Choosing the right eCommerce platform can either make or break your online store’s success.
On top of building your webshop, you need to think about website hosting, inventory and shipping management, taxes, and support, to name a few.
You probably don’t have an endless supply of cash under your mattress. Therefore, you need to think about a budget for building and maintaining your eCommerce store.
Sure, there are free platforms out there that you can use for building your online store. But, these also require some expertise and continuous management. This is something that’s taken care of by the paid eCommerce platforms.
Think about the end goal you might have as a store owner and let’s compare some of the best paid and free eCommerce platforms out there.
P.S. We’ve divided our article into two parts. In the first part, we compare the best premium eCommerce platforms, and in the second part, we compare open-source platforms:
5 Best Paid eCommerce Platforms
The following platforms are best for beginners with little experience setting up or managing a webshop. These five providers offer solutions for small businesses and individuals for setting up their online stores fast. Almost everything is taken care of for you, so you won’t have to set up payment processors, deal with transactions, or even manually send out invoices.
1. Wix – The Best eCommerce Platform
Wix Pros
+ No transaction fees
+ 500+ free eCommerce templates
+ Unlimited products and accounts
+ USPS shipping discounts
+ In-house payment platform
+ 24/7 support (phone/ticket)
+ Free domain for 1st year
+ 14-day money-back guarantee
Wix Cons
– No live chat
– Very limited features in the cheapest plan
Wix’s main direction is giving its customers a straightforward way of building a website or an online store. In fact, their platform powers over 500,000 businesses worldwide. Wix also provides hosting for your online store and their plans are quite cost-effective starting from $23/month with an annual subscription.
You get to choose from 500+ free mobile-optimized eCommerce themes and create your store in 90+ languages for a global reach. Starting from the cheapest plan, you can add unlimited physical products and accounts. However, subscription selling comes with a higher tier plan (starting from $27/month).
Wix’s eCommerce platform’s main features are abandoned cart recovery, customizable checkout page, instant purchase buttons, add to cart from a gallery, wishlists, loyalty programs, discount codes, and customer accounts. Furthermore, you get $300 worth of online ad credit and some useful online marketing tools. Wix also supports multi-channel sales through Facebook, Instagram, and eBay.
However, you can only access some features with higher-level plans, so make sure to double-check if the essential store elements you’re looking for are coming with the plan you choose.
Payment Options
Wix offers payment integrations with 40+ providers, including PayPal, Stripe, and Square. They also have an in-house developed payment platform, Wix Payments, which you can use to accept credit/debit card payments and integrate with other payment providers. Starting from the Unlimited plan, you also get a multi-currency converter feature that lets you accept foreign currency and sell your products worldwide.
Wix also comes with an automated sales tax calculator, which is pretty handy. However, this feature has transaction count restrictions based on the plan you choose.
Online Store Management and Reports
Wix has a straightforward website and an online store builder. Furthermore, you can do all the store management, refunding, and tracking from the Wix’s dashboard. Wix also has a mobile app, where you can add products, fulfill orders, track your inventory, get notifications, and more.
Wix supports both direct and drop shipping, which you can also manage through the dashboard. You can set up shipping rules, add custom shipping rates, and print shipping labels. A great perk is Wix’s partnership with USPS, which gives you discounted rates on shipping costs.
The analytics side is also packed with useful reports. You get access to Google analytics, customizable reports, top products’ reports, and business insights. The availability of different statistics depends again on the subscription plan you choose.
Customer Support
Wix has 24/7 customer support through a ticketing system and a callback function. Unfortunately, they don’t offer support over live chat, which is questionable in today’s standards. They do have an extensive knowledge base where you should find answers to most of your questions.
Also, when you first sign up with Wix, their Launch Experts help you get your store online quickly. That’s a great feature, especially if you’re new to online stores.
Pricing
Wix’s eCommerce viable plans start from $23/month with yearly payments. You also get a free domain for one year when going with the annual payments.
Wix doesn’t charge for transactions when integrating with third-party payment processors or Wix Payments. The standard credit card processing fees still apply to the latter.
Business Basic: $23/month with annual payments
- Free eCommerce templates
- Unlimited accounts and products
- 20GB of storage
- Integration with Google Analytics
Business Unlimited: $27/month with annual payments
- Everything in the Business Basic plan
- 35GB of storage
- Subscription selling
- Automated sales tax (100 transactions/month)
- Advanced shipping options
- Currency converter
- Facebook, Instagram, and eBay integrations
Business VIP: $49/month with annual payments
- Everything in the Business Unlimited plan
- 50GB of storage
- Automated sales tax (500 transactions/month)
- Priority support
- Customized reports
- Loyalty program
Wix’s cheapest plan is rather basic. You miss many great features that can help your online store grow or make managing your shop more efficient. However, the upside is that the next tier plan isn’t that expensive, with only a $4 difference in the monthly expenses. We recommend going with the Business Unlimited plan for those reasons above.
Unfortunately, Wix doesn’t have a free trial other than building a free website without eCommerce capabilities. Still, you get a 14-day money-back guarantee to test it out.
