Ecommerce Website Builder: Platform Comparison & Review of 2024

Updated Jul 14, 2023.

The fastest way to build an online store is using an ecommerce website builder. This article will review the best ecommerce website builders for selling online.

Squarespace icon

Squarespace Commerce

A fantastic e-commerce platform for artists, illustrators, and everyone that values creativity and wants their website to appear amazing .
Shopify icon

Shopify

Simple to use platform designed to serve all types of businesses and help them go all the way from the first sale to large-scale enterprise.
Wix icon

Wix eCommerce

Reliable e-commerce platform offering a wide range of customization options primarily aimed at small brands that want to sell goods or services swiftly.
BigCommerce icon

BigCommerce

A platform for building web storefronts for large businesses. Provides web hosting and customization options for tech-savvy company owners.
Zyro icon

Zyro

Website builder with ecommerce capabilities that uses AI to enable users to quickly develop an e-commerce website.

Our work is supported by affiliate commissions.

Choosing the best ecommerce website builder will give you a dedicated space to display your products, facilitate online transactions, and make it simple to track your financial progress.

You can quickly and easily overcome the challenges of ecommerce with the aid of a reliable ecommerce website builder. In this manner, you can win over clients and generate revenue right away.

This article reviews the best ecommerce website builders for selling online.

Best Ecommerce Website Builders for Selling Online

Here are the 13 best ecommerce website builders for selling online in 2023: 

1. Squarespace Commerce

Best Overall Ecommerce Website Builder.

Pros
  • Offers top-quality site features
  • Free domain name
  • Offers free SSL certificate
  • Easy to set up
Cons
  • Getting accustomed to the navigation takes some time
  • Lacks phone support
  • Limited ecommerce and marketing integration
Squarespace icon
Squarespace
4.6
Editor’s Take

Squarespace is a great option if you strongly rely on graphics and packaging to help market your business online because it places your visual content front and center. It has a large selection of attractive themes specifically designed for creative and high-quality digital websites.

Best For:
Creatives
Price:
$19 – $65/month
Annual Discount:
Save up to 30%
Promotion:
Free trial

Squarespace Commerce is a best-in-class software for designing web stores. Its modern layouts highlight your products and are simple to customize, enabling you to change any layout to fit your brand. While the platform has a bit of a learning curve to it, the robust features and extensive inventory system make the work worthwhile.

Key Features

Highly Creative Templates

Squarespace Commerce themes are the main selling point of this system. You are given various beautiful, polished options once you decide what your ecommerce business will promote, whether you're a luxury brand, a software dealer, a gift shop, etc.

Extensive Customization

Your entire site can be modified based on the structure that better represents your brand. Users have much creative control over each template, including color schemes, font consistency, call-to-action buttons, logos, and even margins.

Automated Order Follow-up

You can configure automated email messages along the client journey using Squarespace's ecommerce features and functionalities. You can send order confirmation emails, tracking numbers, and delivery updates from one place immediately after a transaction.

Inventory Control

You can manage your inventory on Squarespace Commerce, change pricing, search products by price, track pars, maintain tabs on ordering patterns, and more. Even choosing your product category is simple. You can accurately market and sell whether you offer physical goods, a digital version, or a service reservation.

Offline Integration

Due to Squarespace Commerce's integration with Square, you can maintain a connection between your online and offline sales channels. Via Square, it is possible to conduct offline transactions that will instantly update your online inventory.

Social Media Networking

Maintaining brand activity includes a significant amount of social media selling, and engaging with customers on social media has a direct impact on how they see you. With Squarespace Commerce, you can generate and cross-promote content from your website to your social media pages. It also enables you to link and connect your social media accounts.

Pricing

With discounts for annual payments, Squarespace provides two options for online businesses. The basic plan offers an unlimited number of contributors, pages, items, galleries, blogs, and bandwidths.

2. Shopify

Best Ecommerce Website Builder For Growing Online Businesses.

