Top 8 Best Ecommerce Platform for Clothing Store in 2024
With a myriad of options available, finding the best ecommerce platform for clothing can seem like a daunting task. You want a platform that not only showcases your clothing line in the most appealing way but also provides seamless functionality, secure transactions, and a user-friendly experience for your customers but there are too many options for you to choose and you can not decide which platform will be the best for you.
In this comprehensive guide, we will delve into the world of ecommerce platforms for clothing and explore the key factors to consider when making your decision. So, if you’re ready to embark on a journey to discover the best wholesale ecommerce platform for selling clothes, let’s dive in and unlock the potential for your brand’s online success.
Which is The Best Ecommerce Platform For Clothing
Magento
Magento is one of the best open-source ecommerce platforms for clothing today. First appearing in 2007, to date, Magento is home to more than 750,000 online stores worldwide. The explanation for this strong development of Magento is its flexibility and great, attractive functionality.
Currently, Magento 2 has been developed with more superior features. However, developing and expanding Magento 2 is not an easy task if you do not have much professional experience in software development.
BSS Commerce will be a reliable assistant to help you in upgrading your Magento store by providing optimized Magento 2 development services that align with your business requirements.
Key features:
- Multi-brand solution
- MSI (Multi-Source Inventory)
- Headless Commerce
- Comprehensive Analysis
- Integrating various important functions for B2B business
- Advanced search function
- Smart page builder
- High Security
- PWA (Progressive Web Apps)
- Advanced SEO with SEO extension
Pros:
- It is highly flexible: Highly scalable and customizable
- Rich feature list
- A huge Community of Users and Contributors
- Mobile friendly
Cons:
- It is relatively expensive to purchase, configure, and maintain
- Not an easy platform to use with high technical barriers
- Dedicated server for hosting is a must. Therefore, this platform will not be suitable for those who are new to the market or want to run a quick test
Price:
- Magento Community Edition – Free ($0).
- Magento Enterprise Edition – Start at $1,999 per month
- Magento Commerce Cloud – Start at $40,000 per year
Shopify
Shopify is a popular e-commerce platform that allows you to create an online sales website based on the Cloud SaaS model. What’s special about Shopify is the complete solution it provides – that is, Shopify will create a separate store for you that can be used immediately, even if you don’t have any programming knowledge. Along with that, this platform is also integrated with the Shopify POS system – a mobile point of sale that helps manage inventory and unified reporting of business situations from both online and offline stores on one page. Single overview.
Key features:
- Shopify websites, online stores, and blogs can be customized.
- Unlimited customer data, bandwidth, and product inventory.
- Sell on new sales channels like Pinterest and Amazon.
- Supports online payment gateways.
- Automate fulfillment processes with third-party shipping applications.
- Drag and drop page builder
- Add unlimited products
- Search engine optimized
Pros:
- Ease of use
- Secure technology
- Smooth in-person mobile and retail sales
- Beautiful and Intuitive interface, easy to use for the beginner
- Professional website templates
- Optimize marketing activities
- Professional support team
- Sell via a variety of channels
Cons:
- Shopify themes tend to be quite basic, and adding advanced features and functionality requires specialized coding
- If you don’t use Shopify Payments, you’ll incur transaction fees for every sale made via credit or debit card.
- Transaction expenses are somewhat elevated.
- Difficulty when wanting to change the platform
Price:
- Basic – $19/month: Suitable for new businesses with low revenue at the store
- Shopify – $49/month: Suitable for businesses selling online or in stores that are on the rise
- Advanced – $299/month: Suitable for businesses that are expanding and need advanced reporting.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is an open-source (WordPress) plugin that allows you to create websites and add eCommerce functionalities to WordPress sites. It is a powerful tool with extensive customizations and is very easy to use so you can set up an online clothing store and run it smoothly.
Key features:
- 400+ official extensions
- Product sorting and filtering
- Works with numerous popular payment gateways like Stripe, Google Pay, PayPal, etc
- Customer accounts and guest checkout
- One-click refunds
- Email templates
- Inbuilt inventory control
Pros:
- It is free to get the source code
- Fast and Easy Layout Choices
- Simple to use for Non-Tech skill user
- SEO-Friendly
- 100% customizability
- High security
- Large community
Cons:
- Doesn’t come with themes.
