Top 6 Platforms for Multi-Channel E-commerce Growth

Use a multi-channel e-commerce strategy to sell your products not only on Amazon but also your own website and more!

Have you dominated your product niche on Amazon and want to expand your sales to a multi-channel e-commerce strategy? By increasing the number of platforms that offer your Amazon product, you can increase your brand’s exposure to a broader audience and potentially in overall revenue.

Amazon makes selling beyond its own platform easy with the Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment program, allowing customers to order your products from your own website and be fulfilled by Amazon.

Here is a quick look at our top six contenders and how they stack up to each other:

Since there are many choices of platforms to add to your multi-channel e-commerce strategy, we have taken the liberty of evaluating them and have created this nice top 6 list for you. We have ordered the platforms according to certain factors we felt are significant when choosing other places to offer your Amazon products.

Some of these platforms are free platforms to start from scratch while others build on existing software for optimal integration into your Amazon business. We have ordered them based on their Ease of Use rating (5 being the easiest to use and 1 being the most difficult to use), meaning how easy they are to use in conjunction with your existing Amazon listings.

Also, pay attention to our “Features” rating (5 being a robust list of features and 1 being hardly any features at all) for the best bang for your buck comparisons!

Build Out Your Multi-Channel E-commerce Strategy with These Platforms:

Shopify

• Ease of Use Rating: 4.5
• Features: 5
• Hosting Environment: Cloud
• Plans: Shopify Lite ($9/mo), Basic Shopify ($29/mo), Shopify ($79/mo), Advanced Shopify ($299/mo) and Shopify Plus (call for pricing)
• Product Limits: No
• Credit Card Rates: 9% + $0.30, 2.6% + $0.30, and 2.4% + $0.30
• Amazon Support: Yes, but you must be selling products that fit into a supporting category.
• Bitcoin Support: Yes
• Apple Pay Support: Yes
• SSL Certificate Included: Yes
• Abandoned Cart Recovery: Yes
• Coupon Code Support: Yes
• eBay Support: Yes
• Blog Included: Yes

Shopify is a big name in the world of e-commerce, supporting online store functionality on a significant number of websites. Products are supported in the cloud, and the platform integrates pretty well with others and affords customers multiple forms of payment. Shopify also offers many services and features that some of the other platforms may not have on this list.

While Shopify offers multiple paid plans, they can begin to get pricey in the third tier. If you want good functionality and have more money to spend, then Shopify can be a welcome addition to your multi-channel e-commerce plan.

BigCommerce

• Ease of Use Rating: 4
• Features: 4.5
• Hosting Environment: Cloud
• Plans: Standard ($29.95/mo), Plus ($79.95/mo), Pro ($249.95/mo), and Enterprise (call for pricing)
• Products Limits: No
• Credit Card Rates: 2.9% + $0.30, 2.5% + $0.30, and 2.2% + $0.30
• Amazon Support: Yes, but depending on your business, you may also be required to register your brand and request approval to sell in certain categories.
• Bitcoin Support: No
• Apple Pay Support: Yes
• SSL Certificate Included: Yes
• Abandoned Cart Recovery: Available under the Plus, Pro, and Enterprise plans
• Coupon Code Support: Yes
• eBay Support: Yes
• Blog Included: Yes

BigCommerce is another name many will recognize. The platform is supportive of most features and payment options and also rates highly on our Ease of Use scale. Also, the four plans offer a plethora of features for sellers to take advantage of, but the more worthwhile ones start to become more expensive at the Plus tier.

Additionally, BigCommerce requires more from its users than the top three on our list, which some may consider an inconvenience. Support for Amazon products appears to be conditional and may require users to register with the platform.

BigCommerce may be a worthy addition to your multi-channel e-commerce strategy if you don’t mind the significant price per month to get the features you want.

Squarespace

• Ease of Use Rating: 4
• Features: 3
• Hosting Environment: Cloud
• Plans: Business ($18/mo), Basic ($26/mo), and Advanced ($40/mo)
• Products: no limit on product support; each page allows up to 200 products and 100 variations of a product are permitted
• Credit Card Rates: 2.9% + $0.30
• Amazon Support: Affiliates only
• Bitcoin Support: No
• Apple Pay Support: Yes
• SSL Certificate Included: Yes
• Abandoned Cart Recovery: Yes
• Coupon Code Support: Yes
• eBay Support: No
• Blog Included: Yes

Squarespace has made a name for itself as being an easy-to-use custom website builder that requires little technical skill to accomplish. And like the #1 contender on our multi-channel e-commerce list, this platform also affords users considerable range in customization options.

