Struggling to determine which ecommerce website builders can turn your retail dreams into reality? Overwhelmed researching options like Shopify, BigCommerce, and Squarespace but uncertain which platform checks all the boxes?
This definitive guide cuts through the noise to highlight flexible ecommerce solutions where practical tools meet beautiful design to help entrepreneurs sell globally faster.
To help you choose the best option for yourself, I have prepared a list of the best eCommerce website builders after trying countless platforms, I have come to this list of 11 platforms. I have compared all of them based on their features, ease of use, and pricing.
So without further ado, let’s get into it.
11 Best Ecommerce Website Builders:
| Sr. No. | eCommerce Website Builder | Pricing | G2 Rating |
| 1. | Shopify | $39/month | 4.4/5 |
| 2. | BigCommerce | $39/month | 4.2/5 |
| 3. | Squarespace | $16/month | 4.4/5 |
| 4. | Wix | $16/month | 4.2/5 |
| 5. | Zyro | $2.90/month | 4.3/5 |
| 6. | Weebly | $10/month | 4.1/5 |
| 7. | WooCommerce | Free | 4.4/5 |
| 8. | Square | Custom | 4.1/5 |
| 9. | 3dcart | $29/month | 3.9/5 |
| 10. | Volusion | $35/month | 3.2/5 |
| 11. | Big Cartel | $9.99/month | 4.2/5 |
Here is a detailed comparison of these eCommerce website builders. So let’s dive in.
1. Shopify
Shopify
Summary
Shopify has emerged as one of the top ecommerce website builders empowering entrepreneurs to sell online with stunning storefronts optimized for conversions. Its winning combo of easy customization, integrated payment processing, and marketing functionality simplifies retail, letting merchants focus more on products and customers.
Shopify is the most popular E-Commerce website builder used by more than 140 countries worldwide. For someone who is looking for a one-stop destination for their E-Commerce business needs, Shopify is the best option. Now let’s deep dive into each of its options. Get to know more about Shopify through our detailed review here.
Ease of Use
Customers love Shopify because of the simple interface. From creating an account in Shopify to Shipping the products, every feature of Shopify can be easily accessed. It includes several free and paid themes and templates that are used to change the outlook of the online store. General operations like adding products, setting payment gateways, shipping, and creating a shipping profile can be easily carried out.
Design templates
Shopify has a huge number of free and paid themes. The Shopify dashboard has nearly 18 free themes and over 1000 paid themes. It also implies themes; you can use ready templates implemented in a few simple steps.
To do further customization for ready themes, you need to go through some complex procedures. Professional website designers carry out these procedures.
Sales Feature
Addressing sales features, due to Shopify’s built-in sales features, consistently prevails. The sales features in Shopify include Shopify POS, Abandoned cart Recovery, multiple currencies, shopping functionality, etc.
In addition to inbuilt features, Shopify also offers a Shopify app store which can be used in case you need extra functionality. Shopify third-party apps come with additional pricing with each app you download and use.
Is the Shopify pricing reasonable?
There are about five different pricing options for plans: Shopify Lite, Shopify Basic, Standard Shopify, Shopify Advanced, and Shopify Plus. Additionally, it offers a 3-day free trial to create a store. The Shopify plans start at $9 and continue up to $2000 per month, which can be customizable.
Who should prefer Shopify?
Shopify is frequently chosen by those beginning online businesses because it is simple to use, even for those with no technological expertise. So Shopify can be a preferable choice for beginners, supporting the idea of scaling the store up to a higher level.
2. BigCommerce
BigCommerce
Summary
BigCommerce has emerged as a top enterprise-grade ecommerce platform enabling established brands to scale online sales with flexibility and security. Its winning combination of robust architecture integrated omnichannel selling, and advanced customization simplifies complex retail operations, letting merchants focus more on products and customers.
BigCommerce is an established E-Commerce website builder mainly for large-scale businesses. BigCommerce is preferred by most of the world’s popular brands like Skull Candy, Bliss World, Tommie Copper, Hush Puppies, Clarks, Davidoff of Geneva, Georgia Pacific, Toyota, etc. BigCommerce helps merchants sell products from small to large businesses and scale the business simultaneously.
Ease of use
With BigCommerce, everything is streamlined, from the initial set-up to every single feature.
Regarding adding products, they have the option of product variation. This can be quite confusing for complete beginners. Every entrepreneur needs the simplicity of selling all products. Starting with Bigcommerce can be difficult for some users because of its design interface. Check our post on BigCommerce SEO to see how it can help boost the organic traffic of your eCommerce store.