Pros
  • Simple user interface
  • In-built payment functionality
  • 24/7 customer support
  • Free advertising tools
  • Smartphone friendly
Cons
  • Limited design customization options
  • Not cost-effective
Shopify icon
Shopify
4.4
Editor’s Take

Shopify aims to enable technical and non-technical users to create web stores without hassles. So, while it doesn't require coding experience to operate, it allows programmers to create custom designs with code. It is a plug-and-play alternative for anyone wishing to build an online store quickly.

Best For:
Beginners
Price:
$24 – $299/month
Annual Discount:
None

Shopify is the best ecommerce builder for businesses who want to launch online ecommerce storefronts. Shopify has more than 100 fully customizable free and premium themes available for designing your own online store. You can expand your web store's essential features and capabilities by installing apps from the Shopify App Store.

Key Features

Shopify Point of Sale

Point of Sale, a service provided by Shopify, enables ecommerce businesses to sell their goods in physical stores. Businesses can set up pop-up stores to sell their goods offline and take payments from customers using a card reader. The company's Shopify inventory, which keeps track of each sale, is directly linked to the payments.

Smart SEO

Shopify users can use various SEO tools to accomplish their objectives. The Shopify App Store has an application called Smart SEO that offers a variety of capabilities, such as automated metadata input, structured data delivery to Google and other search engines, support for many languages, and many more.

Shopify Market Analytics

Shopify offers users a variety of advanced analytics to evaluate their online stores' effectiveness, offering insightful data on customer activities, marketing, sales, and other topics.

Abandoned Cart Recovery

With Shopify's abandoned cart recovery emails functionality, users can track down consumers who have added stuff to their cart and send emails to remind them about those items. By upgrading to Shopify's premium subscription, businesses can automate the entire process, which helps to generate more income and save a ton of time.

Pricing

You can test Shopify's platform without providing credit card information for 14 days. Shopify will start charging you a monthly fee after choosing a plan, which varies based on your package.

3. Wix eCommerce

Best Ecommerce Website Builder For Solopreneurs and Small Businesses.

Pros
  • Offers support for multiple sales channels
  • Fantastic app store
  • Sophisticated e-commerce tools
  • Includes support for multiple languages
  • Beginner-friendly
Cons
  • There are no inventory control alerts
  • Too much artistic flexibility
Wix icon
Wix
4.2
Editor’s Take

For business owners and small companies who wish to explore ecommerce, Wix eCommerce is a fantastic option. You can easily build a store thanks to the integrated ecommerce features. This platform is a dependable store builder, whether you're starting afresh or growing an already-existing ecommerce site.

Best For:
Small Brands
Price:
$13 – $35/month
Annual Discount:
None

Wix eCommerce is a simple to use ecommerce website builder that works great for small and upcoming businesses. It's probably not the best choice for larger businesses because massive inventories can cause lags in the back-end.

Key Features

Product Differentiators

Wix eCommerce allows you to sell a physical shipped good or a digital item before you even list it. They also provide digital download and print-on-demand options. Your Wix eCommerce store can be more optimized, and your products can be better displayed by limiting the product types.

Social Media Marketing

You can combine Wix eCommerce with social media networks to promote your items. Sales and a strong positioning strategy are both increasingly dependent on social media.

In-built SEO

Wix eCommerce has built-in SEO features that can help your Wix eCommerce store rank higher in search engine results. Additionally, Wix eCommerce has a site guide that guides users through crucial SEO features like alt text and establishing keywords for your pages, in addition to being mobile-optimized for you.

Intuitive User Interface

Wix eCommerce's ease of use cannot be emphasized. Not only is the drag-and-drop ecommerce site builder easy to use, but Wix eCommerce has also improved the process to make it even more intuitive. You can upload your media easily, and the adjustable fields are plain and easy to understand. Navigating the platform is a walk in the park, and the dashboard is easy to use.

Pricing

Wix eCommerce offers three payment plans. You receive a connected individual domain, no Wix advertisements, and limitless bandwidth with each option.

