The easiest way to build an online store is using an e-commerce platform. There are, of course always, pros and cons. We’ve compiled seven e-commerce development alternatives all in one place to help you out.
Wix is one choice for smaller stores, they provide cool e-commerce tools and great value for money, which in our research we awarded a 4.4 out of 5. If you have a larger and more varied inventory, we recommend Shopify, while Squarespace offers the easiest-to-use editor.
WordPress is also a very good alternative especially if you want to link marketing actions and flexibility to your store. It will also be more open if you already have other systems you need to integrate such as invoicing or stock management platforms.
Our comparison chart below will reveal all seven of our best e-commerce platforms, so read on for the chance to compare your favorite against its competitors, and check out what each website builder has to offer.
1. Wix – small online stores
| Wix Pros | Wix Cons |
| – Comes with abandoned cart recovery emails – Wix’s easy drag-and-drop editor shows you exactly how your storefront will look – Built-in ability to sell on Instagram – Creates a strong brand for your business – Add product videos for better engagement with customers |
– Only has basic inventory and analytics systems – not ideal for growth |
Wix is a hugely popular drag-and-drop website builder and ecommerce platform, with over 110 million users worldwide. Wix knows a thing or two about creating websites and online stores – so much so, that it takes first prize in our ecommerce ratings with an overall score of 4.7 out of 5.
But it hasn’t always been this way. In recent years, Wix has made significant improvements to its ecommerce offering that’s resulted in its score increase and led to us dubbing it the best overall ecommerce website builder.
We’ve been particularly impressed by Wix’s sales features, which have expanded drastically since we last tested it. This means that it now sits in third position for this category, a hairsbreadth behind ecommerce giants Shopify and BigCommerce. And if that weren’t enough, Wix has the best website features out of all the builders we tested, too!
Because of this, users don’t have to look very far to find the tools they need for online store success – they’re all right there at the touch of a button!
However, we would still only recommend Wix for smaller online stores. Its tools and features are impressive, but they aren’t quite good enough to deal with a large or complex inventory. We’d recommend either Shopify or BigCommerce for that.
When it comes to value for money, Wix is one of the best we tested. Considering the awesome features it offers, its three ecommerce plans are very affordable. The cheapest starts at $27 per month, which is a whole $2 cheaper per month than Shopify.
Wix is ideal for users of all tech abilities and is known for its ease of use. This means you can start flexing your e-commerce muscles without worrying!
2. Shopify
| Shopify Pros | Shopify Cons |
| – Excellent sales features and customer score – Sell across multiple channels like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest – Easily manage your store with a brilliant inventory system |
– Needs third party apps to support multiple currencies – not ideal for international growth – High transaction fee when not using Shopify Payments – Switching template means reformatting your website |
Shopify Overview
Shopify is the best ecommerce platform for large stores selling over 10 products. It powers over 600,000 online stores and has over 1 million active users worldwide. More than $100 billion has been sold on Shopify – so it must be doing something right!
Our research confirmed this. Shopify came second in sales features, scoring 4.5 out of 5 in this category thanks to the variety of high-quality tools it offers to support your store. Its inventory system is a particular highlight, as well as its many multi-channel selling options.
Despite its impressive features, however, Shopify isn’t the easiest to use. It came fifth in our ease of use testing, with many users finding its front and backend interfaces trickier to navigate than the likes of Wix and Squarespace.
Still, that wasn’t enough to reduce its user popularity. It received the highest customer score of all the builders we tested, and an impressive 93% of Shopify customers told our researchers they were satisfied with the ecommerce platform.
With three pricing plans to choose between, Shopify isn’t the cheapest of options, however, we think it’s fair to say you get what you pay for. It’s a platform that will grow with you, supporting the trajectory of your business.
Unfortunately, Shopify doesn’t offer a free plan, but you can take advantage of its 14-day free trial to decide whether it’s the right builder for you.
3. Squarespace
| Squarespace Pros | Squarespace Cons |
| – Best design of any ecommerce builder – Great depth and quality of website features – social media integration – Inventory system and analytics tools are really effective |
– Editor can be a little too manual – not a lot of autosave options – Harder to scale your store – Lacks multiple payment and shipping options |
Squarespace Overview
Best for smaller stores or those looking to sell digital products online, Squarespace is renowned for its creative finesse. If you’re looking to make your online store as visually effective as possible, this is the choice for you!
Stunning templates, combined with a good inventory system and lots of quality features, make Squarespace an attractive choice. That’s why it sits in third place in our rankings with an overall score of 4.5 out of 5.