- WooCommerce may not be the ideal choice for those who want to use something other than WordPress
- Included Hidden Expenses
- Limited customization options
- Security risks
Price:
The start is free but in order to experience specific functions and features added to the website, you need to pay for some mandatory fees and optional costs. Compare Magento vs WooCommerce
BigCommerce
The next position in the list of the best ecommerce platform for clothing cannot help but mention BigCommerce. Possessing an intuitive interface and many outstanding features,
BigCommerce allows you to build a professional and effective website, bringing a smooth and satisfying shopping experience to your customers.
Key features:
- Powerful drag and drop builder
- App store for smooth integration
- Supports popular payment processors and digital wallets such as Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, PayPal, and many more.
- Original POS system for traditional stores
- Facilitates WordPress and Drupal integration
- Real-time analytical reports
- Import and export data to CSV and XML formats
- Round-the-clock customer service by email, phone, and live chat
Pros:
- 0% transaction fees
- Available for multiple markets and sales channels
- Easy to use
- Save deployment costs such as hosting, maintenance, updates, and security because this is BigCommerce’s mission
- Multiple currencies
Cons:
- The cost of using the platform is quiet high in comparison with others
- Fewer themes to choose from (12 themes). The free themes are in many cases too similar to each other and are not equipped with advanced features.
- The advanced reporting tools are on the expensive side.
Price:
- The standard BigCommerce plan costs $29.95/month
- The BigCommerce Plus plan costs $79.95/month
- The BigCommerce Pro plan costs $249.95/month
- BigCommerce Enterprise plans have customizable pricing
Squarespace
Founded in 2003, Squarespace has now become one of the best ecommerce platform for small business on the Internet. All users need to do is focus on the aesthetics of their website and their own core business. If you want to build a clothing store with high aesthetics and unique creativity, Squarespace may be the right choice for you.
Key features:
- Website Builder and Templates
- Customer reviews on product listings.
- Sales of gift cards and digital products.
- Low stock warnings and product waitlists.
Pros:
- Various selection of specifically Squarespace design templates (Over 110 responsive multipurpose templates)
- Free SSL comes with all plans
- Unlimited bandwidth and capacity
- Good page loading speed
- Ease of Use
- Offers a number of safety and security features that will keep your site and your customer’s information safe.
- 24/7 email and chat support
- Free domain for your first year with any plan if you pay annually (not apply for monthly payment)
Cons:
- Third-party tools are limited. Have to pay extra if you want to own more advanced tools.
- It will cost the users additional transaction fees
- Limited design flexibility
Price:
- Personal – $23/month
- Business – $33/month
- Basic Commerce – $36/month
- Advanced Commerce – $65/month
Sellfy
Sellfy is an ideal platform for content creators and digital artists who want a simple online store solution that’s quick and easy to create and manage. Besides, if you want to set up a print-on-demand clothing store, Sellfy will probably also be the best ecommerce platform for apparel for you to start. Thanks to its user-friendly interface and store customization capabilities, setting up a virtual fashion store is easier than ever.
Key features:
- Offers a variety of integrated marketing features, including discount codes, upsells, email marketing, and social media integration.
- Product Search and Filtering
- Storefront Design Tools
- Shipping Management
- Customizable Branding
- Returns and Refunds
Pros:
- Various selection of product types
- Mobile-optimized design for seamless shopping experience
- No transaction fees charged
- Both physical products and digital products are supported
- 24/7 dedicated customer support
- Flexible setup
Cons:
- Analytic reports and integrations are limited
- Only 2 gateway Stripe and PayPal are accepted to be your payment gateway
- Limited customization options
- No shipping functionality
- You will need to pay for the payment processing fees
- Limited sales depending on the pricing plan that you choose
Price:
- Starter – $22/month
- Business – $59/month
- Premium – $119/month
Wix
Coming with over 500 professionally set themes, it’s not difficult to start your fashion store business right now with Wix. This will definitely be the ideal choice for those looking for a builder that is easy to use, has lots of extra features, and offers great creative control.
Key features:
- Personalized SEO plan
- Paid and free website builder for ecommerce
- Wix ADI – an artificial intelligence program that will guide you through everything related to your site.
- Corvid by Wix helps to improve your site
- Drag-and-drop building tools
- Automatic Site Backup
- Seamless integration with Modalyst
- Allows you to connect your Wix store to other sales channels like Amazon, eBay, Facebook, and Instagram
Pros:
- Great modern templates
- Customize your template easily
- It’s extremely flexible
- Allows you to add animation elements
- Available for multi-channel sales
- Easy to use
Cons:
- Third-party plugins may require extra cost
- It’s not Google-friendly
- It is not compatible with mobile devices.
- Limited to one template
Price:
- Basic – $4.50 per month: Allows you to connect your domain.
