Rapid developments, advancements in technology and shifting dynamics in how people do shopping are fuelling the booming trend of ecommerce. Social and mobile commerce are particularly taking center stage.
This trend has also opened up various business opportunities for individuals and businesses that want to sell custom products online.
Choosing the Best Digital Store Builder for Custom Products
This post will guide you through the best website builder for custom products and show you why Shopify is the best website for selling custom products online.
If you don’t have time to read the complete guide: just have a look at the overview of the guide below.
Overview of the Best Website Builder For Custom Products
Website Builder | Key Features | Suitability for Custom Products |
|---|---|---|
Easy to use for beginners and experts. Highly customizable, flexible pricing plans and scalable. (You can start small and growth with the platform) | Suited for business of all sizes and different product types and services especially those selling custom products. | |
Integrates seamlessly with WordPress to add ecommerce capabilities | Suitable for WordPress content systems and users with a technical edge | |
Ease to use, drag-and-drop online store builder, app market | Great for businesses seeking to prioritize ease of use, alluring design | |
Stands out for stunning templates, ease of use, and built-in e-commerce approach | Excellent choice for businesses that want to emphasize creativity and aesthetics | |
Weebly | Ease to use, has essential online store builder features, affordable | Ideal for businesses and individuals seeking a straightforward and cost-effective ecommerce solution |
Integrates easily with existing websites, highly customizable, app marketplace to extend core functions and features | Best fit for integrating e-commerce capabilities into an existing digital property (blog or website) | |
Scalable, customizable and enables multi-channel selling | Suited for enterprises with ambitious growth plans |
Understanding the Market for Custom Products
The ecommerce custom products sub sector is flourishing. This market features products such as examples given below.
Examples of Custom Products
- Custom apparel, (customer personalised t-shirts, hoodies, etc)
- Custom jewellery (such as named necklaces, Birthstone rings, monogrammed bracelets) personalised gifts
- Custom home decor
- Custom phone cases
- Custom stationary
- Custom pet products
- Custom art and prints
- Custom kitchen ware
- Custom sports and fitness gear
- Custom party supplies
Success in the niche of custom product types requires that you understand the dynamics of this niche and that you run your custom product online store on a reputable and user friendly online store website builder that gives you all the options to satisfy the end user needs of customers.
Features of the Best Website Builder for Selling Custom Products
The best website builder for this business model must have these critical features outlined below.
Product Customization Tools: Settle for a website builder that allows for fine grained product customisation and personalisation.
The online store website builder should allow you to personalise product items. This should include choosing colours as well as uploading custom designs and the capabilities to create custom one-of-a-kind products. The platform should make it possible for your customers to submit product specific customisation and personalisation requirements.
Responsive Design: Social commerce is the in-thing nowadays. People love the convenience of browsing through product catalogues from the comfort of their homes and wherever they have internet access on their mobile devices.
The best website builder should make it possible to create online stores that display seamlessly across desktop, tablets and mobile devices to ensure a seamless shopping experience.
Payment Processing and Inventory Management: Online payment processing and inventory management are the key drivers of ecommerce.
A good website builder for custom products must have these ecommerce capabilities. It should ensure you can configure multiple options for secure payment processing, inventory management as well as shipment and order tracking.
eCommerce is a booming industry and as such, competition among website builder brands is steep.
Top Website Builders For Custom Products
There are several online store website builder platforms that cater to small business needs focused on selling custom products. It can be quite overwhelming to make a choice for the best website builder for custom products.
In the following section we review top website builders for custom builders starting off with Shopify as our top ecommerce platform choice for custom products.
Shopify: The Best Website Builder for Custom Products
Shopify tops the charts as the best website builder for custom products for these factors:
- Ease of use
- Customisation options
- App integrations
- Responsive designs
- eCommerce capabilities
- Scalability
- User friendly product management
- Secure and multiple payment processing options
- Abandoned cart recovery
- Apparel and fashion specific features
- SEO
- Community support
Ease of Use: Shopify has a user friendly, drag and drop interface which enables entrepreneurs without technical coding and design skills to set up professional online stores for custom products in minutes.
Customisation Options: Coupled with a vast collection of premium and freemium themes: Shopify allows for higher level customisation – making it possible to create customised products easily.
With Shopify‘s product creation features you can easily add product options, set up variants, and allow customers to personalise their items by adding name graphics and custom text.
App Integrations: Shopify‘s vast app market place over 3000 product customisation apps that you can use to streamline the display and configs of your custom products.
One area where Shopify shines as a leader in ecommerce platforming globally is in providing a vast ecosystem of apps and plugins. If the default features and functions of Shopify do not satisfy you – you can explore Shopify‘s app marketplace.
Shopify has a good number of apps and extensions designed for product customisation and configurations. Most of these offer numerous personalised product design tools.
Ecommerce Capabilities: Shopify offers a full suite of ecommerce capabilities, features and functions. On the platform you can do payment processing, order fulfilment, inventory management as well as customisable shopping cart features.
Secure Payment Processing: Shopify has over 100 online payment gateway options including the platform’s proprietary Shopify Payments. With Shopify your customers can buy your custom products using their credit/debit cards and digital wallets.
Abandoned Cart Recovery: This is an important feature for increasing sales. With Shopify‘s abandoned cart reminder you store can send alerts and reminders to your customer emails, to prompt them to complete the orders they have initiated.