Design templates
Like other E-Commerce platforms, BigCommerce also provides themes and templates to design your store. BigCommerce offers 12 free themes in a variety of styles. Additionally, it offers 130 premium themes with Advanced options. These themes are compatible with all devices.
Sales feature
Big Commerce provides a plethora of sales features to increase the store’s revenue. Some of them are Bulk Pricing, Ratings and reviews, Product Swatches, product videos, etc. With each plan of Bigcommerce, you get more premium features.
It provides much too many features to be that straightforward. However, Big-commerce won’t be too difficult for you if you have website experience. In addition, Bigcommerce also offers an app store if you need extra features.
Are BigCommerce prices reasonable?
BigCommerce offers a fair price structure. There are three different pricing levels: Standard, Plus, and Pro. With each plan upgrade, you gain access to more capabilities, like client groups, abandoned cart wavers, stored credit cards, etc. In Bigcommerce, prices range from $39 to $399 per month. Additionally, a trial period of 15 days is free.
Who should prefer, Bigcommerce?
Bigcommerce has tons of sales features with drag-and-drop customization options, which cannot be considered beginner-friendly. It can be preferred by someone who wants to take their business to a large scale and sell through a single platform, either online or offline. Therefore, it is best suited for Large-scale omnichannel enterprises.
3. Squarespace
Squarespace
Summary
Squarespace has emerged as the premier all-in-one platform for creative entrepreneurs looking to showcase their products, services, or content online. Its winning combination of elegant design, integrated e-commerce, and flexible customization simplifies retail for makers and artists, letting them focus more on what they create best.
Squarespace is popular for its powerful modification features and the abundance of templates. The best eCommerce platform for small businesses and creative websites wishing to sell their products or services online is Squarespace. We have also done a detailed review on Squarespace for you to check out.
Ease of use
Operating Squarespace and setting up your business in one place is simple. For someone unfamiliar with drag-and-drop templates, it could take some time to understand and build the website. It features a user-friendly content management system, so running it doesn’t require technical expertise.
Design templates
There are about 100 free templates accessible on Squarespace, along with premium themes with more sophisticated features. The video tutorials with Squarespace layouts make it simpler to change your store. If you are unaware of drag-and-drop website building, you might need some time to adjust. You can also hire web designers and developers to design your website.
Sales feature
Squarespace offers three different types of E-Commerce website plans, wherein the first two plans lack many E-Commerce features compared to advanced ones. Square Space lacks integrations with different platforms and offers a few third platforms in their Squarespace Extensions.
Squarespace has inbuilt marketing features that remind customers about discounts and offers through email. They also offer SEO built-in tools and don’t require any third-party extension.
Is Squarespace pricing reasonable?
Squarespace has fair pricing plans with more E-Commerce features in advanced plans. They offer four different pricing plans: personal, business, basic, and advanced. For E-Commerce businesses, I recommend choosing from Business to advanced plan, and Personal will be preferred by bloggers and small business service-based businesses. The price starts from $14 to $49 per month. It also provides a 14-day free trial. Squarespace offers a special benefit for its annual plan, including free domain registration for one year.
Who should prefer Squarespace?
Although Squarespace lacks some of the sales features in the basic plan, it excels in customization. The Centre of attention in Squarespace is design and customization options. Hence, Squarespace is most suited to art-focused creative websites and small businesses that don’t require more E-Commerce features.
4. Wix
Wix
Summary
Wix has emerged as a top website builder helping entrepreneurs to create stunning online stores and informative content hubs. Its winning combo of artistic design, straightforward editors, and seamless ecommerce simplifies web building for creative solopreneurs, letting them focus more on products and content.
Wix is renowned for its simple procedures for building an online store. It just takes a few hours to build a fully functional E-Commerce website. Get to know more about Wix with our review post on it.
Ease of use
Wix is a beginner-friendly platform where you can build, customize, and set up your store within a few simple steps. Wix’s user interface is simple enough for anyone to adapt to it.
Design templates
Wix provides more than 800 free themes, so you may customize your website however you like. Wix provides a drag-and-drop editor for its templates, just like other website builders.
Sales feature
Wix offers a variety of sales capabilities to boost your store’s earnings. A few of these include product videos, pay-on-installments, numerous currencies, SEO, and booking features. It also provides an advanced mobile-optimized inbuilt editor that makes your store look great on any device.
Is Wix pricing reasonable?
Wix offers reasonable pricing plans with lots of features. The pricing starts from $23/month to $ 500 per month. They also have free plans and 14 days free trial for premium plans.