2. Shopify – the Most Popular Platform
Shopify Pros
+ Same features across plans
+ Additional shipping discounts
+ Unlimited products
+ In-house payment platform
+ 24/7 live chat, email, and phone support
+ 14-day free trial
Shopify Cons
– 2 accounts with the cheapest plan
– 2% commission outside Shopify Payments
– Only 9 free themes
Shopify is a well-known eCommerce platform provider, with over one million stores, 2.1 million active users, and $155B+ worth of sold goods on its platform. Their plans start from $29/month. They have an in-house payment processing platform and substantial discounts on shipping rates.
You have a choice between 73 mobile-optimized themes from which 9 are free, and 64 are paid, starting from $140. There’s no limit on the number of products you can add. However, you need a plugin app to process subscription services, something you can purchase from the Shopify App Store.
Some of the other notable features are abandoned cart recovery, gift cards, custom discount codes, and integrated marketing tools such as email marketing, and social media distribution (availability based on the country). Yet, with the cheapest plan, you can only add two contributor accounts.
Payment Options
Shopify gives you the option of using their in-house developed Shopify Payments platform. What is great about it is that it’s integrated with most of the major gateways from credit cards to Google Pay, Apple Pay, etc.
They also have increased security protocols with Level 1 PCI compliance and a default fraud analysis. You can also track and manage the payments in an integrated back office.
Online Store Management and Reports
Managing your inventory and orders, and setting up product pages are also very straightforward and easy. Their interface allows you to drag-and-drop your products, includes automatic image optimization, and you can purchase additional plugins from Shopify’s App Store.
You can print shipping labels and send customers automatic tracking updates. Also, Shopify has cooperation agreements with DHL Express, UPS, and USPS, which gets you additional discounts on shipping costs.
Shopify allows you to easily integrate your website with Google Analytics to get basic data about your store’s performance. However, the professional eCommerce reports come from the Shopify plan. Building custom reports are only possible from the Advanced Shopify plan.
Customer Support
Shopify has 24/7 customer support over email, live chat, and phone for paying store owners. Otherwise, you can find answers to your questions through forums or Shopify Help Center.
Pricing
The plans start from $29/month and include all the main features, but the significant difference comes from the transaction fees. You also get access to more detailed reports with the higher-tier plans.
The transaction fees for online credit card rates start from 2.9% + 30¢, and the additional charge for using any other payment provider begins at 2%.
Basic Shopify plan: $29/month
- 2 accounts
- Shipping discount up to 64%
- Online credit card fee 2.9% + 30¢ or 2% using other providers
Shopify plan: $79/month
- 5 accounts
- eCommerce reports
- Shipping discount up to 72%
- Online credit card fees 2.6% + 30¢ or 1% using other providers.
Advanced Shopify plan: $299/month
- 15 accounts
- Custom reports
- Third-party shipping rates calculations
- Shipping discount up to 74%
- Online credit card fee 2.4% + 30¢ or 0.5% using other providers
The downsides of the cheapest plans are the higher costs for transactions and the availability of useful reports. However, the plan costs and additional perks scale well with the size of your online store.
Shopify also offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card information required so you can test out their platform rather easily.
Get started with Shopify here.
3. Squarespace – Best Online Store Builder
Squarespace Pros
+ Cheap starting plan ($18/mo)
+ Free themes
+ Unlimited accounts
+ Unlimited products
+ Free domain for 1st year
+ 14-day free trial
Squarespace Cons
– 3% commission with the cheapest plan
– Weak support experience
Squarespace is a great all-in-one platform for building a successful online store to sell goods. They take care of all the server management and give you easy-to-use tools for building and running your shop. Their pricing is quite cheap, starting from $18/month with annual payments and basic features.
You get access to tons of mobile-optimized and customizable templates, which you can further tweak by using CSS and Javascript. You can upload as many physical products as you need, but the subscription selling option comes only with the Advanced Commerce plan.
Other main features are the customizable promotional pop-ups and banners, abandoned cart recovery, automatic shipping rate calculations (ZIP code level in the US), customizable discount rules, custom integration with APIs, and limited availability labels for promotional use. However, some of these features are only available with higher-tier plans, so take a look at the pricing section for Squarespace below.
Payment Options
Squarespace allows you to accept major credit card payments directly to your bank account. You can also set up a Stripe account to accept more payment methods such as Apple Pay, PayPal, etc. All of this allows your online store to accept major currencies from around the world.
You can also set custom tax rates with support to VAT, HST, and GST. The taxes also reflect automatically on customizable invoices.
Online Store Management and Reports
Squarespace’s interface makes it easy to use. Set up your product pages, manage your inventory, track any outstanding orders, and manage your customer base from one central location. Use a simple drag-and-drop tool, update your customers on email, and print packing slips from one central location.
You get access to website analytics and additional sales and conversion metrics to track your online store’s success. You also get an overview of your customer base with further data on total spend, average basket value, and other benchmarks. Among the reports, you can find the best selling goods, current sales trends, conversion monitoring from a visit to sales, and many more.
Customer Support
Squarespace has 24/7 email-based customer support. Their live chat support is available only from Monday to Thursday. Outside of the live chat hours, you’re greeted by a chatbot, which responds to specific keywords from your written question. It can handle simple requests, but for more specific questions, you might want to get in touch with a support person.
They do claim that all inquiries get answered within an hour.
Pricing
Squarespace is available with both monthly and annual payments, but the latter comes cheaper with every plan. Also, the yearly plans come with a free domain for one year.
