eCommerce Platforms Research 2018. Which is the best?
There are about 300 eCommerce platforms in the world. From free to enterprise solutions. The competition in online retail is constantly growing, and our clients often ask which platform is better. To find the answer to the question “What platform to choose in 2018?”, we decided to pursue a research and to rely on calculations.
This research doesn’t consider the cost of each individual platform, functionality, and capabilities. According to these criteria, the platforms are chosen based on the budget and needs. As a performance marketer, we were primarily interested in the result. The main result for eCommerce Platform is the income.
Since the income is a trade secret and we couldn’t operate this data, we focused on the indicator “traffic”, which conversion is the source of the income, and set ourselves the goal of identifying the platforms that give the best result.
We collected more than 9 million sites on 262 eCommerce Platforms, estimating domains according to 60 parameters and metrics, among which:
1. Total Site Traffic (in dynamics)
2. Traffic Structure (Direct, Organic Search, Paid Search, Display, Referral, Social, Mail)
3. Mobile and Desktop Traffic Split
4. Site Engagement (Average time spent on site, Bounce Rate)
5. Paid traffic Cost etc.
Using the data obtained from the 9 million primarily considered sites, we selected those which receive more than 50,000 visits per month. So, below you will find data about 65 thousand sites that work on 147 platforms (in the next iteration we will share the latest results of the research about sites from 20,000 visits per month).
The most popular eCommerce Platform in the world
First of all, we wanted to determine the shares occupied by the platforms. During the research, we found that most online stores operate the self-contained eCommerce Systems.
According to the information received, 31.7% of sites around the world are implemented on the custom platform.
If we consider individual countries, the part of self-written platforms reaches 75.6% — in Russia, 86.5% — in Japan, 95.5% — in Korea.
Among the open eCommerce Systems in the world, Magento, Shopify, and WooCommerce are the most popular.
TOP15 eCommerce Platforms by Total Traffic
Even though one-third of all traffic is spent on resources with self-contained ecosystems, the top 5 platforms receive from 1 billion traffic per month each.
From open eCommerce Systems, Magento is the leader in Total Traffic. Every 11 visit in the world comes from a site that runs on this platform.
TOP15 eCommerce Platforms by Av. Traffic to Website
Next, we decided to consider which platforms receive the most visits, based on the calculation for a separate resource. By the number of traffic, on average on 1 site leads the WebCollage (30 million traffic on average per site).
On the second place runs a close second the Amazon with 21.5 million traffic to the site.
Among other “millionaires” as well k-eCommerce, Oracle eCommerce, IBM, Lengow, Kiosked, Hybris.
Best eCommerce Platform for Mobile
The next step was the research of a mobile traffic. It’s the main driver of the growth in the number of Internet users in most countries. In order to investigate the results from mobile devices, we made a selection on platforms that employ more than 100 sites, receiving from 50,000 visits per month.
It’s interesting that the three leaders of eCommerce Systems have changed: the most mobile traffic comes to the Dealer Spike Platform — 93.9%, Ecshop — 90.9%, BigCommerce — 88.9%.
However, among the most popular platforms in terms of the number of sites using them (more than 3000), are leading Shopify — 80.5%, WooCommerce — 77.7%, PrestaShop — 75.8%.
There is an interesting fact, that for the custom platform, the share of mobile traffic is only 66.6% (comparing with popular platforms).
Traffic Structure
Having received the general data, we made a decision to consider the traffic structure in order to understand what proportion is accounted for the main traffic receiving channels and how the structure varies depending on the platform. Data in the context of sources can be useful for eCommerce-, SEM- and SMM-specialists, and, of course, business owners, in order to determine the platform preferences based on a priority of the promotion channels.
In general, 53% (38.7% organic and 14.3% paid) traffic comes from search engines. Another 22% — direct traffic. The rest of the traffic comes via paid channels. It’s interesting that in the total volume the share of mobile traffic is 73.5%.
Note that in the graph on the left, the Search traffic consists of Organic and Paid traffic, their relationship is shown in the graph on the right.