4. BigCommerce

Best Ecommerce Website Builder For Large and Fast Growing Organizations.

Pros
  • Offers single-page checkout
  • 24/7 customer support
  • Supports multiple currency payments
  • Mobile friendly
  • Offers more than 40 payment options
Cons
  • Offers a small number of free design templates
  • Automatically upgrades users to more expensive plans when they hit the limits of their existing plan
  • Add-ons cost extra
BigCommerce icon
BigCommerce
4.1
Editor’s Take

BigCommerce should be your preferred ecommerce site builder if you intend to use multichannel commerce. It is ideal for those who want to use many ecommerce and website modification options without paying extra for applications or extensions.

Best For:
Large Businesses
Price:
On request
Annual Discount:
On request
Promotion:
None

BigCommerce is a comprehensive SaaS e-commerce platform for startups and established online enterprises that want a powerful solution in a simple to use format.

The user-friendly ecommerce site builder, which includes industry-leading professional templates tailored to increase online sales, enables you to create an online store from scratch or migrate from an existing platform.

BigCommerce provides all the tools and integrations needed to run an entire business, and its straightforward user interface enables sophisticated customizations.

Key Features

Inventory Control

BigCommerce offers a straightforward and effective inventory control system for managing stock levels and comprehending order patterns. You can manage your inventory by tracking it through seamless connectivity across online and offline channels.

Optimal Security

All the websites BigCommerce hosts are protected by many robust layers of security. All web servers are PCI DSS stage 1 authorized to prevent compromises of credit card data. Aside from perimeter and server-specific firewalls, other security features include data credibility scanners, intrusion prevention software, human supervision around-the-clock, and fraud payment verification.

Sales Channels

BigCommerce Channel Manager is intended to enable businesses to boost sales while streamlining multi-channel selling. You can connect your store to start trading on Facebook and eBay.

Point-Of-Sale

BigCommerce enables you to sell online and offline by integrating your web store with point-of-sale programs. You can sync inventories between many sites and manage your e-commerce platform from a single location.

Pricing

BigCommerce offers enterprise pricing, and users must request a price quote directly from the BigCommerce website.

5. Zyro

Best Low-cost Ecommerce Website Builder For Market Analytics.

Pros
  • Availability of live chat support
  • Commission-free
  • Simple to use professional online store templates
  • Integrates with over 70 gateways
Cons
  • You can't change the template once your website is published
Zyro icon
Zyro
4.0
Editor’s Take

Zyro provides a cost-effective approach to starting an online business. Although Zyro doesn't have as many bells and whistles as some of our other suggestions, it is ideal for those searching for a quick and inexpensive way to start selling online.

Best For:
Analytics and Client Data
Price:
$2.99 – $15.99/month
Annual Discount:
Save up to 75%

Zyro belongs to the category of website builders developed to create e-commerce websites. No additional tools or services from third parties are required because it is a complete package.

Key Features

Drag-and-Drop Builder

A drag-and-drop site builder is useful for website building, especially for users without programming experience. Website owners can add new pieces to their web page by dragging and dropping items into any area, like headers, texts, and pictures.

Extensive 3rd-party Integration

For every tool, integrations are crucial. Fortunately, Zyro does not let users down. Some of the fundamental integrations are supported to make your work easier. Zyro doesn't have a sizable integration app store like Weebly or Wix eCommerce, but it does offer a few of the fundamental integrations like Google Ads and Facebook Messenger.

Free SSL Certificate

The free SSL certificate that Zyro offers you when you buy a domain name is another excellent feature. You could also use your current domain name, and there shouldn't be any problems linking your domain to Zyro.

Numerous Free Templates

Zyro offers users many attractive and customized website design options. These are separated into many use cases, making selecting one based on your needs simpler. While Zyro provides some of the most gorgeous and professional-looking designs, you can customize them further to create something that’s truly yours.

