WOULD YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF A CLOTHING ENTREPRENEUR?

 

"SELLING YOUR APPAREL ON AN ECOMMERCE SITE COULD HELP TAKE YOUR BUSINESS TO THE NEXT LEVEL."

 

You're not alone in your struggles when it comes to making the leap to online sales. There are other e-commerce entrepreneurs who have decided to sell online and have found great success. 

People like Catherine Choi, who started on Shopify with her brand SoYoung selling trendy bags, such as backpacks for toddlers that are machine washable. And Wajdan Gul along with his wife, opened a site for their brand SQUATWOLF on WooCommerce, an open-source platform self-hosted, to sell stylish, premium gym apparel.

 

WANT TO TAKE YOUR BUSINESS TO THE NEXT LEVEL BY SELLING ON AN E-COMMERCE SITE?

If you're already thinking about opening an e-commerce store or having one up and running, then you've made a good call. If you're not sure which platform is best for you, let us help you. 

Potential clothing retailers maybe stuck on choosing the best e-commerce site to sell their apparels. Once you choose a platform, it's not always easy to change without considerable costs, especially when you become successful.

There are plenty of e-commerce platforms out there, but it's not always easy to figure out which one is the best for your clothing business. You want to find a platform where you can sell your specific types of products, which can vary from item to item. 

We'll look at the six best e-commerce platforms to sell clothes online. You'll see the pros and cons to help you decide.

1.    SHOPIFY

Shopify is an e-commerce platform that lets you sell all kinds of apparel. The site was designed with features that novices and pros can use without any problems.   

Pros

  • It has an excellent Point of Sale (POS) program for sellers. With this, you can link your physical store with the online store.

  •  There is 24/7 technical support, including email, live chat, and phone service. 

  •  The cost of using the site is fair, especially for beginners.   

  • It is easy to familiarize yourself with it and integrate it with your social media sites. 

Cons

  • The selection of free themes is limited. Good themes need to be purchased.

  • It would be best if you learned liquid, which is the coding language of the site. This knowledge will help you make easy and quick modifications to your Shopify store. 

  • For larger businesses, you may need to hire a website developer to design the site.

 

SUMMARY

Shopify is the best e-commerce platform for people who aren't tech savvy. Since its interface is easy to use and doesn't require any coding, it allows you to open a store without any technical knowledge. If you need a ton of features, go for Shopify Plus.

 

2.    OPENCART

OpenCart is another famous e-commerce platform for clothing brands. The platform has more than 300 000 active online stores, proving its functionality to users. You can customize your store; although it's not intuitive, it's not too difficult to use.  Sites like 6DollarShirts who started in 2008, are built with OpenCart and only sell t-shirts. Their site is clean, minimalistic, with a layout that is easily accessible.

The platform is programmed with several clothing-specific themes that attract fashion brands.  So, it's great for getting your clothing brand launched quickly.

Sidenote: You can use a site like builtwith.com to check what technology a website uses for coding and analytics.

Pros

  • Setting up a site with OpenCart is not hard if you use existing templates.
  • It's free, but you'll have to host it yourself. Also, you'll have to pay for add-ons and extensions, which are one-time costs with no monthly plans. 
  • Technical supports are always available and ready to assist you with any issue. You can contact them via email or chat. They also offer upgraded tech support that helps with technical issues, like the configuration of the site, which is not free. 

Cons

  • It requires the help of a developer to customize it. 
  • To enhance the e-commerce SEO of this platform, you will need to buy expensive modules. 


SUMMARY

OpenCart is the right option for you if you desire an apparel shop with customizability or specific features with technical PHP coding.

 

3.    MAGENTO ECOMMERCE

On this e-commerce platform, you will find many renowned apparel entrepreneurs around the world using Magento and Magento 2, at the time of writing household names such as Barbour at www.barbour.com and Christian Louboutin at eu.christianlouboutin.com still use the site in 2022. More than 250,000 users are active on the site.

This platform is known for its uniqueness and ease of customization. That's why influential brands are drawn to Magento. Nevertheless, it has its cons. 

Pros

  • You can integrate the site with other social media and sales sites.
  • You can customize your store on the platform. 
  •  It has tools that recommend products that help you reach your prospects with ease. 
  • Robust Ecommerce SEO features or tools are pre-installed on the site
  • Magento has source code that is free for small businesses. 
  • There is excellent business analytics to analyse your top competitions, products, and customers. 
  • Magento offers high-quality security tools, such as web application firewall and encryption. 

Cons

  • It’s costly to install the Magento EE enterprise, but cheaper with Magento CE Community and Magento EE Cloud. 
  • You may need to use a Magento developer to set up a functional site on Magento. 
  • This site is not as easy to navigate as other e-commerce platforms. 

 

SUMMARY

If your clothing business is small, this is not the best platform for you to launch your online business, but you can consider it one of the best options if you own a large brand.
 

4.  WOOCOMMERCE

WooCommerce site is among the notable e-commerce website platforms. This e-commerce platform stands out in that it is integrated with WordPress, a well-known content management system. There are lots of clothing brands with stores on WooCommerce, and you may want to check it out.

Thomas's Trendy Socks, a socks store built by Finbar Barry on behalf of his son Thomas Barry, who was born with Down's Syndrome, is a site that uses WooCommerce for back-end deployment for things like stock, orders, and payment, while WordPress delivers the front end.

Pros

  • Easy to navigate
  • You can integrate it with your WordPress website
  • You are free to customize your store
  • Add-ons are less expensive, and plug-ins are free
  • Designed with many Ecommerce SEO plug-ins

Con

  • You get technical support by only submitting a ticket online. 
  • It can only be used on WordPress

 

SUMMARY

If you want to own your online store without paying a monthly subscription fee, WooCommerce is one of the best choices for your apparel business, whether small or big.

 

5.    BIGCOMMERCE

The platform isn't huge, but it's growing fast. American Apparel, Tucker Blair, TYLER's, among others, are all available on BigCommerce.

Pros

  • The platform has analytics and reporting built-in
  • Integrates easily with other sales apps and sites
  • BigCommerce's omnichannel sales help boost growth
  • Local language support means you can sell virtually anywhere

Cons

  • It only has email and chat support
  • Has fewer free themes and templates
  • Lacks one-click selling option 
  • It's not the cheapest e-commerce platform on the web now

 

SUMMARY

This site is perfect for you if you're a large clothing business that wants to grow fast through its integration with Amazon Marketplace, Ebay, and Facebook Marketplace, to name a few.  But if you're running a small clothing business, you should know that BigCommerce can get expensive.

 

6.    BIG CARTEL

Here is one of the few e-commerce sites that make selling clothes easy. Thanks to the helpful features available on the site. On this platform, countless stores, americanleather.com, have stores that are making sales.


Pros

  • The themes are user-friendly
  • It’s the cheapest e-commerce platform
  • Five products or less is free

Cons

  • It’s not suitable for big brands or fast-growing ones
  • Lacks SEO optimization tools
  • Small selection of themes with lack of customization options

 

SUMMARY

Big Cartel is affordable, but it's probably not enough if your business is growing fast. 

 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Are you finding it tricky to get the best e-commerce platform for your apparel company? Get some professional help. Before choosing an e-commerce site, you need to consider things like clothes SEO optimization, security, etc. 
If you're interested in building a high-ranking website without worrying about which platforms to use, contact us at BBNDRY.