Last updated on September 11th, 2023 at 06:51 am
Choosing the right online store builder in Nigeria is the most important first step you can take when starting an online store in Nigeria. You must build your business on the right and best-fitted foundation or platform which paves the path to easier navigation, business growth, and eventually more sales.
On the other side, the wrong platform can lead to the total opposite of that, which is being stuck with a cranky system, difficulty to grow, and inability to customize your business for the fitted vibe hence slow or no sales.
An e-commerce role in your business is to give you the right tools to easily and quickly build an online store. Earlier, to build a website for your business you had to code an entire system and that is something most people could not do.
Now there are varieties of e-commerce platforms you can use to build an online business with zero skills in programming. These platforms are, however, different with minor to major differences in the type of features they offer.
Depending on the size of your business, your goals, or other factors, each platform will fit you differently.
OLITT
OLITT is an e-commerce platform offering online store builder services to businesses at a very affordable price.
In fact, OLITT handles all the technical parts of the platform and gives you a template to customize for your website. It has a free basic plan and you get to set it up within minutes and have your business running right away. You have the freedom to customize your domain however you want and to best suit your business.
At the same time, this online store builder in Nigeria offers a user-friendly interface and beautiful themes to customize your business, especially for businesses aiming to create a product brand with unique customization.
And you get great support and secure payment options.
OLITT is the best choice for new and established businesses with different plans to accommodate all levels of business.
Magento
This is another best online store builder in Nigeria for established e-commerce businesses, owned by Adobe, and a one-stop platform for online stores needing endless customization.
It might not be the most flexible platform making it difficult to use for beginners.
Either way, Magento is filled with all varieties of features and has the best support and security. This means that with this online store builder in Nigeria, there’s the potential to be developed into a fully scalable e-commerce store.
Magento is an open source and free but the enterprise version is custom quoted and can be super expensive.
And is recommended for advanced e-commerce users or validated businesses looking to grow and scale fast.
Shopify
Shopify is another great eCommerce platform in Nigeria for starting businesses especially if you don’t mind their basic plan which starts at $29 per month.
The advantages of Shopify include the fact that it is very intuitive, has great support and there is plenty of room to scale up if your business grows.
You don’t have to worry about the technical part. Instead, you can focus on creating a great store experience for your customers and selling more.
On the downside, the monthly fee is a bit high and for businesses who can’t afford the price here in Nigeria, it can be challenging.
Also, there are no unique features hence stores end up looking so similar. Well, unless you can go for the out-of-the-box setup to get unique custom themes at quite a high price.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin that is very popular for being extremely customizable and it is very beneficial to advanced e-commerce users by enabling one to create an extremely unique store.
You also benefit from WordPress by boosting your Search engine optimization, especially on Google and you also have more control over your website.
WooCommerce is free, meaning that there is no monthly fee tied to the platform, making it another best online store builder in Nigeria.
However, the system and the interface can be cranky and less user-friendly compared to some other platforms.
This platform is best for users who know how to use or are familiar with the WordPress format and can put in the effort to get your website up and running.
Squarespace
Squarespace is a beautiful and simple website builder with a basic plan starting from $12 per month.
This platform offers a range of templates where all you need to do is select a niche, set your goal, and get matched up with a small selection of templates ready to use.
The interface is overly simplistic which is great for beginners but also lacks the app store which is a limitation when you need a 3rd party application.
Their page speed is quite slow on the platform which affects the SEO ranking.
That said, Squarespace online store builder in Nigeria is best suited for businesses looking to easily build a beautiful e-commerce store but with less customization.
Wix
Wix is a fully hosted content management system that was originally designed as a solution for building content-based websites. It became popular for its extremely user-friendly drag-and-drop interface for displaying content online and a free plan.
This platform is designed for beginners and offers e-commerce features that allow you to sell physical products online. It is easy to use the Wix platform especially because of its artificial design intelligence (ADI) mode which creates a customizable website.
The basic Wix editor allows you to pick from a variety of beautiful templates for your website and populate it with any content of your choice.
Wix has most of the functionality that you need to run a very basic shop when it comes to basic out-of-the-box features. They also offer basic inventory management via their backend interface.
However, Wix supports a small number of payment options and also lacks marketplace support. In addition to that, you can’t have your domain or sell online with the free plan, hence there are 8 more plans for websites and e-commerce.
Most businesses that opt for Wix are startups, for a basic plan of $23 per month.
Weebly
How is this list of best online store builders in Niger complete without talking about Weebly?
This platform is well known for its ease of use and its sophisticated features that are not available on many e-commerce platforms. It has a cloud-based drag and drop website editor that lets the user create websites and e-commerce stores.
In fact, Weebly has an app so that the user may even create and publish a site from their mobile on the go.
And it integrates with several 3rd party apps and even offers domain customization.
The Weebly sites are search engine friendly thanks to the built-in SEO feature.
What’s more, Weebly offers beautiful themes to choose from and customize to fit your business best.
Conclusion
In conclusion, choosing the best e-commerce platform is a very essential part of ensuring your business prospers. It saves a lot of money and time which could have been incurred when having to transfer your business from one e-commerce platform to another.
