Travla, been a top product and services marketplace in Nigeria, lots of people ask us about the Best E-commerce Platforms for starting an Online Store, and over the years, we have only recommended two platforms.
Basically, as an entrepreneur, particularly an upcoming one within the Nigerian ecosystem, starting up any online business is tasked with a lot of work and required efforts, but with the now global market dominance of e-commerce, it is now remarkable to conclude that the efforts greatly justify the results.
A major example of this fact is the most notable successful e-commerce store, Amazon, putting into consideration the amount of success they have achieved over the years by monopolizing expedited shipping. Understandably, others have also joined this approach, resulting in a surplus of options within the e-commerce system.
Though this oversaturation of e-commerce backs its profitability, it might seem rather intimidating for newcomers who have to comb through various e-commerce platforms before they can finally select the one that meets their required specifications.
To this end, we have written this article to highlight a few of the best e-commerce platforms that one should strongly consider before starting an online store.
What is an e-commerce platform?
An e-commerce platform is usually a type of specialized software package that can be used to develop and maintain an online presence for a brand or online store. It usually satiates the most pressing needs of business owners selling their products and services online, in addition to combining retail tasks like payment tracking, sales, marketing, inventory stock, and control etc.
The advent of E-commerce platforms is an excellent way to seamlessly integrate the online shopping system into a particular website. This set-up will allow you to set up an online space, fill it up with as many products or services you have to offer, and push them for sale. Added features in the websites might allow for promotional offers in the form of discounts that might incentivize prospective customers.
Modern e-commerce platforms have evolved with the times, enabling business owners to leverage on websites that are aesthetically unique as their digital store. This will help to better keep your brand afloat within the market and foster good relationships with your viewers and clients alike.
In addition, the most overlooked quality of e-commerce platforms is the fact that they are rather cheap, with all you need being just good internet access and no extra added charges of customer support services.
The Best e-commerce platforms for starting an online store
- Shopify
- Wix
- Bigcommerce
Given below is an overview of two of the best e-commerce platforms in 2025 that would help you in your search for a good online store.
1. Shopify
This is one of the biggest game-changers in the e-commerce rankings, with a hosting of more than thousands of online stores across the globe. It comes equipped with a capable software that allows you to sell anywhere your customers are without restrictions, with adequate features well fitted to handle intricate aspects of website design, product management, retail marketing, and the like.
Notably, all these details are made easily accessible to online users and customers alike via a user-friendly interface. This interface is also provided with an active customer support chat messaging system, which users can go to when they experience any difficulty.
To this end, we can conclude that getting started on the platform is such an easy task for a new user, as all the needed help has been properly accounted for.
Ranging from customizable themes, pre-designed templates, customizable store builder to accessible theme codes and customizable plugins that are provided on the Shopify website, it is very easy for a business owner to easily customise their brand store to be distinguishable from others. Getting started as a new user or beginner is also a fun-filled experience with lots of e-commerce tutorials and themes to explore. So the question is, why Shopify?
Pros and cons of Shopify
Pros
- Even for new users, it is very easy to operate and set up
- It has certified backing in partnerships, hence no website hosting or security risk
- Offering easily customisable stores for merchants with over 5000 plugins and extensions
- Good and qualified customer support
- Process payments with one-click checkout systems.
- It has excellent loading speeds, ensuring swift operations.
Cons
- The Shopify website still has some problems with multiple languages.
- Additional costs of some exclusive plugins and themes might seem expensive in the long run
- The checkout page has limited customizable options
- If you have larger goals of growing more than 90-100 products on a particular platform, Shopify is not recommended.
2. Wix
Over the years, Wix has earned its name as one of the easiest e-commerce platforms for any upcoming business owner to build an online store. This is because as at 2025, Wix is still being used on more than 100million websites globally.
Wix is a cloud-based, drag-and-drop website maker that offers its users web hosting services, customizable templates, and domain name creation. Wix software is designed to ease the task of online selling by tracking payments, orders, and checking inventory across channels, but Wix lacks basic e-commerce features needed, like low stock alerts and other necessary inventory management features.
For this reason, most people consider Wix as an e-commerce platform best suited for business owners without a good web developer, as even without the basics of web design, the average human can still use the drag-and-drop tools to create websites.
When crafting a site using Wix’s drag-and-drop builder, one can save time by using pre-installed templates that are already ready-made in the software. These options might prove highly useful for beginners.
Adding necessary plugins might just suffice for the lack of e-commerce functions, but still, it’s only ideal to note that Wix is at its best only a website builder, and its easy usability is due to a limitation of its features. So while some advanced features you might be in search of in modern e-commerce platforms are still lacking, one should always have it that Wix is still evolving. And again, why Wix?
Pros and cons of Wix
Pros
- They are already made templates that can be used to set up the digital store
- It’s simple enough to use, if not tech-oriented.
- No additional costs of transaction fees
- Easy to build a website using a drag-and-drop builder tool
- Customer support that’s always available 24/7
Cons
- For bigger businesses, it might be better to choose other e-commerce platforms like Shopify or BigCommerce
- No promotional offers of free trials
- Rigidity to change templates after creating a site.
- Lack of proper inventory management and control tools (unlike Shopify)
- The free version of Wix usually bears ads, and you’ll have to pay to not show them.
- Lack of marketing tools for proper customer reviews.
Conclusion
Which is the best e-commerce platform to leverage?
After rallying up and about the two major e-commerce platforms, the most popular, Shopify, and the most used, Wix.
It comes down to you as an individual to select what is best according to your budget, goals, skills, and your e-commerce objectives. But to help you better, let’s draft it out for you.
The best e-commerce platforms for newbies are Shopify, Ecwid. Then, for small businesses, pick either Shopify or Wix. For dropshipping, Shopify is indisputable. Lastly, for a big corporation, Bigcommerce works best.