Traffic Structure for websites on Magento
Sites on Magento receive 38.2% of Organic traffic.
Traffic Structure for websites on Shopify
The leader in mobile traffic Shopify receives 20% of total visits from Social Media. Organic traffic — 32.4%.
Traffic Structure for websites on WooCommerce
WooCommerce receives above average traffic from Search — 58%, including Organic — 50.5%.
TOP eCommerce Platforms by Organic Traffic
There is an opinion that the success of SEO largely depends on the correct choice of the eCommerce platform. Let us verify this assertion. Most often, the platforms are compared by technical parameters and flexibility of the configuration functionality, but let’s start with the main thing — result.
Given the data, we wondered which platform gets the most Organic traffic on average per site. We conducted an analysis of this indicator, because this is the main source, and therefore, important when choosing a platform with a focus on SEO.
So which platforms give the maximum Organic traffic? Weebly eCommerce is leading with the share of organic traffic 55.7%.
TOP eCommerce Platforms by Organic Keywords Volume
We also decided to check which positions are in the top of each of the platforms. These data can tell which platforms are easiest to get to the top of the search engines.
Oracle Commerce and InterShop have more than 8% of Organic Keywords in top3. For Ecshop, IBM Websphere Commerce and Hybris this value is 7.3–7.6%. For Custom Platform — only 4.6%.
At positions TOP 10 and TOP 20 Intershop leads by share:
Thus, it can be noted that the open eCommerce Systems are about 2 times ahead of the seemingly self-written platforms and are more effective in attracting of Organic traffic.
TOP eCommerce Platforms by Paid Search Traffic
SEO is a long game. If the result is needed here and now, you can’t do without a Paid traffic. Based on this thought, we decided to investigate which platforms are leading in the shares of paid invoices and how much money do the sites spend on this on each platform.
The data shows that the most Paid traffic is attracted to sites on the VTEX platform — about a quarter of all visits of the resources.
The Paid Search is mostly invested (in average $60 thousand per month) by the Oracle-Commerce based sites. On the second place with a strong lag from the leader — IBM Websphere Commerce (an average of $ 13 thousand per month). The third for the purchase of paid search traffic is Hybris with the amount of $ 6 thousand per month.
What does this information tell us? Apparently, the guys who use Oracle-Commerce and VTEX are the owners of the thickest wallets ;) Seriously, such data can tell that these platforms are “sharpened” to attract paid traffic and are used by companies with large marketing budgets.
Which eCommerce Platform is the best?
What in the end? Which platform is the best? It depends on the goals that you pursue.
Unfortunately, there is no tool that would give an exact answer easily and quickly. Using the results of this research and the reports prepared by us, every owner of an online store, having weighed the functionality and cost of operating various ecosystems, will be able to decide for himself which platform is more advantageous in his particular case.
We hope you will find the answers to your questions. If you want to hear our expert opinion — write, we will gladly share other data.
More information in interactive graphs — on this link.
P. S.
During the research, we were faced with the fact that we had to collect data in parts from a variety of sources. There are a lot of data and they are chaotic. There is no one tool that would give a full range of data necessary for such analysis easily and quickly, in two clicks. This is an idea for a startup, donated for free. ;)
By the way, in the course of the work done, we also found that:
- 3,2% websites had two eCommerce platforms during our research. They likely are moving from one eCommerce platform to another;
- 1% of sites are moving to a new domain.
These data indicate that online stores around the world are slowly migrating to new platforms, so we will continue our observations to determine the further trends.
Subscribe the updates, there is still a lot of research and insights ahead. As promised, the next study will be released already on sites with traffic from 20,000 sessions. And of course, we will be grateful for your feedback.
Data Sources: Agencies own software, Ahrefs, Alexa, BuiltWith, SimilarWeb, SerpStat, SemRush.
Authors: Iryna Kozhukhova, Vadym Nevmerzytskyi
Editor — Mikhail Shteynbok
PROMO.TM Research Team
