Setting up an eCommerce portal to sell your eLearning content is a great way to reach new customers and boost business revenue. An eCommerce LMS provides the tools to not just create and manage content, but also monetize learning materials and services on a branded marketplace.
In this article, we’ll discuss the features and benefits of our top five eCommerce LMS platforms, and how they help improve your business outreach.
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Best Ecommerce LMS
The global eCommerce market is predicted to reach around $57.22 trillion by 2032, highlighting the immense growth potential it holds for businesses in the eLearning space. As online learning continues to grow, eCommerce LMS solutions have become a must-have for organizations to provide on-demand skill development opportunities to their employees and attract new customers.
While LMS platforms help manage, deliver and track online learning activities, eCommerce portals facilitate online buying and selling of training content. When combined, the two platforms unlock many opportunities for online training providers.
Let’s look at our top five eCommerce LMS platforms and how they help you monetize your training content.
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Docebo
Docebo offers a comprehensive suite of features for organizations to manage and deliver their training programs. It provides content management capabilities, course catalogs, social and blended learning tools, mobile compatibility and more. Advanced reporting and analytics capabilities help track learner progress and measure training effectiveness using insights from real-time data.
Allow learners to browse learning content in the course catalog.
Highest Rated Features According to Our Data
- Course Bundles — 100
- Course Selling— 100
- Discount and Coupons — 100
- Manage Subscriptions — 100
- Transaction History — 100
Top Benefits
- Easy Access: The solution supports all standard eLearning formats like SCORM 1.2 and 2004 and Tin Can (xAPI), so you can deliver up-to-date content accessible to all users.
- Diverse Content: Authoring tools help create multidisciplinary content in all major eLearning formats like SCORM 1.2 and 2004, AICC with PENS support and Tin Can (xAPI).
- Global Learning: It can be translated into over 40 out-of-the-box languages along with localized date formats. This cuts down on implementation time and allows employees, customers and partners from different regions to access the platform.
Primary Features
- Third-Party Integrations: The solution easily connects with external third-party apps like Shopify, Drupal, WordPress and Joomla.
- Subscription Plans: You can compose and sell bundles of courses through subscription plans. Manage different plans for different groups of customers based on the number of named learners or enrollments to courses.
- Payment Gateways: It supports multiple payment gateways like Authorize.net, Paypal, Adyen, Cybersource, Stripe and Alipay.
Limitations
- Upgrade issues are common.
- The communication tools are not effective.
Platform:
Company Size Suitability: S M L
Brainier
Brainier LMS is designed to streamline and enhance employee training and development for organizations of all sizes. The software allows you to create engaging online courses, conduct assessments, track learner progress, process online payments and more. It supports mobile learning and social collaboration, and offers a range of gamification tools to enhance learner engagement.
Allow learners to make purchases using a variety of payment methods. Source
Highest Rated Features According to Our Data
- Course Bundles — 100
- Course Selling— 100
- Discount and Coupons — 100
- Manage Subscriptions — 100
- Transaction History — 100
Top Benefits
- Better Engagement: You can improve employee engagement with personalized learning paths, collaboration tools such as discussion groups and video check-ins, gamification elements, and social and blended learning formats.
- Data Security: The platform has passed multiple inspections and lives up to many industry standards. It complies with the GDPR standards and the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework to work with EU and worldwide databases.
- Quality Content: The built-in content library provides access to a range of multidisciplinary courses and off-the-shelf content curated by professional speakers and industry experts. This makes it easier for learners to access quality and updated training materials anytime and anywhere.
Primary Features
- Payments: Learners can pay for purchases using credit cards, PO numbers, coupon and promo codes, and credits from rewards programs. The platform enables you to process secure payments through PayPal without storing credit card information.
- Course Catalog: Users can browse courses along with their descriptions, start and expiry dates, pricing and more through the course catalog.
- Pricing Configuration: You can use your existing organizational chart to configure pricing based on company, relationship models (customer or vendor), job titles, location and more.
Limitations
- The solution doesn’t support two-factor authentication.