Effective AI Tools

The AI-powered tools from Zyro are a value addition designed to aid users in optimizing their websites and content on their own. For creating SEO-friendly content for your website and blog, you receive a business name-generating tool, an AI slogan builder, a logo maker, and an AI-powered writing aid.

Pricing

Zyro Pricing

Zyro provides four paid options with monthly prices ranging from $2.99 to 15.99. All packages come with managed cloud hosting, a free domain name for a year, and a free custom email for three months, enabling users to have a @yourdomain email address.

6. Shift4Shop

Superb Ecommerce Website Builder With Extensive Customization Options.

Shift4Shop- Launch Your Business In 3, 2, 1

Shift4Shop is a cloud-based ecommerce platform where you can create and establish an online store, sell goods, accept online payments from customers, and complete order requests. Numerous integrated functions are available on the all-inclusive Shift4Shop platform.

Key Features

Free Customizable Templates

Shift4Shop makes it simple to develop an e-commerce website quickly without using multiple tools. More than 100 free themes are available that are tailored to the requirements of any kind of ecommerce business. Generally, these templates are more appropriate for large-scale online retailers than startups with limited product offerings.

Product Purchase Management

Shift4Shop has robust order and product management capabilities that clearly show your inventory. You can simply track the entire route of your products from one central dashboard. You can monitor which products are being processed at the moment, partially finished, dispatched, and more.

Return Merchandise Authorization

Customers might decide to return a product if it doesn't meet their needs. Shift4Shops' integrated RMA system makes this possible (Return Merchandise Authorization). You can use this to give customers options to specify why they wish to return a product. It is very simple to list various return options for clients to select from.

Inventory Management

Every time a consumer orders on your online store, the inventory immediately updates and even considers incomplete orders. Detailed stock counts, stock notifications, and the flexibility to modify your out-of-stock settings are all advantages of Shift4Shop inventory. Each product has a unique stock count and an in-depth inventory log that shows you how much stock has been sold and which products are currently being held for sale.

Pros

  • 24/7 client support
  • Offers users the platform to sell unlimited products
  • Availability of an app store to use on the go

Cons

  • Free plan only supports US users
  • Site customization functionality is limited

Pricing

Shift4Shop - pricing

For U.S.-based retailers only, Shift4Shop has a special offer called End-to-End Ecommerce, where US users get to use the site for free. However, for the payment plans, if you make your payment one year in advance, you will receive a 10% discount.

7. Volusion

User-friendly Ecommerce Store Builder Best For Businesses in the Retail Industry.

Volusion- Build Your Online Store, Your Way

Volusion is a top ecommerce platform made to handle the labor-intensive aspects of creating and running an online store. You can successfully run your ecommerce store with the help of its website construction tools, customization options, integration, marketing capabilities, payment processing, and other features.

Key Features

Feature-Rich Customer Dashboard

The Volusion customer dashboard enables you to manage anything from customer contact to tracking customer history. Even built-in analytics are available, enabling you to monitor key performance indicators and obtain knowledge of consumer behavior for use in marketing and customer service.

Fast Site Loading Times

he good thing about Volusion is that its websites are hosted on servers designed to handle high traffic and load rapidly. Therefore, it is optimized for speed.

Mobile Compatibility

Every theme, every website, and everything else in Volusion is made to be mobile and desktop responsive. Not having to worry about this crucial feature is a major deal since versatility in platform visitation, whether desktop, mobile, or tablet, is essential for retaining clients.

Customizable Themes

Themes from Volusion are excellent. A little over 300 different designs are included, which is a lot but not too many to be confusing. Each design is carefully created, so you can be sure you are positioning your e-store for success. There is a decent balance of free and paid themes; however, some are more expensive than others. Overall, Volusion templates provide good aesthetics while facilitating a simple site setup.

SEO

Volusion SEO is a crucial component that improves your search engine optimization ranking. Volusion gives optimization recommendations and aids in setting you up for success when it comes to the art more than science that is SEO, even though there is no magic formula or secret code to unlock it.

