E-commerce has continued to grow with increased appeal for easy sales options by consumers worldwide. It is one of the fastest-growing Internet segments, with several millions of products sold on the Internet daily.
E-Commerce is one of the fastest-growing industries globally, with a value of over $4.2 trillion as of the year 2020. The industry is estimated to continue growing according to available economic indices globally.
You’re here because you probably want to start an online store but don’t know which E-commerce website builder to use. In this guide, we’ll show you some of the best free and paid e-com website builders on the market.
What Are E-commerce Site Builders?
E-commerce website builders are software and app that help companies or individuals to build an online store with or without programming knowledge. Most e-commerce websites allow people to build websites using customizable templates or drag and drop functionality.
E-commerce websites builders are instrumental if you’re starting an online store and don’t have a lot of technical expertise. Some e-commerce website builders allow their owners to sell online without programming or computer language.
10 Best E-commerce Site Builders For Small Business
There are several e-commerce website builders but whatever e-commerce website builder you choose, be sure that it is highly customizable and has plugin extensions to integrate your products easily. You’ll be able to use an e-commerce website builder to build a mobile-friendly e-commerce site faster than you can say fast.
Choosing an e-commerce solution can be hard with all the options available. Here’s our list of 10 best e-commerce site builders based on price and their features.
1. Shopify
Shopify is the ultimate e-com platform for both beginners and experts. This e-commerce website builder is trusted by millions of online businesses, entrepreneurs, and developers worldwide.
Shopify is one of the best e-commerce website builders in the market. It’s easy to use and makes it easy for users to sell products online. Shopify has a drag-and-drop interface that makes customizing your site simple. Its pre-built themes are professional-looking and are super easy to customize.
You can create different layouts for mobile users, and you don’t have to be a professional developer to add new features or change the look of your site. Shopify also has apps, plugins, and add-ons that you can use to automate simple tasks like inventory management, handling payments and shipping, editing photos, or even creating your t-shirts or stickers.
Needless to say, If you need to build an online store without learning to code, you should start with Shopify.
Shopify also allows sellers to design their stores however they like. This is a huge advantage because if you don’t like their templates, you have the freedom to change them! If you think your customers will be using mobile devices to buy from your site, your website must look great on those devices.
If you have intermediate knowledge of HTML or CSS, Shopify gives you many options for changing your templates. It also has flexible checkout pages and other features that will save you time and effort.
2. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the best free e-commerce website builder right now. It is an open-source plugin built on WordPress, which means that you can install it on your blog and start selling products online for free.
WordPress is an open-source CMS platform that has helped millions of small business owners to create their website from scratch, and with WooCommerce, you can start your online store for free. It’s very easy to use and offers many advantages over several other open-source platforms in the industry.
The idea behind WooCommerce was to allow anyone to create an online store and sell anything in a very simple way, and this idea was a tremendous success.
The number of WooCommerce stores has continued to increase every day; many plugins extend their possibilities and give users more tools to create a custom solution for their needs.
The best thing about WooCommerce is that it is 100% free. You only have to pay for WordPress hosting and other WooCommerce add-ons and plugins. WooCommerce comes with all the necessary features to create a professional online store, including a catalogue management system, order processing, inventory management, and a customer database for reference. Moreover, WooCommerce is super customizable. Some WooCommerce extensions and add-ons are free, while others dedicated features are paid.
If you’re not a big fan of WordPress or WooCommerce, you can try out other PHP e-commerce website builders like Joomla, Abante Cart, PrestaShop, Laravel, and OpenCart.
3. Wix
Wix is an excellent platform for small businesses to create their online presence. It is intuitive, mobile-friendly, and compatible with all popular browsers. The e-commerce website builder allows you to create a professional website without coding.
Using Wix’s extensive range of high-quality templates and features, you can create a beautiful online store from scratch or use any customizable templates in their vast library.
The best part about using Wix is that there are no limitations on your site creation efforts. You are given complete control over how you want your site to look and feel. The layout builder within Wix lets you drag and drop elements to achieve the desired structure of your site or blog.
The Wix website builder offers thousands of plugin availability to its users so that they can enhance their website with extra features such as a photo gallery, contact forms for e-commerce purposes, and more.
The Wix domain manager allows users to set up and manage multiple websites from one account. Wix is a drag and drop category website builder that allows users to create professional websites easily. Wix is very affordable and is one of the most popular e-commerce website builders available.
4. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a full-fledged e-commerce website builder, offering a powerful set of tools to all merchants regardless of their industry. It has an easy-to-use interface, a simple site-editing system, and exceptional customer support that is ways available.
BigCommerce website builder comes with customizable templates and drag-and-drop features so you can create the perfect store that matches your brand image.
BigCommerce is a well-designed e-commerce site builder that offers you a comprehensive toolkit for building and maintaining your online store. You’ll be able to create multiple storefronts and then sell across multiple marketplaces. Thanks to its simple drag-and-drop interface, the platform is good for professional designers but also suitable for beginners. This makes it easy to create a stunning looking site without coding knowledge.
BigCommerce offers advanced shipping options, inventory management tools, and marketing automation abilities, among many other features. This means that no matter the type of service or product you’re selling, BigCommerce has features for you to build a suitable website for that.
BigCommerce also integrates with top tier marketing and analytics software like MailChimp, Zendesk, Google Analytics, and others, including major payment processors. The e-commerce website builder offers several other features to users like its easy-to-use interface, multiple payment gateways, shipping rates feature, and best of all, websites built with Bigcommerce are mobile Friendly.
5. Magento
Magneto is an open-source e-commerce website builder built on the PHP framework. Magento is a great option for developers who want to build an online store in a functional, professional-looking way.
For top-tier shopping cart performance, try Magneto. It’s easy to use and manage multiple websites, plus it’s the perfect starting point if you want to choose all the features that best suit your business.
Magneto offers a lot of functionality out-of-the-box features, like SEO, translation, and responsive design, and it can be customized to include your branding elements through HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Magneto is free to use, but some advanced features are limited to only paying users.
With Magneto, building a website is so simple that it takes just minutes to build a website of your own. However, you need to have intermediate knowledge of web development.
The shopping cart system provided by Magento is secure and allows you to customize it according to the needs of your business. Magneto allows you access to payment features, with more than 50 payment methods for receiving payments from customers all over the world.
Magento is ideal for small and medium business owners who want to sell their products online but don’t have the time or interest in getting involved in the process of website creation and design. Magneto users have access to over 1,000 free templates that are customizable to the design of the user.
Magneto is the most affordable and easy to use the platform to create your best e-commerce website.
6. Squarespace
Squarespace is an e-commerce website builder best for small businesses, bloggers, and non-profits. It offers simple, attractive templates for websites that are highly customizable.
Squarespace has a very user-friendly admin panel.
The admin panel has many customizable options organized intuitively, so even if you have never built an e-commerce website before, you’ll be up and running quickly. If you want more control over your website’s appearance but do not want to learn how to code from scratch, Squarespace would be your go-to place.
Squarespace is a website builder that lets you build your online shop. You can create a store, an online gallery, or a blog. Squarespace is one of the easiest ways to build your online shop and sell products online.
If you can drag-and-drop elements on a webpage, you can create a website with Squarespace. It’s very user friendly. Squarespace provides 24/7 customer service via phone or chat if you ever need help getting your site up and running.
Squarespace operates four different plans: personal plan, business plan, basic commerce plan, and advance commerce plans.
The business plan is free to use and offers unlimited storage and bandwidth, custom domain name, video hosting, Google analytics integration, advanced image editing, video hosting, Google Analytics integration, dedicated tracking tools, inventory management, and payment processing via Stripe or PayPal. All these fun-filled features cost around $18/month.
7. Weebly
Weebly is one of the most popular e-commerce website builders on the market. It has a very simple drag-and-drop interface that allows users to create websites without knowing any code.
This makes it incredibly easy for anyone to build a website without any technical knowledge. When users first sign up, they are taken through a series of tutorials designed to help them master the platform. In addition, Weebly offers a wide range of support options, including email and phone assistance and online resources and video tutorials.
Weebly is free from any advertising and doesn’t collect any information about its users or visitors, making it a great option for those who want to remain private online. Additionally, Weebly is fully responsive. Weebly is useful for creating a single-page website or blog about your business, which you can embed on other sites.
Weebly’s a good option for people who don’t have much experience with web design. The service includes a free domain if you want to build on your site, and it offers plenty of templates to choose from. The main downside is that Weebly doesn’t allow you to edit the code behind your site unless you pay extra.
