Opencart vs Bigcommerce: find the one true platform for your store
Can’t decide between BigCommerce and OpenCart? Find the best platform for you with our side-by-side comparison of BigCommerce vs OpenCart. See how each platform stacks up across ease of use, design, support and value for money. Let the comparison begin. Don’t worry, we’ll guide you to find the one true platform for your store. Is BigCommerce right for you? BigCommerce is a popular eCommerce platform with a number of solutions for small and medium-sized retailers. Custom enterprise plans are also available. BigCommerce appeals particularly to users with limited development skills because of its usability out-of-the-box. That said, those wishing to make more complex backend changes can do so. Smaller retailers experiencing growth are also drawn to BigCommerce because of its scalability features. Indeed, the BigCommerce feature-set has everything you would expect, including responsive website templates, shopping cart, and payment integrations, single-page checkout, analytics, and more. Retailers looking for a fully-hosted solution at a reasonable price point will find BigCommerce appealing. In fact, customer service ratings are consistently high, and BigCommerce customers can take advantage of an active, helpful community of fellow users. Advantages Easy-to-use from the get-go and fully hosted, which removes the hassle of maintaining servers. A wide selection of features with regular updates and a diverse add-on market (with many free options). No transaction fees for use of popular payment gateways. Drawbacks Some features, like price lists, are only available on the more expensive plans. Can be difficult to make extensive design and backend changes. Themes and add-ons are often quite expensive. Thus, use if you are a small to medium-sized retailer with limited development skills (or budget) and expect your store to grow. Is OpenCart right for you? OpenCart occupies a unique space in the eCommerce platform market. It’s a free and open-source solution that’s ideal for small and medium retailers that want to exercise full development control on their own servers. Immediately, this excludes two groups. Firstly, small retailers that want a fully-hosted solution and don’t have coding skills will struggle with OpenCart. Secondly, larger stores, or stores expecting to scale, may find the feature-set somewhat limited. In fact, OpenCart doesn’t have the same functionality and scalability as other open-source platforms like Magento. If you’re not in either group, however, OpenCart is well worth giving a go. As an open-source solution, it’s fully customizable. Plus, the feature set is pretty solid, and the interface is very intuitive for a self-hosted solution. You’ll also have access to a large user community and extensions library. Oh, and it’s probably worth mentioning the key selling point again: it’s free. Read more: Bigcommerce upsell Advantages The platform itself is free. Open-source and fully editable for those with web development skills. Intuitive and easy to use for a self-hosted platform. Drawbacks Costs for dedicated support and extensions can quickly add up. Requires development and IT knowledge to be used effectively. Few native marketing and SEO features. Use OpenCart if you’re a small or medium-sized retailer looking for a self-hosted solution that isn’t going to break the bank. Thus, OpenCart is a streamlined platform with an intuitive dashboard, a solid feature-set, and a friendly, active community of users. How easy is BigCommerce to use? BigCommerce is very easy to use. After signing up, you’ll be guided through the process of setting up your store. You can access essential features from the central BigCommerce dashboard, including product listings, customer information, analytics, app integrations, and more. Once your store is ready to go, day-to-day tasks of managing orders and content can be handled easily through the main interface. Adding new products and running reports are straightforward tasks. One reason that BigCommerce doesn’t score a straight 10 out of 10 is because designing extra functionality beyond what’s offered directly can be tricky. How easy is OpenCart to use? There are two sides to the ease of use question when it comes to OpenCart. On the one hand, users have access to an intuitive dashboard (which is slightly unusual for an open-source, self-hosted solution) and a large library of extensions. On the other hand, installing, maintaining, and running a store built on OpenCart requires a certain degree of development experience. If you’re not comfortable handling backend tasks, then it’s probably not the option for you. Conclusion Above are some differences as well as pros and cons of Opencart vs BigCommerce. We hope you have a clear mind on what to choose for your store. If you have any questions, contact us and we will help you to figure it out.