The transaction fees only apply to the Business plan (3%). Yet, credit card processor fees still apply to all plans.
Business plan: $18/month annually or $26/month monthly
- Free templates
- Unlimited contributors and products
- Website analytics
- 3% transaction fees
Basic Commerce: $26/month annually or $30/month monthly
- Everything in the Business plan
- No transaction fees
- Customer accounts
- On-domain checkout process
- Additional eCommerce analytics
Advanced Commerce: $40/month annually or $46/month monthly
- Everything in Basic Commerce plan
- Abandoned cart recovery
- Subscription selling
- Automatic shipping rate calculation
The downside of the cheapest plan is that it comes with 3% transaction fees, no customer accounts, checkout is redirected from your domain, and no abandoned shopping cart recovery.
However, you can get started with Squarespace for free without adding a credit card to try them out.
Get started with Squarespace here.
4. Zyro – the Cheapest Base Plan
Zyro Pros
+ Cheapest starting plan ($8.99/mo)
+ No transaction fees
+ 70+ payment gateways
+ 11 free themes
+ Free domain for 1st year
+ Free Unsplash image library
+ 30-day money-back guarantee
Zyro Cons
– 100 product limit with the cheapest plan
– Weak support experience
– No free trial
Zyro was just founded last year, and they came out of the gate fresh and with new ideas for a simplistic eCommerce platform. Their plans are quite cheap, starting from $8.99/month (with a 3-year commitment) and having some state-of-the-art AI integrations to help you build an online store.
You can choose between 11 free mobile-optimized storefront themes, which you can modify in a handy grid setup with drag and drop functionality. You can add physical and digital products, but they don’t support subscription selling at this point. You’re also limited to 100 products with the cheapest plan, which upgrades to unlimited with the next tier.
The other main features are a live chat plugin that comes as a default, custom discount codes, and gift cards. The abandoned cart recovery feature and integrations with Facebook and Instagram are available with the higher-tier Plus plan. US customers can also benefit from a default integration with Amazon.
Payment Options
Building your online store with Zyro allows you to accept payments from the major credit card companies VISA, MasterCard, Discover, and AMEX. You can also add a variety of 3rd party payment applications such as PayPal, Stripe, and Square, to name a few. In total, you get access to over 70 supported payment gateways, which is quite impressive.
Online Store Management and Reports
Starting from the cheapest plan, you get access to a simplistic interface for all of your inventory, shipping, and tax management. You can set up your product pages with an intuitive drag and drop function, set shipping options, and create custom tax rules for your products.
Your online store with Zyro is easily integrated with Google Analytics to track basic website metrics and has a built-in remarketing application. You also have a complete overview of order tracking and invoicing. Yet, in all that simplicity, when your online store grows, you might want to have more data and analytics options.
Customer Support
Zyro’s customer support is available 24/7 over email and live chat. The live chat option becomes available after you sign up. Even though you can email them 24/7, don’t expect a quick response. Our inquiry received an answer about 16 hours later when we reached out. But, when we got in touch through live chat, we got a reply much faster.
Zyro also has an extensive help center.
Pricing
The cheapest online store compatible plan starts from $8.99/month with a 3-year commitment. You can also choose an annual or a monthly payment plan with higher prices. All plans come with a free domain for the first year. You also get free access to Unsplash’s image library, which is a great addition.
What’s even better is Zyro’s no-commission policy, which means they don’t charge you on transactions. However, credit card processor fees will still apply to every plan.
eCommerce plan: starts at $8.99/month (renews to $19.99/month)
- 11 free themes
- 100 product limit
- Live chat plugin
- Discount codes and gift cards
eCommerce “+” plan: starts at $13.99/month (renews to $28.99/month)
- Everything in the eCommerce plan
- Unlimited products
- Abandoned cart recovery
- Multi-language store option
- Integration with Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon
The most significant limitation of the cheapest plan is the 100 product cap. You are also missing out on some great features that come with the eCommerce “+” plan. We recommend going with the higher-tier plan straight from the beginning as there isn’t a huge price gap between the two.
Zyro doesn’t offer a free trial option, but you can cancel your subscription within 30 days for a full refund.
Check out Zyro’s platform here.
5. Volusion
Volusion Pros
+ No transaction fees
+ Subscription selling by default
+ 11 free themes
+ In-house payment platform
+ 24/7 support
+ 14-day free trial
Volusion Cons
– Expensive starting plan ($26/mo)
– No website hosting included
– 1 account with the cheapest plan
– Product limits with cheaper plans
Volusion offers eCommerce store and shopping cart software but doesn’t provide website hosting. They still deliver a decent online store building and managing package for selling goods. Their prices start from $26/month with annual payments. However, if you’re just getting started with your online store, then you might want to look at some other options.
There are 11 free and 34 paid ($180) themes you can pick from for the base of your online shop. The templates are mobile responsive, and you can tweak them further with CSS. You can set up your store for subscription selling by default. Unfortunately, there’s a limit on the added products with cheaper plans.
The other main features are built-in SEO tools and social media integrations, related products feature, customer accounts and reviews, discount codes, and gift cards. Abandoned cart reports start from the Professional plan ($71/mo billed quarterly).
