A CMS or Content Management System is a tool that came into being in the early 2000s following the advent of online sales.
The e-commerce CMS enables merchants to create an online store and manage their product catalog without any IT knowledge , thanks to source code already developed for them. In other words, it brings e-commerce within everyone’s reach, enabling any merchant to set up their own website.
Over the years, new e-commerce CMS have emerged in response to the rise in online sales and the ever-increasing number of merchants. Today, the range of e-commerce CMS on the market is extremely diverse. But how do you choose the right CMS for your e-commerce business? What aspects should you take into account before making your choice? Find out in this article!
Shopify: a turnkey e-commerce CMS
Launched in 2006, Shopify is probably one of the best-known SaaS e-commerce CMSs.
Shopify is a turnkey e-commerce CMS, ready to use for a monthly or annual subscription fee. What’s so special about a SaaS CMS? No need to install it on your computer, it’s accessible from your web browser! And yes, the software is hosted in the cloud by a publisher who manages all the technical aspects (updates, security, maintenance) for merchants. With a SaaSCMS like Shopify, you’re up and running in no time, with no installation or technical development skills required.
What makes Shopify so special is its ability to offer users an interface that remains highly accessible and ergonomic. It’s ideal for e-merchants who want to get started easily!
Among the most widely used features of the Shopify CMS, we can mention :
- Creating an online store: With this tool, you can create and customize your online store to suit your needs.
The platform has a multitude of professional templates you can choose from to reinforce your brand. The online store also includes a shopping cart designed for online shoppers, who can visit and buy from smartphones.
- Managing an online store: Whether it’s for customer relations or business management, the Shopify CMS offers a wide range of functions for managing your store. The solution provides data on all your customers, enabling you to enrich your customer profiles. You’ll also be able to create customer lists by grouping together those who share the same interests, for example, or who tend to buy the same products. This will help you to follow up by e-mail, for example, with suggestions for products that might interest them.
- SEO & Marketing: When it comes to SEO, Shopify CMS lets you modify H1 tags and title tags, enabling you to position yourself easily on keywords relevant to your business. You can also take advantage of the search engine-optimized rating system. Your sitemap is also automatically generated, integrating your product pages as well as all other pages on your site. On the marketing side, you can launch promotional campaigns and promo codes. This can be useful if you want to push influencer marketing on your site. Shopify makes it easy to sell on Facebook.
Shopify offers three basic packages:
- Basic (27 euros/month)
- Shopify (79 euros/month)
- Advanced (289 euros/month)
Shopify’s business model is based on a monthly subscription fee and a % of sales.
While Shopify CMS offers many practical features for e-merchants, it is worth highlighting :
- The 2% commission per transaction for the basic formula (which can quickly rise as your sales increase)
- The difficulty of creating a site in several languages.
In any case, Shopify has many advantages, starting with its ease of use and installation !
Prestashop: unlimited functionality
Unlike Shopify, PrestaShop is a CMS e-commerce software that you can install and customize to suit your needs. Created in 2007 by Epitech students, the tool offers a powerful, responsive online store interface for its buyers. Free to use, the tool is renowned for the large number of features it offers natively or in the form of extensions (free or paid modules) developed by a large community of developers. The latest version, for example, offers more than 300 native modules to cover all the different needs of e-tailers.
Prestahop’s basic functionalities include :
- Management of payment methods, product catalog, inventory, carriers, employees, quotations, customer notices, taxes, promotions and other customer discounts,
- The search to locate a physical store useful for Google Maps,
- Analysis of PrestaShop store activity (sales data),
- Site content optimization (SEO)
- Various marketing modules (sponsorship offers, promotional codes, marketing automation…)
Numerous Prestashop modules (both free and paid) are available to complement these features and adapt/customize your store to your needs.
Prestashop offers three introductory packages:
- “Starter pack
- “Click and Collect Starter Pack
- “SEO Starter Pack
Prestashop’s business model is based on free installation and paid plug-ins and themes.
