What is the best ecommerce platform to use to sell products instead of building your own ecommerce site?

If business is only starting to develop I would recommend to choose solutions that are easy for store launch and management. Take a look at hhttp://www.shopping-cart-migration.com/blog/61-must-know-tips/8807-the-realities-of-hosted-shopping-carts. Shopify and BigCommerce belong to this type, by the way. However, out of these two I'd choose BigCommerce, because it's more functional. Still you should check both.

Check these out: http://www.oscommerce.com/, http://www.zencart.com/, http://www.oscmax.com/, http://www.prestashop.com/, http://www.magento.com/, http://www.ubercart.com/, http://www.cs-cart.com/, http://www.wordpress.com/ I've personally used osCommerce, Prestashop, and Magento. Magento is the most powerful out of all of them (owned by eBay), but also has a steeper learning curve. Prestashop is pretty slick, and my personal favorite. If you really want to go for flexibility of user-friendliness. Go for Wordpress + Plugins. Also, http://Fab.com has the layout like Groupon. You can easily find a Groupon clone (Wordpress has a theme like that too) for cheap. FYI, Groupon used Wordpress in the beginning as their platform. The trick here is to search for "(name of company) clone script" in Google, then you will find what you need. BTW, there's a bit more information on some more open source scripts in http://startitup.co, check it out.

http://sellmojo.com/ lets you create a shop for you right on your Facebook page. It has a payment gateway and also provides buttons to share across various social websites. Has multiple options to customize your store lets you connect it to your own website and provides you with a sub-domain if you don't have one. No technical knowledge is required 1. We have tie ups with a logistics provider like Aramex, Blue Dart and DTDC. They will come to your office and pick up the product and then deliver it anywhere across the country or even worldwide. 2. Setting up a Facebook store takes 60 seconds. After this it depends on you as to how long you take to upload your products! 3.  SellMojo is http://sellmojo.com/features that let you share your new products instantly with all your fans. Customers can also ask their friends for recommendations from within your store. 4. There are http://sellmojo.com/pricings. The Starter plan even comes with a FREE payment gateway. When any order is placed, it shows up in your SellMojo Admin Panel. 5. One of the advantages of setting up an online store is that you are always there for your customers. A store within Facebook let’s all your fans see, like and share your products. Setting up a Facebook store is the best thing to do given current E-Commerce trends. http://sellmojo.com/blog/what-makes-people-sold-on-brands-on-facebook/

You see selling products online means to take only one major decision i.e. Choose a appropriate and beneficial ecommerce platform so that your friend gets an edge over all problems..instead of getting influenced by brand names choose a platform which actually serves your purpose..try for http://www.iqecommerce.com/ -we serve the best eCommerce solutions for new market launches...check our website for more details..

I think the answers here are deviated from the primary question. I believe what you are asking is about ecommerce platforms where you can sell things online without online store setup. (And not about ecommerce store builders like Shopify) If I am not wrong, then the suggestions here should include names like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, etc. where you can register as a merchant and sell things online, without setting up your own ecommerce site. Also, I sensed from your question that your friend is looking forward to build an ecommerce store of his own, which I guess would be a multivendor store (since you mentioned partner companies). So, I’d suggest that you should check Yo!Kart, an ecommerce store builder (like Shopify, BigCommerce, Volusion), but with built-in multivendor functionality. You can refer this link if you want to learn more about it: http://www.fatbit.com/website-design-company/multi-vendor-ecommerce-system.htmlhttp://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fatbit.com%2Fwebsite-design-company%2Fmulti-vendor-ecommerce-system.html&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNG4r4Q1v4ktCYNG10z58rS7nMuJKA

You see selling products online means to take only one major decision i.e. Choose a appropriate and beneficial ecommerce platform so that your friend gets an edge over all problems..instead of getting influenced by brand names choose a platform which actually serves your purpose..try for http://erightcart.com/ In the ideal world you will absoluely need functionality where you can play in numerous channels, have a POS integration, inventory management as well as some kind of automation and synchronisation otherwise you will be spending all your time running your business than actualy marketing it.

In the current scenario of E-commerce segment, if you are planning to launch your E-commerce Website, I will suggest to consider E-commerce platform to launch because of their expertise and your ease. That too, when it comes to be textile industry, the competition is very high and not even a single miss would be accepted. If you compare the E-commerce platforms, basic offerings of all the them are nearly the same, what creates the difference is the add-on services being offered and these are the ones who impacts the performance of your E-commerce store. One of the E-commerce platforms I would suggest you to check out as an impeccable option is Ratoon(http://www.ratoon.com/). Being India's First Managed Online Store service provider, Ratoon amazes you with its astonishing offerings and add-on services. Operating on its basic principle of "DO It For Me" Ratoon ensure your glee with being the One stop solution to all your E-commerce Store needs along with its alluring features and add-on services. For detailed information, you may Ratoon at: http://www.ratoon.com/

It really depends so much on what level of customization & complexity they are looking for. Shopify could be a great option if they have time and resources to first set it up and then update & maintain. Countless apps to add more functionality. Ecwid is a good choice if they have a popular Facebook account and could use it to capture sales. Not so easy to setup, but really flexible and inexpensive. The other option is Instagram linked with http://Inselly (an online store that is updated & maintained right on the smartphone using Instagram app). Free, no setup, certain level of customization if upgraded to Premium and a ready-made sales channel (Instagram with it's 300+ mil. users).

You know selling products online means to take only one major decision. You should choose an appropriate and beneficial marketplace platform so that your friend will get an edge over all problems, instead of getting influenced by brand names choose a platform which actually serves your purpose. So, I can advise you two platforms – Sellbrite and Omni Channel Hub.Sellbrite is easy to use and greatly simplifies multichannel selling. However, when I used them, I couldn’t add purchase orders or fixed costs and sales outside of integrated platforms (like sales in person). These things are important for all who want to sell products.So, I decided to move to Omni Channel Hub https://www.omnichannelhub.com/. It’s a hosted platform with cost-effective pricing for startups or established businesses. Their system actually focuses on businesses that sell on many marketplaces, so they’ve worked it out for sellers to automate most of their operations. You can list, sync, update, download orders/inventory with just a few clicks. It’s highly customizable, however I heard that it will take a little time to set up, but it depends on user. I found it intuitive to set up and use, and it has all the key features you'd expect from an Enterprise solution.Disclosure: I wrote this post, and I used these companies in my answer.