Payment Options
Volusion offers a payment integration Volusion Payments. The transactions are PCI certified and secure with additional integrations with Amazon Pay, PayPal, and Stripe. The payment process is done on-domain without any redirects. In the US, Volusion Payments offers a 2.15% transaction rate and low monthly fees for major credit cards.
Online Store Management and Reports
Volusion’s platform has intuitive drag and drop tools for building your online store and managing it. You can set custom shipping types and prices. But, the automatic shipping rates calculator becomes available only from the Business plan. You can still set custom tax rates for your products using the built-in tax rate calculator.
You’re only able to create advanced reports starting from the business package, which includes your standard analytics and in-depth online shop progress insights.
Customer Support
The base plan only includes 24/7 online chat support. However, you are first greeted by a chatbot and a promise to get an answer within an hour. With the Professional plan, you get additional phone support, with the Business plan priority support, and with the Custom plan VIP support.
Pricing
Volusion’s pricing structure is based on your past 12-month sales. Once you’ve exceeded the threshold turnover for the past year, they automatically upgrade you to the next plan. You can study the thresholds for each plan below.
Volusion doesn’t charge additional fees on transactions, but the standard credit card fees still apply.
Personal plan for sales of $50k a year: $26/month quarterly or $29/month monthly
- 1 contributor account
- 100 products
- Social media integrations
- Online support
Professional plan for sales of $100k a year: $71/month quarterly or $79/month monthly
- 5 contributor accounts
- 5,000 products
- Abandoned cart reports
- Online and phone support
Business plan for sales of $500k a year: $269/month quarterly or $299/month monthly
- 15 contributor accounts
- Unlimited number of products
- Amazon & eBay integration
- Advanced reports
- 3rd party shipping rates and payment gateways
- Priority support
The cheapest Personal plan is excellent for starting and building your online store. But, it only comes with one user account, and you can add up to 100 products. You’re also missing abandoned shopping cart recovery and phone support.
However, if you want to try Volusion out, you can do so for 14 days without giving your credit card information. It’s not as long as some other providers are promising but give you enough time to get your bearings.
4 Best Free eCommerce Platforms
To make these free, open-source eCommerce platforms work, you need to have web hosting and a domain name previously in place. You can then set up these platforms through your web hosting panel, such as cPanel, with 1-click-installation. Or, you can also set them up manually.
1. WooCommerce (Free)
WooCommerce Pros
+ Simple WordPress interface
+ Free themes
+ In-house payment platform
+ Support forum
+ 30-day money-back guarantee
WooCommerce Cons
– Limited freedom
WooCommerce is an open-source plugin for WordPress based websites. WooCommerce itself is entirely free to get started, but you must have website hosting and WordPress already in place. You can also enhance your online store with paid extensions, integrations, and themes for your storefront.
Like WordPress, WooCommerce has several free themes that you can use to build your online store. Another option is to purchase premium themes to set your store apart from free theme users.
You can set up various payment options from major credit cards to integrations with Stripe, PayPal, etc. You can also sign up with WooCommerce Payment with no setup charges or monthly fees. This allows you to accept credit or debit cards with a charge of 2.9% + 30¢ for each transaction with the US-issued cards. An additional 1% fee applies for any other cards issued outside the US.
All of the inventory management, tax calculation, and shipping rates management takes place in the WordPress interface. You can integrate your WooCommerce store with Google Analytics to keep track of data.
There’s an extensive support forum for WooCommerce that can be your first go-to source for information. Since the platform is mostly free, you are expected to handle things on your own or hire an outside programmer.
As a bonus, you have a 30-day money-back guarantee with every purchase from the WooCommerce app store.
Learn how to set up a WooCommerce store (step-by-step guide)
2. Magento Open Source (Free)
Magento Pros
+ Development freedom
+ Widely used
+ Clean marketplace
+ Support forum
Magento Cons
– Requires intermediate experience
– Expensive paid version
Magento’s open-source platform is designed for small businesses and developers. It’s a great online store builder if you’re looking for a platform with the most freedom. However, if you don’t have experience with Magento, you need to hire someone who does.
Magento is fully mobile-optimized, but with the open-source platform, you need to build the store up yourself. This also means that you have a lot of freedom for rich content for products and other features. You can also get additional eCommerce extensions through Magento Marketplace.
The platform is integrated with PCI Compliant Payment Solutions. You are responsible for setting up the payment gateways or getting an extension from the marketplace.
Managing a Magento Open Source store also requires some extensive expertise. The platform has integrated checkout, payment, and shipping modules, but again, you need to set them up yourself. So, no fancy drag and drop tools, default dashboards, or simple input modules in this platform.
There also isn’t any direct technical support with the open-source Magento version. However, there are guides, walkthroughs, and forums dedicated to any questions related to Magento’s platform. There are also developers for hire who specialize in Magento’s online stores.
Magento is also available in a paid version, but the cost can rack up to thousands of dollars.
Learn how to set up a Magento store (step-by-step tutorial)
3. PrestaShop (Free)
PrestaShop Pros
+ Strong community
+ Available in 75 languages
+ In-house fraud detection
+ Support forum
PrestaShop Cons
– Hidden free themes
PrestaShop is an open-source eCommerce platform with a strong community. It gets regular updates and bug fixes, and upgraded versions now and then. It’s also available in 75 languages, which is quite impressive.
