JORDAN BOLTON
There’s no question that the future of commerce is shifting to online. With our phones readily available every minute of the day, the ease of browsing, shopping, comparing, shipping, and even returning, are making online shopping just about everyone’s first choice today.So, the question for any forward-thinking business owner becomes, how do I get online? That’s the easy part. There are thousands of Ecommerce website builders that you can find with a simple Google search. The hard part comes with choosing the right one for your business. A website builder has to be easy to use, offer the right combination of features, and all fit within your budget. A little daunted? Don’t be; here are 10 of the best Ecommerce site builders on the market for businesses with their eye on expansion in 2020.
Wix eCommerce
Wix eCommerce Review
- Best forFast, easy, and beautiful website design
- PriceFrom $13per month, or free plan
- Free trial14 days
It’s hard to not get excited about building your business when working with an Ecommerce site builder pro like Wix. It’s got all the right features in all the right places to make your online store boom. Hundreds of templates to choose from, a customized domain name, and an easy drag-and-drop editor really help kick things off nicely. All site designs are mobile responsive, so they look great on any device. Wix even has artificial design intelligence to help you tweak your site.
There’s no doubt about it. Wix is probably the best option for ease of use, and user-friendly design and editing options. You can literally do it without any design knowledge whatsoever. But then Wix does even more. This website builder offers advanced features like blogs, SEO tools, and dropshipping with Modalyst.
Square Online
Square Online Review
- Best forDomestic US businesses
- PriceFrom $12 or free plan
- Free trialYes
Square’s ecommerce service offers US and Canadian business owners a simple way to get their business up and running online. It offers an attractive payment model with a unique commision structure and a host of tools that makes it a competitive option for those looking for a balance between ease and professionalism.
Building an online store with Square is easier than with some of its competitors. The templates are limited but the site builder offers a set of dynamic themes to choose from and services customized to restaurant, service, retail, and non-profit organizations. Users have access to Square’s full stack of tools and services, which includes its POS devices and simplified scheduling and inventory tools. For businesses operating in the US and Canada, Square offers an attractive model with a unique pricing structure and easy to use site builder that’s versatile and professional.
GoDaddy
GoDaddy Review
- Best forEasy, all-in-one online stores
- PriceFrom $25per month or free plan
- Free trialYes
GoDaddy Website and Marketing is an easy-to-use website builder that you can start free and level up to a fully functioning online store that integrates seamlessly with the world’s top marketplaces, such as Amazon and eBay.
You can choose a template specific to your industry, design a custom store with no tech knowledge necessary, and integrate all the tools you need for a successful Ecommerce operation, like easy product uploads and inventory syncing across platforms, social media marketing content, SEO optimizations and more.
WooCommerce by Bluehost
Bluehost + WooCommerce Review
- Best forWordPress businesses
- PriceFrom $6.95per month
- Free trial30 days, 90-day money-back guarantee
When you sign up for Bluehost powered by WooCommerce, you really get the strength of 3 huge brands supporting your online store. WooCommerce is an open-source online shop builder specifically designed for WordPress sites, and it’s known for being simple to use while packing a powerful punch at the same time. BlueHost is an all-inclusive hosting service that gives you an SSL certificate, free domain name, and 1-click WordPress installation with every plan.
So, you know you’re getting a powerful and reliable service with this dynamic duo. In terms of website design itself, WooCommerce is a great choice. It takes minutes to choose and design your site from one of the templates. Then you can configure your online store with the many extensions provided. Add your products, create coupon codes, and set up tax and payment rules to fit your shopping cart. The combo team isn’t as good for scaling up or down with your business, but if you’re looking for easy migration, intuitive setup, and lots of features, it’s just a more efficient, self-explanatory, and easy-to-use system than you’ve probably dealt with in the past.
Squarespace
Squarespace Review
- Best forProfessional site design, top quality & tools
- PriceFrom $12per month
- Free trialYes
Squarespace is a smaller name, which is funny because, in our book, it’s probably the best option for really professional Ecommerce building. The quality of design templates and built-in features make Squarespace stand out from the competition. And you can customize designs to your liking. There are also plenty of important features from this online store builder like inventory management and unlimited products, and video uploads included in your plan. It’s not as cheap as Wix, for example, but when you see the finished product, you’ll know that you got exactly what you paid for.