3 inspirational b2b eCommerce case studies for Magento merchants
Running a B2B eCommerce business can sometimes be a challenge–especially if you’re new to using an eCommerce platform. There are many complexities to running a B2B business that stands out from B2C eCommerce and other forms of selling online. From processing complex orders, engaging with your audience, and optimizing your site for inbound marketing, a lot goes into managing an eCommerce website. While it can often seem like a journey of trials and errors, there’s no doubt that your business will benefit from having a greater presence online. It’s time to set your sights on writing your own eCommerce success story. Be inspired by these 3 inspirational B2B eCommerce case studies for Magento merchants. The Global Expansion of Rubik’s Everyone knows the Rubik’s Cube is the #1 selling puzzle game in history. So when Rubik’s decided to take their business online, they knew that they had the opportunity to broaden their reach; and increase their revenue. According to Rubik’s eCommerce and Digital Marketing Director, Fabrice Druelle, Rubik’s was in the market for an eCommerce platform. Which would allow them to scale their business and expand to new countries. With Magento Commerce 2, Rubik’s was able to launch quickly. Within four months, their customer experience moved from a catalog-based site to a more interactive experience; with more options for toy distributors, fresh content, a new check-out process, and a wider range of features. Their (UK) revenue increased by 150 percent in the first six months and their conversion rate doubled. In Rubik’s case, choosing a more flexible and scalable eCommerce platform enabled them to grow their business significantly; and offer a better experience to their distributors and customers. Planning for the Future with HP HP manufactures computers, workstations, and printers for businesses and consumers alike. When they decided to expand their Asia-Pacific division (and open five online stores), they realized they needed to work on a B2B eCommerce business plan that was future-ready but still had a “local feel”. HP turned to Magento Commerce for a platform that could support multiple stores globally. With the best in site navigation, design templates, and on-site security, Magento was an obvious choice when it came to expanding their B2B eCommerce website. Creating several new online stores in different regions came with its own set of obstacles–particularly; in terms of content, processing payments, and language translation. They built the right website for their company, the transition was seamless and the payoff was significant. The result was a more “local” feel for users online; and a movement of 23 percent of users opting to purchase their products online as opposed to at an in-person store. Building Projects Made Easy with Selco Selco Builders Warehouse is a British brand that connects building contractors and tradespeople with building material products. As a B2B sales company that values digital expansion and creative advertising, Selco utilized the Magento platform to connect with entrepreneurs and businesses online. However, they recognized that contractors are busy people; so they wanted to eliminate the headaches of searching for materials and tools in a vast catalog. Conclusion Countless brands have taken their businesses online, opening online stores and investing in their own B2B eCommerce platform. The success of these brands depends on a combination of the right platform, the right message, and the right marketing strategy. The B2B eCommerce case studies above represent B2B companies that understand the necessity to keep up with the changing times; and the value in providing new solutions to complex problems. If you are a beginner and looking for a tool that involves some of these elements at the same time; then check out Grit Global. A Magento b2b website that offers you multiple channels, flexibility in creating customizing catalogs, prices as well as Comprehensive Inventory Management Features. You will not have to worry and do tasks on your own with this genius invention. Let this be a part of your journey ahead.