Pros

  • Intuitive user interface
  • Offers extensive third-party integration
  • Does not charge transaction fees for sold products
  • Strong fraud resistance security

Cons

  • Lacks a dedicated app store

Pricing

Volusion pricing

Volusion offers a 14-day free trial with an ecommerce plan that starts at $35 per month.

8. Ecwid

Best Ecommerce Website Builder For Business Owners With Little To No Technical Experience.

Ecwid is one of the most cost-effective, powerful, and cheapest eCommerce platforms that allow you to add eCommerce features to an already running website

Ecwid is an e-commerce tool that enables people and companies to create their online stores. This online store builder's remarkable feature is that it doesn't demand that users develop brand-new websites.

Instead, it provides resources for building a web store that can be integrated into a website or linked to a business page on social media, online markets, mobile apps, and blogs.

Key Features

Instant Online Store Creation

Users can use Ecwid to create an online store without starting from scratch. You merely need to incorporate the online store you can establish using this platform into your already-existing websites, mobile apps, blogs, etc. As a result, creating a web store is simpler, quicker, and more affordable.

Easy Installation

The sole prerequisite for installing Ecwid is a few lines of HTML or JavaScript on an existing website. Your Ecwid store essentially piggybacks on your current website. As a result, you are spared the additional time and work required to develop a new online store or e-commerce website.

Flexible Storefronts

Ecwid makes creating and installing online stores simple and allows users to optimize their ecommerce stores for all devices and operating systems. The catalogs and items are appropriately presented on all platforms, including PCs, tablets, and smartphones, with a responsive storefront.

POS Capacity

Ecwid offers a POS feature that enables customers to accept product payments online using an iOS or Android phone. With unparalleled flexibility, this functionality enables users to collect payments both offline in malls, at concerts, and online.

Pros

  • Offers over 80 payment gateways
  • Language flexibility for up to 53 languages
  • Easy to set up

Cons

  • Phone support is only offered on the business and unlimited plans

Pricing

Ecwid pricing

Ecwid is free if you simply need to sell a small number of items (up to 10). And if higher than ten items, you will need to upgrade to a per-month paid plan.

9. WooCommerce

Powerful Open-Source Ecommerce Platform Best For More Technically Inclined Users.

WooCommerce - Build exactly the eCommerce website you want

WooCommerce is open-source software and a WordPress plug-in that you can use to add ecommerce functionality to a website; it is not a solo website builder. If you choose this ecommerce website builder, you'll probably want to collaborate with a developer.

WooCommerce enables you the freedom to control website features like shipping integrations, secure payments, and inventory and tax management with WordPress.

Unlike most other ecommerce website builders that provide in-built hosting, you’ll need to purchase web hosting separately from a provider like Bluehost or Siteground for a WooCommerce online store.

Key Features

Integrates Effortlessly With WordPress

WooCommerce's primary USP is that it is based on WordPress, the most well-known CMS (content management system) in the world. As a result, the same guidelines that apply to WordPress also apply to WooCommerce. And don't we all realize how simple WordPress is to use? This combination with WordPress greatly facilitates the task of a website owner.

Integrated Payment Method

The simplicity with which you can configure payments is one of the features that clients adore about WooCommerce. Because it has built-in payment gateways, you can process payments using Paypal, Stripe, Bank transfers, Credit Cards, Checks, and even Cash on Delivery.

Easy and Reliable

WooCommerce doesn't just cater to small ecommerce stores while being a free platform. WooCommerce makes it incredibly easy to create a professional online store. It includes powerful order monitoring and customer engagement capabilities that let you manage orders, update delivery statuses, provide discounts, and much more.

Vast Extension Library

WooCommerce includes many add-ons that greatly simplify all operations. Over 400 extensions are available in the collection.

Open Source Platform

WooCommerce is a fully open-source platform wholly controlled by GitHub. This indicates that anyone who wants to view, modify, or contribute may do so. This makes it simple for a custom WordPress development business to work together and create a solid foundation supporting millions of e-commerce sites.