8. Volusion
Whether you are looking for a simple e-commerce website builder or advanced e-commerce software, Volution’s hosting solutions are the perfect choice for every business. Designed with the needs of e-commerce companies in mind, Volution comes packed with integrated functionality to help make your life easier when building and running your online business.
Volusion is a drag-and-drop e-commerce website builder. You can simply choose and design your templates, add products and create your professional online store. Volusion also offers tools to customize your online store to increase sales and even have some extra features that increase performance and mobile usability.
The Volusion help centre offers a comprehensive guide and troubleshooting tips with over 100 articles on everything you might need, from creating a basic store to getting started with marketing and adding and creating social media plugins.
Outsourcing your e-commerce website can be an expensive, complicated, and confusing process. Volution simplifies the entire process with our unique pricing model: by eliminating hidden costs and other surprises,
Volusion provides four plans for users of its e-commerce website building services: personal, professional, business, and prime.
Volution offers a full web design suite and many website creator options at an affordable price. Volution’s business plan helps save you time and money in the long run.
9. Jimdo
Jimdo is a website builder and an online platform that helps you create your professional website easily. You can upload content, add features like e-commerce, and make changes to the website on the go.
Jimdo comes with built-in SEO tools that help you improve your website’s rankings in search engines. You can also host up to 20 websites with a single Jimdo account. The website builder boasts dozens of pre-designed templates and hundreds of customizable themes.
Jimdo allows you to use your domain name for free and lets you add additional pages to your website for free as well. Jimdo is a browser-based, drag-and-drop website builder. Jimdo’s drag and drop feature makes it easy to use by novices and professionals alike. Jimdo offers hosting services to paid users of their services.
You can start a website on Jimdo for free, but I suggest you use the “Business plan “that costs only $15 per month for more advanced features. If $15/month sounds too much, you should check out Ecwid.
Ecwid is a powerful website builder that lets you create your online store in minutes. The intuitive interface has all the tools you need to set up your online store, manage orders and conduct business in one easy-to-use application.
The best thing about Ecwid is that it allows you to build beautiful online stores for free. You can begin paying as you grow, making it one of the best online store builders for beginners.
10. Shift4Shop
Shift4Shop, formerly 3dcart, is one of the best e-commerce website builders on the market today. It is a cloud-based application that can be accessed anywhere. It is compatible with most devices and operating systems, if not all.
The Shift4Shop platform allows you to fully control your website. This means that you can edit every aspect of your website and store and add, change, or remove any feature you do not want to make your website relevant to your business.
The e-commerce website builder comes with a mobile app that allows you to manage your store on the move and update stock levels, pricing, or anything else that you normally do in the store management area.
The e-commerce functionality of 3dcart gives you access to advanced features like product reviews, shipping options, tax calculations, and even online payment gateways.
Shift4Shop offers 24/7 customer service and provides training for its users to help them get used to the software quickly and effectively use the features therein. This e-commerce website builder also has a free plan to pay as you grow.
What Is The Best Free E-commerce Website Builders?
There are a lot of free online shop builders out there, but the best free ones right now are Woo Commerce, Ecwid, and Wix. These platforms are either free or have a free plan.
How Do Website Builders Work?
E-commerce website builders offer the user a variety of templates that are easy to use and can be customized easily to match the brand image of your business. These tools allow you to build an online shop by adding or changing images, fonts, colours, multimedia content, and integrating social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter.
What is The Best E-commerce Website Builder For Small Businesses?
Shopify is the best eCommerce website builder for small businesses. A whole team of expert designers, developers, and marketers at Shopify works together to make sure that the software works well and is constantly kept updated to help you run your business smoothly.
Shopify will take care of secure hosting, payments and fraud protection, so you can focus on selling more of your products.
With these e-commerce site builders, you can create your own store complete with templates and a lot of integrated features. There are different options available depending on what type of business you are starting or if you need to sell physical products or digital products.
It’s true that the 10 best e-commerce site builders we have listed above all have their relative advantages and disadvantages. There are actually many more e-commerce website build systems out there that can help you set up an online store.
Depending on your business, you can really utilize any of these e-commerce site builders to get a thorough and well-rounded experience. I recommend comparing them in an unbiased manner based upon your own needs and preferences to figure out the best one for you. We hope this review proved useful in helping you decide which e-commerce website builder is right for your business.