Prestashop is generally quick and easy to install. Customization of the store is also fairly intuitive: you can easily add or remove features as required.
Prestashop is also ideal for merchants looking to expand internationally: to date, it is compatible with no fewer than 75 languages, and the back office makes it easy to manage translations.
However, it’s worth pointing out that most themes and modules are not free. Extensive customization of your site will require technical knowledge to exploit its full potential. You should also factor into your budget the cost of hosting and maintaining your Prestashop. Finally, note that prestashop support is not free.
Magento: the e-commerce CMS behemoth
Magento is an e-commerce platform created in 2008. The first version of Magento was a free, open-source version that could be downloaded and modified at will by a company (and especially the developer it commissioned) to be hosted on its server. To enhance this open-source version, several plug-ins could be installed. This version is therefore reserved for IT professionals (i.e. developers), who are the only ones who can modify the code.
This first version of Magento, which was not very accessible to small businesses who did not wish to call on the services of a developer, led to a second, paying version of Magento, called the “Enterprise Edition”. Now marketed under the name Magento Commerce, this version enables many merchants to develop their online sales by implementing features dedicated to buyer loyalty, customer management and enhanced marketing functions. It also offers a BtoB option, a wide variety of payment options and search functionality with Elastic Search (a real-time distributed search and performance engine that lets you study your data very quickly). Plugins can also be installed to customize your e-commerce store.
For this offer, merchants will have to pay an annual subscription fee, the price of which varies according to the value of the merchandise sold and the average basket.
As with the open source version, with this offer, please note that your store will need to be hosted! Whether on your company’s own server, in a cloud that offers hosting services, or via a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) provider. You should also bear in mind that managing this hosting, and more generally the configuration of the tool, requires a technical team.
To alleviate this hosting problem, Magento has launched a second professional pay-as-you-go offering: “Commerce Cloud”. The principle: store your data and your software in a private cloud, provided by Magento.
Generally speaking, one thing is certain: Magento is a very powerful e-commerce CMS, adapting to high order volumes and merchant scalability. What’s more, it can even be used to manage multiple stores simultaneously.
The choice of one of the three Magento offers will therefore depend on your needs, your (technical) skills and your budget!
Woocommerce: the SEO champion
Woocommerce is a WordPress plugin launched in 2011, enabling you to transform your WordPress into a powerful e-commerce store. WordPress is originally an open source software designed for publishing content (blogs).
All essential e-commerce functionalities are present, including order management, payment methods, delivery and coupons. Statistics related to your e-commerce activity are well presented and quite comprehensive.
WooCommerce is a free tool. It is already very complete natively, but its functionalities can be further enhanced thanks to the extensions offered, called “addons” (the name of the WooCommerce extensions). WooThemes, the publisher of WooCommerce, offers several hundred addons, some of which are free, others for a fee. These addons enable you to meet very specific business needs. Addons and templates range in price from a few dozen euros to several hundred euros.
One of the many advantages of Woocommerce is that it’s easy to install: all you have to do is download WooCommerce via the WordPress interface. Once Woocommerce is installed, two new menus are available: the “Woocommerce” menu for managing your store, and the “product” menu for managing your catalog and listings. On the plus side, as a plug-in to a site with blog-style content, your e-commerce store is more likely to be well positioned in search results.
Woocomerce’s business model is based on free installation and paid plug-ins and themes.
If you want to get started with WooCommerce, please note the following points:
- Although the tool is free, you’ll still need to factor in the cost of hosting, the cost of a domain name (if applicable) and the cost of maintaining your site.
- It’s not compatible with all WordPress themes, and the price of some extensions can quickly escalate.
- This solution is not necessarily suited to very large e-commerce sites. So if your business involves thousands of products or more, you’ll need to opt for a more suitable e-commerce platform.
- Extensive site customization requiring even minimal computer skills.
