Types of eCommerce platforms

Here’s a thing about modern software development: when you want to launch an online store, you usually turn to ready-made platforms, both paid and free. We all know platforms like Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and others. Obviously, each one has its own pros and cons. The obvious advantage of using such solutions is the speed of deploying stores – for example, Shopify takes over the entire technical process of setting up the store. Magento offers various hosting partners as well.

Such an approach has certain disadvantages: big waste of money, getting stuck on a single technology, lack of technical support, lack of customization, searching for developers, and so on.

Developing custom solution

Taking all these disadvantages, you may be tempted to write your own solution. However, we recommend doing it in these cases only:

• If your store is rather non-standard and you need deep customization of existing solutions. Then it really may be easier for you to write your own solution. For example, not all ready-made platforms are suitable for selling digital goods.
• If you already have developers that know specific technology. For example, you happen to have people on your team who can work on React + Node.js. In that case you can write a custom solution that ready-made eCommerce platforms cannot provide.
• Another advantage of custom solutions is the store speed. If you lay the right architectural solutions under the hood from the start, you can end up with a very fast-acting store.

• If you want to save money and not give it to a third party. For example, you don’t want to pay for a Shopify subscription or buy the Magento enterprise version.
  In general, the choice on how to develop an online store depends on the following criteria:

• The size of the planned store;

• What the store will sell;

• How fast the store will grow;

• Availability of developers in the company;

• How much you can allocate on development and support.

  Ecommerce templates explained

  If you are still reading this, we suppose you still want a self-written solution for building online stores and ask the question – how can I save time and money?

There is a solution called ready-made templates for online stores. Basically, you get an already written code base and design at your disposal for a one-time payment. Prices for such templates can be ridiculously low, and the benefits are enormous. According to our internal calculations, such a product can save you $20k in the initial development alone. You can buy such products at a specialized template marketplace or from template premium vendors.

Ready-made e-commerce solutions can use the following technologies:

• React, Vue, Angular on the front-end;
• Node.js, PHP, Python for backend;
• MySQL, PostgreSQL as a base. Also, as options, various analytics tools can be connected and configured there – for example, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, etc. Payment systems can be also integrated.

In this article, we will simply list e-commerce templates from various vendors. Before we do this, let’s analyze the minimum functionality and components that must be present in such a product.

• Of course, you need to have a shopping cart feature;
• Product management system;
• Product catalog;
• Login and registration forms;
• Checkout feature;

• For sure: different elements like buttons, logos, tables to edit your shop;
  Nowadays it is critical that your eCommerce website would be responsive;
  It’s also good if your eCommerce theme has a search option.
  We would also like to warn you that e-commerce templates are divided into 4 types:

• Templates and themes made for a specific technology. For example, themes that only suit for Shopify, Magento, Prestashop;

• Storefront templates that you can integrate with any backend and admin template;

• Admin templates (panels) that can be connected to the existing online store or data to manage it;

• Full eCcommerce templates that have both the front-end (storefront) part and the admin panel inside (back-end).
  In this article, we will review products from the latter 3 categories.

Notable Ecommerce Templates

React Material Admin Node.js

• Source: https://flatlogic.com/templates/react-material-ui-admin-node-js
• Live demo: https://flatlogic.com/templates/react-material-ui-admin-node-js/demo
• Price and License: 2-tier pricing, from $149 for the personal license to $699 for dev license
• The technology used: React, Material-UI, Node.js, PostgreSQL
• Number of sales: 30+
• Type of Product: Admin Panel The first template we need to take a closer look at is React Material UI Admin by the Flatlogic team. It uses Node.js and Material-UI framework and comes with Material design. Describing the advantages, here’s one of the central points – it doesn’t use Bootstrap and jQuery. The Ecommerce section has an option to Manage products. Products Grid and Product Page are also there. By purchasing this template, the user can have both front-end and back-end for apps or websites. You can use it for showing data analytics, e-commerce, or any other kind of app.

