Keen to start an online store? Compare your options to find the best website builder for your e-commerce business.
Credit: TierneyMJ – Shutterstock
There are some brilliant e-commerce website builders to choose from. However, the platform that's right for one business might not be the best for another.
When choosing a website builder, think specifically about the priorities of your store. Do you need a platform that gives you access to a specific number of staff accounts? Or are you a small business owner looking for the cheapest plan possible?
To help you speed up your comparison of each platform, we've provided quick but effective overviews of eight of the top website builders.
Top websites to start an online store
Here are the eight best e-commerce website builders:
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Shopify
Shopify is an excellent platform to create an online store.
They offer a three-day free trial which we have tried and tested. Based on our research, we've shared tips and insights into starting a Shopify store and maximising profits.
To start selling on Shopify, you'll need to upgrade from a free trial to a paid plan. At the time of writing, each plan costs just £1 per month for the first three months before increasing to the full monthly cost:
- Basic – £25 per month for basic reports and two staff accounts.
- Shopify – £65 per month for professional reports and five staff accounts.
- Advanced – £344 per month for a custom report builder and 15 staff accounts.
All three of those plans include up to 1,000 inventory locations.
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Wix
An online store is just one of many types of websites you can build with Wix.
When you join Wix, you can select which kind of website you're starting. As well as an e-commerce site, there's the option to create a blog, an events site, an online portfolio and more.
Wix doesn't offer a free trial as such. However, they do give you the chance to get your money back within the first 14 days if you're not happy with the platform.
They have a wide range of paid plans. They are yearly subscriptions, but here are the monthly equivalent costs (not including any applicable taxes) for comparison:
- Light – £7.50 per month for 2GB storage space and access for two collaborators. It also lets you use a light marketing suite.
- Core – £14 per month for 50GB storage, access for five collaborators and the chance to accept payments. The marketing suite upgrades from light to basic.
- Business – £20 per month for 100 GB storage, access for 10 collaborators and site analytics. The marketing suite becomes a standard level (as opposed to light or basic).
- Business Elite – £119 per month for unlimited storage space and access for 15 collaborators. It also offers advanced features for the marketing suite, site analytics and more.
- Enterprise – Contact Wix for a quote. This plan is aimed at larger businesses (such as those with multiple websites) to support their growth.
All of these plans have a free domain for a year. To see the full features of each plan, click the link below.
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Squarespace
Squarespace has fewer plans than Wix, but still offers some great features to help you start and expand your online store. For example, they have a range of tools to help business leaders with things like SEO, email marketing and logo creation.
It's a very well-established platform and has been used by millions to create websites.
At the time of writing, these are the monthly costs of their plans:
- Personal – £16 per month for their most basic plan. This does include access to customisable templates but doesn't let you take payments or access advanced analytics.
- Business – £24 per month to access advanced analytics and checkout on your domain. On this plan, Squarespace charges a 3% transaction fee for selling physical products, services, digital downloads and gift cards.
- Commerce (Basic) – £28 per month to remove the transaction fee. It also lets you access tools to boost sales.
- Commerce (Advanced) – £43 per month for the same features as the Basic Commerce plan, plus advanced shipping, discounting and the chance to sell product subscriptions on a weekly or monthly basis.
You can save between 17% – 29% of the cost by paying annually instead of monthly, but the savings vary depending on the plan.
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WooCommerce
WooCommerce works similarly to Shopify, providing you with tools to create and run your online store.
It's based on WordPress, so if you already have experience starting a website on that platform, it should be pretty easy for you to adjust to WooCommerce.
If the three-day Shopify free trial isn't long enough for you, WooCommerce's sign-up offer may appeal more. They offer a fourteen-day free trial, followed by $1 (∼ £0.80) for the first three months for both of their plans.
At the time of writing, these are the full monthly prices of each plan:
- Essential – $39 (∼ £31) for lots of great features including unlimited staff accounts, built-in payment processing, live shipping rates and order tracking, automated tax calculation and more.
- Performance – $70 (∼ £55) for the same features as the Essential plan plus automated recovery of abandoned carts, event-based email marketing (e.g. messages on shoppers' birthdays), discounted shipping rates and more.