PrestaShop offers a mobile-optimized platform, and you can choose between various themes. In their official marketplace, the storefront themes start at $69.99. But, you can find community-developed free themes from the forums rather quickly. These free themes don’t appear in the official marketplace.
You can install payment gateways through different integrations. There are also some free integration possibilities such as PayPal, Skrill, or Blockonomics Bitcoin Payments addon. PrestaShop’s platform also comes with in-house developed fraud detection, which you can add free of charge.
PrestaShop’s dashboard is where you can add modules to build your online store and customize it. From their marketplace, you can also get free modules for live chat plugins, shipping options, marketing tools, reporting, and many more. There are 50+ free modules you can choose and add to your online shop.
Technical support is community-based with some of PrestaShop’s step-by-step guides. There’s also a public forum with a strong community to support you.
Learn how to set up a PrestaShop store (step-by-step guide)
4. OpenCart (Free)
OpenCart Pros
+ Lots of free extensions
+ Integrated shipping methods
+ 36 payment gateways
+ Support forum
OpenCart Cons
– Messy marketplace
OpenCart is another easy-to-use, open-source eCommerce platform, which currently supports over 342,000 eCommerce stores. They have many built-in features and an extensive library of free extensions.
Their platform is mobile-responsive, and you can choose from free and paid themes as a base. You can find both options in OpenCart’s marketplace, which features over 13,000 modules and themes. However, the marketplace itself looks a bit messy, so we recommend you to check out the ratings and comments beforehand.
You can add unlimited physical or digital products with both one-time and subscription selling methods. OpenCart provides an option between guest and registered user checkout by default.
OpenCart has 36 integrated payment gateways. You can choose any of these, such as Authorize.Net, Amazon Payments, First Data, Klarna, LiqPay, Skrill, PayPal, SagePay, and many more. They also have integrated shipping methods with Australia Post, Citylink, FedEx, Parcelforce, Royal Mail, UPS, and USPS.
Your online store’s management is also quite straightforward for managing products, customers, orders, tax rules, and promo codes. The admin dashboard comes with an overview of your online store’s performance. Also, you get a default sales report, viewed products, and purchased products already built-in.
OpenCart offers free community support with forums and useful guides for setting up and running your webshop. They also offer a paid dedicated commercial support option with a price starting at $99/month per site.
Learn how to set up an OpenCart store (step-by-step tutorial)
Summary
When choosing the best eCommerce platform for your online store, you have multiple free and paid choices. It’s lucrative to go with the free, open-source platforms, but then everything is up to you. If you don’t have any programming experience, it’s best to go with out-of-the-box platforms.
When looking at paid platforms, not every feature is available from the start. Take into consideration the possible future costs when you want certain upgrades like abandoned cart recovery or in-depth reporting.
The same goes for the open-source platforms. Even though the platform itself is free, there are extensions and integrations that you need to pay for if you want to include them. There is a possibility to build an online store without spending a single dollar (except for hosting), but the result might not be up to today’s standards.
Tell us about your experiences with eCommerce platforms in the comments section below.
Robi
I didn’t try it yet, but I think Shopify is the best. All of ecommerce platforms has same price with Shopify, some look cheaper because of “price trap”, the renewal price is expensive at the end.
I like Woocommerce because it based on wordpress so I can create anything I want, but with many paid plugin, server cost, I ended up pay $100/month, and I need to hire IT guy multiple times.
I had a problem with Woocommerce in the past few years, after search engine update their system. On Bing, my product page detected as “low quality article/blog post” not a product page, and they reject to index it. Same with Google. Online store product page can’t compete with blog post because the amount of words are much different.
And each product page on online store only has 100-300 words. And the worst is the image file name and image alt considered “spam” by search engine nowadays. For example, we sell blue jeans, and we put that word on each images, keyword use percentage per page become really big (around 80%), because limited words on product description. And it doesn’t make sense if we sell blue jeans and at our product page we write the history of blue jeans to get 500-1000 words.
My question is, will I get same problem with Shopify? It’s tedious to change the platform and need to fix hundreds of broken links in google webmaster.
Thank you.
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Robi, I would guess that costs are probably higher on Shopify than on WooCommerce. Therefore, my advice would be to invest in fixing your existing site and its SEO issues instead of moving it to a different platform where you would likely have the same issues.
Chris
What would you recommend for 33 products and $15k-$65k tickets? Also, thinking to add $10/mo service plans as subscription for any existing client. Thx
WebsiteSetup Editorial
Hey Chris. Whichever you choose from top 3 should be sufficient for your needs.
Trev
Wix and Squarespace may be the best plan for some just starting, but the platforms are not great when it comes to site speed and generating organic traffic from the start.
If your business is already popular and generates a ton of traffic, this shouldn’t be a problem, but for many that rely on organic traffic (aka Google, Bing, etc.) it can be difficult to get things going without paid ads.
My go-to platforms are Shopify (ecom/shop) and WordPress (blog + everything else).
Kevin Hemiari
Hi, I’m actually wondering which platform suits me more. I have an upcoming clothing brand! I will be working in the streetwear department so I won’t have a big inventory and my pieces will be somewhat limited (3-4 pieces per drop and about 50 of each)
Also I can’t really afford with that low quantity to pay 30$/month so I was wondering which one will suit my case the best (knowing that I live in Canada)
Thank you!