Among other major components, there are various UI elements:

• Widgets;
• Carousel;
• Notifications;
• Navigation bar. ####Notable Features
• Three color themes;
• Sketch version files included;
• Fully responsive;
• Node.js & PostgreSQL integrated;
• Full CRUD Application;
• Various Charts Libraries;
• E-Commerce Section; ####Support and Updates Policy Support is provided via email. The team answers within 24 hours. Major updates come every 3-4 months, often including upgrades of the framework and libs versions.

Ecommerce React Template

• Source: https://flatlogic.com/templates/react-material-ui-admin-node-js
• Live demo: https://flatlogic.com/templates/ecommerce-react-template/demo
• Price and License: 2-tier pricing, from $149 for the personal license to $699 for dev license
• The technology used: React, Node.js, PostgreSQL Number of sales (if applicable): 30+
• Type of Product: Full ecommerce store template with backend and DB Ecommerce React Template is a ready-made fully working ecommerce store built with the latest technologies and best practices. In this React Ecommerce template Flatlogic team have used React for the front-end, NodeJS for the back-end, PostgreSQL for storing the data and Sequelize as ORM.

Using an E-commerce React Template you will get a complete E-commerce store with front-end, backend, and admin parts. This E-commerce template is SEO-friendly with the help of NextJS – server-side rendering technology.

Notable Features

• Full ecommerce store
• Fully responsive
• Node.js & PostgreSQL integrated
• Full CRUD Application
• Blog and CMS for it
• Registration with email / password / name
• Stripe integration ####Support and Updates Policy Support is provided via email. The team promises to answer in 24 hours. Major updates come every 3-4 months, often including upgrades of the framework and libs versions.

Active Ecommerce CMS

• Source: https://codecanyon.net/item/active-ecommerce-cms/23471405
• Live demo: https://activeitzone.com/active-ecommerce-cms/
• Price and License: 2-tier plan, from $59 for the regular license to $525 for extended
• The technology used: PHP, SQL, Javascript
• Number of sales (if applicable): 2082 on 25 Jan 2021
• Type of Product: Full E-commerce template with CMS (back-end) and front-end part Active eCommerce CMS is a complete online store template with the database, front-end, and back-end parts. It includes both parts of a proper online shop: storefront and admin panel to manage it. With this type of template, you need to simply set up a payment system, hosting, and add your first items to start selling online.

The design is quite similar to Aliexpress, but we think this is an advantage. The layout will be familiar to most customers. The entire layout is 100% responsive.

Notable features

• Multi-vendor eCommerce system;
• Checkout system inside;
• Dynamic homepage;
• Multiple languages;
• Multiple color theme;
• Pre-installed payment integrations like Paypal or Stripe;
• Discount system;
• Suggestive search. ####Support and Updates Policy The policy says that Active eCommerce CMS has support for 6 months from the purchase date. During the product support period, customers can report and discuss bugs and minor item defects with the author, and authors are expected to be available to assist with reported bugs.

Sing App Vue Node.js

• Source: https://flatlogic.com/templates/sing-app-vue-node-js
• Live demo: https://flatlogic.com/templates/sing-app-vue-node-js/demo
• Price and License: 2-tier pricing, start from $149 for the personal license to $699 for dev license
• Technology used: Vue, Node.js, PostgreSQL
• Number of sales (if applicable): 42
• Type of Product: Admin Panel Sing App is a Vue Admin Theme with dozens of pre-built components and features that make your developer’s life easier. Sing App Vue gives you plenty of unique pages and components to help you build a custom admin dashboard or integrate with the existing online shop. The project works very fast and uses the latest technologies.

Notable features

• Various charts to analyze sales;
• Several types of tables;
• Buttons and Forms;
• Maps;
• Dashboards; Ecommerce section with Product Management, Product Grid, and example of the Product page. ####Support and Updates Policy Support is provided via email: the team says they answer in 24 hours. Major updates come every 3-4 months. They often include upgrades of the framework and libs versions.

Azia

• Source: https://www.bootstrapdash.com/demo/azia/v1.0.0/template/index.html
• Live demo: https://www.bootstrapdash.com/demo/azia/v1.0.0/template/dashboard-two.html
• Price and License: 3 tier options, starting from $39 for a regular license
• Technology used: Bootstrap 4, SASS, NPM, Gulp
• Number of sales: website claims 10000+ paying users
• Type of product: Admin Template Azia is a classic bootstrap 4 admin template. You can buy it both on the developer site and on ThemeForest. Made in light colors, it is generally designed in business style. It has a contrasting color scheme and is quite easy to read thanks to this.