Pros

  • Offers unlimited customization options
  • Large ecommerce stores have access to advanced features
  • High security
  • Reliable community support for customers

Cons

  • Limited to WordPress-hosted sites
  • Steep learning curve

Pricing

Using WooCommerce is cost-free. However, a domain name and web hosting are required, which is not free. Additional expenses for WooCommerce may include a theme and programmer fees.

10. Sellfy

Best Ecommerce Site Builder for Selling Digital Products.

Sellfy- Sell your products hassle-free

Sellfy is a cloud-based e-commerce solution developed to help businesses and professionals create and sell digital goods. This includes everything from ebooks to music to illustrations.

With Sellfy, you can set up a customized storefront, allowing customers to shop, buy and download. With Sellfy, you can start your e-commerce business quickly.

Key Features

Product Hosting

Sellfy helps you host all of your digital products irrespective of the number of products you have. While there is no storage limit to your store, Sellfy recommends that each of your files be less than 5GB in size. To organize your store, Sellfy lets you create custom product categories.

Payments and Security

Sellfy lets you accept payments directly from your store online. You can use PayPal or Stripe to receive instant payment. Additionally, Sellfy offers anti-fraud measures to protect your products.

Embed Options

Sellfy provides several different embed options so you can increase your visibility and promote your business. Sellfy lets you connect your Facebook page, so you can also embed your store there. You also embed Sellfy on cards and end screens in YouTube videos.

Marketing and Analytics Tools

Sellfy includes built-in marketing and analytics tools. For example, you can send product updates via email and add subscribers to your newsletter directly from within Sellfy. You can also offer product upsells and discount codes and create and track your store's Facebook and Twitter ads. With the Sellfy analytics dashboard, you can track your best-performing products, generated revenue, traffic channels, top locations, and overall store performance.

Pros

  • Supports online payments in more than 20 currencies
  • Payment information is secured with SSL encryption and PCI DSS compliance.
  • Provides built-in marketing tools.
  • SEO-friendly and mobile-responsive.
  • Accommodates an unlimited number of products.

Cons

  • Limited integrations
  • Supports only two payment processors.
  • Website customization capabilities are restricted.
  • No tools for affiliate programs.

Pricing

Sellfy - Sell your products hassle-free - pricing

Sellfy provides a free 14-day trial with no credit card required. It also offers a free plan and three other pricing ecommerce plans.

11. Weebly

Professional Website Builder With Highly Flexible Themes.

Weebly - build a professional website that grows with your business

Weebly is among several top online store builders to consider when you want to build a website easily and quickly. Weebly provides the same level of service for building and hosting your e-commerce website compared to better-marketed competitors like Wix and Squarespace.

Key Features

Weebly Themes

These are pre-made Weebly templates that ensure your website is completed fast. They have all the basic website infrastructure built-in, so all you have to do is edit your template of choice — no stressing about messing up the build itself.

E-commerce Upgrade

Weebly helps you easily update your site into an e-commerce CMS. You can convert your regular site into an online store with complete sales, metrics, and analytics tracking all in one place.

Various Apps and Integrations

Even if Weebly doesn’t include an integration you need, there's probably an app that can solve your problem. You can easily add integrations that take care of features like email retargeting for inbound marketing or social media integrations that Weebly does not offer. These integrations increase Weebly’s functionality without overloading it with unnecessary features.

Domain Name

All online e-commerce websites need a unique domain name to market their website successfully. Weebly allows you to transfer a name you already own onto its service. If you are building a new website, you can use Weebly to streamline your efforts and ensure seamless sync.

Drag-and-Drop Builder

Weebly offers a drag-and-drop builder interface. You just choose an element to add or edit, and you can drag it to where you want it to be in your Weebly website builder.

