Top 10 Online Store Building Platforms

Important news about Online Store Building Platforms

2021. Web building platform Duda snaps up e-commerce cart tool Snipcart



In a move that might be described as both wildly ambitious and perfectly sensible (in a way only possible in the bewildering landscape of online commerce), Duda has joyfully gobbled up Snipcart, a plucky Canadian startup that, in a twist of fate, allows businesses to seamlessly plop a shopping cart onto their websites. Now, Duda, already a force among digital agencies and SaaS aficionados with roughly a million active paying sites, saw its e-commerce sails fill gloriously with the pandemic-driven winds of online shopping. So, naturally, they thought, “Why not offer even more, like payment and membership gizmos, right from inside the Duda universe?” After all, who wants the hassle of juggling another e-commerce platform just to make some inventory shoppable? With Snipcart on board, Duda's clients can simply transform their digital shelves into a shopper’s playground, without ever venturing beyond the cozy confines of the Duda cosmos.


2021. Shopistry bags $2M to provide headless commerce without the headaches



In a universe not entirely unlike our own, where the mysteries of commerce baffle even the sharpest intergalactic minds, Shopistry has emerged to quite literally turn headless commerce on its, well... head. Having secured a rather impressive $2 million in seed funding, Shopistry is on a mission to enable personalized shopping journeys, so intuitively crafted they could make a Vogon weep. Foreseeing that headless (or, as they prefer, modular) will soon rule the digital shopping cosmos, Shopistry has enlisted forward-thinking brands like Honed and Oura Ring to simplify their e-commerce worlds without spiraling into an existential crisis over tech teams, budgets, or unruly code. It’s e-commerce without the headache, or rather, without the head at all.

2021. E-commerce-as-a-service platform Cart.com picks up $98M



Cart.com, a company offering comprehensive e-commerce solutions, has secured a $98 million Series B funding round. The company delivers software, services and infrastructure to businesses to help them expand online. Cart.com is combining the most effective elements of selling directly to consumers on platforms like Amazon and Shopify to provide value for brands. It is spearheading the term “e-commerce-as-a-service” to integrate a suite of business tools, such as storefront software, marketing, fulfillment, payments and customer service, under a single platform.


2021. Lightspeed buys Ecwid for $500M



Lightspeed has acquired two more companies as part of what appears to be an acquisition spree for the Canadian point-of-sale software provider: e-commerce platform Ecwid for $500 million and NuOrder, a B2B ordering platform serving wholesalers, brands and retailers, for $425 million. Ecwid itself has been around for years, initially gaining recognition as a key partner of Facebook, helping small businesses create commerce experiences on the social media platform. It has since expanded to offer tools for merchants using services like Square and Wix, as well as other third-party platforms like Instagram and Google — sometimes competing with, but also potentially integrating with, other e-commerce backends like Shopify.


2021. Google partners with Shopify on online shopping expansion



In an announcement that might make even the most jaded e-commerce observer sit up and blink twice, Google has cheerfully declared its new partnership with Shopify, a platform boasting more merchants than there are interesting sandwiches in the universe (well, 1.7 million, but who’s counting?). This union of digital titans means Shopify sellers can, with the casual flick of a few clicks, catapult their wares into the heart of Google’s sprawling ecosystem—a billion daily “shopping journeys” spanning Search, Maps, Images, Lens, and the inescapable vortex that is YouTube. This move, of course, arrives just as Google finds itself side-eyeing Amazon’s ambitious attempts to muscle in on the ads business, a scenario which one imagines keeps a few Googlers nervously clutching their algorithms at night.


2021. Mailchimp moves into e-commerce



Over the past few years, Mailchimp has evolved from a simple newsletter platform into a comprehensive marketing company. While the service previously offered integrations with various e-commerce sites, it is now introducing its own online stores for small and medium businesses, along with a new appointment booking service. These new offerings will be included in Mailchimp’s new “Websites & Commerce” plans, starting with a free tier that provides most of the essential features. Users on the free plan will incur a 2% transaction fee. For $10/month, Mailchimp will remove its own branding, offer email and chat support and reduce the transaction fee to 1.5%.


2021. Nuvemshop, LatAm’s answer to Shopify, raises $90M



São Paulo-based Nuvemshop has created an e-commerce platform designed to enable SMBs and merchants to engage more directly with their customers. Nuvemshop is capitalizing on the fact that the density of SMBs in Latin America is higher in many Latin American countries compared to the U.S. Last year, the company shifted from a closed product to a platform accessible to everyone, including third parties, developers, agencies and other SaaS providers. Through Nuvemshop’s APIs, these third parties can integrate their applications into Nuvemshop’s platform.


2020. Commerce Layer raises $6M for its headless e-commerce platform



Commerce Layer, which has created a “headless” e-commerce platform — designed to develop online sales strategies using APIs to connect your inventory and handle orders and payments from various endpoints such as other marketplaces, your own website and app (as well as the different payment systems you might use depending on the country you’re selling in), messaging services, social media channels and more — has secured $6 million in Series A funding. Clients of Commerce Layer include Chilly’s (the trendy water bottle company), Au Depart, Richard Ginori and others. Conforti mentions that these clients influence what his startup develops next: for instance, one of their clients requested an integration with Farfetch, the luxury fashion marketplace and so they are building that to later offer it as an option to other clients.


2020. Web store building startup Ecwid raises $42M



Ecwid, the startup that provides e-commerce tools both directly and through partners like Square and Wix, enabling businesses to create e-commerce experiences on their own sites and apps, as well as through Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, Google and more, has secured $42 million. Ecwid joins a group of e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, BigCommerce and WooCommerce, which have capitalized on the expansion of online shopping over the past decade and assisted businesses that are not inherently digital — particularly small and medium-sized brick-and-mortar establishments — in entering the digital economy. Highlighting its low entry cost, Ecwid’s pricing starts at free for setting up shopping on a website with 10 or fewer products.


2018. Adobe acquires open-source e-commerce CMS Magento



In a move that might well have been described as the digital equivalent of claiming an uncharted galaxy, Adobe swept up the market-leading eCommerce platform Magento for a cool $1.68 billion, thereby securing a formidable foothold in the vast and mysterious reaches of Cloud Computing. With this acquisition, Adobe gained not just a platform but an entire ecosystem—a digital Swiss Army knife poised to unite their commerce offerings in a dazzlingly complete loop. This pivotal purchase also opened the door for Adobe to woo B2B and B2C customers across the planet (and possibly beyond, if shipping ever allows). Shortly after joining the Adobe empire, Magento introduced the Magento Commerce Cloud in 2016, a rather upscale cloud-based option complete with a content delivery network, catering to those who find the on-premise version just a tad too terrestrial. Positioned as a beacon for cloud commerce innovation, Magento Commerce now gallivants confidently at the helm of eCommerce for both businesses and merchants alike. And, in a nod to its roots, Magento’s open-source version remains open to the masses—limited in functionality perhaps, but free to anyone intrepid enough to venture into its open-source embrace.