- Combo – $8.50 per month: Eliminates Wix ads, and comes with a free domain.
- Unlimited – $23.50 per month: Unlimited bandwidth and expanded storage.
- VIP – $24.50 per month: Comes with VIP support.
- Business Basic – $17 per month: Online payments are accepted and you will have 20GB of storage.
- Business Unlimited – $25 per month: Increased storage.
- Business VIP – $35 per month: 50GB storage, VIP support.
OpenCart
OpenCart is a PHP-based open-source e-commerce platform that allows sellers to build their online stores. This is a good e-commerce platform and is ideal for sellers who are on a budget but still want to own a robust e-commerce store.
Key features:
- Multi-store management system, allowing sellers to manage multiple stores from a single dashboard.
- Mobile storefront
- Checkout user experience: PayPal, Klarna, Sagepay, Worldpay, Square
- Custom filters feature for many Product Categories
- Custom SEO Inc. Meta Titles and Descriptions
- Gift vouchers and coupons
Pros:
- Product management is good
- Easy to use
- Highly scalable and adaptable
- Integrates well with third-party tools and applications
- Advanced SEO tools
Cons:
- Complex customization
- Complicated installation
- Slow loading speed
- Do not allow to update orders in bulk
Price:
Opencart is completely free to use for all users but if you want more extensions, you will need to pay for some extras. Read more: Magento vs Opencart
Here are the three different pricing plans of OpenCart:
- Bronze – $26.45/month
- Silver – $53/month
- Gold – $159/month
Identify the best ecommerce platform for clothing: Key Features
In the current era of rapidly developing technology along with fast consumer trends, e-commerce has become an indispensable part of the sales field, especially in accessing the fashion market. With its convenience and global reach, a good e-commerce platform can make a significant difference to your fashion store and attract a large number of customers.
No matter what business you’re in, whether it’s fashion or life, or technology, doing business online has never been easy. Success on this platform all stems from user experience factors. There is no set standard to measure success and force you to follow, but below are the necessary factors that an e-commerce store should meet to increase your chance to compete in this fierce market.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO friendly)
The most important factor in deciding which is the best ecommerce platform for clothing is SEO-friendly. So, what is an SEO-friendly website? Simply put, this is the process of optimizing website-related elements based on algorithms built by Search Engine with the aim of improving rankings and increasing website visibility on search results. It allows businesses to reach target customers quickly, thereby increasing conversion rates for businesses and generating revenue.
Here are the reasons why you need to build an SEO-friendly website:
- Increase traffic: SEO is a powerful tool that helps you attract more traffic quickly, sustainably, and effectively. The more people you get to visit your online store, the more opportunities you will have to convert users into leads, loyal customers, or even partners.
- Brand development: When customers type any keyword on Google, they will automatically click on the top search results. Explain this mindset, the customers think these top results are the websites that best match what they are looking for, and identify you as a leading expert in the industry. This creates an impression of the reputation and quality of the business in the minds of customers.
- Improve user experience: SEO is the process of optimizing the content, images and structure of the website to ensure users have the best web surfing experience. Thanks to that, potential customers will feel satisfied and have a positive impression of the professionalism of the business, helping to motivate them to take beneficial actions for your store.
When considering SEO features, consider the following factors to ensure your website performs at its best:
- Quality SEO plugins and tools
- Custom URLs, page titles, and meta descriptions for all pages to make sure search engines realize your website.
- Ability to set up more than 300 redirects
- Control Robot.txt
- Automatic XML sitemaps
Mobile-friendly
With the proliferation of mobile devices in recent years, in a situation where from young to old owns a mobile phone, optimization of mobile devices is a must, it is extremely necessary to provide customers with the most convenient and satisfying online shopping experience.
Choose platforms that allow you to design your store interface to suit small screen sizes like mobile phones or tablets. This ensures that customers can easily browse products, view detailed images, and read product descriptions at their convenience without having to use a bulky laptop or PC. Especially when choosing the best ecommerce platform for clothing & fashion – which is an industry characterized by fast consumption, convenience is a prerequisite.
Furthermore, developing your own mobile application on an e-commerce platform also helps increase interaction and create a strong connection between businesses and customers. It allows you to send notifications about promotions, new collections, or other related news to customers as quickly as possible.
Security
It is undeniable that, besides development potential, e-commerce businesses still face risks and concerns of consumers regarding information security issues.
