What is your favorite plug and play e-commerce platform and why?
The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.
1. Infusionsoft
We use Infusionsoft to manage all our e-commerce transactions, email followups with clients and digital delivery of products. It’s amazing and simplifies our systems so much.
– Patrick Conley, Automation Heroes
2. 1ShoppingCart
I like 1ShoppingCar because of the ease of setup. Everything is link-driven and hosted. If you want to sell a new product, simply enter in the price and other product details, add a link to your site, and you’re up and running. It also comes with a pre-built affiliate program. All of this allows you to focus on sales instead of technology.
– Dave Nevogt, Hubstaff.com
3. Shopify
Shopify is a simple platform that creates a full-fledged e-commerce site in a couple hours. They support collections of products, keyword tagging and full shopping carts. Their SEO and blogging capabilities are not as powerful as WordPress. But a non-technical person can get up and running fast, and there are beautiful free themes (and ones less than $200).
– Trevor Sumner, LocalVox
4. WordPress
There’s a large selection of themes for WordPress, along with a plugin that offers just about any kind of functionality you’re looking for. With more than 60 million websites powered by WordPress, there’s plenty of knowledge out there to solve any problems you’re having (or easily find a developer). Plus, WordPress is at the top when it comes to SEO. It’s great for blogging about new products.
– Brett Farmiloe, Internet Marketing Company
5. Weebly
Weebly is the simplest website builder out there. My co-founder and I were able to build our first e-commerce site in one day, though neither of us has any technical skills. When you’re getting going, speed and simplicity of your site are of the essence. Get it done, then invest your time in building your product and telling your story.
– Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches
6. Locayta
Locayta is flexible; it’s already been adopted by a large number of small businesses. It boasts a higher conversion rate than other similar plug and play e-commerce solutions.
– Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance
7. eBay
The bread and butter for a lot of people doing e-commerce is eBay . I know it’s old, but it’s tried and true for a lot of people. Sometimes a good thing isn’t worth changing, right?
– Russ Oja, Seattle Windows and Construction, LLC
8. Big Cartel
Big Cartel’s design is beautiful and incredibly simple, and it allows you to get a store up and running in just a few hours. A basic setup is free or with a small fee if you want a vanity URL.
– Ronnie Castro, Porch