Makro Accountant’s Guide to finding the best website builders for ecommerce businesses
So you’re either beginning your ECommerce journey or finding an improved solution for gaining more of a following for your ECommerce business.
We’ve got you covered. It has become the new normal for people worldwide to buy goods (and potentially make use of services) online. ECommerce platforms are now seen as necessities in this digital marketplace
One of the keys to maintaining a good following as well as making the user speak highly of your business is to select the correct web building platform. The challenges that one must realize is that there are many factors to take into consideration – scalability, user-friendliness and the ability to integrate with other digital tools and services.
We’re going to take a quick look at the top 10 best website builders to help you with your ECommerce business.
Why does the right ECommerce platform matter?
A suitable platform is going to enhance the customer’s experience streamlining the operations, potentially boost sales and is going to make the website efficient and effective. As an ECommerce business, are you aware of the key features to keep an eye out for when enhancing your website like site customization, SEO optimization, mobile responsiveness, robust security protocols and diverse payment gateway support.
The Top 10 Web Building Sites for ECommerce
This will look at the 10 web building websites that will assist your ECommerce and this is in no particular order:
1. Shopify
Shopify is a hosted ECommerce platform that offers a wide range of web functionalities. It features a drag-and-drop store builder, integrated payment processing, and mobile-responsive themes, ensuring a seamless and adaptive user experience. Its comprehensive app marketplace, along with SEO and marketing tools, supports businesses in optimizing their online presence. Shopify also facilitates multi-channel selling, allowing businesses to extend their reach across social media and various marketplaces.
This platform is well-suited for businesses of all sizes, making it an excellent choice for startups and growing enterprises due to its scalability. With its user-friendly interface and minimal technical requirements, beginners can easily navigate and set up their online stores. Shopify offers a balance between ease of use and flexibility.
The pros of using Shopify include its intuitive interface, extensive app store, strong customer support, and scalability that accommodates business growth. It also provides high customization capabilities through themes and apps. However, the monthly fees can accumulate, especially with the addition of extra apps. Additionally, transaction fees apply unless Shopify Payments is used, and extensive customization may require coding knowledge.
2. Woo Commerce
WooCommerce is an open-source WordPress plugin that offers extensive web functionality, providing full customization through a variety of themes and plugins. It benefits from a vast community of developers and users, ensuring ample support and resources. With a mobile-responsive design and built-in blogging capabilities, WooCommerce enables seamless integration of ECommerce and content management. Its featured SEO and marketing tools further enhance its functionality.
WooCommerce is recommended for existing WordPress users and those seeking high levels of customization. Users must have WordPress knowledge and be prepared to manage their own hosting and security, as WooCommerce is a self-hosted platform.
The platform’s advantages include its high customizability, access to a large WordPress community, and the absence of monthly fees for the core plugin. Additionally, it offers an extensive range of plugins and themes. However, WooCommerce requires technical knowledge for setup and maintenance, which can be challenging for beginners.
3. Volusion
Volusion is a hosted ECommerce platform that provides a range of web functionalities designed to enhance the online retail experience. It features a user-friendly drag-and-drop editor, built-in SEO tools, and mobile-responsive themes, ensuring that stores are visually appealing and optimized for search engines. It also includes integrated payment processing and an inventory management system, making it ideal for managing physical products.
Volusion is suitable for small to mid-sized businesses that prioritize simplicity and ease of use. While it operates on a monthly subscription basis and offers limited customization without coding knowledge, it remains accessible to non-technical users.
Key advantages of Volusion include comprehensive customer support, and effective inventory management. However, it has some limitations, such as restricted scalability, transaction fees, and fewer integrations compared to some competitors.
4. Big Commerce
BigCommerce stands out as a hosted ECommerce platform offering a plethora of web functionalities. With features like a drag-and-drop page builder, mobile-responsive themes, and integrated payment processing supporting multiple gateways, it provides a seamless shopping experience. Additionally, its advanced product management and multi-channel selling capabilities, including integration with major platforms like Amazon, eBay, Facebook, and Instagram, make it a comprehensive solution. BigCommerce boasts an extensive app marketplace for additional functionality and offers an API for custom integrations, ensuring adaptability to specific business needs.
This platform is recommended for medium to large sized businesses with scalability. Users with moderate technical knowledge can leverage advanced customization options. It’s particularly suitable for businesses aiming to expand their online presence and sales channels.
BigCommerce’s strengths include its scalability, robust SEO and marketing tools, multi-channel selling capabilities, extensive integration options, and reliable customer support. However, it comes with a higher cost compared to some competitors and may pose a steeper learning curve for beginners. Additionally, customization options are limited without coding knowledge.
5. Big Cartel
Big Cartel offers a straightforward, hosted ECommerce platform with a user-friendly interface, making it easy for small businesses to set up their online stores. With mobile-responsive themes and integration with Stripe and PayPal for payment processing, it provides a simple and accessible solution. While it offers basic SEO and marketing tools, its product management is limited to 500 products. Big Cartel is ideal for those with minimal technical knowledge, offering a free plan for up to 5 products and affordable paid plans, catering to small businesses and individual sellers.
This platform’s strengths lie in its ease of use, affordability, and simplicity, making it an attractive option for creatives and small businesses. However, it comes with limitations compared to more comprehensive platforms, such as basic SEO and marketing tools, limited customization options, and lack of scalability for larger businesses.