The customer is King and keeping their sensitive information safe is paramount. It’s your mission to keep your website — and your customers — as safe and secure as possible. Therefore, you need to consider carefully in choosing which e-commerce platform is the safest for your customers and your business. Payment security, order tracking, and PCI compliance should be at the top of your priority list when choosing the best ecommerce platform for selling clothes stores..
Easy of use
An easy-to-use interface helps customers save time and effort when searching, comparing products, and completing the purchasing process. Instead of visiting a physical store, with an intuitive and easy-to-understand interface, customers can confidently make transactions quickly and conveniently. They can easily search for products, choose sizes, colors, and make payments in just a few clicks.
In addition, it helps you to attract a diverse range of customers from all over the world. By accessing from mobile devices, customers can easily shop regardless of time and location, expanding market reach and increasing business opportunities.
Fashion is a field that does not discriminate between regions, ethnicities, even gender and age. An easy-to-use e-commerce platform will definitely receive the love of the majority of users and it is also an opportunity for you to bring your fashion works closer to the world and be seen. It will be amazing when your outfits are worn by people from many different countries, styles, and identities.
Analytics and Data Recovery
The fashion industry is one of the fastest-growing industries in the era of online shopping and of course, the level of competition between businesses in this industry is also the fiercest. Therefore, to survive in this era, the most important thing is to investigate and analyze data and customer behavior to come up with the right, timely, and appropriate business strategy for the majority of the target market. However, analyzing and evaluating the market is a difficult task for any business. So, the solution here is to choose an e-commerce platform that can help you perform those analysis and evaluation actions in the most intuitive way based on actual data.
Selecting the best ecommerce platform for clothing will provide various reports and analytics to help you manage your business. You need to track sales, conversion rates, inventory management, and customer behavior. The platform you choose should have an efficient reporting system for exporting data in Excel or CSV format. This data will give you insights into sales numbers, inventory needs, product performance, and regular profit margins.
For example, the platform can offer product recommendations based on the customer’s search and product viewing history or suggest products that are complementary to the product the customer has just purchased. That smart feature not only helps customers shop easier but also helps increase sales for your store.
Multiple Payment Gateway Options
Choosing an e-commerce platform that supports many payment gateways when doing fashion business is important because it brings many benefits to the business. How can we say that?
First, it meets the diverse needs of customers. Depending on each individual’s preferences and conditions, customers can choose many different payment methods: Pay now, Pay later, Installment, Credit card, Debit Card, Electronic Wallet,… By providing multiple payment gateways, you make it easier for your customers to choose the payment method that suits them. Once you can meet this diverse need, you have one more reason to retain customers and encourage them to buy.
Second, it helps you expand your business scope. As mentioned above, clothing and fashion are barrier-free items. Each country may have different popular payment gateways. For example, in the US there is e-wallet Paypal, and Apple Pay, in China there is Alipay, or in Vietnam there is MOMO. By integrating popular payment gateways in many markets, especially your target market, you can attract customers from all over the world and increase your sales.
Ultimately, it also brings convenience and flexibility to businesses. You can choose payment gateways that suit your business needs and manage transactions with ease. At the same time, modern payment gateways also offer financial management features such as transaction reporting, refunds, and integration with other financial management tools.
In short, payment methods greatly affect customers’ purchasing decisions and business operations and financial management of businesses. An existing customer may not be able to find the right product for them right now, but they are still likely to return to your store to shop in the future, but they will not return if the payment method is not suitable for them. We all know that online shopping is the money exchanged for products and services. To avoid the circumstance that customers leave your store right at the last stage of the shopping cycle, make sure the fashion ecommerce platform you choose will support maximum and optimal payment methods.
Advanced Customizable Options
The final feature of the best ecommerce platform for clothing is its flexibility in providing advanced customization options. A good platform should assist sellers in configuring and customizing them in a way that simplifies all operations for the store as well as the customer.
You are a clothing seller, and it is crucial to create a unique and enjoyable shopping experience. By having advanced customization capabilities on your e-commerce platform, you can create an intuitive and interesting look and feel that suits your positioning, brand style, and target audience. You can customize the layout, colors, images, fonts, and other elements to create a creative and attractive fashion website.
A characteristic of the fashion industry is its high requirements for aesthetics. Therefore, building an impressive store interface with attractive and professional product display greatly impacts the initial perception of customers, so that they can feel the care and suitability of the product. You are able to upload high-quality images, add detailed product descriptions, and provide information about size, material, color, and other details so customers get an accurate view of the product and as a result, they will not hesitate to make a purchasing decision.
