You need a good eCommerce website to sell online, but building an eCommerce website from scratch can put you in a bit of a pickle. Luckily, the best eCommerce website builders simplify the entire process, all the way from designing your online store to set up product pages to managing inventory and tracking orders, so that anyone can set up their online store and launch their business without knowing a line of code! So, if you’re interested in selling products or services on the web, here are the biggest eCommerce website builders you should know about!
Wix
Wix is hands-down one of the most versatile eCommerce website builders on the market today, especially great for building eCommerce sites. With over 160 million satisfied users, Wix can even turn non-designers into web design pros. If you know how to operate Windows 10 or a Mac, you will easily get the hand of Wix.
Wix gives you everything that you need to launch your online store; be it 500+ pre-made templates to choose from for your online store, an intuitive drag-and-drop site builder, App marketplace for custom functions, a free domain name and SSL certificate, cutting-edge design features such as video backgrounds, animations, and scroll effects, multiple modes of payments, and even store management tools. In short, Wix has everything that you need to grow your site and generate leads!
The best part is that Wix is dead easy for anyone to learn and use, even someone with a rudimentary coding sense. Another benefit of using Wix is that it doesn’t charge any commission-free on any transaction, helping you save hundreds (or thousands) of dollars per year. Unlike other eCommerce builders, you can design unlimited products on Wix and there is no cap on the revenue you can generate from your online store.
The SEO tools of Wix also deserve a shout-out. They help you create an automatic mobile-friendly version of your website and optimize it. They also get your site listed on Google within 60 seconds. The Wix store manager makes it a breeze to track inventory, orders, and your product pages. If you want to add a logo or a blog to your site, you can do so without any third-party integrations. Wix is also super-affordable. The cheapest plan offers 20 GB of space, abandoned cart recovery, and integration with social media.
BigCommerce
If you are looking for an eCommerce website builder that grows alongside your expanding business, you have chosen the right builder. This industry giant is a great option for people who don’t want to hit annoying limits about their site’s capability and wish to leverage omnichannel sales. What makes it different from others on the list is that this builder focuses more on big commerce. It’s one of the few platforms that offer B2B selling features such as quote management, custom price list, bulk pricing, and customer groups. BigCommerce sets quite a score by multi-channel sales, allowing you to list your products on eBay, Google Shopping, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Amazon, and expand into new sales channels. This platform is great for wholesalers, international eCommerce sites, B2B sellers, and multi-channel sales, thanks to its secure and intuitive platform, WordPress integration, drag-and-drop building tools, custom checkout abilities, cross border fulfillment, built-in faceted search, and multiple currency support. BigCommerce also allows storeowners to integrate blogs into their eCommerce store for content marketing activities.
BigCommerce also offers plenty of optimization features for SEO and page load times. You can leverage robots.txt editing, Google AMP, and Akamai Image Manager, as well as enjoying a global CDN for faster load times. If you want to rapidly and remarkably grow your online store and sell without restrictions, the platform is the right choice for you, but it is not the best option for beginners! It’s not the easiest to use, and its prices reflect the number of tools and features you will probably never use. Plans start at $29.95 per month.
Shopify
Trusted by 1+ million websites in 175 countries, Shopify is hands down one of the most powerful eCommerce website builders available on the market today. This web-based CMS gives you everything that you need to set up and manage your online store. Boasting 600,000 online stores and over $72 billion in revenue, the platform is usually the first choice of online store owners. Whether you are starting a new eCommerce business from scratch or expanding your physical presence to an online store, leverage Shopify’s Industry-specific templates and Industry-specific templates to get your online store up and running without any technical expertise. Each theme can be fully tailored to suit your needs. Shopify comes with an expansive Shopify App platform where third-party developers offer apps and plug-ins that help you append features and functionality to your store. From email marketing and social media integrations to shipping platforms, you are bound to find an app for anything you want.
What we especially love about Shopify is the world-class customer support you get. Whether you have a general business question or a technical question about the backend of your website, reach out to Shopify’s customer service team via live chat around the clock. You can even seek help from the massive community forum with answers from Shopify experts and current customers alike. On top of that, Shopify also has a robust knowledge base complete with hordes of podcasts, courses, articles, courses, and how-to guides written by Shopify itself.
All plans come with web hosting, unlimited bandwidth, over 100 different payment gateways to choose from, unlimited email forwarding, and a content delivery network for optimal performance. Shopify also gives you access to tons of marketing and SEO tools, mobile optimization, and analytics. With built-in abandoned cart recovery, you can catch incomplete sales. With Shopify, you can set up drop shipping, manage your customer rates, sync with 10 other sales platforms, or customize your checkout with personalized branding. Plans start at just $29 per month. You can try Shopify for free with a 14-day trial.
Weebly
Weebly is the only free website builder, offering a full-featured platform for no price at all. Don’t let the free plan fool you into thinking that it must be a watered-down version of the real thing; Weebly provides you with a complete list of features that you need to get your online store up and running in no time; be it inventory management, in-store pickup, automatic tax calculation, shopping cart, etc. You also get unlimited products and in-store or delivery options at the checkout. If you want to garner the ability to receive payments through PayPal, add reviews, and abandoned cart emails, you will have to upgrade to the premium performance plan, which only costs $26. Weebly is absolutely perfect for handmade shops, home-based businesses, hobby sellers, small restaurants, breweries, and other local shops. You don’t need to be tech-savvy to be able to use Weebly. Weebly makes it a breeze to add new products, remove out-of-stock products, push updates, and track your inventory levels so that you can put your valuable time towards growing your business.
Since Weebly is powered by Square, you can also integrate the Square POS with your online sales system as well, if you are looking to manage your products and inventory all in one place. The easy-to-use drag and drop site builder allows you to launch your store with minimal effort and no coding. Like other eCommerce builders on our list, Weebly also gives you access to tools for shipping, inventory, SEO, and emails. Add Weebly’s product search to your online store to make sure your customers find what they are looking for. Add badges to products that have limited availability or are on sale. Add language translation, memberships, and other advanced features to your site by upgrading to the paid plans.
Squarespace
Squarespace is a creative’s wish come true. If you’re looking to make your online store as aesthetically attractive as possible, leverage hundreds of award-winning templates, combined with a strong inventory system and tons of high-end features, to create your creative, highly-visual website. When users cannot touch your products or interact with them, let visuals do the talking. Especially if you are a photographer, artist, or creative selling products, services, subscriptions, or digital goods, this platform is all that you need to brand yourself.
Even though the templates are stunning on their own, you can customize your chosen template with the help of Squarespace’s intuitive what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) site editor, with little effort on your part. Use the intuitive and highly-responsive drag-and-drop editor to apply your branding, upload your images and videos, set up your product listings, and voila! Even if you are a beginner, looking for a fantastic-looking website right out of the box, anyone can build a modern and visually appealing eCommerce store using Squarespace.
Squarespace’s social media integrations help you narrate your brand story and sell your products directly within the platform. This makes sure that your customers never have to leave the page to buy something from you.
The Squarespace mobile app allows you to manage and edit your website on the go. Squarespace has built-in SEO tools, blogging tools, and analytics tools to help you manage your online store and make it a huge success. There are hundreds of apps built-in to Squarespace for adding added features and functionality to your online store. The basic plan starts at $12/month but you can upgrade to add commerce functionality or the ability to accept payments.