The template has the following main blocks:

• Dashboard;
• Apps and pages;
• UI Elements;
• Forms;
• Charts;
• Maps;
• Tables;

• Utilities.
  How can you use this template for your online store? You can connect this product to an existing store via API and track the following indicators:

• Sales monitoring helps you track the following: Revenue, Total Quantity, Profit. There is also an interactive map with sales over the country.

• There is also a Product Management Dashboard that helps you to see Conversions, Number of Customers, Activity feed, and others.

• And several dashboards such as Ad Campaign, Helpdesk, Web Analytics.

  Notable Features

• Bootstrap 4

• 10 Pre-built Dashboard Templates

• 1000+ Font Icons

• 500+ UI Elements

• Pre-built Apps (Mailbox, Chat, Contacts, Calendar, etc.)
  Pre-built Pages (Sign In, Signup, Error Page, etc.)

• Form Validation

• Tables and DataTables

• Addon Utilities and Helper Classes

  Support and Updates Policy

  1 year of premium support from the team. Regular updates are stated. Support is working through the ticket system.

Light Blue React Node.js

• Source: https://flatlogic.com/templates/light-blue-react-node-js
• Live demo: https://flatlogic.com/templates/light-blue-react-node-js/demo
• Price and License: 2-tier pricing, starting from $149 for the personal license to $699 for dev license
• The technology used: React, Node.js, PostgreSQL
• Number of sales (if applicable): 51
• Type of Product: Admin Panel This admin template, designed in light blue colors, is made with React technology and Node.js back-end. You can easily use it for E-commerce apps because of special pre-built features like Product Management, Grids, Charts, login/logout forms, and others.

Some of the crucial components are the e-commerce product page and the product grid. The first one provides you with all details of your product, gives a description of it, and has the rating and reviews. The second one displays your products according to the chosen type, brand, size, color, range, and sort.

You can also find such components as:

• Buttons;
• Maps;
• Forms;
• Several types of tables;
• Icons. This dashboard template is a great start if you are building E-Commerce apps, CMS, SASS web apps, CRM, etc. It contains ready-to-use working Authentication, Social Login, and Product Management components.

Notable Features

• Over 30 unique pages
• Node.js & PostgreSQL integrated
• CRUD Application node js
• Fully responsive
• 8 Chart Libraries
• Fully Documented Codebase ####Support and Updates Support, as in other Flatlogic products is provided via email: the team says they answer in 24 hours. Major updates come every 3-4 months. They often include upgrades of the framework and libs versions.

Plus admin

• Source: https://www.bootstrapdash.com/product/plus-admin-template/
• Live demo: https://bootstrapdash.com/demo/plus/jquery/template/demo_1/index.html
• Price and License: 3-tier options, starting from $39 for a regular license
• The technology used: Vue, Angular, React
• Type of Product: Admin Template Like the previous product, you can use this admin panel with an online store by connecting it with existing data via API. The product uses blue colors to highlight its corporate identity.

This product has a whole section dedicated to E-commerce, which includes elements such as:

• Email templates
• Invoicing
• Pricing Table
• Product Catalog
• Project List
• Orders In addition to functions for an online store, in this template you will also find such interesting additions as Kanban board, Todo list, Ticketing system, RTL support, Text, and even code editor.

Notable Features

With Ecommerce elements, you receive such features as:

• Sorting products into different categories;
• Option to cancel orders and check your order history;
• Payments, Returns, Reports, Transfers, and more. ####Support and Updates Policy 1 year of premium support from the team and regular updates are stated. Support is working through the ticket system.

