Best 10 High-End Retail Software Development Solutions
Thinking of outsourcing your website development and maintenance tasks? Use our guide to find out which agency would be best for this work!
One of the biggest industries that require eCommerce platforms is retail. This industry also requires a lot of effort as retail customers have more complex requirements and great expectations. This especially applies to luxury retail brands. This is why it is recommended to opt for custom software solutions for high-end retail digital stores. The aim of today’s article is to give you an insight into the top retail management solutions. We recommend also checking out our blog post on the top AWS alternatives for retail eCommerce businesses.
Wix was established in 2006 by Avishai Abrahami, Nadav Abrahami, and Giora Kaplan in order to allow everyone to develop a website irrespective of their programming knowledge. Wix started with just a simple option of drag-and-drop website builder, which became highly popular because it enabled users to create decent websites without coding. As the platform developed, it offered more features, including eCommerce features, SEO features, and third-party integrations, which attracted small business owners and entrepreneurs. Indeed, one of the main reasons Wix has seen this growth in popularity is the significant proportion of marketing campaigns that they have committed to, such as broadcasting partnerships and contracts with influencers as well as social media advertisements. The key factor distinguishing Wix from the range of other platforms is that it combines ease of use with many design options and applications. Users have the option to develop websites from a set of templates or build from the ground up to meet the details of a user’s specific requirements. It is important to this sector of luxury retailing flexibility because it enables brands to embrace their unique niche. Now, Wix is being used to run 10.8 million websites globally.
Shopify is an online store management system launched in 2006 by Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand and Scott Lake intended for any novice owners who wish to sell their products through the Internet. Due the its simplicity and versatility, it started to be used more frequently but it did not become a tool for bigger and most established brands including luxury retail brands until 2014 when Shopify Plus was launched. Another reason for Shopify’s growth was its vast app store, support for most payment processors, and cloud-based architecture that ensured smooth growth. The current revenue of Shopify exceeds $4 and the company reached the position of more than $100 billion in valuation. The main reason why Shopify stands out from other platforms is because it combines the simplicity of the work with high opportunities for modification as it provides more numerous and relevant features for eCommerce requirements including inventory management, international shipping, and Black Friday-like sales. These features doubled up with Shopify’s personalized focus on eCommerce luxury sites, making Shopify a perfect place for simple and scalable operations.
PrestaShop is an open-source eCommerce Solution, which was established in the year 2007 in France. It began to rapidly grow in popularity as an easy-to-use and highly adaptable software that lets any size of business create a totally unique internet shopping experience for their clients. Being open-source, a community of developers was built around it with time, who contributed to the development of the product and also embraced it at a very high level. PrestaShop rose in popularity due to its scalability with an open-source, modular structure in which users had access to thousands of extensions and themes that enabled them to customize their store’s user experience despite limited coding abilities. By targeting customers’ requirements and extensibility, it became popular among European eCommerce sellers, particularly for merchants who want to retain complete autonomy over the looks and features of their stores. In Q2 of the year 2024, the number of PrestaShop stores increased by an astonishing 30% compared to the same quarter of the previous year, thus proving to be relevant and beneficial to businesses that are operating in the context of online retailing. While there are other similar website builders out there, like Wix for instance, PrestaShop is an eCommerce-oriented platform that gives store owners much more control over their stores and includes tools like search engine optimization and payment integrations. This makes it especially best for businesses that would wish to tweak their eCommerce platform.
Shift4Shop, known previously as 3dcart, was launched in 1997 and attracted many users in the sphere of eCommerce thanks to its adaptable functionality and ease of use for various companies of different scales. This, however, only started after the mid-2000s when the platform started experiencing a high uptake, especially from word of mouth among small to mid-sized retailers who considered it fairly easy to use and offered more functions at cheaper costs. However, what can be said to have catapulted Shift4Shop into a different league was the synergy it created with Shift4’s payment solution thus providing a one-stop-shop for eCommerce solutions and payment gateway. Another difference: while many platforms lack a lot of the features you’d need as a retailer and make you pay for third-party plugins to cover the gaps, Shift4Shop includes many built-in features, such as complex SEO settings, email marketing tools, and inventory management, to name a few that make the platform all the more appealing to retailers. The freedom to offer an unlimited number of products, bandwidth, and transaction fees coupled with the security aspect of being PCI compliant in the platform makes it an able competitor to Shopify and BigCommerce. As such, this end-to-end solution is suitable for luxury retailing as the chain environment requires seamless operation, and security and has to incorporate payment solutions.
Volusion was founded in 1999, and early on established itself as one of the first retail management solutions providers in the eCommerce industry by providing an easy-to-use platform for businesses to create an online shop. Over the years Volusion has become a favorite due to its easy-to-navigate web interface, a number of powerful opportunities, and strong client support service. The popularity of the platform increased as small and medium enterprises emerged with the need for an accessible and robust eCommerce system. Compared to its counterparts, Volusion is notable for its bundled tools that are designed for online retail only, for example, payment gateway and stock control, which makes the work easier for store owners. Also, Volusion’s offer of adequate customer service and frequent upgrades that helped improve the usability of the platform in its early years also put the company in good standing. Currently, there are 4,962 active stores using the Volusion platform and this platform remains to be a suitable choice for the competition of modern eCommerce stores. These are valuable features that continuously evolve to be up-to-date and the dedication EOS has for making sure businesses can thrive in the quickly changing world of online retail.
You may wonder that if there are so many eCommerce platforms out there, why bother with the hassle of opting for a custom solution instead? Well, that's because as a luxury site, we know that one of your top priorities is to provide your customers with the most enhanced, unique, and elegant experience, and to do so, you need something unique! At Resolve Digital, we completely understand this and we aim to provide you with only the most reliable and charming software solutions for high-end retail brands. To learn more about our services, contact us now and book your free strategy call!