Who should prefer Wix?
Wix provides a ton of functionality at a fair price. Therefore, it is perfect for small enterprises that operate innovative businesses.
5. Zyro
Zyro
The popular Zyro platform is ideal for setting up small e-commerce shops. The service is top-notch for small businesses looking to establish an online presence.
Ease of use
Zyro is a standalone website builder with an excellent user interface and powerful features that give you total control over your online presence. Right from starting a website to building a fully-fledged website is easy. You have the option of using a drag-and-drop website builder, which makes editing websites simple. Using Zyro is easy due to its minimal features.
Design templates
More than 100 templates are available from Zyro, which you may change using a drag-and-drop editor. Additionally, Zyro offers themes for many uses, including blogging, small enterprises, and portfolios. Each template has been expertly developed and has great SEO features.
Sales feature
Zyro’s sales capabilities include numerous currencies, managing shipping and taxes, gift coupons, abandoned cart recovery, and many more. Ai-based content tools, an SSL certificate, and complex capabilities like a logo generator are just a few of Zyro’s standout features.
Is Zyro pricing reasonable?
Zyro provides three various pricing plans: website, business, and advanced. The price range per month ranges from $2.90 to $15.7. On each plane, Zyro offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. Additionally, it gives a 15-day free trial.
Who should prefer Zyro?
Zyro can be preferred by small business owners who want all the unique features at reasonable costs.
6. Weebly
A quick recap of Weebly features with their ratings
Weebly
Summary
Weebly has emerged as a top website builder empowering entrepreneurs to create stylish online stores and engaging content hubs. Its winning combo of attractive templates, straightforward editing, and integrated ecommerce simplifies web building for entry-level merchants letting them focus more on products and blogging.
Weebly is a perfect platform for someone who wants to start a simple online business. Compared to other E-Commerce platforms, it offers fewer features, less investment, and needs less maintenance.
Ease of Use
When it comes to ease of use, you need to spend a few minutes exploring and getting adjusted to the platform’s interface. You may manage your store without having any technical knowledge; just drag and drop the new items onto the page.
Design Templates
To make your online store look attractive, Weebly offers a vast selection of themes. Weebly offers nearly 40 free themes and premium themes. If you need further customization, you can modify themes using Html and CSS codes.
Sales Feature
As said earlier, Weebly is made for simple businesses. It does not offer more sales features except basic features like listing products, shopping carts, payments, etc. The advanced plan can get more features like inventory management coupon codes, a shipping calculator, etc.
Is Weebly’s Pricing Reasonable?
Weebly’s pricing is affordable and beginner-friendly. They have four pricing plans they are free-to plan, standard plan, professional plan, and performance plan. The plan starts from $0 to $26 per month.
Out of the four, the last two, Weebly Professional and Performance, are the best if you want to build a sustainable online business.
Who should prefer Weebly?
Weebly can be preferred by small businesses that don’t require more functionalities and businesses managed by a single person.
7. WooCommerce
WooCommerce
Summary
WooCommerce is an open-source ecommerce plugin for WordPress that allows businesses to easily build an online store. It offers extensive out-of-the-box functionality, and high customization, integrates seamlessly with WordPress, and has a huge developer community and merchant support ecosystem. WooCommerce’s combination of features, flexibility, and affordability makes it one of the best choices for online stores.
WooCommerce is an open-source E-Commerce plugin available in WordPress. WooCommerce operation and features are quite different from other platforms. Let’s look at each section on how WooCommerce is one of the best website builders.
Ease of use
You should understand the WordPress interface to operate the WooCommerce functionalities. In WooCommerce, all the functionalities are easy to use once you are familiar with the interface.
Design templates
You can rapidly build your site using the 800+ pre-made website styles that are included with it. WooCommerce is super flexible when it comes to customizations. With the help of several free themes. All the themes come with a drag-and-drop builder.
Sales feature
WooCommerce provides a sufficient number of sales capabilities, like integrated blogging, payment options, one-click refunds, multichannel selling, and numerous currencies, among others. Your store can be integrated with Amazon and Facebook. You should install plugins if you need extra functionality other than inbuilt features.
Are WooCommerce prices reasonable?
WooCommerce has associated with a variety of pricing like domain name, hosting and security, and shipping plugins. For some features, you need to spend on third-party plugins. As WooCommerce doesn’t have fixed pricing plans, you can customize your plans according to your business requirements.
Who should prefer WooCommerce?
WooCommerce should be preferred by entrepreneurs who want to build highly customized websites and unique businesses.