Pros

  • Solid site speeds
  • High design flexibility with themes
  • The editor is simple and easy to use
  • Provides a mobile version
  • Weebly wide range app center

Cons

  • Limited blogging ecommerce tools
  • Not the greatest backup system

Pricing

Read more about Weebly pricing

Weebly does not offer a free trial but a 30-day money-back guarantee. It has a total of four plans. One is free, while the other three are paid plans called Connect, Pro, and Business.

12. Prestashop

Best Free, Open-Source Ecommerce Website Builder.

Prestashop- Unlock the full potential of your ecommerce

Prestashop is a free and open-source ecommerce system that provides a long list of features for running ecommerce stores in the cloud through self-hosting. Where Prestashop truly stands apart from its competitors is its support for up to 65 languages.

It offers an easy-to-use, robust, responsive interface for shoppers at no cost.

Key Features

Store Builder

Prestashop offers a WordPress-like dashboard with a feature-rich store-building interface that embraces navigation, detailed product listings, and searches.

eMarketing

You get an in-built product and catalog SEO integration for search placement optimization with Prestashop. It also provides email integrations, promotions, coupons, and more

Marketing

This eCommerce platform helps users add custom features to their site to make it extensive. This feature list includes free shipping, email marketing, discount mode, special offers, affiliate programming, gift wrapping, coupon codes, and more.

Easy Customization

If you are going for a unique website, PrestaShop has numerous modules that help you customize your website. This is because it provides over 5,000 modules and themes.

Payment Gateways

Another feature Prestashop has is that it supports many payment gateways, like PayPal, Discover Global Network, Amazon Pay, Worldpay, Authorize.Net, and First Data. It also has more than 250 payment providers as add-ons.

Google Rich Snippets

Google must know about your website and the goods and services. This results in you driving traffic to your website without hassles. You need to use rich snippets to differentiate your site from competitors. The PrestaShop Marketplace has add-ons to smoothen this process.

Shopping Cart

Meeting the shopping need of every customer is essential for any ecommerce platform, which is why Prestashop provides integrations with various payment providers and major shipping carriers to ensure meeting these needs is not an area of distress for you. The platform also offers excellent add-ons for abandoned cart recovery.

Pros

  • Supports numerous payment gateways
  • Intuitive and responsive interface
  • Budget-friendly platform
  • Supports affiliate marketing programs

Cons

  • Limited Scalability
  • No customer support team
  • Not the best template designs

Pricing

PrestaShop - Hostinger web hosting partner

Prestashop is free, but you must pay a fee to use one of its web hosting partners. The price depends on the partner and the plan you choose.

13. Adobe Commerce

Best Website Builder for Drag-and-Drop Content Management.

Adobe has created a stable, secure, and adaptable eCommerce builder that increases your store revenue while providing multi-channel commerce for B2B and B2C

Adobe Commerce is a top digital commerce solution for different types of merchants and brands. It offers drag-and-drop content management coupled with tons of design and preview features to help content creators create and manage content without involving a developer.

This significantly speeds up the development process and will make your marketing team more agile.

Key Features

Page Builder

This feature is an extension built for the Cloud edition that helps you produce and edit your content using pre-made drag-and-drop tools, giving you full control over your site content without any coding knowledge. The extension is included in Adobe Commerce Cloud by default; hence, it does not require separate installation to work.

Customer Segmentation and Personalization

Adobe Commerce Cloud includes powerful personalization and customer segmentation features. You can build a personalized shopping experience to improve your conversion rates dramatically. The platform offers support for dynamically showing pricing, content, and promotions to certain customer segments based on gender, location, lifetime purchase value, order history, wishlist products, etc.

Order Management & Fulfillment

Adobe Commerce Cloud's excellent order management capabilities let you sell and fulfill orders from anywhere, supporting businesses with different brands, sites, ecommerce stores, warehouses, etc. The inventory management tools enable you to manage inventory via multiple locations and sales channels with existing checkout protection and shipping matching algorithms. It takes your commerce capabilities to a higher level. Adobe Commerce Cloud’s order management will greatly help eliminate complexity and support your store's growth and expansion.