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Kevin, if you are on a budget, I would look into WooCommerce. It has few overhead costs, is flexible, and doesn’t need a lot of additional plugins and such for a simple shop.
Trevin
Hi Nick,
Thanks for the information, I currently sell items on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist but I need more exposure. I thought about building a site but I’m really wondering if my items would show up in google search if someone were to search for the items I make. How would I know if my items would show on a google search if I use one of these web building sites?
Nick Schäferhoff
The short answer is: you don’t. There is no guarantee for Google success. You can probably guarantee that your products will be indexed but there is no 100% guarantee that they will show up high in Google. However, what you can do is follow best practices, do proper SEO, and develop a thorough marketing strategy to get visitors onto your site. This makes success much more likely. You can start with this article: https://websitesetup.org/increase-website-traffic/
Rebecca
Hi Nick,
I scrolled through a lot of your latest responses but I feel like I may be of a different group. I’m an artist and I just to sell some cards (greeting cards) and maybe have some print options for my artwork. I have a portfolio site with Square Space and didn’t originally intend to sell, just display. I don’t think I’d be selling tons just want to at least try. Would Square Space be a good site to use for a very small seller like myself?
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Rebecca, if you are already on SquareSpace, I think the easiest would be to try out their e-commerce functionality and see if it’s enough for your purpose. That way, you don’t have to migrate the rest of your content.
Megan
I am wanting to have a blog but also sell products. Which platform do you recommend? I probably wouldn’t have more than 500 products at a time. I also want to be able to link products from my Instagram page.
Nick Schäferhoff
Whenever someone wants to use blogging as a major part of their marketing strategy, I recommend going with WordPress. It started as a blogging platform and has all the tools you need to build a successful blog.
Ryder
Hi! Thanks for this insightful article. I’ve picked a couple to research more closely from your list, but I’m still confused about which companies offer sales tax calculators or adds on sale tax per shipping location for easy tax accounting, or if this is even possible with any of these sites. I’m a complete novice looking to open a business at the beginning of the year, so I am looking into it but not sure what I should be looking for when reading the sites! Thank you!
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey there, it’s not really easy to give a blanket statement for your problem. All of the platforms on this list are being used by people from allover the world and in different markets, so they configuration options are all quite flexible when it comes to dealing with taxes. So, if what you are looking for is not out of the ordinary, most of these platforms should be able to accommodate you. If you are in doubt, I would recommend writing down exactly what you need and then contacting the support for the options you are considering to be sure.
Chase
Hello Nick,
I am looking for an easy (beginner) platform to begin selling products. The site I am looking to build will have a large inventory with a variety of products. I would like to be able to build the platform to appear similar to sites like Chewy or Zappos. I don’t plan on incorporating dropshipping. What type of platform do you think would be good for me?
Thanks for your time,
Chase
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Chase, sites like Zappos are custom built and are, therefore, hard to copy. If you want a beginner-friendly platform, I advise you to go through this list and see if any of them offer templates that encapsulate the design you want. If you need more flexibility, you might want to look into WordPress and WooCommerce: https://websitesetup.org/woocommerce-online-store-tutorial/. However, here, you might need the help of a developer to achieve what you are looking for.
Daniela Necsulescu
Hi Nick,
I am looking for a ”ready made” ecommerce platform that doesn’t need programming knowledge. I want to sell products in Ireland and UK and use my own domain name. I am also looking for a possibility to integrate 3 or more webshops at once like multi-shop facility. What type of platform do you think will be good for me?
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Daniela, sounds like Shopify might be a good option for you. While they don’t have a multistore option out of the box, apparently you can add it with an app: https://apps.shopify.com/multi-store-inventory-sync
Ruth Elisabeth Jones
Hi I need a website with tiered pricing – one price for retail sales and another for trade (wholesale) who are on a 30 day account and would tick an option to ‘pay later’ at check out. Does shopify or big commerce allow this?
Thanks
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Ruth, please have a look at these pages:
https://www.bigcommerce.com/solutions/wholesale-ecommerce-platform/
https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/sell-online/wholesale
Cheers!
Fred
Great article!
Which would you suggest as the best for drop-shipping, bearing in mind I’m a novice?
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Fred, I would probably check out Shopify first, if you have the budget.
Iqbal
Hi Nick,
I want to build SAASe ecommerce for many traditional stores in my country. So each store can go online and manage their own store in my SAAS ecommerce. My plan is to charge each store based on quota & features (i.e.,: number of products limitation, can embed youtube, etc). And each store can advertise in chosen category or front page with certain pricing to me. I have my own programmer to code.
Can you recommend what platform that is suitable for me?
Thanks
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Iqbal,
that sounds like you are planning to build your own ecommerce platform. I don’t think any of the solutions on this list will allow you to use them since you are describing their exact business model. The only thing I could imagine is that you offer an ecommerce setup and maintenance service to your customers based on one of these platforms. Otherwise, as mentioned, you will have to build your own.
Cheers!
Linus
Hi Nick,
I have a multi-vendor website built on WordPress and WooCommerce. But I really want something more robust like Amazon considering that my platform is international and will be serving all of continental Africa. Recently, I read a review online that gave me the impression that BigCommerce is better overall than WooCommerce and many of the platforms out there. As a result, I have been thinking of migrating from WooCommerce to BigCommerce. Please, I need your advice on this: can WooCommerce give me the sort of site I really want, or better BigCommerce? Or, perhaps, would you want to recommend a different platform in my case? Thanks.