This helps boost sales for a custom products ecommerce business.
Apparel and Fashion-Specific Features: If you want to sell customised t-shirts, mugs, caps, attire or any custom products , Shopify has the handy Apparel and Fashion-Specific feature. The feature supports sizing charts, color swatches and various essential functionalities for clothing product customisation.
Shopify also offers Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) features allowing you to use search oriented keywords and formatting in the URLs, meta tags, titles and various aspects of your product pages.
Shopify also has a vibrant community of users plus a comprehensive knowledge base where you can answer questions you have at each step of the way.
Scalability: The scalability of a website builder for custom products is an important factor to consider. If you miss your step here you may face the nightmare of having to migrate to a different platform amid operations when your online store business grows. This may have a negative impact on your business.
The good part with Shopify is that it helps you balance the factor of cost and scalability.
Shopify has robust features and functions for both small and big custom product ecommerce businesses. The platform enables you to balance the need to start small (with affordable pricing plans and features) and only pay for high tier features and plans as you grow and your business gets to need these.
While Shopify is a clear winner among the best website builders for custom products, the final choice of what is the best builder for your business will depend on your unique business circumstances, budget.
For that reason -in the next section we review some of the top website builders for custom products that you can also consider.
WooCommerce: Customization for WordPress Users
For entrepreneurs who already have strong WordPress, WooCommerce is another viable option to consider.
WooCommerce comes as a plugin that integrates seamlessly with a WordPress website transforming your blog or website into a content hub with seamless ecommerce capabilities.
While you may need to invest in some development for customisations, the plugin itself is highly customisable off the shelf (within WordPress), and has essential capabilities for creating custom products.
WooCommerce has a growing ecosystem of plugins and addons as well and has a number of add-on options for product customisations.
WooCommerce is also scalable, making it possible to run online stores of different sizes and product types. With WooCommerce you can indeed start small and grow with the platform.
With WooCommerce benefits mentioned above you need to however consider the following downsides:
WooCommerce may require some technical expertise to customize and extend certain functionalities such as payment gateways and other customisations. In most cases, beginner ecommerce entrepreneurs tend to find Shopify to be a more user friendly option.
Wix: User-Friendly Custom Product Website Builder
Wix is another ecommerce website builder in the block. The platform is renowned for its user friendly and easy to use online store builder.
The platform is also a good fit for business owners and individuals who want to start selling custom products online without going through a steep learning curve.
The platform has an intuitive online store builder that simplifies the process of creating a digital store.
The platform makes it easy to design an online store and add custom features.
Wix also has a fledgling app marketplace where you can find different kinds of apps to extend the look and feel as well as the functionalities of your online store.
Wix also has a generous collection of visually appealing professional designed templates for different product types and niches.
Wix may be a good choice of a website builder for business with micro and basic ecommerce needs. However, businesses seeking an affordable and yet robust online store website builder that caters to complex ecommerce needs and scalability – may find Shopify to be a better suited ecommerce platform.
Squarespace: Design-Centric Custom Product Stores
Squarespace is another strong website builder brand for selling custom products. The platform emphasises creative designs and aesthetics.
If aesthetics and creativity are top of your priorities Squarespace specialises in digital stores with stunning designs and templates. The platform is also easy to navigate, allowing beginners and experts to create and maintain visually appealing stores with ease.
Squarespace has built-in ecommerce features, making it a great choice for small businesses that look to sell custom products online.
However, one downside with Squarespace is that the high end designs and aesthetics come at the expense of advanced ecommerce features. Businesses that want more robust ecommerce features may find the set of features Shopify offers more compelling.
The platform has a balanced synergy of an intuitive online store builder, high customisation, vast theme and app marketplaces, solid inventory management, over 100 payment gateways and many other essentials of a solid ecommerce platform.
You can also explore these additional ecommerce platforms in your due diligence in choosing the best website builder for custom products.
Weebly: An affordable ease to builder with essentials for building a functional ecommerce website. Weebly is renowned for ease-of-use, e-commerce features, and affordability.
While Weebly is easy to use, it may not offer as many advanced features or customization options as Shopify. Small businesses that anticipate future growth and more complex requirements may find Shopify to be a more versatile solution.
Ecwid: This another emerging website builder suited for selling custom products online. The platform is preferred for customisation, app integrations and the seamless integration with any website or any existing digital property.
BigCommerce: BigCommerce is a top brand in ecommerce renowned for scalability. Biocommerce is suited seeking to sell custom products at an enterprise level scale.
The platform is also preferred for multi channelling selling, customisation and enterprise level inventory management.
However, the platform may be an overkill for small businesses in terms of pricing, features and also considering that BigCommerce has a steep learning curve for beginners.
Final Thoughts
The decision for a website builder for custom products is not just a technical decision, it is a strategic business decision. Your choice for a website builder can make or break your custom products ecommerce venture.
Consider a website builder with the essential features that your business needs. Choose a platform that will cater to the needs of your ecommerce business as it grows such that you won’t have to switch platforms amid operations.
Ultimately, your final choice must be a website builder suited for your product types, budget and overall business strategy.
The good part is that most of these digital store builders have trials that you can take advantage of to test drive the store builders and pilot your business model as well – without any major financial risk.
Wishing you all the best in your venture!
