The decision to take on the internet and start doing an online business is difficult to make if you are completely new to the field. A decade before, you could have started anything else as an entrepreneurial journey, but today you cannot think about a business without its dependence on eCommerce or involvement of digital medium in business operations.
The Internet has opened new ways of doing business, finding and reaching out to target audiences, expanding from one state to another, and going global. The difficulty in understanding and implementing the entire mechanism behind an eCommerce website paved the way for a multitude of website builders.
Ecommerce website builders are the tools and platforms that provide the ease of developing a website without coding or programming. It has reformed the way small businesses and startups build websites in the initial phases to cut the major cost of developing a dedicated website.
Following are some of the renowned tools to use. The moment your business gets traction, you can move to a better and stable platform with professional eCommerce website development services.
10 Best eCommerce Website Builder
1. Weebly
With a basic storefront functionality, Weebly attracts a lot of small to medium-sized businesses around the world. Anyone who wants to start a small-scale online store without investing must on the setup with avoidance of maintenance fee, Weebly is a recommended option.
A person who has limited resources and aims to remain restricted to a small community or niche would like such a platform as it does not require much of the technical eCommerce skills and understanding. The free version allows anyone to set up an online store with its ads and subdomain. You will have to choose a plan for moving the store to a custom domain and removing the ads.
2. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is one of the suitable options for setting on websites for large-size entities or enterprises. According to Statistica, more than 51,000 websites are currently based on BigCommerce, whereas more than 90,000 of the websites have also used this feature-rich online store builder. BigCommerce comes with managed hosting and hundreds of personalization options to help the businessmen in building a storefront in line with their vision, objectives, and goals. However, it all requires a bit of technical knowledge.
The advanced functionality of BigCommerce helps it stand out from the rest of the website buildings, which include Store optimization, Advanced SEO tools, marketing, and selling in international markets. Again, one needs technical skills to utilize modern features. It is recommended for any online startup that aims to scale an enterprise-level business. It works best for running a drop shipping-based business model. It is popular among businesses dealing in selling digital products, books, and other service-based products.
3. Squarespace
Squarespace is also the biggest eCommerce website builder that has topped the list in the eCommerce arena. With easiest drag and drop method of building web pages allow even a beginner to set up an online store. Its simplest user interface does not require the possession of technical knowledge or skill about eCommerce development or designing. With time, the user explores more features of this amazing platform that further escalates the process of building, modifying, or updating the storefront.
Start with the pre-designed templates and continue customizing them by color, images, text, and other alignment settings. The basic functionality is free of cost; however, to run a fully-functional online store, you may need to opt for the paid plan of SquareSpace. Its commercial plan allows selling digital products as well such as subscriptions, gifts cards, etc. The functionality and scope of the platform make it useful for smart businesses such as fashion, cloth, and apparel. Artists may also find it helpful selling their high-quality photography, paintings, and portraits, or eBooks.
4. Wix
Wix comes with handy tools to quickly set up a storefront for small businesses. There are numerous options to expand a small business to medium and large-size entities. However, it is liked by businesses that plan to restrict to a specific locality, art, and craft, or a few products. Wix offers a non-technical eCommerce website builder with a simple drag and drop option. With customizable templates, the platform offers web hosting and domains as well.
The free edition of Wix allows setting up a comprehensive online store, but to make it functional, you will have to upgrade to a paid plan. The features to take benefit from include order tracking, online payment acceptance, creating cart abandonment campaigns, selling on multiple channels, and lots more.
Wix has a few helpful tools to manage your eCommerce business. It allows you to track orders, accept online payments, sell on multiple channels, and build abandoned cart campaigns. However, Wix’s basic plan lacks some crucial inventory management features, such as low-stock alerts, tax calculators, and drop-shipping capabilities. If you have a big inventory, you’ll want an eCommerce platform with more effective inventory-tracking tools.
5. Shopify
Shopify is the best eCommerce website builder that helps businessmen to set up a fully functional online store without coding and programming. The platform comes with 100 professional templates with a bundle of basic to advanced eCommerce functionality. It is not an ordinary website building as it helps sellers to manage a complete online shop with its official domain and hosting, SSC certificates, and other useful marketing and business operating tools.
More than one million businesses are running their websites on Shopify because of its attractive designs, useful tools, simple user interface, and affordable prices. Its comprehensive list of features makes it one of the useful platforms for large and enterprise businesses, startups with drop shipping models, selling digital or service-based products or dealing in the fashion, apparel, or clothing business.
6. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce platform that is considered more of a website builder because of its simple and easy user interface. It can help you erect a fully functional webshop on WordPress with the quick installation of the WooCommerce plugin. The striking feature of using WooCommerce is its simplified user interface and the presence of a massive supportive community.
The availability of thousands of customizable themes and plugins, videos, and tutorials can turn website setup into a do-it-yourself project. A website made with DIY may work to some extent, but you may need the expertise to improve speed, performance, and conversion optimization besides managing web hosting from a third-party service provider. Being an open-source code platform, using WooCommerce is free to install and customize regardless of the products you list or the sales you make.
7. GoDaddy
GoDaddy has got prominence in website domains-selling business. However, it has a user-friendly eCommerce website maker. The simple user interface helps beginners to go through various tests and trials to build an eCommerce website fast. The platform gathers information from users and forms an enticing storefront using artificial intelligence technology.
There are basic features for SEO and email marketing, which may provide adequate exposure to your business but limit its expansion in the long run. It may not be a suitable option if you have plans to sell beyond a region or niche.
8. Volusion
Among the oldest website builders, Volusion comes first in the list as it was founded back in 1999 when developing a website was not common and fewer people knew about it. The platform helps you build the basics of the store from the home page to catalog and individual product pages. You can integrate any of the 30 different payment gateways.
Volusion is suggested as the best eCommerce website builder for its impeccable data-centric features for managing sales and inventory. It helps you view and evaluate stock levels, and review business analytics to find how the online store is performing. With a built-in feature of ‘Suggested Products,’ you can increase revenues with upselling and cross-selling.
9. Big Cartel
With a free version, Big Cartel has earned repute among small business owners. You can start with 5 products and sell them online without paying a dime to the platform. With expansion plans, you may need paid plans that offer you to sell up to 50 and 500 products respectively.
Big Cartel is famous among independent artists who are dreadful of technology and looking for the simplest platform to use and promote their art and craft. It is a useful platform for beginners to try their luck in the eCommerce arena and expand when they are ready to spend more on dedicated eCommerce software and its maintenance.
10. 3dcart
The conventional stores as known as the brick-and-mortars are also seeking different ways to put their products online and avail the countless advantages of the eCommerce world. 3dcart is considered a suitable eCommerce website builder for the retailers in the market who want to go live as soon as possible. Such stores have everything in place. They have a reputable name, are ready to sell stocks and an already registered business.
3dcart provides them with the basic eCommerce functionality at affordable prices, better sales reporting, and mobile-friendly themes. With a limited number of templates and a difficult user interface, the platform does not offer much for large size enterprises.
Final words
Ecommerce website builders exist because there are a great number of business owners and managers who have varying needs and requirements. Calling out one of them as the best will be unfair as a single solution does not address the problems of all. Review each option and find how it would help you set up a store that truly represents your business.