Nick Schäferhoff
If you want something like Amazon, you will need a custom-built solution and that will cost a lot. However, if you need something more powerful than WooCommerce, I suggest looking into pure self-hosted e-commerce solutions like Magento or Prestashop. We have tutorials for both of them on this site. I personally haven’t used BigCommerce but it seems to fall in the same category. Also, be sure to figure out what exactly you need so you can check if another platform can provide it.
Jade
Great article! However I’d like to build my sports shop online as I can’t buy in bulk so need a e-commerce that can import products and deal with returns and possibly most aspects when starting out and clueless! Preferably no transaction fees and possibly someone to build website for me as I’m no expert and previously struggled with making a website on a few of these sites! I basically just want it set up and I add products and sell them and deal with customer service
Many thanks
Jade
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Jade, when accepting payments online, you will always have transaction fees. That’s how the companies that offer these services make money. Aside from that, pretty much all of the entries on this list meet your described requirements. If you feel incapable of setting a shop up yourself, you can always hire an expert or developer. You just need to include the overhead costs in your calculations.
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Alex, in your case I would consider Wix, Shopify, or a WordPress website with WooCommerce.
For the latter, see this article: https://websitesetup.org/start-online-store/.
Graham Green
Nice article – thanks!
As someone who has set up many e-commerce sites on various platforms I hope you don’t mind me making a couple of points…
First of all, with some platforms like Big Commerce, they are US based and many of their features are not available to U.K. users. This can be very frustrating when they announce new features, only to find they are US only. Also, the larger US platforms are off loading more and more of their features onto third party apps, which often cost extra for all but basic use.
Another point worth noting is search engine optimisation. Some platforms are not very good with SEO. I think Wix in particularly is not particularly good in this respect.
Finally, for start ups support is key, and I’m afraid many systems have basic ‘live chat’ support – again this can be an issue with US time difference. Look for a U.K. system with telephone support if you can.
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Graham, those are all valid points to keep in mind. Thanks for sharing your experience with the rest of us!
Susan Morgan
I am at a loss of which platform to use. I work at a very small rural public high school and we are wanting to sell “Spirit Wear” online. These are shirts, hoodies, jackets, etc. We don’t make a lot of money and don’t want to spend a lot. Which platform do you think is best to use for our school? (It needs to be very easy to use. I am just a secretary, and I have so many other things to do and don’t want to spend a lot of time on this.)
Nick Schäferhoff
Hi Susan, it sounds to me like Wix, Shopify or SquareSpace would be the best options for you. They are the most beginner friendly and if you don’t want to invest a lot of time, these are probably the best to get you started. Wix is the cheapest solution out of the three. Hope this helps and good luck!
Colin
Hello Nick,
Great information indeed.
I am a Garment Printer looking to find a platform to sell my items.
I looked at ebay as a selling platform but set up seems extremely difficult & complicated & their fees are pretty unfair in many ways also with PayPal fees on top !
I get you with Wix, i think that would be for me to as just starting out but are there any hidden costs? I.e. if i want to use the platform to display on a cellphone which, of course, is a must for everyone today.
Regards
Colin
Glasgow
UK
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Colin, happy to hear you are thinking about starting an online shop!
Wix does not charge extra for mobile functionality. However, there can be extra costs when you install extra features via their app market. For that reason, with platforms like Wix and Shopify, it’s always a good idea to figure out what you need beforehand and do your research so you have a clear picture of the costs you can expect.
The cheapest way would be to use WordPress and WooCommerce. However, for that you have to set up your own website including hosting, security and more. It’s not very difficult but it involves a steeper learning curve than something like Wix.
Hope this helps! Let me know if you have additional questions.
Sarah
Hi Nick, great article. Can I bother you for a bit of advice?
I’m wanting to create a small online store for handmade goods (under 100 items I would say), and it would need to have credit card and paypal payments enabled, and ideally no transaction fees.
On WordPress their e-Commerce option is $59 per month but I’ve seen that you’ve suggested it to a few people as one of the best options – am I doing something wrong?
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Sarah, unfortunately, I don’t think you’ll be able to find an e-commerce solution without transaction fees.
All payment providers charge for their services. That’s their whole business model.
If you are going with WordPress e-commerce, you might consider going self-hosted. You can use the same system (WooCommerce) and it will be a lot cheaper in the end. However, it requires some more technical knowledge. Find more detailes here: https://websitesetup.org/wordpress-com-vs-wordpress-org/.
Leonard
Thanks for the article Nick! It’s was very helpful, but I’m still not sure what to pick. I’m going to be making an online light fixture store for a small business with possibly a lot of products, so I want to offload security and as much of backend as possible from the companies shoulders. It will also need to have database management tools or a way to insert a plugin for them, so it would be possible to update or upload products in bulk. Please, which platform would you recommend?
WebsiteSetup Editorial
Hi Leonard, consider Shopify. You don’t have to worry much about security and other backend stuff and you can bulk import products from CSV files: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/products/import-export/import-products
Maxwell
Hello, thanks for a very helpful article! am not sure of which platform to use for a wedding planner and a small gift shop business. Please which platform would you recommend?