You can save 35% by paying annually.
While the sign-up offers are generous and the features of both plans are very useful, the full prices are higher than some other options on this list. To see the full list of what each plan covers, head to WooCommerce's website.
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Weebly
Compared to other website builders, Weebly has relatively low monthly costs.
They even have a free plan. This could be ideal if you're just setting up your e-commerce business and want to adjust to the new store before paying monthly costs.
The free plan includes secure sockets layer (SSL) security and the chance to add third-party embed code. However, it doesn't let you have a custom domain, so it's not going to look as professional as a store with a paid plan.
At the time of writing, these are the monthly costs and key site features of each paid plan:
- Personal – For £7 per month you can connect the store to a custom domain.
- Professional – At £12 per month, this plan includes a free domain, unlimited storage, advanced site stats, password protection and the chance to remove ads for Square (a company that has merged with Weebly).
- Performance – For £22 per month, you'll get access to further features that help you grow the business such as advanced e-commerce insights, item reviews, abandoned cart emails and more.
You can save money on each plan by paying annually instead of monthly. To find out more about each plan, such as their e-commerce, marketing and support features, click the link below.
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Ecwid
Like Weebly, Ecwid lets you start an online store for free.
If you try the free plan and are happy with Ecwid's platform, you might then consider upgrading to a paid plan.
Here's how much their paid plans cost at the time of writing:
- Venture – £19 per month for the chance to sell 100 products, live chat support, automated tax calculations and more.
- Business – £39 per month for the same features as the Venture plan, plus the chance to sell 2,500 products, have subscription services, two staff accounts, phone support and more.
- Unlimited – £99 per month to sell unlimited products, have unlimited staff accounts, priority support and more.
We've listed the monthly subscription costs here, but you can save 25% by paying annually.
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Sellfy
If you're planning to sell products that are printed on demand, Sellfy is worth considering. This is one aspect of e-commerce they focus on as a platform, and it's a great way to earn a passive income.
However, on-demand printing isn't the only way to sell via Sellfy. You can also sell physical and digital products, along with subscription products and video streaming services.
Sellfy says on their website that you can start your store in just five minutes. As they offer a 14-day free trial, there's the chance to test out the platform and quickly find out whether it suits your business.
There are three plans available on Sellfy. These are their monthly costs (correct at the time of writing):
- Starter – $29 (∼ £23) per month to get up to $10,000 (∼ £7,870) each year in sales. You can sell unlimited products, connect your own domain and do email marketing.
- Business – $79 (∼ £62) per month for the same features as the Starter plan plus more. The added features include the option to get up to $50,000 (∼ £39,350) each year in sales, upsell products, remove Sellfy branding, migrate your store design, use their cart abandonment feature and start affiliate marketing.
- Premium – $159 (∼ £125) per month for the chance to get up to $200,000 (∼ £157,420) each year in sales, migrate products, access priority support as well as all of the features in the Business plan.
There are discounts available for paying yearly and two-yearly. Head to their website for more info, including the full details about each plan.
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BigCommerce
BigCommerce's services are split into two key categories: Essentials and Enterprise.
The Essentials side of the platform is aimed at small businesses, and it includes three different plans:
- Standard – $39 (∼ £31) per month and includes up to four inventory locations, max online sales of $50,000 (∼ £39,350) per year and more.
- Plus – $105 (∼ £83) per month and includes up to five inventory locations, max online sales of $180,000 (∼ £141,680) per year and more.
- Pro – $399 (∼ £314) per month and includes up to eight inventory locations, max online sales of $400,000 (∼ £314,830) per year and more. To sell over that $400k limit, you'll need to pay an extra $150 (∼ £120) per month for each extra $200,000 (∼ £157,420) in online sales.
The Enterprise plan, however, has custom pricing depending on the size of your business. It's best suited to large-scale and growth-focused e-commerce websites. Head to BigCommerce's website to find out more and get a quote.
Starting an e-commerce site is just one of many great side hustle ideas.
source https://www.savethestudent.org/make-money/ecommerce-website-builders.html