Best Ecommerce Platforms for Features

Ecommerce platforms come with a wide variety of features. Some platforms have more features to offer than others but miss the essential ones and vice versa. To ensure that you select an ecommerce platform stacked with valuable functionalities, we have analyzed the whole market and customer requirements to rank ecommerce platforms with the best features for you.

We look only at the features that a platform contains by nature. Everything that requires add-ons and plugins is therefore excluded. You can find more information about which ecommerce platforms offer great integration opportunities can be found here. Let's dive into the most important features of ecommerce platforms and learn more about the evaluation process.

What Makes the Best Ecommerce Platform for Features?

The best ecommerce platform in terms of features is determined by the presence of the essential functionalities to run an online store. We analyze these features in two major groups: selling and marketing.

Let's take a closer look at how these two categories are broken down.

Selling

Selling features include all the tools needed to manage your business sales effectively. When analyzing ecommerce platforms based on selling, we listed all crucial attributes of an ecommerce platform. We gathered data on each ecommerce provider based on the presence or absence of these attributes and their value.

Number of products - This refers to the number of products you can upload to your online store. While some ecommerce platforms offer unlimited products to list, others do not. Depending on the vision for your online store, you’ll need to emphasize the number of products you’ll be allowed to list on your online store.

Mobile app - This feature allows you to control and monitor your online store on the go using an app provided by ecommerce platforms.

Inventory management - Inventory management allows you to monitor your products, track your inventory, and manage your store's stock levels. The inventory management attribute is essential to any ecommerce platform with physical products.

Subscriptions - They allow you to sell products or services as subscriptions with recurring payments.

Returns and refunds - Manage returns from customers and refund their money according to their order or situation.

Shipping calculator - Automatically calculate shipping rates in real-time by setting up your store once. It allows you to define precisely how you want to go about the shipping for specific products, quantities, and countries or if you want to offer free shipping whenever a particular card value is reached.

Staff accounts - The number of staff accounts defines how many people you can invite to manage parts of your online store.

Abandoned cart recovery - Nobody wants to lose sales. Remind your customers to finish their purchase by sending them an automatic reminder that leads them to the checkout page.

Marketing

Marketing features help you to promote and sell your products more efficiently. It’s all about managing the user's attention and how to best utilize

Reports and analytics - Analyse your online store's performance by monitoring key metrics such as your sales per month, country, or channel, and dive deeper by using specific reports.

Custom branding - Use a custom domain, logo, and other branding collateral to stand out from the competition. Building a corporate identity heavily depends on a holistic and consistent web presence.

Discount codes - Create codes and link a value or percentage discount. Discount codes are a great way to boost your sales numbers. They help attract new customers and give people that extra push to finally make their purchases.

Marketing automation - Develop automated workflows directly from the ecommerce platform to communicate with your customers. In combination with promotions, marketing automation is a driving power for high engagement.

Customer segmentation - Group your customers based on their purchasing or interaction behavior with your store. It helps you to divide and understand who your customers are, which you can use to drive special promotions, for example, by offering bonuses to high spending customers or sending out special deals to people who show interest in particular products.

Gift cards - Allow customers to purchase and send gift cards that can be redeemed on the online store.

Loyalty programs - Create and run a rewards program to improve engagement and acquire new customers.

10 Best Ecommerce Platforms for Features

How to Choose an Ecommerce Platform with Great Features

A vital step to selecting an ecommerce platform with the most suitable features is to think about your store requirements, needs, and your vision for your store. A clear understanding of each feature and its importance will help you decide which functionalities are less critical to you and which ones you’d consider top tier.

Once you’ve made that clear for the features we discussed above, you can check if other elements that are not listed but still vital to you can be integrated through a plugin or addon and if that causes any additional payments.

If you’re still finding it hard to decide on an ecommerce platform, you can always check our overall best picks on ecommerce platforms, our comparison tool, and our finder tool for more assistance.