If you want to start an online store, your best bet is to use one of the many ecommerce web design platforms on the market today. Why? Because a business website builder combines a series of tools that help you create and edit your site, manage your content and inventory, and much more.
While there are plenty of great options to choose from, finding the best ecommerce web design software can be tricky, especially if you’re not sure what you’re looking for in a platform. That’s why we created this guide. You’ll find all the information you need to pick the right ecommerce website builder for your business.
Table of Contents
Best Ecommerce Web Design Software
- Wix — Best for launching an online store in minutes
- Zyro — Best ecommerce site builder for beginners
- BigCommerce — Best site builder for multichannel selling
- Squarespace — Highest quality ecommerce templates
- Square Online — Best integration with brick-and-mortar
- Shopify — Most customizable ecommerce site builder
- Weebly — Most affordable for small businesses
- Shift4Shop — Best enterprise-level builder at rock bottom prices
I’ll explain the top features, benefits, prices, and specific use-cases for each platform below. I’ll point out any potential downsides or drawbacks, as well.
I’ve also included the key factors to consider when selecting the ecommerce website builder that’s best for your needs.
Wix – Best for Launching an Online Store in Minutes
Visit Wix eCommerce
- STARTS AT $23/MONTH
- OVER 50 PAYMENT METHODS
- BUILD A SITE IN MERE MINUTES
- $300 IN AD VOUCHERS INCLUDED
GET A 14-DAY FREE TRIAL
Wix is one of the most popular website builders out there. The company has made the process of creating a site as easy and enjoyable as possible.
So it’s no surprise that their web store solution, Wix eCommerce, makes it every bit as easy to start selling online in no time.
Wix has grown in recent years by adding serious muscle to the ecommerce capabilities they offer users. Wix eCommerce is not just a store add-on to their regular site builder; it’s a complete integrated online business solution packing a full suite of impressive tools and features.
It’s very intuitive to start with. Use one of the hundreds of templates available to quickly whip up your storefront. Just tweak the colors and add your logo to match your branding and then add your products.
Or, lean on the artificial intelligence of Wix’s ADI builder, which will create it all for you (in mere minutes) after you answer a couple of questions.
As long as you have an image in your mind of what you want, Wix get you there.
Call it the shortest distance between having no store and launching a professional ecommerce site.
If you’re creating a new ecommerce site for the first time, the simplicity of Wix will make your life much easier. Its incredibly versatile platform is practically tailor-made for someone with no web development experience.
But just because Wix eCommerce is easy to use, that doesn’t mean it skimps on important features.
Every plan offers unlimited bandwidth for your web store, plus a free domain for one year and unlimited products.
You also get a generous $300 in digital ad vouchers so you can drum up awareness of your new online store. That’s $100 each for Google Ads, Bing Ads, and local listings.
It’s also worth noting that all online payments from your Wix store are 100% commission free. This is a huge benefit, as a lot of other ecommerce platforms take a cut from your revenue.
Wix eCommerce is jam-packed with features to help grow and nurture your web store.
You can track and manage orders, payments, inventory, conversion rates, and revenue with ease from the Wix dashboard. You’ll get the hang of it really quick.
And every eCommerce package allows you to sell subscriptions and implement pricing plans in addition to selling your products. You can even save the payments methods and delivery addresses of loyal customers to give them an easier checkout experience.
We’re really just scratching the surface here. Wix eCommerce plans also include:
- Abandoned cart recovery
- Mobile optimization
- Wix chat
- 50+ payment methods
- Global shipping
- Coupons and discounts
- Restaurant features (online orders, reservations, menu)
- Tickets and event management
- Online appointment booking
Wix’s SEO tools are another big standout. They allow you to optimize your website for mobile by creating an automatic mobile-friendly version of your website as you customize it. They also get your site listed on Google within 60 seconds.
Wix’s AppMarket provides more than 250 excellent apps from services like MailChimp, Quickbooks, and HubSpot to seamlessly integrate into your website. That way, you can take advantage of their offerings to grow your business.
Wix eCommerce pricing comes in three plans:
- Business Basic — $23/month
- Business Unlimited — $27/month
- Business VIP — $49 per month
Each tier adds more useful features to your web store’s arsenal, including support for multiple currencies, dropshipping tools, custom reporting, loyalty programs, and more.
There’s also an all-encompassing, fully custom Wix Enterprise plan that starts at $500 per month.
Wix does have cheaper plans, but they’re for personal or portfolio sites. If you want to accept online payments, the Business Basic plan is the lowest plan available that’ll work for your needs.
