Today’s digital landscape has created a vast world of opportunities. Individuals and businesses can leverage easily accessible technology to start and run successful ecommerce ventures.
The choice of an ecommerce website builder is not just a technical decision, it is a strategic business decision as the ecommerce website builder you settle for can break or make your business. The guide presents the best ecommerce website builder price comparison.
Review of the Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce and Wix
Feature | WooCommerce (with WordPress) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
User-Friendliness | User-friendly intuitive site builder suited for beginners | User-friendly and integrates seamlessly with WordPress | User-friendly, but has learning curve for customisations | User-friendly, suited for beginners |
Ecommerce Focus | Strong focus on ecommerce, designed for creating digital stores | Adds ecommerce capabilities add WordPress blogging features | Solid ecommerce set of features | Adds ecommerce capabilities to a website builder |
Scalability | Scalable, accommodates businesses of all sizes | Scalable but only within the WordPress ecosystem | Scalable, designed for enterprise level businesses | Scalable for businesses with growth ambitions |
Customization | High customization, good range of third-party apps | Customizable, within WordPress, my require custom development | Customizable, high flexibility in design | Customizable themes and design features |
App Ecosystem | Vast app ecosystem with thousands of third-party plugins, apps, extensions | Based on WordPress and WooCommerce plugins and extensions | Good range of integrations and extensions | Generous range of apps and integrations |
SEO-Friendliness | SEO oriented with fine grained SEO tools and features | Depends on WordPress’s SEO plugins and extensions | Has strong SEO capabilities | Has SEO tools for optimizing websites |
Pricing Transparency | Flexible and transparent pricing tiers, with clear feature distinctions | Plugin is free, there are costs related to development, hosting, and extensions | Clear and transparent pricing, multiple tiers | Clear pricing, with clearly defined plans |
Cost-Effective Starting Point | Offers a free basic plan and trials across premium plans | Core plugin is free, potential costs on hosting, development and integrations | Good range of pricing options and affordable entry | Has competitive Business Basic pricing plan |
Ecommerce Features | Comprehensive feature set and tools for ecommerce | Essential ecommerce features, may require development for customisations | Robust feature set and tools for ecommerce | Essential eCommerce features for ecommerce |
Additional Costs | Transaction fees, premium themes, domain registration, third-party apps | Hosting costs, domain registration and premium extensions | Domain registration and transaction fees | Transaction fees, domain registration, apps |
Versatility | Versatile platform with flexible pricing plans suited for businesses of all sizes | Versatile solution within the WordPress ecosystem | Versatile platform for enterprise level ecommerce | Versatile builder covering businesses with varying needs |
Running an ecommerce business is a lucrative adventure, however it is no small feat. This business model requires careful planning, effective marketing strategies and most importantly, a solid ecommerce website builder.
Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce and Wix and many more are the top contenders. While your choice will ultimately depend on your unique business needs and budget, Shopify is the unofficial benchmark of ecommerce platforming.
Shopify: The Unofficial Benchmark
For its intuitive and user-friendly online store builder interface, robust inventory management, vast collection of the themes and apps, flexible pricing, Shopify has become an unofficial benchmark in ecommerce.
The platform has a market share of over 25% globally. Shopify is not just a digital store website builder, it is a powerful solution for taking ideas into the marketplace.
Shopify Features
User-Friendly eCommerce Website Builder
Shopify offers a user friendly ecommerce website builder. Beginners and experts can use the intuitive drag and drop website builder to craft professional and visually appealing digital stores in minutes.
Scalability
Shopify accommodates businesses of all sizes. Some platforms are good for small businesses with micro ecommerce needs while some prioritise enterprise level ecommerce needs. However Shopify, has features and pricing plans suited for businesses of all sizes.
Yet, the platform must have robust features that your business will need as it grows. This is exactly where the edge of Shopify is.
With Shopify you can take off with the low tier premium plans that give you the essentials of ecommerce – and you don’t need to worry about switching platforms when your business starts growing.
Versatility
Shopify is suited for businesses of different sizes and with different and diverse ecommerce needs. A wide collection of the themes and addons, apps gives Shopify an unrivalled edge of versatility.
The apps and plugins give the capabilities to extend the features and functions of Shopify beyond the default essentials.
Beyond the core ecommerce features, Shopify boasts a vast ecosystem of apps and integrations. This versatility enables you to add advanced functionalities to your store, enhancing the overall customer experience.
Inventory Management and Shipping
Shopify also excels in inventory management and shipping. The platform has comprehensive tools for adding and updating product listings.
With Shopify you can leverage inventory alert and notifications features to configure notifications when your stock reaches certain levels. This is crucial for averting stock outs and over stocking.
The platform also offers robust analytics that you can use to map out which product lines are performing well so as to invest and focus more on these, as well as those performing badly so you can find ways to boost these or eliminate them.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a top performing ecommerce plugin for WordPress. If you are already on WordPress and you want to run a content marketing powered ecommerce strategy, WooCommerce is a good option to consider.
WooCommerce integrates seamlessly with WordPress and allows you tap the power of content marketing (blogging) to bump up the marketing of your ecommerce business.
WooCommerce has a growing ecosystem of plugins and addons that are handy for extending the functionalities of WooCommerce beyond basic essentials.
The good part with WooCommerce is that the plugin is free. That said, you need to consider costs that are likely to be incurred in customisations and development that may be required for customisations and to extend certain features and functions.
When you also factor this in -together with the issues of maintenance and security, some businesses find Shopify a more compelling and hassle free option than WooCommerce.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is another solid ecommerce website builder. The platform is popular for its emphasis on scalability. The platform is a good choice for businesses with enterprise level needs.
BigCommerce has a laser focus in affording ecommerce enterprise scalability that can accommodate high sales volumes without the need for third party apps.
The platform also enables multi-channel selling across platforms such as Amazon, eBay and Facebook. BigCommerce provides a native page builder with comprehensive features and tools that can be used without the need for third party apps.
BigCommerce also excels in the arena of product options and variants. With BigCommerce you can have comprehensive options for setting up product variants to make it easy to manage and display product choices and variants (style, colour, size, gender if its clothing, etc).
BigCommerce provides all these essential features across all its premium plans. BigCommerce also boasts advanced B2B features, strong SEO features as well as powerful API and developer tools
Wix
Wix is another emerging platform in the ecommerce arena. Wix is popular for its user-friendly drag and drop ecommerce website builder.
The platform is an excellent choice for those just starting out in ecommerce and have no technical expertise. The platform is also a great fit business with micro to small ecommerce needs.
Wix stands out for design flexibility powered by a generous range of stunning templates and design options.
With Wix users have more creative flexibility to customize their online stores. Wix also has affordable pricing plans and has a free plan for those who want to test drive the platform.
Wix also has a growing app market of fine grained customisations, it also offers multilingual support, content management (blogging and content creation.
The platform also offers artificial design intelligence (ADI) and email marketing capabilities.
Final Thoughts
The choice of the best ecommerce website builder must be based on: your unique business needs, product type, niche and budget.
Make sure whichever platform you settle for has all the tools and essentials you need to get started with your ecommerce endeavour and can handle the growth and scaling needs of your business.
The best way to review these platforms is to test drive them. Shopify has free trials on all its premium plans. Plus, with each plan you pay just $1 for the first 3 months.
This will afford you ample time to test and explore the ecommerce platform and test your business model before you incur any major financial risks.
Wishing you all the best in your ecommerce endeavour.