Platform:
Company Size Suitability: S M L
Absorb LMS
Absorb LMS offers a user-friendly interface and extensive customization options, allowing organizations to create and deliver personalized and engaging online courses. The solution supports various content formats, including videos, documents and SCORM files, and provides advanced assessment, certification and eCommerce capabilities.
Manage your eCommerce platform from a central location. Source
Highest Rated Features According to Our Data
- Course Bundles — 100
- Course Selling — 100
- Discount and Coupons — 100
- Manage Subscriptions — 100
- Transaction History — 100
Top Benefits
- Continuous Training: Employees can download all training materials, like courses, documents, videos and presentations for offline use to enjoy an uninterrupted learning experience.
- User-Friendly Interface: Optimize all training content for various devices like iPads and smartphones to provide an easy-to-use interface to learners.
- Centralized Access: The solution’s single sign-on capabilities allow users to access all training content and systems by simply logging into their universal user account.
Primary Features
- Target Pricing: You can sell your course at a flat rate or intelligently target pricing to charge members less than non-members, or show additional courses for purchase to a selected audience.
- Coupons: Allow customers to apply coupons and promo codes to purchases to avail discounts.
- Bulk Sales: Dynamically generated Enrollment Keys allow individuals to purchase course enrollments for their entire team, and enable you to keep track of their enrollments.
Limitations
- There’s a course upload limit of 1GB.
- Some users reported issues with the platform setup.
Platform:
Company Size Suitability: S M L
SAP Litmos
SAP Litmos is a cloud-based LMS that offers many tools to create, deliver and manage online training programs. It supports various learning formats, including microlearning, video-based training and virtual classrooms, and provides integration capabilities with third-party apps. With its advanced analytics and reporting capabilities, you can track learner performance, identify skills gaps and improve learning outcomes.
Integrate with Shopify to improve eCommerce operations. Source
Highest Rated Features According to Our Data
- Course Bundles — 100
- Course Selling— 100
- Discount and Coupons — 100
- Manage Subscriptions — 100
- Transaction History — 100
Top Benefits
- Improve Engagement: Motivate employees to perform well and engage with the content using gamification tools. For example, you can allow them to track their successes via a group leaderboard or award certificates to top-performing learners.
- Diversify Learning: You can build personalized learning paths based on each employee’s job roles and interests to encourage self-paced and flexible learning.
- Provide Offline Training: Users can download the iOS or Android app to access courses at their convenience, and download content to their mobile devices when learning offline.
Primary Features
- Integrations: An open API helps integrate the platform with third-party systems like CRM, ERP and accounting. It allows you to sync transactional data such as invoice numbers, amounts and dates for specific business processes, ensuring data accuracy and consistency.
- Shopify App: The Litmos-built Shopify app allows you to create a custom storefront, access advanced marketing and SEO features, offer discount coupons, bundle courses and more.
- Free Courses: The platform lets you offer free-of-cost sample courses to users.
Limitations
- Limited reporting capabilities.
- Poor customer service.
Platform:
Company Size Suitability: S M L
Cornerstone LMS
Cornerstone LMS is a flexible and scalable platform designed to meet the training needs of organizations of all sizes. It offers a suite of features, including content creation and delivery, transaction management, social collaboration, mobile learning and reporting and analytics. The solution seamlessly integrates with major HR and talent management systems.
Allow administrators to track coupon redemptions and view transaction information. Source
Highest Rated Features According to Our Data
- Course Bundles — 100
- Course Selling— 100
- Discount and Coupons — 100
- Manage Subscriptions — 100
- Transaction History — 100
Top Benefits
- Efficiency: You can configure the system to assign specific courses to different workers and groups. It helps by quickly delivering assignments, completion records and version control.
- Accessibility: Empower your employees to learn and collaborate anytime, anywhere with the Cornerstone app and integrated enterprise and partner apps.
- Real-Time Insights: You can access real-time reports to analyze your learning, skills and compliance trends, and share accurate data with your compliance teams to support internal audits.