Squarespace is also a leader in marketing and promotion. Online stores can grow their business with social media integration tools, built-in SEO tools, and email marketing campaigns that you can set and forget. Design banners and create promotions to highlight and sell specific items, and check analytics even while you’re on the go with the Squarespace mobile app.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce Review
- Best forBusinesses seeking scalability
- PriceFrom $29.95per month
- Free trial15 days
BigCommerce is one of the biggest and most reputable Ecommerce builders on the market today. This is because of the wide range of features, sales tools, and integrations available through its service. The easy-to-use system lets you quickly and efficiently set up an online store, sell products, and accept payments. BigCommerce also goes the extra mile, though, with tools that actually help improve your business. Things like analytics, SEO tools, and next-level shipping allow online stores to move products faster.
While not all templates are responsive, most will work well on mobile devices. And with features like abandoned cart recovery, SSL security certificate, and the ability to sell on multiple channels like Amazon, Pinterest, Facebook, and more, it’s worth testing out a few templates to reap the benefits of working with BigCommerce.
Shopify
Shopify Review
- Best forSMBs, startups seeking advanced features
- PriceFrom $29per month
- Free trial14 days
Shopify might well be the most popular Ecommerce platform around today. It’s easy to work with, has more features built-in than you’ll know what to do with, and even supports multichannel selling and social media integration. Shopify has great features like inventory management and abandoned cart recovery. You can also use more than 100 payment gateways for worry-free transactions.
The one downside to this versatile Ecommerce site builder is the transaction fee that gets charged for each transaction. You can skip this payment by using Shopify Payments, but if you are dedicated to your processor, expect to get charged. Shopify provides 24/7 support, 12,000 third-party apps to install, and more than 50 beautifully designed themes with an easy editor to give your website a customized look and feel.
3D Cart
3dcart Review
- Best forSuperfast website launch and top SEO tools
- PriceFrom $9.50per month($19per month after promo)
- Free trial15 days
Here’s a name you probably haven’t heard as often as the other names on this list. 3D Cart has actually been around since 2001, and it’s slowly been building a name for itself. Focused on the 3 dimensions of Ecommerce—store owners, shoppers, and search engines—this online store builder aims to create a smooth and powerful platform for anyone to sell on. According to the website, you could have your own store built and ready to sell in 5 minutes. An impressive claim!
3D Cart offers 50+ responsive themes for a variety of industries and the ability to sell on multiple channels, including Amazon, Google, and eBay. It’s nice that 3D Cart doesn’t charge any transaction fees and that everything is fully hosted. That means you don’t have to deal with installations. But where 3D Cart really shines is in the area of SEO. Things like customizable page titles and URLs, canonical URLs, easy 301 redirects, social wish lists, gift certificates, coupons and discounts, and MailChimp integration make sales and marketing simpler and more effective via this platform.
SITE123
Site123 Review
- Best forTotal site-building newbies
- PricePremium costs $12.80/month
- Free trialNo
Site123 markets itself as a tool for website building newbies, but in reality there’s quite a bit of firepower under the hood.
This builder from Israel can do everything from gate digital downloads to keep automatic tabs on inventory levels.
Weebly
Weebly Review
- Best forSMBs seeking an easy-to-use platform
- PriceFrom $12per month
- Free trialNo, 30-day money-back guarantee
Weebly is another big name in Ecommerce website builders, and it’s a great choice for small businesses and startups that are only just getting off the ground. Easy to use with a drag-and-drop editor, intuitive design options, and straightforward uploading process, Weebly definitely takes the complications out of website design.
Weebly offers dozens of mobile-responsive templates that automatically sync, so whatever you do to the desktop site, will carry over to your mobile site as well. There’s also an app center that you can access to get more sophisticated tools for everything from design and customization to SEO, metrics, and marketing. Weebly allows you to enable Google Analytics, so you can do things like track visitors and review user activity data. Multichannel selling isn’t supported, which is a big drag, but all in all, Weebly is a solid platform that will get your online store up and running fast.
