Catalysts, Ecommerce Platforms for SMB’s

Everyone starts somewhere. Many small and mid-size retailers need a new, affordable ecommerce platform. While they may have a recognized brand, not everyone has the immediate potential to drive $5 million in online sales. So where do they turn?

Catalysts are designed specifically for the small- and mid-market. Unlike enterprise solutions that demand a million dollar software investment or tens of thousands every month in hosting fees, catalysts deliver a far more limited feature set with ultra-easy deployment options at an ultra-low cost. Some open source options are even free!

Here are more than 50 SMB ecommerce platforms that won’t break the bank:

HOSTED ON-PREMISE

Amazon Services
asknet
Beanbasket
bx.com
ChannelAdvisor
CommerceV3
Competitive (C2)
DminSite
GoECart
Infopia
InstanteStore
LaGarde
Mountain Media

NetSuite
Network Solutions
Nexternal Solutions
Onestop
ProfitCenter
Prosodie
ProStores
Shopify
ShopSite
StoreFront
StoresOnline
sysIQ
Tachyon Solutions

TELLUS
TorreyCommerce
Unified Marketplace
UniteU
Virid
Volusion
Warp 9
WebJaguar
WebLinc
Yahoo! Stores
Zoovy
1ShoppingCart
3d Cart

AbleCommerce
ARS ecommerce
BV Software
CRE Loaded
Devix
eMart
Everest Software
Mainstreet Commerce
Magento
Miva Merchant
osCommerce
VantageCart
X-Cart

Not all these vendors are alike. Some, such as Onestop and Virid, offer a full range of professional services. Others, such as ChannelAdvisor and NetSuite, offer ecommerce as a bolt-on to their core services. Amazon, Yahoo and ProStores are extensions of massive shopping portals. And packages solutions like osCommerce and Magento are virtually free software you download, install, and custom-configure on your own server.

Comments

4 Responses to “Catalysts, Ecommerce Platforms for SMB’s”

  1. Brian on June 13th, 2008 4:59 am

    You should add Shopify to this list. Excellent and highly customizable SMB hosted product. Thanks for the compilation. Very noisy space.

  2. Kabir on June 18th, 2008 4:24 pm

    There is a lot of variety in your list - just be aware some of these are completely different types of solutions! We are currently on Network Solutions e-commerce and relatively happy, definitely feeling constrained though. If I had technical expertise I would go with Magento given its high level of customization but for those without many of these are good options.

  3. greg on October 15th, 2008 5:30 am

    Where do you recommend a small business starts? We have a 1,000 product inventory and currently sell on ebay stores. We’d like to have our own store on our domain, with a persistent shopping cart, credit card payment gateway not thru paypal, lots of custom pages, cross-selling, coupon codes. Fairly tech friendly but definitely don’t want to self-install/maintain oscommerce.

    Thanks!

  4. Bill Mirabito on October 15th, 2008 1:34 pm

    Hi Greg. If you’re a small business that’s very active on Ebay, I’d start with ChannelAdvisor or ProStores. Both have direct feeds from your own domain directly to Ebay.

Leave a Reply