Comparison between some of the eCommerce Platform available

Posted by StartupFreak on January 13, 2013 in How To's, Ideas, Starting Business | 7 comments

Query: what all eCommerce solutions are available for SME/Startups and which is the best one as per Indian market i.e. Transaction gateway, Charge per transaction, features etc.

Before going ahead you can check out the recent post on eCommerce by Startupfreak where we covered w.r.t cost /amount of money required to get started with eCommerce platform

  1. what-is-eCommerce
  2. eCommerce-revolution-and-how-it-started-infographic
  3. How Much it will cost for eCommerce website 

Some of the Big names in the industry are Big Commerce, Shopify and Magento and there are many other which you can find out here. Below is a basic comparison between the three.

=============================================================

Basis of Comparison

Big Commerce

Shopify

Magento GO
Name of the plan Bronze Basic Get Going
Price/month 24.95$/month 29$/month 15$/month
Discount on Subscription yearly = 22.95$/month NA Na
No. of Products Displayed (SKUs) 100 100 100
Payment Gateways Available Paypal, amazon, google and 60 others Paypal, amazon, google and 60 others Many + indian gateways likes CCAvenue, Payu, Direcpay
Platform Transaction Fees 0% 2% 0%
Storage 200MB 1GB 200MB
Bandwidth unlimited unlimited 4GB

================================================================

ecommerce-solutions-avaialableThere are some eCommerce solution provider specific to Indian market and there are many whom you can choose from and we have found three which are trending in the market which are Buildabazaar, Martjack and Zepo and below is the comparison for the three.

=================================================================

Basis of Comparison

Zepo

Buildabazaar

Martjack
Name of the plan Starter Silver Basic
Price/month INR 1500/month INR 1000/month INR 2650/month
Discount on Subscription Half Yearly = 1350/month
Yearly = 1200/month		 Yearly = 937/month NA
No. of Products Displayed (SKUs) 1000 300 500
Payment Gateways Available EBS, CCAvenue, PayU (PayTM for Free)  TechProcess, CCAvenue, HDFC, Axis (Billdesk for Free) All leading Indian payment gateway
Platform Transaction Fees 0% 2.00% 0%
Storage Unlimited Unlimited 2GB
Bandwidth Unlimited Unlimited 2 GB/ monthly
Order Notifications Email & SMS Email and SMS Email and SMS
Indian Shipping Company’s Logistics Support Blue Dart Aramex, UPS, Blue Dart, AFL Aramex, UPS, Blue Dart, AFL
Themes Number of free themes 30 Free Themes 20 Free Themes 24 Free Themes
Customization No HTML & CSS customization No HTML & CSS customization No HTML & CSS customization
International Shipping Yes No Yes
COD Option Yes No Yes
Mobile Responsive Site No No No
Support for Multi-Currency Online Stores  Yes No No
Discount Coupon Functionality Yes Yes Yes

In the shopping cart software You can set up shipping charges bases on combination of delivery mode like ‘By Air’, ‘By Ground’, ‘Same day delivery’ and delivery regions like in ‘Metros’, ‘Domestic’, ‘Internationals’ etc. With this setup you can charge different shipping cost for Domestic, National and International deliveries. Soft-wares will also give you option to set shipping charges based on ranges like for ‘1 to 5 Kg ‘ X amount/kg and ‘ 5 to 10 Kg’ Y amount/kg. Some platform gives the checkout option with Cash on Delivery option (COD) also. By doing this consumer can be encouraged to by more quantity. Logistic and courier part is what eats the margin in eCommerce business, so finding a better shipping and logistic company is crucial for a startup. If you are shipping internationally, do a good amount of research before handed.

You can also do an API integration with courier company to get the real time courier charges and add it in the bill before checkout and also get the tracking and airway bill no. on confirmation of the order, which customer can take print out.

There is innovation happening in delivery system wherein companies are offering, COD with same day delivery option. warehouses are built in each areas for faster deliveries. Big players like Amazon, Ebay and walmart have this model of same day delivery running successfully for which customers are ready to pay double or triple of the shipping charges.

Suggested Read

  1. Amazon-takes-on-same-day-delivery-how-can-small-businesses-compete
  2. Fear-of-amazon-pushes-retailers-to-take-on-risks-of-same-day-shipping
  3. quality same day couriers use speednationwide.co.uk
top ↑
  • http://www.facebook.com/bidani.tarun Tarun Bidani

    Can you please review the solutions like MartJack,Zepo and Buildbazaar in terms of reliability ,technical/customer support ,Server downtime and user experiences.

    • startupfreak

      Sure Tarun, we are already working on it.

      • Chetanya

        Dear startupfreak, we are at a crucial stage of deciding between buildabazaar and martjack, and are highly confused. We would greatly appreciate your feedback on the characteristics Tarun asked for.

        Thank you very much.
        Regards
        Chetanya

    • Nabakishore

      zepo support is horrible with horrible backend implementation. Don’t go by looks. There are serious technical issues related to stock management and transaction+order processing

  • Alphonse

    We are currently on Shopify and frustrated with lack of nice integrations with Indian payment gateways. Have looked at Indian Saas based platforms like the ones you reviewed above and feel that they have a long way to go before getting the finesse of their western couterparts.

    We seem to be left with Magento Go as an option. I did not know that Magento Go integrates with Pay U and Direcpay. Can you please let me know what the source of your information. Also do you think there are many sites that are hosted on Magento Go in India?

    • startupfreak

      Hi there Alphonse, we have got all the information in this article from their respective websites. and we are in process of compiling the data on the number of users each have and how happy there are with it. keep reading and be posted.

  • Nabakishore

    I am frustrated with zepo. they don’t have any ambition to grow to support bigger customers. The platform looks good from top/outside. backend is horrible. They didn’t solve even simple stock management issues. Hell lot of business issues in transaction processing. They are not ready to implement customer feedbacks and needs.