Online sales are still increasing. Over a quarter of all retail purchases took place online last year, and e-commerce is a multitrillion-dollar industry. Thus, you should definitely have an online shop if your company is tiny. The good news is that any small company can easily begin selling online with correct ecommerce website builders.
You may list your items, accept payments, and manage shipments from the comfort of your shop (or home office) using one of the top eCommerce website builders. For this list, we concentrated on platforms that best suit the demands of small and medium-sized enterprises, particularly those who are just beginning to explore online or physical product sales. However, there are options for every kind of company, from independent creatives to global organizations. This is not to imply that my recommendations won’t work for different types of companies, but you may want to look elsewhere if you’re selling $50 million worth of potatoes or a few dollars a month worth of Lightroom presets.
Best Website Builders
1. Shopify
Given its millions of stores developed over more than 18 years, Shopify continues to be among the best choices for small firms rapidly starting an internet store. Its complimentary three-day trial and guided onboarding enable you to quickly configure payments, include items, modify your design, and link a domain. Perfect even for novices, the interface is simple with clear labels, dependable buttons, and extensive help files.
Shopify’s flexibility is really what makes it one of the great ecommerce website builders. Though too many extras could increase your monthly expenses, you may select from thousands of apps and hundreds of themes in addition to built-in capabilities. Magic and other artificial intelligence technologies, such Sidekick assistant, provide useful if not revolutionary features. Shopify also interacts with Zapier to automate inventory updates, billing, and fulfillment notifications, as well as other chores.
Features:
- Payment processing.
- Sales reports.
- Customer database.
- For retail.
- For small businesses.
- Retail inventory management.
- Data security.
- Activity dashboard.
- SSL security.
- Catalog management and many more.
Price:
- Basic: $29/month.
- Shopify: $79/month.
- Advanced: $299/month.
- Plus: $2,300/month.
2. Ecwid
Ecwid is one of the top ecommerce website builders for opening a small-cost internet store since it has a solid free plan that covers five actual goods and reasonably priced upgrades beginning at $25 a month. Apart from your payment gateway, it levies no other transaction costs. Though you can still select any gateway, Ecwid, now owned by Lightspeed, promotes Lightspeed’s POS hardware for Unlimited plan customers. In a company. site domain, you may build a store or link it with Weebly or WordPress-based systems.
Within fifteen minutes, a straightforward dashboard checklist guides you through setup. Paid subscriptions provide strong tools, including inventory management, discounts, tax automation, in-person payments, social selling, and marketplace listings. Ecwid also works with Zapier to automatically do things like keep track of orders, send emails, and let team members know when something happens.
Features:
- Third-Party integrations.
- Social media integration.
- Purchase order management.
- Product configurator.
- Multi-Currency.
- Kitting.
- Inventory tracking.
- Data security.
- Customizable templates.
- Alerts/Notifications and many more.
Price:
- Free plan available.
- Venture: $25/month.
- Business: $45/month.
- Unlimited: $105/month.
3. BigCommerce
Major companies trust BigCommerce, and for expanding small businesses, its Essentials plan provides comparable capabilities at reduced prices. Companies already producing significant sales are targeted; those with under $50,000 a year are deemed as “just starting out.” Reflecting its emphasis on companies ready to sell at scale rather than individual novices, onboarding lets you configure automatic shipping and sales tax.
BigCommerce streamlines multichannel sales: the Channel Manager lets you list goods on Facebook, Walmart, eBay, and Amazon with automatic cross-platform syncing. But its intense concentration raises design expenses. Twelve free themes exist, however, the majority of premium themes cost anywhere from $100 to $400. Still, the themes seem elegant, and the strong drag-and-drop builder lets you change things a lot.
Features:
- Third-Party integrations.
- Tax management.
- SSL security.
- Reviews management.
- Reporting/Analytics.
- Refund management.
- Real time editing.
- Preview functionality.
- Payment options.
- Multi-Currency and many more.
Price:
- Standard: $39/month.
- Plus: $105/month.
- Pro: $399/month.
4. WooCommerce
Many eCommerce platforms work best when you build your entire store within them, but if you already have a website—especially on WordPress—WooCommerce is the ideal solution. As a WordPress plugin, it integrates seamlessly with your existing site and theme, letting you start selling without rebuilding everything. It’s also cost-effective and familiar for WordPress users, with product creation working much like writing a blog post.