Cake

• Source: https://colorlib.com/wp/template/cake/
• Live demo: https://colorlib.com/preview/#cake
• Price and License: 3-tier options, starting from $19 for a single license
• The technology used: HTML
• Type of Product: Shop front end This product belongs to the category of those that provide only the front end part of the online store, so it should be evaluated from four sides:
• Speed – we can check it by trying out the demo;
• The number of different elements and features;
• Design – is a purely subjective thing, but you can still create your own opinion;
• Quality of the code – unfortunately, we cannot check it until we buy it. This template is tailored for setting up an online store to sell bakery products, but for sure it can be used for other purposes as well. In order to use this template, you will need a little love, since you will also need to connect an e-commerce CMS to it.

The product has a nice neat design, using baked goods colors. The template looks good both on a mobile phone and on a tablet.

Notable features

Inside the product, you will find stuff like the shop screen itself, skill bars, testimonials, Google maps, social media icons, and a functional contact form. No complaints about the speed of work whatsoever.

Support and Updates Policy

Support covers getting up and helping in theme setup, as well as help with using features, theme options and bug fixes.

Materialize

• Source: https://pixinvent.com/materialize-material-design-admin-template/landing/
• Live demo: https://pixinvent.com/materialize-material-design-admin-template/html/ltr/vertical-modern-menu-template/index.html
• Price and License: 2-tier plan, from $24 for the regular license to $699 to extended ( The technology used: HTML, Laravel
• Number of sales: 6800+
• Type of Product: Admin Panel Materialize is a material design template made with HTML and Laravel with 5 layout options. The product has a great collection of material design animation & widgets, UI Elements, jQuery plugins. In terms of Ecommerce, the template has a specific block named “eCommerce” which includes the Product page and Pricing. To use this product as E-commerce, you need to integrate it with your database and storefront.

Notable Features

• Pre-build applications: Chat, Email, ToDo, Kanban, App full Calendar, Invoice, File Manager
• Several Dashboards
• Icons
• RTL Supported
• Multi-Language Support
• 5 menu style variations
• Charts: Chartjs, Chartist, and Sparkline Charts ####Support and Updates Policy Support is provided on bugs and issues through tickets in ThemeForest. Updates come once in 3 months.

Chameleon

• Source: https://themeselection.com/products/chameleon-admin-modern-bootstrap-webapp-dashboard-html-template-ui-kit/
• Live demo: https://themeselection.com/demo/chameleon-admin-template/html/ltr/vertical-menu-template/
• Price and License: 3-tier options, starting from $24 for a single license to $399 for Extended
• Technology used: Bootstrap 4, SASS, Gulp
• Type of Product: Admin Panel Chameleon is a Bootstrap 4 admin panel from Themeselection. As with other similar products to use with online stores, you need to plug in your existing data.

Notable Features

The following components will help with managing an online shop:

• Ecommerce dashboard, where you can see Products Summary, Order Activity, Quarterly Sales, Number of Customers;
• Analytics dashboards with Revenue and Income stats;
• Apps like Email application, Chat application, Invoice, Contact list;
• Various tables and charts.
• Support and Updates Policy Themeselection offers support for all of the paid products, in case if you face any issues or if something isn’t working as advertised.

Shoppy

• Source: https://w3layouts.com/template/shoppy-e-commerce-admin-panel-responsive-web-template/
• Live demo: https://p.w3layouts.com/demos/28-03-2016/shoppy/web/
• Price and License: One type of license for $15
• Technology used: Bootstrap
• Number of sales (if applicable): –
• Type of Product: Admin Panel Shoppy is an admin template specially made for online stores. You just need to integrate it with the existing solution. This eCommerce admin panel template is built upon HTML 5, CSS 3, and Bootstrap framework.

Notable Features

Shoppy comes with an E-Commerce section that has Product listings with Prices and Flat style Pricing Panels (opens a pop-up on-click with Order processing information – Shipping and Billing).

This template also contains components like:

• Grids and Portlets;
• Animated Buttons;
• Maps;
• Authentication Pages (Sign-up/Log-in);
• Charts (Circular, Bar, Pie, Polar, and Line) ####Support and Updates Policy We haven’t found any evidence of support policy on the website.

