In 2020, the boom of Content Management Systems (CMS for short) took over the eCommerce industry. With more and more systems available than ever before, it’s the perfect time to learn what a CMS is, what it can do, and which ones are the best on the market.
A Content Management System is essentially software that allows for publishing, editing, modifying, and manipulating content.
When used in eCommerce, the source of contents found in a CMS would be products for sale or services for sale.
In some CMS options, they provide additional packages such as contact add-ons, plugins, and scripts, which can help enhance eCommerce websites for the premium user experience feel.
Some advantages that CMS offer are:
- Lower costs: One CMS set up can be run on multiple stores saving costs on running multiple CMS, which may need customization between them all.
- Evolution: CMS often updates over time, which creates new versions that tend to have more functionality than its predecessor; This could be a solution to ongoing problems, small glitches and provide the most cutting-edge technologies available.
- Community: Often, when using a CMS, it’s not just you that has that system but rather a community.
- Since multiple persons use the same system, the chances are that someone may have already experienced your issue and solved it if you happen to have one.
The main drawback, which we must mention, is that a CMS generally is not tailored only for you but. It’s, on the other hand, generalized, meaning a specific niche function you may need could not be provided by the CMS. For this, modifications or extensions are needed to fulfill their needs.
In this article, we discuss the best 5 eCommerce CMS in 2020.
Shopify
Shopify is a big contender for eCommerce, providing both a website and a CMS to suit the merchant’s requests. It’s known for its flexible platform with tons of features. With over 1 million merchants using Shopify worldwide, it’s no wonder it is featured on this list.
Regarded as an all-in-one eCommerce platform, merchants can set up online stores, handle orders, manage products, and provide support for consumers from a single dashboard.
With a small monthly fee of $29 per month for basic Shopify access, it’s an excellent option for those who want to enter the eCommerce industry.
Shopify has it all with simple to use functions and interface. Need more than just a basic package? Its packages range from $29 to $299 per month, providing all your business requirements.
Magento
Magento is an open-sourced eCommerce CMS platform developed with PHP. This platform allows merchants to build an online business with ease. Matching any business size; It supports all the needs anybody could need with extensions and plugins that help ease the stress of developing.
Most importantly, with a massive 300,000 developer community, this CMS offers a marketplace for extensions and plugins to be purchased to assist in managing your website’s content.
With SEO friendly & fast loading aspects, it makes it a viable option for experienced web developers. While Magento has its benefits, a huge downside is its staggering starting price of $1988 per month. Very expensive for the average consumer.
Squarespace
Squarespace is an online website builder, and CMS combined into one. Providing the tools to build eCommerce websites without any coding knowledge makes this CMS as user-friendly as it gets.
With templates provided, widgets that are drag and drop enabled, and a heap of plugins that work seamlessly, Squarespace is a viable option for those just starting in the eCommerce industry.
It’s one of the few CMS which allows for infinite product listings. Starting at just $12 per month, it’s one of the cheapest ones. While this is the personal package, It ranges up to $40 per month for the most advanced package.
WooCommerce
Another big player in open-sourced CMS is WooCommerce. This eCommerce CMS platform features over 1500 themes and over 300 free and paid extensions to use on your eCommerce website.
WooCommerce, like Squarespace, has a simple customization and setup procedure, making it user-friendly for even the most basic users of eCommerce.
With this CMS, you can offer free shipping based on products, automatically detect the customer’s location for their tax contributions, and manage returns with just a simple click.
While it’s free, additional add-ons can be provided at no charge but range up to $200 in price.
BigCommerce
The final CMS system we will feature is BigCommerce. This system is a cloud-based CMS that aims to bring eCommerce and CMS together with cloud-based servers in a user-friendly approach.
Like WooCommerce, this CMS provides 300 free and paid add-ons and just over 140 themes to choose from for your eCommerce website. BigCommerce also automatically calculates tax charges and has a one-click refund function. Costs start from $29.95 per month and range to $249.95 per month. For enterprises, BigCommerce requires merchants to call for pricing.
Wrap Up
CMS makes eCommerce efficient and customizable for any purpose. Rest assured that implementing a CMS can significantly reduce your stress, handling most of the work for you.
In conclusion, Today, most of the CMS systems provide a system to manage and create all the pages you need. Therefore, the days of old school stone and mortar trading with manual pricing & listings has ended, and we must embrace the change. CMS is here to stay and seems to be the way of the future. With more and more add-ons and plugins being available on each update.
Certainly, these CMS systems listed can provide serious assistance to achieve all the eCommerce goals you have.
BigKittyLabs is one of the leading software development companies in Columbus Ohio that has been developing applications, websites, and software for over 10 years. Contact us for free discovery and consultation on your next project!