Oxatis: one of Europe’s leading SaaS e-commerce CMS providers
Oxatis was founded in 2001 to offer a SaaS solution to craftsmen, retailers and self-employed people wishing to create and develop their online sales sites. Oxatis is one of the most widely used e-commerce CMS in France and Europe. The platform offers a number of advantages, starting with a wealth of functionalities for both B2C and B2B customers (over 400 functionalities).
Oxatis is a SaaS technology that provides sellers with an easy-to-manage, 100% secure solution. The interface is intuitive, even if it differs from other CMS such as Magento or Shopify.
Oxatis offers several packages:
- Starter: €39/month
- Pro: €99 / month
- Expand : €299
Choosing the right technology to launch your online store can be complicated, and is the most important criterion in the success of your project. That’s why in this article we’ve tried to give you as much information as possible on the best-known CMS on the market. As far as Oxatis is concerned, there are some very good points to be made:
- Oxatis is constantly evolving to stay at the cutting edge of e-Commerce and meet all your customers’ new expectations.
- Reliable, powerful technology that lets you deploy rapidly and grow your sales.
- The assurance of a site that’s always available for your visitors. By choosing SaaS, you’re opting for a high-performance solution that will support your growth with complete peace of mind, while saving you several thousand euros a year (maintenance, hosting, updating, etc.).
- Technical support, available by phone and quite responsive.
As with every e-commerce CMS, here are a few points to keep in mind before choosing Oxatis :
- Customization of your online store, which is very limited by the templates on offer
- Complicated SEO management if you don’t practice coding.
- Technical vocabulary complex enough for beginners
- And the high subscription price
Wizishop: a simple, intuitive e-commerce CMS
WiziShop was founded in 2008 to offer e-commerce professionals an ultra-simple solution for creating their own online store, while taking care of all the technical aspects. One of Wizishop’s key qualities is that it is a SaaS solution , which means it is quick and easy to set up. Wizishop has taken into account the fact that not everyone starting out in e-commerce has advanced technical skills.
Wizishop is 100% French software at affordable prices, and over the years has established itself in the e-business CMS landscape.
To date, three plans are available to dealers:
- Standard (27 euros/month)
- Pro (77 euros/month)
- Advanced (297 euros/month)
All three offers are available with or without commitment.
Wizishop’s business model is based on a monthly subscription fee and a % deducted from your sales.
Its French after-sales service is a real plus, as are its ergonomics and extremely rapid configuration. The 400 or so functionalities on offer are comprehensive enough to get your ecommerce site off the ground. Finally, Wizishop’s big plus: all features are included in the subscription ! So there’s no need to pay for and install additional modules/plug-ins.
If you’re not sure whether to go ahead with Wizishop, you can test the interface for 15 days free of charge. After that, you’ll have to make a choice!
In conclusion: 5 questions to ask yourself when choosing the best e-commerce CMS
Each e-commerce CMS has its own particularities and strengths: none is better than another! On the other hand, perhaps a particular CMS will be better for YOU than for someone else. That’s right, because it’s your needs that will determine your choice of e-commerce CMS! That’s why it’s essential to clearly define your needs by asking yourself the following questions:
- How many references do I have? Do I need to manage a lot of stock/orders?
- What is my stage of development and what is my vision for the future (e.g. international expansion)?
- How much to invest (time and budget)
- Do I have technical skills? This will help you decide whether to choose an open source or hosted (saas) e-commerce cms.
- Will I implement a content strategy? How will I drive traffic to my site?
- Can my e-commerce CMS be interfaced or connected to an OMS (Order Management System)?
Do you know WHO? Find out how to choose OMS. It’s the INDISPENSABLE tool for all merchants who want to grow and offer their products for sale on multiple sales channels (marketplaces, CMS, private sales…) without impacting their productivity and order fulfillment capacity. Would you like to know how to increase your sales with OMS? We invite you to download our complete guide.