One of the best things about Squarespace is just how easy it is to use. It came first in our ease of use testing, meaning that it’s the easiest builder to get to grips with.
This is impressive enough, but what’s even better is that since we last tested it, Squarespace’s score in this area has increased from 3.4 out of 5 to 4.2, showing the incredible work that’s been done to make this platform more enjoyable for its users.
Despite this, it is worth knowing that there’s still a slight learning curve, to begin with, but once you’ve got the basics down, building a store with Squarespace is easy peasy!
But what about the business side? Squarespace is a really strong all-around choice for combining a stylish storefront with classic e-commerce features, such as creating discounts and promotional pop-ups.
With its professional templates, Squarespace will really show off your products and let your storefront shine. It’s a solid choice for your online store, as long as you don’t outgrow its range of ecommerce features.
4. Square online
| Square Online Pros | Square Online Cons |
| – Affordable, with great marketing features – Easy-to-use site dashboard keeps track of product sales, customer journeys, and abandoned cart recoveries – Easy design process |
– Limited opportunities for customization – Limited payment gateway options – Small learning curve when you first get started with the platform |
Square Online Overview
In 2018, the payment processing giant Square bought Weebly. The result is Square Online, which combines powerful payment processing with an easy website building platform.
Unsurprisingly, Square Online’s interface is very similar to Weebly’s. That being said, you’ll enjoy Square Online’s fresh features, and you can even take advantage of its free ecommerce plan to see if it’s really such a great fit.
When we tested Square Online ourselves, we were particularly impressed by its quick and simple editing process. You can have a functioning ecommerce site set up after just a few clicks around your user dashboard.
And it’s not stingy with its ecommerce features, either. From generous multi-channel integrations to quick access to revenue and traffic insights, Square Online has an excellent bank of tools to help you get online and start selling.
Its real selling point, though, is its great value for money. In this category, Square Online scored an excellent 4.5 out of 5. This accolade is largely down to the fact that Square Online is one of only two builders on this list that let you sell for free. That means you can get started without spending a single cent.
Although, it’s worth mentioning that its free plan is obviously more limited than its paid packages. For example, if you won’t be able to use a custom domain on the free plan, and you’ll also have Square adverts to contend with.
5. BigCommerce
| BigCommerce Pros | BigCommerce Cons |
| – Range of in-built features makes it the best builder for growing and scaling your online store – Sell across multiple channels like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest – Fantastic SEO |
– Not suitable for beginners because of tricky editing interface – Expensive beyond the standard plan |
BigCommerce Overview
BigCommerce is a well-known ecommerce platform that boasts some big names – including Clarks and Ben & Jerry’s – as clients. And it’s no wonder! Online stores backed by BigCommerce have been recorded as growing at almost double the industry average.
In our research, BigCommerce came first for its sales features, scoring 4.6 out of 5 in this category. This is thanks to the sheer breadth of tools it offers, including plenty of multi-channel selling options, as well as the ability to accept international payments.
It also performed reasonably well when it came to website features, too. Its score of 3.6 out of 5 puts it in fourth place. You can expect a range of good in-house features, such as customer reviews, email marketing, and search filters.
Everything you need is already built into its library of themes and ready to make your online store succeed. This makes it the best choice if you’re looking to really grow your online store into a large and successful business.
The main drawback of BigCommerce is its ease of use, or lack thereof. It uses a lot of complex terminology in its descriptions, which won’t appear user-friendly to anyone who doesn’t have good knowledge of such specialist terms.
Add this to a confusing editing interface and BigCommerce becomes a less than ideal choice, particularly if you’re looking for an easy-to-use ecommerce platform. Indeed, it received low customer scores in our research because of its lack of user-friendly language and difficult editor.
On the other hand, if you’re confident and tech-savvy, BigCommerce is an excellent choice. You can automatically sell physical and digital goods as well as services. And you don’t need apps to enable these – you can just start selling!
BigCommerce should be used by anyone wanting to rapidly and remarkably grow their online store. Don’t use it if you are a beginner, either in business or in tech! It’s not the easiest to use, and its prices reflect the large number of tools and features you get.
6. Zyro
| Zyro Pros | Zyro Cons |
| – Strong design functionality with a host of attractive templates – Can be integration with POS systems for real-life selling – Has a good number of payment providers to choose from |
– The website editor and store manager don’t integrate that well – Limited SEO tools – no canonical tags or best practice prompts for new users – Help and support is limited, with no email, phone, or onsite editor support |
Zyro Overview
Zyro is a relatively new website builder on the ecommerce scene and has been designed to mimic competitors like Wix and Shopify. It still has some work to do on its ecommerce platform, but has plenty about it that will appeal to the right user, so it’s worth taking a look!