To save some money, you could always sign up for a free Wix plan without the ability to accept online payments, build a personal website with Wix for no cost at all, then upgrade to a Wix eCommerce plan once you’re ready to start selling.
If you’re not happy with Wix, you can always cancel within 14 days to get a full refund. Try Wix eCommerce free for 14 days.
Zyro – Best Ecommerce Site Builder for Beginners
Visit Zyro
- PRICES STARTS AT $2.61 PER MONTH
- INTUITIVE USER INTERFACE
- DRAG-AND-DROP SITE BUILDER
- TONS OF PAYMENT OPTIONS
GET UP TO 72% OFF YOUR WEBSITE
Zyro offers a very beginner-friendly experience that comes at a highly affordable price plus includes 24/7 support for all users.
Using drag-and-drop tools, you’ll be able to lay out exactly how you want your website to look and see it change in real-time. In fact, you’ll be able to get your website up and running very quickly.
This is also known as the “What You See Is What You Get” method of website building. You don’t need any coding knowledge. You don’t need to switch back and forth between preview and edit mode. All you need is to move elements around until you have the exact layout you want.
You’ll also be able to promote and sell your products across websites like Instagram, Facebook, and Amazon.
There are a ton of different customizable themes across nine categories—so you can pick the perfect theme for your business.
One thing that sets Zyro apart from the competition is its powerful AI business tools. These tools leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to help you create your brand identity using:
- Business name generator
- Slogan generator
- Logo maker
- AI content generator
- AI heatmap
The AI content generator will furnish SEO-friendly content for your website. That’s perfect for those who are new at writing copy for the web or anyone who might be a little nervous about their word choices.
Zyro prices and plans are as follows:
- Website — from $2.61 per month
- Business —from $4.41 per month
- Online Store — from $8.01 per month
- Advanced Store —from $14.31 per month
As you can see, even the most expensive plan is still pretty affordable.
Recent updates to Zyro’s offerings include an email integration to have a dedicated email account associated with a domain and blog post scheduling to make content management easier.
If you really want to get the most out of your ecommerce experience with Zyro though, I highly suggest you go with at least the Business plan. That’ll give you unlimited storage and bandwidth, along with a free domain, the ability to accept online payments, and their line of ecommerce functionality.
Get started at Zyro.
BigCommerce – Best Site Builder for Multichannel Selling
Visit BigCommerce
- PRICE STARTS AT $29.95/MO
- B2B SELLING TOOLS
- MOVE YOUR PRODUCTS ACROSS ANY CHANNEL
- LOADED WITH BUILT-IN FEATURES
GET A 15 DAY FREE TRIAL
BigCommerce is a reputable and trustworthy ecommerce site builder.
It’s also very versatile. It has B2B-specific features like bulk pricing rates, quote management, customer groups, and custom price lists.
BigCommerce specializes in multichannel selling. Every plan comes with the ability to sell on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google Shopping, eBay, Amazon, and POS.
So for those of you who want to leverage omnichannel sales, BigCommerce should be at the top of your list.
The website builder itself is very intuitive and includes a drag-and-drop tool that makes creating the website easy.
BigCommerce is packed with lots of essential features right out of the box. Compared to other platforms on this list, it’s probably the most extensive feature list you’ll find.
But there’s a catch: It’s not the most beginner-friendly website builder. That’s because the extra features tend to make things more complex.
The platform is designed to help larger ecommerce sites scale quickly. So, if you’re just starting out, you’ll most likely be paying extra for features you won’t be using.
However, if you want the ability to have tons of ecommerce and website customization features at your disposal without paying extra for apps or extensions, BigCommerce is perfect for you.
All BigCommerce stores benefit from enterprise-level security and high uptime rates. You’ll also get 24/7 customer support via phone, live chat, and email.
Here’s a look at the price points for BigCommerce:
- Standard — $29.95 per month
- Plus — $79.95 per month
- Pro — $249.95 per month
These rates are almost identical to Shopify. While Shopify is a bit easier to use, BigCommerce comes loaded with more features. So if you’re deciding between those two options, you’ll need to determine which features are the most important to you.
You can try BigCommerce for free with a 15 day trial before you select a plan.
Squarespace – Highest Quality Ecommerce Templates
Visit Squarespace
- PRICE STARTS AT $14/MO
- BEAUTIFUL DESIGNS
- DRAG AND DROP SITE BUILDER
- SELL PRODUCTS, SUBSCRIPTIONS, AND DIGITAL GOODS
GET A 14 DAY FREE TRIAL
Squarespace offers ecommerce functionality built directly into its plans, which is not the case for most traditional website builders.
