Last Updated: 7/23/2021
The answer is not one size fits all. Different ecommerce platforms vary in features, performance, ease of use, design themes, and integrations. Which factors are most important to have will depend largely on what category your products are in. Use our list below to compare platforms and determine which one best meets your business’s needs. Choose one, and get ready to excel in your niche!
Shopify
Cost:
Powering over 800,000 businesses, Shopify is the most popular ecommerce platform and the best at selling. It boasts over 3,000 apps, supports over 100 payment options, has multi-platform selling capabilities, offers 24/7 customer support to sellers, and is easy for beginners to use. If you plan to drop ship, rely on Facebook Ads or Instagram marketing, Shopify is likely your best choice. However, it’s not for every business. If cost is a concern, Shopify may not be your best choice and if you’re relying heavily on SEO, there may be better platforms to consider. See the top pros and cons of Shopify below.
Pros:
Easy, fast setup - no coding skills required
User-friendly drag & drop builder
Fastest load time
100+ ecommerce templates
Multi-channel commerce
Outstanding blog features
Powerful marketing tools
Extensive app marketplace
Cons:
More expensive than it appears; unless you use Shopify Payments, you’ll pay transaction fees
Apps can be expensive
Comparatively weak performance in SEO/Content Marketing
Checkout Not Customizable
Developer needed for advanced features
Wix
Cost:
In recent years, Wix has made drastic improvements in its ecommerce capabilities and has emerged as a top platform choice for solopreneurs and small businesses. When you sign up, you get a free domain name for the first year, unlimited product listings, and hundreds of templates you can use.Feature-rich Wix is another easy-to use platform that now offers multi-channel integration, abandoned cart recovery, dropship and print on demand capabilities. Like Shopify, Wix demonstrates weakness in the area of SEO, but that may or may not be a deal killer depending on your category. See the top pros and cons of Wix below.
Pros:
Easy to learn for beginners; no coding skills required
More affordable compared to other platforms
Many free themes to choose from
Includes Marketing Automation
Cons:
Poor SEO Performance
Weak upselling capabilities
Weak Integration with Amazon
Storage space is 20GB limit ( if you have many large digital products or other materials, that space might not suffice)
Squarespace
Cost:
Another highly affordable and relatively easy-to-use platform is Squarespace, which is probably best known for its stunning, sleek, responsive design templates. With Squarespace’s ecommerce subscription plans, you can get features like abandoned cart auto recovery, sell subscriptions and gift cards, and give flexible discounts. This platform is a top choice for artists and creative types. Squarespace won’t be suitable for every business though, as it doesn’t have as many integration capabilities compared to other ecommerce builders, and is probably not the best choice if you’re trying to scale fast. See the top pros and cons of Squarespace below.
Pros:
Affordable
Easy to setup, no coding necessary
Stunning Template Designs
Cons:
Lacking ecommerce integrations (No Amazon, no dropshipping)
Limited Payment Gateways (only supports Stripe and Paypal currently)
No Phone Support
Page speed could be faster for the price
No app store for more features and functionalities
Extremely limited css/html/js customization
Weebly
Cost:
For a basic store, Weebly offers excellent value with marketing automation built in. Compared to Shopify, Weebly is more affordable, although if you plan on doing a lot of marketing, you can outgrow Weebly fast.. Similar to Squarespace, Weebly doesn’t offer much in the way of ecommerce integrations, but does have some of the most stunning, responsive design templates and many find the easy-to-use builder interface even easier to use than Squarespace. Also, if SEO is critical to your business, Weebly is probably not the right choice. See the top pros and cons of Weebly below.
Pros:
Great value - lowest price for ecommerce marketing automation
Stunning, responsive templates
Powerful email marketing tools
Mobile app allows you to manage business and print shipping labels
Cons:
Weak SEO performance
Transaction fees on lower plans
No Amazon integration
Inventory management very basic
BigCommerce
Cost:
BigCommerce is an ideal platform for aspiring large retail brands, thanks to its excellent product search engine. It’s also a good choice for those who have a brick and mortar store and want to expand their operations online. Its many tools make it possible for any niche or industry to be successful. A BiCommerce subscription comes with a selection of customizable templates to choose from, geared toward beginners but also accessible to tech-savvy people who want to make tweaks to HTML or CSS. See the top pros and cons of BigCommerce below.
Pros
Strong SEO performance
Excels with multi-channel selling
Flexible and scalable
Comprehensive abandoned cart feature
Cons:
Inconsistent loading speeds
High volume stores pay more
Cart abandonment isn’t on entry plan
Comparatively, not as many themes to choose from as other platforms
Webflow
Cost:
Webflow’s level of customization sets it apart from other website builders, and for this reason, it tends to be used by web designers. It’s ideal for sellers who don’t want to bother with a lot of code, but require a platform that’s fully customizable. Webflow’s interface actually looks a lot like Photoshop, which can be intimidating to some.The platform has over 100 templates in total for you to choose from, including 40 free ones. See the top pros and cons of Webflow below.
Pros
Excellent amount of design choices and customization without coding required
Cons
Not many features compared to Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace
Relatively difficult to use for a website builder, especially in comparison to Wix or Weebly
Comparatively more expensive than other platforms
No live chat or phone support
Wordpress / WooComerce
Cost:
FREE (the CMS is free but plugis often require fees)
WordPress is an open-source content management system (CMS) that powers more than one-third of the world’s websites. Unlike the other website builders on this list, WordPress is self-hosted, which means you have 100% control over your site because you have full access to your site’s underlying code and database.With other website builders, your data “lives” on the website builder’s servers. Woodpress’s WooCommerce plugin allows conversion of a website into an e-commerce store without any technical expertise, but it’s not the best choice for every business. For those who aren’t familiar with WordPress already, you might struggle with the technical details like buying hosting, installing WordPress, setting up your theme and plugins. Additionally, many WooCommerce sellers report problems with scalability. However, if SEO is your #1 priority, WooCommerce is the best choice. See the top pros and cons of WooCommerce below.
Pros
Lowest upfront cost
One of best platforms for SEO
Lots of WordPress experts available for hire
The most customizable
Many marketing options and integrations
Cons
Good hosting has a high cost
Virtually zero support - you must troubleshoot on your own
You need many extensions for simple stuff
Possible security issues
Finally, in addition to this list of ecommerce store builders, it most likely makes sense for you to launch an Amazon store as well, given that approximately 40% of online retail sales happen there. Don’t miss our guide on launching and scaling an Amazon store here.