Xtreme

• Source: https://www.wrappixel.com/templates/xtremeadmin/?ref=19
• Live demo: https://www.wrappixel.com/templates/xtremeadmin/?ref=19#demos
• Price and License: 4-tier plan, starting from $39 for single-use to $499 for Extended license
• Technology used: Bootstrap, Sass, Gulp
• Number of sales (if applicable): 368 sales as of 26 Jan 2021
• Type of Product: Admin Panel Xtreme is a classic Bootstrap 4 admin dashboard with eCommerce features that helps manage your online store. It packs a lot of UI elements along with a pre-constructed e-commerce setup and a lot of applications for managing an eCommerce business.

You can see widgets that show what products availability in the shop and what might need an update. You will be able to configure the datasheet with the tables, helping to show your revenues and other details. Small details like taskboards, to-do lists, and ticketing systems are already integrated into this template to save your valuable time.

Notable Features

• 500+ UI Components;
• Dark and Light Sidebar;
• RTL ready;
• 100+ Page templates;
• Form validations. ####Support and Updates Policy Support is provided through tickets only for premium products.

Monster

• Source: https://www.wrappixel.com/templates/monsteradmin/
• Live demo: https://www.wrappixel.com/demos/admin-templates/monster-bootstrap-latest/monster/src/main/index2.html
• Price and License: 4-tier plan, starting from $39 for single-use to $499 for Extended license
• Technology used: Bootstrap, Sass, Gulp
• Number of sales: 726 sales as of 26 Jan 2021
• Type of Product: Admin Panel Monster is another Bootstrap 4 admin template product from Wrappixel. It comes with a very big library of components, which will help you to set up your e-commerce website admin panel.

For analytics and data collection, you will get visually appealing charts that simplify the operations and calculations necessary to take discussions and actions. Team management applications like chatting, inbox, and task management via Calendar are also strong in this template. Thus this project can be a great fit into your existing eCommerce storefront.

Notable Features

This template includes a lot of cards, widgets, and functional components like toasters, nested lists, and so on.

The other notable features:

• Notes Application;
• Ticker Application;
• To-do app;
• RTL ready;
• 3000+ Font icons. ####Support and Updates Policy Support is provided through tickets only for premium products.

Able Pro

• Source: http://ableproadmin.com/#main
• Live demo: http://ableproadmin.com/bootstrap/default/index.html
• Price and License: 2-tier plan, from $25 for the regular license to $999 to extended
• The technology used: HTML, Angular, React
• Number of sales: 2096 as of 26 Jan 2021
• Type of Product: Admin Panel Able is an advanced template made with Bootstrap, React, and Angular technologies. It has a wide range of pre-built applications like Hospital, CRM, Helpdesk, School, and of course E-commerce.

For e-commerce integration, it has separate segments that you can use on your e-commerce site. It has product pages where all things are set up by default with the most necessary parameters like reviews, ratings, and many more.

Notable Features

• Data table;
• Maps;
• Various Charts;
• Built-In Search;
• Calendar. ####Support and Updates Policy Support is provided through tickets.

Flone

• Source: https://hasthemes.com/flone-react-js-ecommerce-template/
• Live demo: https://reactdemo.hasthemes.com/flone/
• Price and License: 3-tier plan starting from $59 for the personal license to $299 for Extended
• The technology used: React, HTML
• The number of sales (if applicable): –
• Type of Product: Storefront template Flone is a React JS eCommerce template with a huge number of prebuilt components and pages. It is a storefront template, thus you need to plug it in with the CMS. It even comes with such features as SEO optimization, Black Friday homepage, automotive shop page, and many others that will help you develop a good-looking website.

Notable Features

• 38+ beautiful homepages;
• 7 header variations;
• Different footer variations;
• Product Tab View;
• Product Grid View;
• Product List View;
• Blog section view. ####Support and Updates Policy Support is provided through the ticket system for premium products.

Materio – Vuetify Vuejs Laravel Admin Template

• Source: https://themeselection.com/products/materio-vuetify-vuejs-laravel-admin-template/
• Live Demo: https://themeselection.com/demo/materio-vuetify-vuejs-laravel-admin-template/landing/
• Price: starts from $49 for single-use
• The technology used: Vuejs (No Jquery), Vue CLI, Laravel
• Type of product: admin template Materio Vuetify VueJS Laravel Admin Template is the most developer-friendly & highly customizable Admin Dashboard Template based on popular front-end framework VueJS and back-end Laravel. Materio is not only fast and easy to use but highly scalable. Offering ultimate convenience and flexibility, you’ll be able to build whatever app you want with little hassle.

