to less expensive maintenance. In 2022 0.4% of all websites are built with BigCommerce and the lion’s share of 60,000 platform-based customer stores belong to USA, UK, and Australia.

BigCommerce started in Australia. Guys, Mitchell Harper, and Eddie Machaalani met in an online chatroom, and 1 year after they launched the Interspire company. They truly desired to make it easier for small businesses to sell online. In 2009 their first company evolved into BigCommerce.

BigCommerce is a fully hosted e-commerce platform that actively uses 148 technologies for its website. Among famous brands – fans of the platform, you may see Sony, Solo Stove, Airtasker, and RAZER.

Magento

Once we remember popular brands, we’re thinking about Magento. Casio, Jaguar Land Rover, Bulgari, Helly Hansen, Christian Louboutin. Names of companies sound cool and inspire confidence, don’t they? Their key to online success is the Magento platform. In 2022, it is still one of the most popular eCommerce platforms.

One beautiful day Yoav Kuttner – a former Varien company СТО, received a letter with proposals and ideas from an aspiring Ukrainian programmer. It happened just at that time of re-building his development team, and Mr. Kuttner was almost ready to establish LA-based in-house staff. 

No, it wasn’t meant to be! Together with experienced PHP developers, that Ukrainian guy persuaded the American guy to collaborate. The Magento project has been taking off. 99.9% of the time, the development process took place in Ukraine.

Since 2007, Magento powers 2.3% of eCommerce stores worldwide. We may explain the success of the platform through the advanced features of Magento, especially after the release of the Magento 2 edition.

Magento 2

It would be nice to also mention some fun stuff about Magento here. The mascot and color. Do you know the meaning behind the name Magento and what motivated the design of the logo?

Well, the color of the Magento logo is Magenta. Many people still think this is a mystery of the name. But in fact, Magento nerds are keen on Mages (wizards)  – the spellcasters from the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons Dragons. And the other part of the word is derived from “Bento” – the first existing name for this brilliant e-commerce web application. 

Let’s get back to the platform itself. On November 17, 2015, Magento 2.0 was released. It has become a more flexible and secure platform for eCommerce. The developers consider Magento 2 as the best customizable eCommerce platform.

Adobe’s Acquisition of Magento in 2018 doubled Magento’s chances for success. The platform is constantly expanding its core with new functionality and features. The market share has risen from 9% to 13%. That represents Magento as one of the most trusted eCommerce platforms.

Woocommerce

WooCommerce is a plugin for building online stores using WordPress – a minimalist website platform. The plugin came onto the market with a company called WooThemes in 2011. Two developers, James Koster, and Mike Jolley were working on an eCommerce software known as Jigoshop. After they joined WooThemes company, WooCommerce started its real life with an incredible success story.

Let’s speak numbers:

• The platform market share is 27.67%
• The plugin was downloaded over 82 million times
• Over 4.4 million websites around the world currently use WooCommerce.com.

When you see these statistics, you might say “WOW, in numbers we trust” and choose WooCommerce then. Please wait. Nothing must be done hastily but the killing of fleas. At the EDIY blog, we’ll be discussing all the pros and cons of platforms to help you make the right decision.

By the way, a little cute ninja Hiro, the WooCommerce mascot was born of the stylus of Jon Hicks – the Firefox logo designer.

The End.

Okay so you might be thinking, the party’s over. And what about the Prestashop, Drupal, OpenCart, and Joomla?

Sure, we’re going to list here other eCommerce site builders which provide purchasing and selling activities. They have less market share, but you must know about them. Let’s keep them short with interesting characteristics.

• Drupal is one of the time-honored frameworks for building sites. It is used by 56 government sites and by 71 out of the world’s top 100 Universities. Around 47,350 Drupal modules can be downloaded for free.
• Prestashop is used in 160 countries and was translated into 63 different languages.
• Zeuscart is an open-source PHP shopping cart software, mostly used in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada.
• Ecwid is a Russian-rooted provider of social commerce solutions, acquired by the Canadian eCommerce company Lightspeed. 
• Joomla hosts more than 1.5 million eCommerce stores and websites. Lipton Ice Tea and Yamaha are Joomla-based sites.
• Wix and Squarespace are website builders that require little technical know-how. 
• OpenCart has 2500+ attractive themes.
• X-Cart offers shipping carrier integration like FedEx, UPS, Canada Post, and Australia Post. 
• Volusion is one of the oldest eCommerce platforms. It allows for selling only physical products, and there’s no possibility to sell ebooks or music. 
• nopCommerce is used by BMW, Volvo, The North Face, and Microsoft. You must be using ASP.NET for your website to start with nopCommerce. 
• Big Cartel and Gumroad are specifically designed for makers, writers, artists, and very creative people, long story short. Here you’ll see many ways to sell digital products like eBooks, images, video, or audio.
• Bagisto is an Indian open-source framework built on top of Laravel. Since its first release in 2018, the platform can brag of 30000+ downloads, and 80+ contributors, and has built a community of 1500+ members.
• Weebly is suitable for those who are new to website creation. One year after the site launch, the company celebrated one million users. Weebly currently hosts more than 40 million sites around the globe.