Perhaps the reason most people love them, though, is their beautiful and award-winning template designs.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned pro who loves to jump in and craft a website to your exact design specs or a complete beginner who just wants a fantastic looking website straight from a template.
Anyone can build a modern and visually appealing ecommerce store using Squarespace.
Every element of every page is easily customized using the intuitive and highly-responsive, drag-and-drop builder.
Squarespace has award-winning templates that are specifically designed for online stores. Whether you’re selling products, services, subscriptions, or digital goods, Squarespace has a solution.
The Squarespace mobile app allows you to manage and edit your website on the go. You can also use it as a POS solution, too.
Squarespace has built-in SEO tools, analytics, blogging tools, and everything else you need to make your online store a huge success.
There are hundreds of apps built-in to Squarespace. However, there is not an app store or marketplace for one-click installations. If you want to install a third-party app that’s not already built-in to Squarespace, you’ll need to use code to accomplish that.
Squarespace has four different plans, three of which have fully-integrated ecommerce capabilities:
- Personal — $14 per month
- Business — $23 per month
- Basic Commerce — $27 per month
- Advanced Commerce — $49 per month
Online selling starts with the Business plan, but I recommend the Basic Commerce option as the bare minimum for most people.
This option has 0% transaction fees, POS, ecommerce analytics, customer accounts, and other features you’ll want at your disposal once you start selling online. It’s well worth the extra $8 per month.
As your business scales and you want more advanced features, you can always upgrade to the Advanced Commerce plan. But you may not need that on day one if you’re starting a new store from scratch.
All plans come with 24/7 customer support. You can try Squarespace for free with a 14-day trial.
Square Online – Best Integration with Brick-and-Mortars
Visit Square
- PRICE STARTS AT $0
- SEO TOOLS
- GREAT INTEGRATIONS
- FLEXIBLE CUSTOMER CONNECTIONS
GET STARTED FOR FREE
Square is best known for their point-of-sale software (which is great, by the way).
However, they also have a great website builder that comes packed with features for free.
It’s especially great if you already use Square for your in-store POS system. The website will be able to seamlessly integrate with Square POS. You’ll also be able to accept all major credit cards, sync with your existing Square POS, and streamline your inventory management.
It’s so good that we highly recommend both their services for brick-and-mortar stores. It gives you a great way to seamlessly integrate your website with your current POS system.
By using both Square POS and their website builder, you’ll be able to easily sync your inventory so you can see your real time stock. This helps prevent overselling—and keeps customers happy.
You’ll also be creating a centralized database for your sales. No longer will you have to manually input your sales for the day, week, or month into a separate database since it’s all one system. With their analytics and reporting tools, you’ll be able to take a deeper look at the metrics behind your sales and improve them.
Square is very flexible in how you connect with customers too, allowing you to sell through Instagram, on your website, or local pickup and delivery.
Setting up the website is a snap too. You don’t need to know a bunch of code, or even hire a developer. All you need is a computer or mobile device and you can get started.
Square also gives you SEO tools to help your website reach even more potential customers.
Prices start free with 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction. Complete pricing is as follows:
- Free: $0 / month and 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction
- Professional: $12 / month and 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction
- Performance: $26 / month and 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction
- Premium: $72 / month and 2.6% + 30 cents per transaction
Try Square Online for free.
Shopify – Most Customizable Ecommerce Site Builder
Visit Shopify
- PRICE STARTS AT $29/MO
- 70+ THEMES
- BUILT-IN PAYMENTS GATEWAY
- 24/7 CUSTOMER SUPPORT
GET A 14 DAY FREE TRIAL
Shopify is one of the most popular ecommerce platforms out there.
That’s because it’s easily the most powerful ecommerce website builder on the market today. This web-based CMS comes with everything you need to set up and manage your online store.
To get started, choose from one of Shopify’s 70+ free and premium themes.
Each theme has settings that allow you to customize everything to your liking. Add features and functionality to your store by installing apps from the Shopify App Store.
I like that all payments are handled directly through the platform. With the Shopify Payments gateway built-in to your plan, you won’t need to connect any third-party processors to accept payments. So, you can start selling immediately.
Keep in mind you can always use another payment gateway by choosing from one of the over 100 payment processors that integrate with Shopify.
All plans come with web hosting, unlimited email forwarding, unlimited bandwidth, and a content delivery network for optimal performance. You’ll also benefit from marketing and SEO tools, mobile optimization, and analytics.
Shopify offers 24/7 customer support via phone, email, and live chat.