6. Duda
Duda is a hosted website builder that seamlessly integrates ECommerce functionality, made for small to medium-sized businesses in search of an all-in-one solution. With its drag-and-drop editor and mobile-responsive design, users can easily create professional-looking websites. Duda also offers built-in SEO and marketing tools, integration with various payment gateways, and product management and inventory tracking features. Multi-language support further enhances its appeal for businesses with global reach.
This platform is recommended for users with minimal to moderate technical knowledge who require a combination of web design and ECommerce capabilities. While it operates on a subscription-based model with monthly fees, its user-friendly interface and professional design templates make it a suitable choice for agencies and web professionals.
Key advantages of Duda include its integrated ECommerce features, multi-language support, and suitability for agencies. However, it may lack some advanced ECommerce features found in specialized platforms.There’s a higher cost factor if you require more specialization. Additionally, customization options are somewhat limited without coding knowledge.
7. Wix
Wix is a hosted website builder offering a range of web functionalities for small to medium-sized businesses, particularly those seeking high design flexibility. With its intuitive drag-and-drop editor, users can easily create personalized websites from a selection of mobile-responsive themes. Wix boasts an extensive app marketplace and integrated SEO, marketing tools and ECommerce, enhancing its functionality.
Ideal for users with minimal to moderate technical knowledge, Wix operates on a subscription-based model with monthly fees. It offers a wide range of templates and apps to cater to various business needs, ensuring adaptability and customization options.
Advantages include its high level of customization, extensive template and app options, user-friendly interface, and affordable pricing tiers. However, it may have limited scalability for very large stores, and certain advanced features require higher-tier plans. Additionally, a custom domain is only available with a paid plan.
8. PrestaShop
PrestaShop emerges as an open-source ECommerce platform offering web functionalities suitable for businesses of all sizes. With its highly customizable nature through themes and modules. The platform ensures a seamless experience with mobile-responsive design and advanced SEO and marketing tools. PrestaShop excels in product management and supports multi-channel selling, empowering businesses to expand their reach. Its large community and developer support further enhance its appeal.
This platform is best suited for businesses requiring a highly customizable and feature-rich ECommerce solution. However, users should possess technical knowledge for setup and maintenance, as while PrestaShop itself is free to use, costs for hosting, themes, and modules may accrue. It’s ideal for those seeking a customized ECommerce solution with scalability for growth.
However, its complexity may pose challenges for users without significant technical expertise. Additional costs associated with hosting, themes, and modules can become too costly, and customer support may be limited without paid plans.
9. Shift4 Shop
Shift4Shop is a hosted ECommerce platform designed to provide a comprehensive all-in-one solution for small to medium-sized businesses. Featuring a user-friendly drag-and-drop builder and mobile-responsive themes, it simplifies the website creation process. The platform includes integrated SEO and marketing tools, built-in payment processing through Shift4 Payments, and extensive product management capabilities. Additionally, Shift4Shop supports multi-channel selling on platforms like eBay, Amazon, and Facebook..
Ideal for businesses seeking a cost-effective solution, Shift4Shop offers no monthly fees when using Shift4 Payments. Users with minimal to moderate technical knowledge can customize their stores through themes and access to HTML/CSS, though some advanced customization may require coding skills.
Key benefits of Shift4Shop include its fee-free structure with Shift4 Payments, extensive built-in features, user-friendly interface, robust multi-channel selling capabilities, and integrated blog and content management. However, the free plan is limited to US merchants, customization can be complex without coding knowledge, customer support quality can vary, and some advanced features are available only with higher-tier plans.
10. Magento
Magento is an open-source ECommerce platform renowned for its high customizability and scalability, making it ideal for large businesses and enterprises. With its extensive range of themes and plugins, mobile-responsive design, SEO and marketing tools, Magento provides a versatile and powerful solution for online retail.
This platform is best suited for enterprises requiring extensive customization and scalability. However, it demands significant technical knowledge for setup and maintenance, whether self-hosted or hosted through Magento Commerce. The investment in development and ongoing maintenance is substantial, reflecting its advanced capabilities.
Magento’s strengths include its exceptional customizability, integrations and scalability for large enterprises. There’s also a strong community support. However, these benefits come with the trade-offs of requiring significant technical expertise, high development and maintenance costs, and a complex setup and management process.
How to select the best web building site for your business
For this exercise, you’re going to need to compile your Business Needs Analysis and this will consist of the following information. You will need to assess factors such as what’s the size of your business, what’s your key focus points, what type of product are you selling, the longevity of your product(take into account the storage of your product) and what’s your projected growth. You then will need to compare all the options that are available at your disposal. Carefully analyze the standout features, pricing and see where you’re getting the best value. Take advantage of the trials and demonstrations that are available in order to get a sense and feel of how these website builders function and operate.
Don’t forget to maximize your ECommerce website’s potential
Building your website is considered phase one to the journey of launching your ECommerce platform. You will also need to take note of the regular site updates and optimization in order to maintain performance and enhance the user experience.
Also take into the various integrations that come with building your website like incorporating CRM systems, email marketing tools and analytics. You want to be able to vastly improve your website’s efficiency and marketing capabilities.
Remember that selecting the correct website builder for your ECommerce business is crucial for managing and growing your online presence effectively. Each of the platforms offers unique features and benefits that will align with your business needs and goals. We’ve given you the start to go out there and start your ECommerce journey or even see your ECommerce business expand.