Primary Features
- Coupon Codes: You can create single or multiple-use coupons to provide a discounted price on learning materials. Coupon codes have a start date and an expiration date, and once created, can be distributed through marketing emails outside of the system. Users can apply them to their orders during the checkout process.
- Course Catalog: The course catalog is a repository of all learning materials including online courses, tests and events, libraries and curricula. You can add course descriptions and competencies, set availability and add pricing information to each catalog.
- Self-Registration: Administrators can manage new users via pre-defined groups. They can share a unique URL and code with users so they can get assigned to a particular group while registering on the system. You can set parameters for each group to determine how each user will be classified and handled within the system.
Limitations
- Some users reported that the platform doesn’t have an intuitive user interface.
- Customer support is lacking in quality.
Platform:
Company Size Suitability: S M L
What Is an Ecommerce LMS Integration?
An LMS eCommerce integration is a setup that helps organizations sell and distribute online courses, training materials and other educational content through their learning management system.
Since many solutions don’t offer out-of-the-box eCommerce capabilities, connecting them with popular third-party apps like Shopify and WooCommerce is an effective way to sell content online.
Organizations can set up an online store within their LMS to sell courses, training materials and other educational content, while users can browse course catalogs, make purchases and more on a centralized platform.
Primary Benefits
Combining the features of an LMS with an eCommerce platform simplifies the learning process, provides continuous learning experiences and supports learners at every stage.
Let’s look at some more ways it enhances the outreach of your training content:
Increased Revenue
You can offer paid, subscription or individual modules-based courses to generate revenue and sustain your educational initiatives. This opens up new opportunities to create and distribute high-quality learning materials while maintaining a sustainable business model.
Better Insights
Data collected through transactions provides valuable insights for both course providers and LMS administrators. It enables them to analyze purchasing patterns and learner behavior, identify popular courses or topics, monitor sales and track course performance.
By analyzing this data, you can make informed decisions to improve training content, identify knowledge gaps and create effective marketing strategies.
Seamless Access to Courses
Learners can easily browse and access a wide range of courses and training materials on a centralized platform. They can explore course descriptions and syllabi and preview content before making a purchase. This convenience eliminates the need to navigate multiple websites or platforms and allows them to train on a central platform.
Personalized Learning
You can suggest relevant courses or learning paths to users based on their personal preferences, performance or previous course selections. It helps learners discover content that aligns with their interests and goals, making the learning experience more engaging and relevant.
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Key Features
Here are some key features typically found in an eCommerce LMS:
- Course Catalog: A user-friendly course catalog allows learners to browse and search for available courses. It includes detailed course descriptions, instructor information and pricing options to help customers effectively assess their options.
- Secure Payment Gateway: Integration with a secure payment gateway enables learners to make payments using various methods such as debit and credit cards, PayPal, digital wallets and net banking.
- Course Pricing and Discounts: You can set different pricing options for courses, including one-time payments, subscriptions and installment plans. The software allows you to offer discounts, promotional codes or special offers to encourage user enrollment.
- Progress Tracking and Certifications: The platform enables learners to track their progress within a course or across multiple courses, allowing them to view completed modules, track quiz scores and monitor overall progress. You can generate and issue certificates of completion or achievement to learners who successfully finish a course.
- Course Enrollment and Registration: Learners can create accounts on the portal to enroll in courses, purchase subscriptions, make payments and more.
- Analytics and Reporting: The software provides comprehensive analytics and reporting tools to track learner progress, completion rates, course performance, top-selling courses and other engagement metrics.
- Mobile Compatibility: Many solutions offer a mobile app that’s compatible with major operating systems. It allows learners to browse course catalogs, start and end subscriptions, make purchases, track orders and more using smartphones or tablets.
- Integration Capabilities: Integration with third-party tools and services such as marketing automation platforms, CRM systems and email marketing tools enhances the functionality and effectiveness of the platform.
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Popular Trends
Many trends in the eCommerce LMS space highlight the evolving demands and expectations of learners and training professionals. By embracing these trends, organizations can create engaging, personalized and efficient learning experiences that drive learner satisfaction and business growth.