Not only that, a fashion ecommerce platform with advanced customization capabilities allows you to integrate marketing and advertising tools like email marketing, remarketing, social media integration, and many more. This enables you to increase your engagement with customers, and improve the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.
Tips for selling clothes online on ecommerce platforms
There is no denial that the fashion business tops the list of the most competitive industries on e-commerce platforms. This is also easily understandable because clothes are indispensable practical needs in life. We still buy new clothes every day, every hour and only stop shopping for clothes until we are no longer in this world.
Many estimates by experts have shown that online clothing businesses can bring huge profits equivalent to 90 billion USD per year (in the US alone). The global garment industry also achieved a huge revenue of 2,560 trillion USD. In such a vast industry, with fierce competition, how can your online clothing store succeed and gain a foothold in the hearts of a segment of customers? Let’s explore the secrets to a successful online clothing business below!
Tip 1: Choose your niche
A niche is a market segment that you can focus on and serve. The more unique your niche, the smaller the competition. Identifying a niche market is not difficult, you just need to consider two factors: What you like and What you can offer that other stores don’t have. For example, you are passionate about fashion and enjoy tailoring. You can open an online fashion store that you design and sew yourself. So, what you like and what other stores don’t have here is you – both a designer and a professional tailor with unique designs.
Some clothing business ideas that you can consider include: big size clothes, ethnic clothes, travel clothes, boho-chic style clothes,…
Tip 2: Choose the right ecommerce platform to start
After identifying your niche, you need an e-commerce platform to start building your store. This is how customers will find and buy your products.
For maximum customization, WordPress, WooCommerce or Magento are your top choices. If you have no skills in website design, Shopify or BigCommerce will help you create a professional and beautiful store from A-Z without any programming knowledge.
Some articles you may be interested:
- The Best Platform To Sell Digital Products For Maximizing Profits
- 11+ Best Dropshipping Platform For Beginners [Updated 2024]
Tip 3: Take lots of high-quality photos
Image quality has a great influence on customers’ purchasing decisions, especially in the fashion industry. Online clothing stores need to have high-resolution images of actual clothes being sold, neat backgrounds that match the concept, and images that reflect many angles of the product.
Always make sure you take photos with the entire outfit fully displayed on the actual model or mannequin so that customers can fully appreciate the look of the outfit as well as help their imagination. It’s easier to see what their image will look like in that outfit. Posting photos of a product with different colors, sizes, and application scenarios will help customers have more choices and convince them to shop.
Tip 4: Set a realistic price
Clothing is an essential need, and this also means that customers have countless choices. It is not enough that your product is beautiful and unique, because the most important factor for customers to pay you is a reasonable price, worthy of the value of the product, and above all, within their financial ability.
Another key element is to set a competitive price compared to similar products from competitors. A good, easy, and popular way to help you set a competitive price is to search and compare the price of your item with competitors on Amazon. Thanks to that, you will be able to offer the most suitable and competitive price while still ensuring profit.
What happens if you set the right price but the clothes still don’t sell? Special offers and promotions are the optimal choice. You can run incentive campaigns, seasonal discounts, and special occasions, or provide coupons and loyalty cards to encourage customers to buy more.
Tip 5: Market Your Online Clothing Store
When it comes to online clothing business, marketing plays a significant role in attracting customers and generating sales. Marketing helps build and increase your brand awareness in the online community, build trust, and build strong relationships with customers. Here are some popular marketing methods for your online clothing store that you can try:
- SEO (search engine optimization): Popular keyword research tools include Ahrefs and Semrush.
- Paid Ads: You can use platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Instagram Ads to place ads for your store.
- Email marketing: Send emails to customers to notify them and introduce new collections, promotions, and incentives for loyal customers.
- Affiliate marketing: This is a very popular form of marketing in recent years. Customers will act as an advertiser for your product by linking your product to their social media pages and you will have to pay them a certain commission for each product they sell. They help you sell.
- Influencer marketing: Connect and cooperate with celebrities and influencers in the fashion industry to create widespread influence for your products.
Final Words
In a nutshell, when it comes to finding the best ecommerce platform for clothing, there is no one-size-fits-all formula. Although we have launched some of the most popular e-commerce platforms today, in general, each platform has its own features and strengths. Therefore, your ecommerce platform for fashion is the one that best suits your business needs, customer base and growth aspirations.
By choosing the right platform, you can create a fun, visually appealing online store that attracts customers and is user-friendly to maximize sales for your apparel brand and enhance the shopping experience for your customers.
Hopefully, the above article from BSS Commerce will help you make a wise choice for your clothing store. Good luck!
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