Self-hosted and cloud-based platforms

We assert that mentioning here the term SaaS and self-hosted eCommerce platforms would be appropriate. After all, when choosing a platform you’ve got the option to choose between a self-hosted and a cloud-based SAAS version. To make it less obscure, look at the choice of the leading platforms:

• SaaS examples: Shopify, BigCommerce, Adobe (Magento) Commerce Cloud, Woocommerce.
• Self-hosted examples: Magento 2, WooCommerce, Drupal, Zen Cart, OsCommerce, PrestaShop.

Well, you should start thinking about a little something else besides just a platform, and it may confuse you. Chill out. The devil is not so frightful as they paint him. And you’ve got EDIY. Right now we offer a glimpse into the advantages of SAAS or SELF-hosted. 

SAAS pros

A cloud-based (SaaS-based) platform operates via an internet browser 24/7 from any device. 

• No installation and faster implementation times.
• Reduced maintenance costs. 
• Flexible subscription model to a customer’s individual needs with access to expensive, powerful software.
• Regular already ready-to-use updates and accordingly no vulnerability to external threats.
• Full management of the website’s security by the platform itself. Public and private clouds can be used together to add security measures.
• Scalability. No need to buy server space for new users when the business grows. Easy access to new features and services when appears a need. 

Self-hosted pros

Self-hosted platforms are built by yourself. You set up a server and networking and you are responsible for the maintenance. Still, it is a great opportunity to get total control over the design and functionality of the website.

• Full access to the application files, database, and detailed statistics. Ability to handle your data by yourself, without sharing it with any third party.
• Ability to easily customize the website design – page templates, fonts, footers, colors, headers, column widths, and style sheets.
• Ability to create email addresses apart from the ones recommended by the provider. Simple integration with an email newsletter sign-up tool.
• Ability to change every SEO-related detail according to your requirements.

Where are the disadvantages? This issue can be a separate article. Stay in touch.

We told you so much. How not to get lost in the abundance of the eCommerce market, and choose the best platform that perfectly fits your business requirements? There’s still a question for many of you. 

It’s all good. We have many more clever things to say. In each of the following articles, we will examine every platform very thoroughly. 

Right now one thought crossed our minds. We have mentioned here multiple eCommerce software. Still, the really important topic we raised in the article is selling online. And there are extra ways to offer your products for sale to buyers. 

eCommerce sales are possible through online marketplaces! 

The online marketplace is also an eCommerce platform, but a different type of it. It enables third parties to sell new or used products. Customers can easily browse different brands of products offered by numerous vendors at the same place. The online marketplace is definitely a more engaging place for the average consumer. Still, is it a really good option for the owner?

This is related to a certain subject to discuss in the next article. And now let’s do a little wrap-up.

On a final note

The eCommerce boom is still here. Still many stores are looking to go online. Indeed, there are so many platforms and marketplaces to sell in a market. And you might be still puzzled by the choice to make.

In the article, we could see that the increased usage of the web over the past decades has made software, marketplace, and website builders very valuable. The huge variety of the market is explained by the difference between the requirements and peculiarities of every country or region. Each one wants to shape the web e-commerce space in their image.

By good fortune, the eCommerce platform is just a commodity. Your skills or the skills of your assistants rule which one to choose and where to sell. First of all, you have to know your company’s business model, because some platforms are ideal for small businesses that need a place quickly to set up. Some better fit larger firms with huge order volumes. And the third gives you access to a bigger audience, which offers you more sales opportunities.

And here you should decide whether you want to build an eCommerce that will convert into a brand later, or just rent a platform without any control. In our next article, we’ll take Amazon as an example of a rented choice. 

Stay with EDIY. There are so many interesting things ahead.

And that’s the question we saved you for last – Have you tried running your business and selling online?

We ask you to share any experience you had since starting your eCommerce journey.