Key pillars of a successful B2B eCommerce customer journey
An improved customer experience is closely linked with increased revenue as well as other advantages. Yet B2B customer experience still lags behind B2C. Are you looking for ways to improve your B2B customer experience and tap into the many business benefits that come with it? This article will suggest some key pillars of a successful B2B eCommerce customer journey. Speed Time is customers’ greatest resource. As we become accustomed to getting everything faster — instant responses, real-time updates, same-day and even next-hour delivery etc. — offering a fast and efficient B2B customer journey is what can help companies get ahead. As expected, speed and efficiency came up as recurring priorities throughout our research into the B2B buying process. In fact, research shows that vendor responsiveness and time-savings in the buying process had a greater influence on customer loyalty than cost reduction. How can you speed up your B2B customer experience? Here are some of our CX best practices: Offer 24/7 self-service: Allow your customers to quickly access what they need, when they need it. This means providing an online platform available round the clock. Free up your team’s time to focus on quick responses: By offering self-service functionalities to your customers, you will also free up your sales and service teams’ time. Your teams can then focus on responding faster to offline customer questions and inquiries, as well as engaging in meaningful, relationship-building interactions. Sync your tech stack: Speed up your entire order-to-cash (O2C) process by connecting all your relevant systems, including your e-commerce platform, ERP, payment and delivery providers, PIM system and more. Ensure your tech stack perfectly synchronizes to deliver a fast and streamlined customer experience, from purchasing and delivery to invoicing and returns. Ease The second key element of an optimal customer experience, be it B2B or B2C, is ease. B2B customers in particular look for straightforward and accurate shopping experiences. So, make it easy for your customers to complete their tasks. Simplify the customer journey. And remove any friction. What can you do to simplify the B2B customer experience? Optimize the usability of your website and e-store: Help customers easily find what they are looking for by optimizing the design of your web store and reducing the number of steps it takes for buyers to find the information they need and place an order. Prevent order errors: Order errors have a significant impact on the profitability, efficiency, productivity and sales of your customers’ organizations. Identify the leading cause(s) of order errors for your customers and your company, and take steps to remove these friction points. Consistency Delivering a great B2B CX also means providing a consistent experience at every touchpoint. That is a strong omnichannel experience. Due to the complexity of the B2B buying process, including the fact that several different buyer personas are involved at each stage of the process, it’s common for multiple channels to be used in a single purchase. Are your clients getting the same message from your business in your web store, as they are on the phone with your agents or via email? Can they access their full order history, whatever the channel used, by placing a single call or looking only into their web store account? Customers expect a seamless and consistent B2B experience, even when they switch between channels. Relevancy However, you choose to improve your B2B customer experience, make sure the experience you offer your customers is relevant to them. What do they need? What do they expect? How do they want to communicate, shop, and interact with you? How do they want to access information? You might already be offering what most customers would consider a stellar experience; but if it doesn’t appeal to your customer base, in particular, it won’t help your business. So, get to know what customers in your market, your industry, and your region are looking for now; as well as anticipate their future needs. To create a more relevant B2B customer experience, try the following: Get your customers involved: After all, they are the people you’re trying to please! Ask them what they are looking for directly. Here are some tips on gathering B2B customer feedback to improve your online experience, which you can also apply in part to improve your offline experience. Map your B2B customer journey: Get into the shoes of your B2B customers. Create user stories to map their customer journeys by focusing on the who, what and why. This will help guide any customer experience optimizations. See our user stories template and examples for how to create user stories. Conclusion Above are some key pillars of a successful B2B eCommerce customer journey that you can consider applying to your business model. If you are a beginner and looking for a tool that involves some of these elements at the same time then check out Grit Global. A Magento b2b website that offers you multiple channels, flexibility in creating customizing catalogs, prices as well as Comprehensive Inventory Management Features. You will not have to worry and do tasks on your own with this genius invention. Let this be a part of your journey ahead.