Rating: WooCommerce is rated 4.4 out of 5 for its overall features and users friendly.
8. Square
Square
Summary
Square Online is a full-service ecommerce platform developed by Square that allows businesses to create beautiful online stores with all the tools needed to sell products, manage orders and inventory, accept payments, and more. Square Online’s all-in-one platform, seamless payment integration, and powerful analytics make it a top choice for merchants to easily set up and grow successful online businesses.
One of the most popular features of the Square is the Square Point Of Sales. This platform is mainly used to maintain your payments for all kinds of businesses. I’ll go into more depth regarding its characteristics now.
Ease of use
The Square platform makes launching and managing your online store extremely simple. It offers an easy interface to navigate through all the options and set up the store settings.
Design-templates
The responsive templates enable you to develop a creative website. Depending on the type of business you are in, you can choose between themes in the Square. In the Square platform, you may edit your store using a drag-and-drop editor.
Sales feature
As said earlier, Square is popular for POS. Along with that, they have capabilities for product integration, risk management, and payment security. Square gives you some inventory features and lets you sell an unlimited number of products.
Square offers quick and secure payment options, and customers can benefit from the simplicity of utilizing UPI payments.
Is Square pricing reasonable?
Square has four plans with different price ranges. They are free to plan, professional premium, and performance. The plan starts from a price range of $0 to $72 per month.
There are four main price ranges for Square’s plans. The cost of the plan ranges from $0 to $72 per month.
The free plan includes a free website with SEO tools and easy pickup and delivery of products. It also includes sync with Square POS.
Who should prefer Square?
Square can be preferred for entrepreneurs who need advancement in payment options and retailers who need Square POS.
9. 3dcart
3dcart
Summary
3dcart is a popular all-in-one ecommerce platform that allows online merchants to easily build and manage professional online stores without coding. 3dcart’s highly customizable storefronts, an extensive app marketplace, and excellent multichannel capabilities make it a top ecommerce solution for businesses to launch stylish online brands and scale sales.
Despite being one of the oldest website builders, 3dcart is not very well known. 3dcart has a number of features built right in, making it simple, quick, and hassle-free to start and run your online business.
Ease of use
Building and running your store with a 3D cart is easy since no technical skills are required. In terms of operating 3dcart is easy and does a great job.
Design templates
In 3dcart, there are numerous templates available to build your website according to the requirements of your online store. The only downside is that they offer limited free templates to design the store.
Sales feature
Even though 3dcart has numerous in-built sales and marketing features, they lack some of the salient features that an E-Commerce store needs. 3dcart is Integrated with Shopzilla, eBay, Google Shopping, Facebook, and Amazon.
Is 3dcart pricing reasonable?
3dcart offers four plans starting from $19 to $229 per month. It does not offer multiple logins. it provides a 15-day free trial.
Who should prefer 3dcart?
3dcart is absolutely not for beginners as it offers numerous functionalities that may confuse the users. It is better suited for medium-sized businesses which need various functionalities.
10. Volusion
Volusion
Summary
Volusion is a leading ecommerce platform that allows businesses to build beautiful online stores without technical skills or coding knowledge. Volusion’s intuitive design tools, powerful marketing features, and optimized store performance make it an excellent choice for merchants to efficiently run and grow successful online businesses.
Volusion is another great eCommerce website builder that is on our list, and it is also one of the oldest eCommerce builders. It was launched back in 1999, and since then, it has been helping out business owners in taking their business online. Volusion is famous for providing in-depth data, which allows you to see all detailed insights into your online store.
Ease Of Use
With its website builder, you can create every part of your online store, such as product pages, about us pages, and a homepage. Volusion is also the fastest platform among all the platforms listed in our lists. The only issue with Volusion is that it has a steep learning curve which requires a lot of your time to learn how to use this platform properly. It also does not come with an app store where you can add apps to enhance the capabilities of your shop.
Design Templates
It comes with a drag-and-drop builder, which allows you to embed content blocks on your pages, such as images, reviews, texts, and so on. It also offers mobile-friendly themes and customizable layouts. You can use the customizable layouts to make your online store compatible with desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.
Sales Feature
It comes with a lot of selling features. The site you create with Volusion is hosted on the Google Cloud platform, which means you will get a 99% Uptime guarantee, which will lead to uninterrupted selling. You can create a customer knowledge base by providing all the information about your industry.
With its inventory/stock feature, you can see the product status, quantity verification, and how many products are left in stock. Whenever a customer purchases a product from your website, it will show them related products and upsell.