This platform also earns high marks for Ease of Use, giving users the ability to build a custom website from which to sell their Amazon products. Also hosting your products in the cloud, this platform offers a bit more in plan options and provides a high page allowance for a significant number of products as well as variations.

Squarespace has some limits on support for add-ons, but some Amazon sellers may not be bothered if customers can’t use eBay or Bitcoin for purchases. If you like customization, Squarespace will make an excellent choice for your multi-channel e-commerce strategy.

Wix

• Ease of Use Rating: 4
• Features: 3
• Hosting Environment: Cloud
• Plans: eCommerce ($17/mo) and VIP ($25/mo)
• Product Limits: No
• Credit Card Rates: Varied based on the payment gateway
• Amazon Support: Affiliates only via an app
• Bitcoin Support: Only through 3^rd party integration
• Apple Pay Support: Varies based on payment gateway provider
• SSL Certificate Included: Yes
• Abandoned Cart Recovery: Only through 3^rd party integration
• Coupon Code Support: Yes
• eBay Support: Only for posting eBay products to your own store via an app
• Blog Included: Yes

Wix is one of the best-known website building platforms on the Internet due to its drag-and-drop method. Even the most inexperienced novices can create a website without coding or HTML, making the platform accessible and customizable.

For these reasons and more, Wix scored highly on our list for building out your multi-channel e-commerce strategy. Ease of Use holds the high score of 4 because of the flexibility and competitive pricing that the Wix plans offer.

Many useful features such as a built-in blog function, SSL certification, and cloud hosting are necessary for a successful website to sell your products. Additionally, Wix gives users the ability to add functionality and support of more platforms through third-party widgets.

Volusion

• Ease of Use Rating: 4
• Features: 4
• Hosting Environment: Cloud
• Plans: Personal ($25/mo), Professional ($75/mo), and Business ($135/mo)
• Product Limits: No
• Credit Card Rates: Varied based on the payment gateway
• Amazon Support: Yes
• Bitcoin Support: Only through 3rd-party integration
• Apple Pay Support: Depends on your payment gateway provider
• SSL Certificate Included: Yes
• Abandoned Cart Recovery: Yes
• Coupon Code Support: Yes
• eBay Support: Yes
• Blog Included: Only through 3rd-party integration

Volusion makes a welcome addition to any multi-channel e-commerce plan due to the value it provides to users for the modestly priced plans. This platform offers a robust list of features across its plans and a high Ease of Use score. Support for our essential options and payment methods are either available from the beginning or are easily installed, making this newer platform one to add to your strategy for selling outside of Amazon.

WooCommerce

• Ease of Use Rating: 3
• Features: 3.5
• Hosting Environment: Self-hosted
• Plans: Free with WordPress
• Product Limits: 100,000+
• Credit Card Rates: Varied based on the payment gateway
• Amazon Support: Only through 3rd party connectors available at a price
• Bitcoin Support: Only through 3^rd party integration
• Apple Pay Support: Not out of the box, depends on your payment gateway provider
• SSL Certificate Included: No, but a free one can be installed via Let’s Encrypt
• Abandoned Cart Recovery: Only through 3^rd party integration
• Coupon Code Support: Yes
• eBay Support: Only through 3rd party connectors available at a price
• Blog Included: Yes, through WordPress

WooCommerce is one of the more interesting contenders on our list because it exclusively works with WordPress website building. Simply put, you must host your website on WordPress to take advantage of this platform as it was designed to work with the website building giant.

For WordPress users, WooCommerce is a free widget that can be installed at any time and offers good flexibility in its integration. In keeping with WordPress’ continuing effort to be user-friend, the widget follows in suit with a simple yet insightful interface.

Something that users may dislike is that many of the advanced features on our list have to be obtained by installing third-party plug-ins. Only a few features come standard with WooCommerce, so just add it to your multi-channel e-commerce plan if you have built a website through WordPress.

Do you have your own favorite e-commerce platform you would suggest to Amazon sellers as a way to expand sales? Let us know in the comments below!