Top B2B eCommerce solutions for manufacturers
According to Forrester, B2B eCommerce in the United States will reach $1.8 trillion by 2023. It will account for 17% of all B2B sales in the US and it will be growing by 10% annually over the next 5 years. Actually, it’s not a surprise. Modern young entrepreneurs want to purchase products for their companies hassle-free like they shop for themselves—online. They don’t want to connect with dozens of suppliers, spend hours talking to them on the phone with tons of accounting papers. B2B eCommerce software solutions can save entrepreneurs from this purchasing routine. That’s why B2B online shop software has become so popular. As a matter of fact, this article will list out top B2B eCommerce solutions for manufacturers. CS-Cart B2B & B2C Apart from B2B eCommerce marketplace solutions, CS-Cart has something to offer. There is a CS-Cart B2B&B2C. It is one of the best B2B eCommerce solutions, a self-hosted B2B eCommerce software for wholesalers and manufacturers of any size. The platform was released to the public in 2005 and now it powers over 35,000 B2C and B2B eCommerce websites worldwide. CS-Cart focuses on feature-richness and ease of use. Since the CS-Cart wholesale eCommerce platform focuses on rich functionality, it has all the above-mentioned functions, plus more features to offer B2B buyers a true B2C shopping experience. CS-Cart’s powerful API allows integrating with many modern third-party CRM, ERP, accounting, and analytics systems so that you could build a perfectly working B2B ecosystem. Also, CS-Cart B2B&B2C ships with an unlimited number of additional storefronts that can be configured independently. It means you can open B2B and B2C storefronts that will work and look differently, and manage them via a single admin panel. CS-Cart is a self-hosted B2B eCommerce script, which means it could require some minor technical knowledge to be installed on a server. To make the onboarding easier, CS-Cart offers detailed documentation with installation instructions and server requirements. Thanks to its self-hosted nature, CS-Cart gives you full control over your B2B eCommerce store. You own it, not rent like you rent a SaaS solution. CS-Cart users appreciate the ease of use and a great price/functionality ratio. They love its clean architecture and open-source code. Magento B2B eCommerce solution Magento is an open-source B2B online shop software that was released in 2007. It has become one of the most popular eCommerce systems in the world, yet one of the most complex. The company started with B2C software and later for the B2B segment. Magento is a very robust platform, which means you can customize it the way you want. This is a pro and a con at the same time. You can make your Magento-based B2B store extremely flexible and feature-rich but you will need a tech-savvy team of programmers to customize and support your store. And this means more spending. If you are a beginner and looking for a tool that involves some of these elements at the same time then check out Grit Global. A Magento b2b website that offers you multiple channels, flexibility in creating customizing catalogs, prices as well as Comprehensive Inventory Management Features. You will not have to worry and do tasks on your own with this genius invention. BigCommerce B2B Ecommerce BigCommerce was founded in 2009 as a SaaS B2B online solution. Its main advantages are hassle-free deployment (due to its cloud-based technology), powerful API, and the ability to run a hybrid business: to sell both to companies and individuals through a single website. There are some restrictions though. For example, its cloud-based model doesn’t give users much freedom in customization. Plus, you will never get full control over your store and if something bad happens to BigCommerce, then this happens to your business, too. It’s great that BigCommerce offers the ability to run a hybrid B2B and B2C business. You can create customer groups with different privileges dividing them into companies and individuals. But unlike CS-Cart, BigCommerce only lets you sell to both groups through the same storefront. CS-Cart B2B&B2C supports multiple storefronts. And you can create separate storefronts for B2B and B2C and make them work and look absolutely different. BigCommerce is easier than Magento but it still requires some time to be mastered because of the feature complexity. Rich documentation greatly helps beginners to learn the platform. TradeGecko TradeGecko is a B2B eCommerce script that focuses on the simplicity and automation of business-to-business sales. It is intended for high-growth wholesalers, distributors, eCommerce brands, and manufacturers. It is a cloud-based solution, which means fewer technical concerns but less control, too. TradeGecko supports almost all must-have B2B features from our list: individual prices, custom price lists, the ability to hide products; and prices from unauthorized users, easy ordering and reordering, warehouses, promotions, and more. This solution has built-in reporting and analytics tools that allow you to better understand your processes and adjust them when necessary. The only thing that seems to be not included is a fully-functional multi-store feature for hybrid business models. Most of the users are satisfied with TradeGecko and appreciate its simplicity and good customer support. Conclusion We had a look at the best B2B eCommerce platforms in 2022, their pros and cons, and examined essential B2B eCommerce platform features in detail. Choosing eCommerce software for your business-to-business webshop is a very crucial step towards establishing a convenient and effective B2B eCommerce ecosystem. You should choose wisely. Keep in mind: there’s no perfect platform for your business. You will need to customize it more or less so that it suits your business processes and goals. So, before you decide, contact each vendor from this list, request a demo; and make sure you will be able to customize and scale the platform.
