10 best ecommerce cms systems
10 best ecommerce cms systems
Introduction
As we have mentioned in some of our previous articles, the market for ecommerce is growing fast. There were 131 billion parcels shipped worldwide in 2020, according to Pitney Bowes. The figure tripled in the past six years and is expected to double again in the next five.
In this article we review 10 ecommerce CMS options that are available to small business owners and list out the pros and cons of each choice.
Just to mention., we are not affiliated with any of the companies or products in this review.
So what is a CMS?
A Content Management System (CMS) is software (usually running on a web server) that allows users to add content and images without need to learn coding. Wordpress is one of the more popular open source (OSS) CMS products out there.
Open source is a term that originally referred to open source software (OSS). Open source software is code that is designed to be publicly accessible - anyone can see, modify, and distribute the code as they see fit.
An Ecommerce, Content Management System (CMS) is a little different. This type of CMS allows the user not only to add content and images but also products, payment types and other features that come with online store ownership. Shopify is one of the Proprietary offerings out on the market.
Proprietary software is marketed under and protected by a registered trade name.
The Open Source offerings usually are packaged in a way that involves you managing the hosting, support and configuration of them.
With some of the technical aspects, of the managing the application. This can be things like:
o Domain setup & hosting
o Upgrades to the software
o Security patching
o Installing plugins
Since most of the services that are aimed at open source are low cost, a lot of the time the software is not supported. This could mean that if a problem arises with the application you will need to hire someone to fix it. This can sometimes take days, and is worth taking into consideration before making a decision to use open source software
Open source products can have software vulnerabilities and if you’re on one of the cheaper plans you may not get any upgrades or patches for them.
Open source products have themes and plugins that you can use for various features, lots of these are free which is extremely attractive to users
Open source products can be extremely cost effective and if you have some technical skills you can do most of it yourself. Then again, would you want to? You’re going into business to sell products so, you’re be better to concentrate on this right?
Of course, you can hire developers to help you with all facets of this. There are many, many companies and services that are available for these open source products.
The proprietary offerings are obviously more expensive but there are some key differences:
Proprietary services are for the most part completely managed which means you just create your account and start. Well, not exactly! There are still many, many things to do depending on which product you choose.
The company takes care of the updates and patching for vulnerabilities
Some of them also have themes to choose from
They also have plugins
Software vulnerabilities are weaknesses or flaws present in your code
Left alone, vulnerabilities can impact the performance and security of your software. They could even allow untrustworthy agents to exploit or gain access to your products and data.
It's worth mentioning, that even though a company has a service or product that you pay for, it is well documented that even these companies still have vulnerabilities, security breaches and other issues.
We will try to provide an objective view of these systems and give you as much information to make an informed choice based on your needs.
Sean kerr
Author