Overall, Zyro scored 3.6 out of 5 in our research and testing. Its strongest area is its design functionalities. In this category, we awarded it 4.6 out of 5. This is thanks to its attractive templates, but also largely because it gives users so many options when it comes to customizing their store pages.
Although Zyro is generally one of the easier builders to use, we found that certain areas of its backend store manager weren’t very intuitive when trying to create an online store. You’ll need to switch between the two dashboards and this makes it difficult to visualize how it’s all going to come together in the end.
Plus, unlike Wix, Zyro doesn’t come with any helpful hints and tips to help you out whilst you’re building. This would be particularly helpful when trying to create more advanced site elements, like popups.
If you get stuck, you’ll need to use the on-page chatbox. The staff are very responsive, but sometimes it can be difficult to get the exact information you need.
Because Zyro’s ecommerce offering is still fairly new, there are a lot of tools missing that you’d expect to see on a more mature ecommerce builder. Despite the affordability of its Business plan, we don’t consider it to be especially good value for money because of this. Its competitors offer more for what you pay.
That’s not to say that Zyro is a bad ecommerce builder. In fact, it has a lot going for it, not least the fact that we anticipate a host of improvements and innovations to come flooding in over the next few years.
At the moment, Zyro is best suited for hobbyists or those who are just testing the ecommerce waters. Those with more fully established ecommerce businesses will find themselves frustrated by Zyro’s limitations and entry-level sales functions.
7. Big Cartel
| Big Cartel Pros | Big Cartel Cons |
| – Lets you sell up to five product for free – Helpful prompts to guide you as you go – Accepts payments via Stripe, PayPal and Square |
– Not a lot of design freedom – Features aren’t as powerful as Wix’s or Shopify’s – Not very scalable unless you know how to code |
Big Cartel Overview
Big Cartel is a simple e-commerce platform that lets you sell up to five products for free, up to 50 products for $9.99 per month, and up to 500 products for $19.99 per month.
As you might be able to tell by these caps, Big Cartel is not as scalable as Shopify or BigCommerce. But it’s a great option if you’re only looking to sell a few products online.
Big Cartel is also good for enthusiastic beginners and total technophobes, because its user-friendly onboarding process does a great job of showing you what’s what – there are plenty of prompts and reminders to help you set up your store.
That said, Big Cartel is lacking in website features. You can’t sell in more than one language, and you can’t set up customer accounts or password-protected members’ areas on your site. However, for smaller sellers who aren’t looking for a ton of growth, these features probably won’t be missed very much.
Big Cartel’s ease of use and free selling option make it a great, budget-friendly choice. Just be sure to save your work as you go, because this platform doesn’t have an autosave feature, and you can only reach the support team via email!
Conclusion
In this guide, we’ve introduced you to the seven best e-commerce platforms. You won’t waste any time on inferior platforms – instead, you’re now ready to pick a first-class platform to build your online store and start selling online.
Let’s recap quickly.
7 Best Ecommerce Platforms: Summary
- Wix – An extremely customizable platform ideal for small online stores.
- Shopify – Easy to use with excellent professional sales tools for larger businesses.
- Squarespace – Beautiful designs and excellent value for money.
- Square Online – Feature-rich with a quick and easy setup process.
- BigCommerce – An incredibly scalable platform crammed with powerful features.
- Zyro – Best for running a hobby store.
- Big Cartel – Great features for artists.
We may have ranked these e-commerce platforms, but the truth is the right one for you will depend on a number of different factors.
We hope we’ve explained how e-commerce platforms help you grow your online store by automating mundane tasks and freeing up your time to focus on other aspects of your business. It’s why choosing the best e-commerce platform – one that’s flexible and has the right tools – is really important.
For example, Wix and Shopify both have comprehensive marketplaces where you can pick and choose free and paid apps to add more functionality to your business. They are such powerful e-commerce platforms because they have the tools to meet different needs.
Meanwhile, Squarespace and Square both offer great value for money thanks to the quality template designs and/or sales tools that you’ll get for a good price.
At some point, it’s all about gaining the right leverage to expand your business, without taking up more of your limited time. This is where e-commerce platforms can give you the right tools for success.
Remember, every platform on this list comes with a free trial or a free plan, so you can try any of them risk-free before making your decision. Don’t miss out – your perfect e-commerce platform is waiting, so jump on a free trial today to get started!