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Maxwell, for small and simple online shops, I would usually recommend going with WordPress and WooCommerce. It is usually the most cost effective in the long term.
Sandy
Thank you for your article. I really appreciated how you listed pros, cons, and pricing for each. I have some experience with Shopify, but I’m not super technical. I was wondering what you would recommend for a subscription based ecommerce site? I’d love to set up a site selling products based on a subscription model. Thank you again for the great information.
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Sandy, glad you liked it. Personally, I would most often go with WordPress. There are many high-quality membership plugins that can do what you need and it is usually the cheapest solution. You can use the guide on the homepage to set up your own site and then install the plugins you need for your desired functionality.
Anna
Hi there, thanks so much for this article and it was really helpful for me.
I am preparing to open an on-line store of jewellery, they are made of 14k and/or 18k gold, simple but elegant. not super expensive though. Which platform you would recommend for my sort of store?? Many thanks!
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Anna, thanks for the question! Glad you found the post helpful. For a small shop, you might consider going with WordPress and WooCommerce. It gives you a lot of customization options and no monthly fees (other than hosting). You can find a comparison with Shopify here.
Anna
Hello, thanks for a very helpful article! I’m still not sure of which platform to use for a small company that sells hand made products. I have used Wix before for a portfolio website and I loved it, but it’s a big drawback that you can’t change your template once the site is published. How much can you customize it after publishing? Changes are essential if you want to improve your UX.
I want to set up my e-commerce website quickly so it needs to be easy to use and manage, a lot of free templates to choose from (mobile-optimized or responsive), with SEO features and not expensive. I’m also considering using WooCommerce which is not listed above. What do you recommend?
Thanks in advance.
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Anna, thanks for the excellent question. Shopify is probably among the easiest solutions out there and a good choice if you want a simple shop. However, the more complex your store gets, the more expensive this platform becomes. WooCommerce is probably the cheapest and also gives you lots of customization options due to being based on WordPress. Yet, you might have to pay someone for more complex changes if you don’t have any development skills. On the other hand, WordPress itself is beginner friendly and has plenty of SEO plugins. Plus, you completely own your website. Check this article for a comparison of the two. Hope this helps!
Tee
Hello!
Thank you so much for this very informative article. I am still not sure which platform would work for me. I am opening an online store selling various fashion accessories for men and women. I am somewhat tech savvy but not familiar with all the codes etc. I also want to be able to reach many consumers but do not want to pay an arm and a leg ?
WebsiteSetup Editorial
Hi Tee, consider either Wix or Sitebuilder. Both are pretty simple to use and come at a more affordable price than most other e-commerce options. They lack some advanced features because of that, but it shouldn’t be a problem for a small store.
Ashley Evancio
Hello,
I am interested in getting started with e-commerce. After watching a few online sales pitches I don’t see the platform mentioned here that I am interested in. Any recommendation for Commerce HQ/Store Formula? Is it just disguised as one of the platforms above? Also which platforms do drop shipping?
Thanks
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Ashley, I haven’t used the platform you are talking about, so I can’t make any recommendations on it. As for dropshipping, I know that Shopify and WooCommerce definitely offer this functionality, for the other entries, you would have to research it. However, this is not uncommon, so you should find more candidates that offer dropshipping.
Chris Lemonius
I’m surprised ecwid hasn’t made the list? They are very good and even offer you a free store for limited number of products. Plus it integrates with major site builders.
I can harness the SEO power of WordPress and couple it with the simplicity of ecwid for ecommerce as it integrates directly.
Nick Schäferhoff
Thanks for the input, Chris! I have never used Ecwid but I’ll put it down as a potential addition for an article update.
Eva
Hi,
I want to create a gift card marketplace. Meaning I will sell virtual giftcards of different brands. The users will go to the physical store and show their gift card code to buy and then the cashiers need to login to my website to input the code which will deduct the amount from the user’s giftcard.
What platform do you recommend?
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Eva, this sounds like it might be a case for Shopify’s Point of Sale system.
Bill G
What would you reccommend for selling content that is all digital, i.e. video training or programming in a model similar to Audible. Someone picks the content from a store and then consumes the content in a proprietary mobile app, just like Audible does with audiobooks.
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Bill, what you are describing sounds more like it will need custom work, especially to build the app and connect your shop to it. If I were in your place, I’d first talk to an app developer about the prerequisites of making that happen.
John
At first I thought it would be easy to determine what platform to go with, was I wrong. Help! I am starting a Product Photography business, I will sell 3 to 4 different price packages and will have many sample photos on my website. I have looked into Clickfunnels, Squarespace, Wix and now Shopify. I will need to have customers pay by credit card or paypal. I will advertise with the usual, a Website, Facebook and Instagram or anything else to drive business my way. I also plan on taking my business to Europe in the very near future which will be a determine factor. Thanks for any help.
WebsiteSetup Editorial
Hi John,
SiteBuilder should work as they have nice templates for photography oriented sites.
John
Thank you WebsiteSetup Editorial, I will check out SiteBuilder.
Felix
Hi, what would you recommend for a cell phone accessories wholesaler?
Nick Schäferhoff
Hey Felix, this article might be a good place for you to start: https://dinarys.com/blog/the-best-ecommerce-platform-for-wholesale