Here are some of the most notable trends:
Mobile-Friendly and Responsive Design
With the increasing use of mobile devices and the demand for on-the-go learning, many vendors offer Android and iOS-compatible mobile apps with user-friendly interfaces and interactive features. These apps help learners access and purchase courses from their smartphones and tablets without time or location constraints.
Personalization and Adaptive Learning
Personalization in eLearning has become an influential trend in recent years. It reflects a shift towards learner-centric approaches that prioritize individual needs, preferences and learning styles.
Adaptive learning algorithms analyze learner behavior, preferences and progress to deliver customized course recommendations and create unique learning paths and assessments. Learners may engage with training materials that focus on their areas of interest and are relevant to their career objectives.
Microlearning
Microlearning, which involves delivering content in small, easily digestible units, is gaining popularity in eCommerce LMS platforms. Short video lessons, quizzes and interactive modules allow learners to consume information in bite-sized chunks, making learning more efficient and accessible.
AI-Powered Learning
Artificial Intelligence in the corporate training market is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 22% during the forecast period 2023-2030. Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) have changed the way learners interact with training materials, making them more suited to their goals and skill sets.
AI-driven chatbots, recommendation engines, automated assessments and content curation algorithms help build personalized learning pathways, enhance learner support and improve administrative efficiency.
How To Choose the Right Ecommerce LMS
Choosing the right eCommerce LMS for your business requires you to carefully evaluate and consider various factors. Here are some steps you can take to make an informed decision:
1) Identify Your Business Needs: Start by identifying your specific business needs and objectives. Consider factors such as the type of courses you offer, target audience, desired functionalities, content management requirements, scalability and integration needs.
2) Evaluate Features and Functionality: Consider aspects such as course management, content delivery, payment gateways, pricing options and mobile compatibility, and make a list of the features that are most essential for your business.
3) Assess Platform Interface: Evaluate the user experience and interface of the platforms you are considering. Look for intuitive and user-friendly systems that make it easy for learners to navigate content, enroll in courses and make payments.
4) Check Integration Capabilities: The platform should integrate with your existing systems such as CRM, marketing automation or analytics tools. Consider any specific integrations you require to streamline operations and provide a seamless user experience.
5) Consider Scalability: Evaluate if the platform can accommodate future needs, such as a rise in the number of courses, increased user traffic or new feature additions.
6) Look for Security and Compliance: Ensure the software adheres to industry standards and regulations to protect learner data and financial transactions. Look for features such as compliance certifications like PCI DSS, data encryption and secure payment gateways.
7) Evaluate Support and Training Options: Check if the vendor offers training documentation, tutorials, user guides and other onboarding materials to simplify the learning curve for your users. Assess the availability and responsiveness of their customer support channels, such as email, chat or phone support.
8) Review Vendor Reputation: Look for customer testimonials, case studies and reviews from industry sources to assess the vendor’s reliability and performance.
9) Run a Demo: Whenever possible, take advantage of free trials or demos offered by vendors. This allows you to test the platform firsthand and assess its usability, functionality and compatibility with your business needs.
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Implementation Best Practices
Here are some useful tips to help you create an up-to-date and user-friendly eCommerce portal:
- Identify your training goals and objectives with respect to the size and needs of your organization and your target audience.
- Regularly update and refresh your eLearning content.
- Analyze data and learner feedback to understand training impact.
- Set competitive pricing strategies for your content.
- Implement effective marketing and promotion strategies.
- Provide reliable and timely customer support to learners.
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Next Steps
An eCommerce platform provides a golden opportunity for organizations to capitalize on the growing digital marketplace. By allowing you to sell training content online, it transforms an LMS from a standalone learning platform into a complete business solution.
Setting up a digital storefront where you can market your training courses to learners both inside and outside of your organization is a significant step towards getting an edge over your competitors.
Ready to find a solution for your business? Check out our free software comparison report to evaluate leading eCommerce LMS products on the market and how they stack up.
So, what type of products or services do you plan to sell through an eCommerce LMS? Are there any specific features or integrations you’re looking for? Let us know in the comments!
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