WooCommerce’s major strength is its flexibility: thousands of extensions enable added features like real-time shipping, multiple payment methods, or subscriptions. However, it’s less suitable for those unfamiliar with WordPress. Installation is straightforward, and managed-hosted options exist if needed. WooCommerce also connects with Zapier to automate tasks such as order tracking, customer notifications, and sales analysis, streamlining store operations.
Features:
- Inventory optimization.
- eCommerce management.
- Product identification.
- Customizable branding.
- Social media integration.
- Catalog management.
- Reporting/Analytics.
- Email marketing.
- Shipping management.
- Mobile access and many more.
Price: Free with chargeable themes.
5. Wix
If you wish to build a whole website with built-in eCommerce, especially if you wish to avoid learning WordPress, this one of the ecommerce website builders is great. Unlike many systems that view pages and blogs as extras, Wix offers great site-building tools with strong e-commerce capabilities, including order tracking, automatic sales tax, abandoned cart recovery, and even a POS option. Its AI-driven onboarding uses a chatbot to suggest pages, apps, and placeholder content, and can produce things like SEO meta tags or product descriptions.
Although developing a whole site relies on your content needs, adding items, arranging delivery, and setting up payments is simple. Wix also provides broad integrations via Zapier and its large app store, which lets users connect to programs like Shippo or QuickBooks and automate processes, including review analysis or workflow management.
Features:
- Website management.
- Design management.
- Customizable templates.
- Real-time editing.
- Landing pages/web forms and many more.
Price:
- Light: $17/month.
- Core: $29/month.
- Business: $39/month.
6. Squarespace
If you’re trying to realize your digital vision, Squarespace is among the top ecommerce website builders. The platform lets you elegantly and visually highlight your company by means of its exquisitely designed, contemporary templates. Particularly suited for internet companies reliant on beautiful images or imaginative presentation—such as photographers, boutiques, artists, and lifestyle brands—its designs emphasize crisp images, simple layouts, and elegant typography.
Beyond design, Squarespace has strong integrated tools for marketing items, handling inventories, generating portfolios, and distributing content. While built-in capabilities, including mobile optimization, SEO tools, and marketing choices let your site run as elegantly as it looks, its simple drag-and-drop editor enables even novices to readily customize. Squarespace is a great website builder for visually driven brands that want a clean, professional look online.
Features:
- Drip campaigns.
- Website publishing options.
- Pageview Tracking.
- Real-Time notifications.
- Layout & design.
- Product catalog.
- Customer accounts.
- Real-Time data.
- For small businesses.
- Credit card processing and many more.
Price:
- Personal: $25/month.
- Business: $36/month.
- Commerce Basic: $40/month.
- Commerce Advanced: $72/month.
Read More: 8 Online Form Builders for Websites
7. Hostinger
Since last year’s testing, Hostinger has evolved, providing companies with an easy and cost-effective way to begin selling online. Hostinger’s e-commerce solutions are affordable and easy to set up. But when it comes to scalability and sophisticated sales tools, Hostinger is unable to match the finest in the business.
Yes, Hostinger is a fantastic side business option for novice vendors. However, Hostinger’s single e-commerce package limits your growth and prevents you from accessing the app market for additional features. This is unfortunate since Hostinger lacks several essential capabilities, like as email marketing, which makes it challenging to advertise your goods online. Because of this, I only advise choosing Hostinger if you want to sell a small number of goods or are considering starting a new side business. You won’t require all the features of a specialized e-commerce builder, like Shopify, but I did find Hostinger’s editor and interface to be very user-friendly.
Features:
- Website analytics,
- Real time editing,
- Database support,
- Order management,
- Performance metrics,
- Reporting & statistics,
- Catalog management,
- Drag & drop,
- File management,
- API and many more.
Price:
- Web Hosting: $2.99/month.
- Managed WordPress Hosting: $2.99/month.
- VPS Hosting: $4.99/month.
- Cloud Hosting: $7.99/month.
8. OpenCart
Opencart is a robust, user-friendly, open-source online shop management tool that can oversee many online businesses from a single back-end. It provides more than 13,000 modules and themes that may be utilized to launch, develop, and grow a company. Its themes are appropriate for a wide range of industries, including social media, marketing, accounting, reporting, sales, payment providers, delivery methods, and service connections.