With Shopify, you have the potential to set up dropshipping, customer accounts, target abandoned carts, POS software, and manage your shipping rates. There’s an expansive Shopify App platform to add any feature that you want
Here’s an overview of Shopify’s plans and prices:
- Basic Shopify — $29 per month
- Shopify — $79 per month
- Advanced Shopify — $299 per month
Consult with a Shopify sales expert if you’re building a high-volume ecommerce shop and need an enterprise-level solution. You can try Shopify free for 14 days.
Weebly – Most Affordable Ecommerce Site Builder for Small Businesses
Visit Weebly
- PRICE STARTS AT $12/MO
- DRAG AND DROP SITE BUILDER
- ADD PRODUCT SEARCH TO YOUR STORE
- INTEGRATES WITH PAYPAL, SQUARE, AND STRIPE
TRY WEEBLY FOR FREE
Weebly is another well-known website builder that offers a free forever plan.
Unfortunately, the free plan doesn’t include ecommerce capabilities. You can still use it to test out the Weebly platform before you upgrade to a paid subscription.
Their ecommerce builder plans are still some of the lowest priced ones out there. That makes Weebly one of the most affordable options you could look at.
You can accept payments with popular gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and Square.
Weebly makes it easy for entrepreneurs to establish an online presence and expand with ecommerce. So, if you already have a small or local business, I’d recommend Weebly as the best solution for you.
Since Weebly is powered by Square, it’s very easy to integrate the Square POS with your online sales system as well. You’ll be able to manage your products and inventory all in one place.
The drag and drop site builder allows you to launch your store with minimal effort and no coding.
You’ll get tools for email, SEO, site stats, shipping, inventory, and more. Help your customers find what they’re looking for by adding Weebly’s product search to your online store. Add badges to products when items go on sale or when availability becomes limited.
These are Weebly’s prices for online stores:
- Pro — $12 per month
- Business — $25 per month
- Business Plus — $38 per month
The Pro plan is pretty basic, but it’s affordable if you don’t need any complex ecommerce features. It’s essentially just a shopping cart with the ability to accept payments.
If you want to get the most out of Weebly, you’ll need a Business plan at a minimum.
Try out Weebly’s free forever plan and use it as an extended free trial before you officially launch your online store.
Shift4Shop – Best Enterprise-Grade Builder at Rock-Bottom Prices
Visit Shift4Shop
- FREE ENTERPRISE-LEVEL ONLINE STORE
- 200+ BUILT-IN FEATURES
- NO LONG-TERM CONTRACTS
- POWERFUL YET EASY TO USE
GET STARTED FOR FREE
Shift4Shop (formerly known as 3DCart) is certainly not the most popular ecommerce website builder on the market—but that doesn’t mean you should sleep on it.
In fact, they offer an enterprise-grade plan for absolutely free.
I know what you’re thinking, “If it’s free, they must skimp on the features.”
Not at all.
They include all the features and tools you expect from an enterprise-level ecommerce website builder including unlimited products, users, and bandwidth, along with SEO marketing tools and more than 100 themes to choose from.
The catch: You have to use the Shift4 payment platform (hence the new name). Also, you have to be based in the United States to take advantage of their ecommerce plan.
Currently, Shift4’s transaction fees run 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. That’s considered industry standard with ecommerce businesses, which makes it a fantastic deal for you.
This is especially great for seasonal business. That way, you don’t have to be on the hook for a monthly website fee during lean months, since you only have to pay the payment processing fees when you make transactions.
Shift4Shop also comes with features and benefits like:
- API access
- Unlimited products
- Mobile-ready themes
- Web hosting
- Unlimited bandwidth
- No transaction fees
- Built-in blog
The completely free ecommerce platform is a big, tempting carrot. But they will gladly take your money. If you’ve got a different payment processor very near and dear to your heart, or you’re unconvinced about switching to Shift4 for accepting payments, Shift4Shop also offers traditional pricing tiers with monthly fees.
- Basic Store — $29 per month
- Plus Store — $79 per month
- Pro Store — $229 per month
best ecommerce website builder free
The 8 Best Free Ecommerce Website Builders
- Square Online – (free plan) – Most generous free ecommerce plan.
- Big Cartel – (free plan) – Best for independent artists.
- Wix – (free to build, not sell) – Best for small online stores.
- Shopify – (free trial) – Best for larger businesses.
- Squarespace – (free trial) – Best value for money.
- BigCommerce – (free trial) – Best for a purely online business.
- WooCommerce – (free to install) – Best WordPress ecommerce plugin.
- Magento – (free to install) – Best for enterprise-level businesses.
Conclusion
Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
Check out other publications to gain access to more digital resources if you are just starting out with Flux Resource.
Also contact us today to optimize your business(s)/Brand(s) for Search Engines