In addition, you can build premium-quality single-page applications with ease with the use of this Vuejs Laravel admin template. So, use this innovative Vuejs Laravel admin template to create eye-catching, high-quality, and high-performing single-page applications.

Features:

• Utilizes Vuex, Vue Router, Webpack
• 3 Dashboard, RTL Support
• Code Splitting, Lazy loading
• API ready JWT Authentication flow
• Access Control (even on CRUD operations)
• Laravel Passport
• Laravel Sanctum and many more

Conclusion

We have collected, in our opinion, the most suitable templates both for integration with existing stores and for creating stores from scratch.

Most of the presented products are admin panels with advanced functionality. With these, you can manage your products and analyze their performance.

It is worth noting that there are not so many high-quality products on the market, so choose your product carefully. We will recommend you to take a look at the Flatlogic admin templates and Materialize Admin Template: these have the best features and designs suitable for your project.

You can find great Admin templates and themes for eCommerce on the Flatlogic templates store. Feel free to use a 30% coupon code on any theme ECOMMERCE30.

Bonus!

Honorable mention: Hound

• Source: https://themeforest.net/item/hound-the-ultimate-multipurpose-admin-template/20212596
• Demo: https://preview.themeforest.net/item/hound-the-ultimate-multipurpose-admin-template/full_screen_preview/20212596 As we kept exploring web template market, some impressive entries came up. And while none were so groundbreaking they would shift our list’s order, we thought at least one deserved to appear on the list.

The Hound has over 90 pages, over 500 interface elements, and over 2k icons. With such versatility, we expected the Hound to be bloated and excessive but we were in for a surprise. The controls’ hierarchy turned out rigid and intuitive enough. We navigated it with ease, and we believe even a complete beginner can with just minimal research. The integration options are stellar. Maps, to-do lists, calendars, Google maps, charts, tables, and more. If there’s a feature you want in your eCommerce admin panel, the Hound most likely has it, and chances are it connects to outside services like clockwork.

The main downside we could see (literally) was the design. It can be fun and pretty. But an admin template is something you might have to look at for hours on end, and the Hound’s bright design is the opposite of neutral and unobtrusive. Still, we believe the Hound’s good sides outweigh the questionable aesthetics to the point where it deserves at least an honorable mention.

Creating Your Own Apps with Flatlogic Platform

We’ve covered 14 templates that are good in many regards but especially when used for e-Commerce projects. Now, let’s take a look at another path you can take.

Most web applications operate by using different combinations of basic functions. The combinations are different but the functions are the same. Standsrd web apps like the ones used in e-Commerce are sometimes called CRUD apps. CRUD stands for Create, Read, Update, and Delete. These are the most basic functions that most web applications perform. Understanding that, we simplified the process of app development to give everyone a shot, not only those with a team of dedicated developers.

To do this, go to the Flatlogic Platform and follow five simple steps.

1: Choose the project’s name

This step is as simple as it sounds. Pick a name that is easy enough to associate with the project in case you end up with several of them.

2: Select your Web App Stack

Decide what your App will run on. Choose underlying technologies for the front-end, the back-end, and the database. In the example shown in the screenshot, we’ve picked React for the admin panel, Node.js for the back-end, and MySQL for the database.

3: Choose the Design

The Flatlogic Platform offers a variety of admin panel designs. There are lighter and darker themes, themes with Material Design elements, and our proprietary design patterns. Pick the one you’ll be able to look at for a long time.

4: Create your Web App’s database schema

We’ve picked the technology the database runs on. Now it’s time to define tables, columns, types of data in them, and the relationships between those. At this step, you decide what the content of your App will mean. Furthermore, the Platform will automatically generate REST API docs for your App.

5: Review and generate your App

Review the decisions you’ve made. If everything is as intended, hit “Create App”. After compiling for a little while, the Flatlogic Platform will offer you your very own App that you can push to GitHub and host in one click. Enjoy!

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