Soon after installation, an OpenCart shop may be prepared to accept orders. To start taking orders, all your company has to do is install it (any web host can do it for free), choose a design from the many free or inexpensive template websites, add product descriptions and images, and click a few settings. The company’s Quick Start chapters and free installation make it one of the simplest e-commerce shop builders.
Features:
- User management.
- Tax management.
- Social media integration.
- Sales reports.
- Reviews management.
- Product catalog.
- Multi-Language.
- Kitting.
- Electronic payments.
- eCommerce management and many more.
Price:
Free to use.
Premium Support: $99/month.
9. Volusion
Since its founding in 1999, Volusion has established a stellar reputation for providing e-commerce solutions. The platform provides e-commerce companies with a variety of tools and features for building and managing their online shops. Customizable website themes, a thorough product catalog system, safe payment gateways, order processing capabilities, inventory management systems, and marketing tools like social media integration and SEO optimization are some of these.
Volusion gives e-commerce companies robust analytics tools that deliver insightful information about consumer behavior, sales patterns, and marketing effectiveness. Businesses may find growth possibilities, improve their strategy, and increase income with this data at their disposal.
Features:
- Templates
- Reviews management.
- Email marketing.
- Promotions management.
- Mobile Commerce.
- Multi-Channel marketing.
- Multi-Store.
- Order tracking.
- Payment options.
- Real-Time data and many more.
Price:
- Personal: $35/month.
- Professional: $79/month.
- Business: $299/month.
What About Ecommerce Websites For Businesses?
While Shopify and WooCommerce are widely used by big businesses to run their shops, there are two additional possibilities that could be worth looking into. The first step is to build your own online shop using licensed ecommerce website builders like CS-Cart or an open source one like OpenCart. Your developers will have complete access to the code, allowing them to create whatever you desire, rather than relying on themes and site builders.
This entails using a service like Amazon Web Services to manage your own server and, in general, hiring a group of individuals who are familiar with how the various components work together. This option may save you time, money, and a lot of difficulties if you’re selling large quantities of goods, have numerous shop locations, want to run a marketplace, or have other particular requirements that aren’t satisfied by the SMB-focused solutions, but it involves a much larger initial investment. (This option also works for developers who want to build an online shop, but we concentrated on the easier-to-use technologies for the majority of the above list.)
Choosing an enterprise-focused platform like Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, or Adobe Commerce is the alternative. These also come with enterprise-grade tools, service contracts that ensure uptime, support staff, and all the compliance, administrative, and other bells and whistles you’d expect from software targeted at large companies. However, they also require a committed team of developers—or a willingness to hire knowledgeable contractors—to get up and running. Naturally, you also have to pay that hefty corporate fee.
You may anticipate paying at least $22,000 annually for a “basic” Adobe Commerce (previously Magneto Enterprise Edition) shop with less than $1 million in sales, even though most packages are customized, and the details are kept confidential. The monthly cost of Shopify Plus is $2,500. As you can see, neither of these solutions is ideal for a tiny bakery trying to sell a few cookies online, but they are necessary for a big chain.
FAQ
Q: Which e-commerce website builder is the best?
A: Ease of use, design flexibility, features and functionality, price and scalability, and customer service are all important considerations when selecting the finest e-commerce website builder for your company. You may evaluate the finest e-commerce builders and choose the one that best suits your demands and advances your e-commerce objectives by weighing these variables and contrasting the products offered by various platforms.
Q: Is WooCommerce Better With WordPress Than Shopify?
A: It depends on what the firm needs. While WooCommerce offers a wide range of adaptable methods and plug-ins, Shopify offers built-in functionality and simple accessibility. Thus, you choose among them based on your company’s requirements. Shopify is the best option if simplicity is your top priority; WooCommerce is the best option if you want customizable assistance.
Q: When selecting an e-commerce platform, what factors should I take into account?
A: The selection of an e-commerce platform is influenced by a number of criteria, including cost, user-friendliness, adaptability, SEO features, customer service, and compatibility with different payment methods. You must choose the finest website builder for an online shop based on these considerations, as well as your company’s requirements.