Is the pricing of Volusion reasonable?
There are three pricing options available on Volusion: Personal plan, Professional Plan, and Business plan. Their pricing starts from $35/mo, and the most expensive plan costs $299/mo. It also comes with a 14-day free trial.
Who should prefer Volusion?
If you have done your thorough research on creating an eCommerce website or you already have experience creating an online store before, only then should you prefer Volusion because it has a steep learning curve which will require a lot of time if you are a beginner.
11. Big Cartel
Big Cartel
Summary
Big Cartel is a simple yet effective ecommerce solution that allows artists and creative entrepreneurs to showcase and sell their products online quickly and easily. Big Cartel’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface and emphasis on design make it a top choice for creatives to launch professional online stores without technical expertise.
BigCartel is an amazing eCommerce website builder that helps you build unique stores and sell your creative products online. The best part about Big Cartel is that it does not take any cut from your sales. You only have to pay for the subscription, and you keep all the revenue from the sales of your products. The only issue with Big Cartel is that it doesn’t have a lot of features for website creation.
Ease Of Use
Big Cartel’s interface is very easy to use, and it can easily help you create an online store. It has tools to help you manage & fulfill orders. You can also run different promotions on your online store to sell products easily. There are many artists who are using Big Cartel to sell their art, designed products, and clothes.
Design Templates
You can easily build a professionally designed website with Big Cartel, but there aren’t a lot of features available on Big Cartel for design. The templates available on Big Cartel are good, but they are nothing compared to platforms like Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace. You also can’t customize the templates properly. You can edit these templates only if you know how to code.
Sales Features
Big Cartel offers you plenty of sales features to help you get started. It integrates with major payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal. You also don’t have to pay any transaction fees. Apart from these features, Big Cartel does not offer sales features like abandoned cart recovery. You can show up to five images for every product with the paid plan, but with the free plan, you can only show one image.
Is the pricing of Big Cartel reasonable?
You can get started with Big Cartel for free and sell up to five products in your store. To sell up to 50 products, you need to pay $9.99/month, and to sell up to 500 products, you need to pay $19.99/month.
Who should prefer Big Cartel?
Big Cartel is a great option for beginners, creators, artists, and anyone who wants to sell a small number of products on their online store. It is also a great option for those who are looking for an affordable eCommerce website builder.
What to Look for in an Ecommerce Website Builder?
You should select the most efficient website builder. When selecting an e-commerce platform for your business, go with the one that offers all the functionality you need. Here are a few checklists you can consider before choosing one.
- Ease of Use of Platform
The platform needs to be simple to use so that you can explore and maintain the website on your own. If you are a novice in website development, it should be accessible without any technological expertise.
- Pricing
Pricing is the most important consideration when selecting a website builder because each person will have a specific budget set out for developing their online store. Therefore, it is crucial to pick a platform with fair pricing and all the necessary features.
- Feature checklist
E-Commerce stores should include all the sales and marketing features necessary to build and operate your online store. So make a checklist of features you need in your online store and choose the platform accordingly.
- Customization options
Your store’s appearance has a direct impact on how much business you generate. Therefore, it is crucial to have a visually appealing website, which is made possible by customization possibilities. Choose a platform to establish your online store on that has the greatest themes.
- Payment Gateway and Transaction fee:
Payment gateways are the most important feature in any E-Commerce platform. This is where you get the amount paid from your customers. Choose and Set the payment gateway that is convenient for every customer.
Conclusion: #1 Shopify is Most Used & Recommended!
Here is my overall rating of the best e-commerce website builders available, with a complete overview. I believe that the best E-Commerce website builder is one that provides all the features required for your store at a fair price. The finest E-Commerce website builders are Shopify and Squarespace because they offer the majority of functionality at affordable prices. You can test a free trial before choosing a platform.
Determine the type of website you want to create before starting an online store, whether you want to sell tangible goods, digital goods, creative services, or any other forms of services. Compare each website builder to discover which one has all the characteristics, and therefore you are good to go and choose your website builder.
FAQs
It depends on what you are looking for in a website builder. Here you can find a list of the best E-Commerce website builders to help you narrow your search: Shopify, Bigcommerce, Squarespace, Wix, Zyro, Weebly, WooCommerce, Square, 3dcart.
Wix and Weebly are well known to be the best E-Commerce website builder for small-scale businesses.
Bigcommerce is the best E-Commerce website builder for large-scale businesses
Wix platform offers a free plan for building an E-Commerce website
Shopify offers all the E-Commerce functionalities at reasonable prices.