How to choose the right B2B eCommerce open source platform?
B2B sales in the United States are approaching $1 trillion. That dwarfs the size of the B2C eCommerce market. B2B eCommerce is still in its infancy as most organizations are still figuring out the basics of strategy and development but one thing is becoming evident that a platform to manage and scale sales operations is a necessity. As a matter of fact, this article will list out ways to help you choose the right B2B eCommerce open source platform. Functionality B2B selling is different from B2C. B2B businesses have certain complexities and requirements when selling to other businesses. Your platform is going to have to meet those special needs. Look at the platforms that can provide functionality like: Responsive Design Online customers shop across different devices. They might check prices on a phone or tablet, but then complete the purchase on a desktop. Your platform should be able to accommodate this common type of buyer. Your web-content should render properly across multiple devices as buyers are often busy during the day operating their store(s). Allowing your best customers to conveniently order on the go after hours on any devices makes it easier for your buyers to browse and complete purchases so they can focus on why they got into business to begin with. To enjoy their life outside of work. Self-Service Buyers and sales associates on the floor want to be able to find information and solve problems themselves. Your eCommerce experience should give them the ability to do that. Customers should be able to find shipping information, track orders, approve quotes, see real-time inventory availability, and manage their accounts when they need to. Again, being able to self-serve outside of your operating hours which can vary greatly from retail hours is critical to building confidence with your accounts and makes it easier for buyers to buy from you. A retail sales associate may be reluctant to showroom and sell your products if they can’t see your available inventory to avoid disappointment and lost commission from a ready-to-buy consumer. Customer Specific Pricing A unique need of B2B eCommerce is being able to offer customer-specific pricing and items for sales. Unlike B2C, your price can vary by who the customer is. Your platform should give you the ability to list different prices for each of your customers and the availability of items to offer exclusivity to select accounts. Payment Options B2B buyers purchase differently from B2C customers. Businesses typically buy larger orders. The orders could also be recurring or whenever inventory is out. Buyers are increasingly gravitating towards using credit cards for payment plus the ability to extend terms also is important. Bottomline, you need flexible payment options that let your buyers reach their business goals. Give your customers options to pay one or many of their invoices, or even just part of their payment. Platforms Hosted, On-Premise vs Cloud-based A hosted, on-premise platform means that the software must be installed on-site. You’re in charge of finding and maintaining the servers that the software will run on and likely require technical internal resources. A fully hosted, cloud-based Commerce platform is hosted by the service providers. You can access your web store from any web browser, as long as you have an internet connection. The difference in these platform types affects many areas such as customization, maintenance, PCI compliance, security, and costs. To help their audience find what they need faster, they created the Project Tool App. This app assists tradespeople with project management, finding products online, and communicating with their team, no matter where they are. Selco was able to see a gap in the market for something that would connect their customer base with what they needed, faster. By discovering new ways to invest in digital technologies, they were able to generate 600,000+ more website visits, sell more products online, and create an all-in-one solution for their customers. Conclusion Choosing the right B2B eCommerce open source platform for your business takes time and research. It’s an investment in your business. Your platform should help you achieve your strategy in both the short-term and long-term. Like B2C Commerce, just because you build it, doesn’t necessarily mean buyers will log in and place orders. Consider strategies on how you can make your B2B more compelling for buyers to visit as part of their regular workflow. If you are a beginner and looking for a tool that involves some of these elements at the same time then check out Grit Global. A Magento b2b website that offers you multiple channels, flexibility in creating customizing catalogs, prices as well as Comprehensive Inventory Management Features. You will not have to worry and do tasks on your own with this genius invention. Let this be a part of your journey ahead.