Content Staging

Content staging is a commerce-specific feature that enables you to generate, preview, and schedule an array of content updates without involving IT specialists. After a new update is made, you can preview it to ensure a flawless shopping experience. That robust tool helps optimize the timing and impact of website updates.

Pros

  • Extremely flexible
  • Mobile friendly
  • Scalable platform

Cons

  • Expensive
  • Bad customer support
  • Slow loading time

Pricing

Adobe Commerce Magento pricing package

Adobe Commerce offers a free trial and a customized pricing plan called Adobe Commerce Pro.

What is an Ecommerce Website Builder?

An ecommerce site builder is a solution that makes it easy to build a website so you can sell your products or services online.

Whatever you want to sell—physical products that ship, various services, digital goods like ebooks or music, or even online lessons— there's an ecommerce site builder to meet your needs.

They provide everything you need to manage your online business, market your brand, and accept payments.

What Types of Business Benefit From an Online Store Builder?

Many organizations will benefit from an online store regardless of size or industry. However, those in the following four categories stand to benefit the most from using online store builders.

1. Sole Entrepreneurs

Some entrepreneurs might lean towards a content management system since it can also be used to set up an online store and might seem like a great way to save money.

But as good as it seems, these tools do not offer all the features you need to keep your site at its best.

This is where online store builders come in because they are great for building and managing an ecommerce store for new businesses.

You get access to tools like numerous themes and templates, product management, and order and inventory management processing on a single platform.

2. Start-ups

Startups often have to keep their costs as low as possible. They must avoid expenditures that do not give them tremendous benefits and massive returns.

Online website builders do not only help you build a website but help you get useful insights through statistical reports. These reports help you analyze the potential of your products, revenue, sales, and much more.

They ultimately help you cut back on unnecessary expenses since you can filter out the resources that do not promote your business growth. When you eliminate those resources, you can fruitfully invest your money.

3. Side Businesses

Some people build online stores to have an additional source of income. Many online businesses do not get much attention because they are a secondary source of income for the people responsible.

It is a common misconception that online stores require much time and attention to thrive. Great ecommerce website builders automate most of your business operations, so the site will not require as much human time and power.

With a good ecommerce website builder, you can boost the performance of your side business to a fully functional e-commerce business without distorting your clock hours.

You can easily monitor your business progress with the analytics they provide instead of spending time looking at the sales and revenue separately for multiple products.

These analytics help you quickly identify the required adjustments that need to be made for your business.

4. Private-Labeled Product Business

Last but not least is private-labeled product businesses. Ecommerce website builders allow private-labeled product businesses to set up shop in no time, reducing their overall time-to-launch and startup costs.

How to Choose the Best Ecommerce Website Builder

You might be wondering how to choose the best ecommerce website builder for your organization since there are several options, and many of them offer different attractive features.

Irrespective of how advanced an ecommerce builder seems, here are the most crucial features that every ecommerce website builder worth its salt must have. Any tool lacking these features might not be worth considering at all.

1. Built-in Payment Processing

A core component of an ecommerce store is the payment processing system. This might seem an obvious feature of an ecommerce website builder, but some website builders do not include payment processing. So, that’s something to watch out for.

2. Inventory Management

Discovering that you're out of stock after receiving an order and having to refund customers is not a pleasant experience for any online retailer. To avoid this, only choose a platform with inventory control and management features.

These features will alert you when stock levels are low and can delist products from your site when they're out of stock or place an out-of-stock warning on the listing.

3. Variety of High-quality Templates

Having great products on your ecommerce website is good. But if you don't have great design, you can't retain your customers' attention. Thirty-eight percent of visitors will stop using a website if the content or layout is unattractive. Forty-eight percent of people cited that a website’s design is the most important factor in determining a business’s credibility.

So, you should look for an ecommerce website builder with a variety of themes with modern, clean designs.

Don’t choose a platform with only one or two great designs. Find one with several options so you aren’t stuck if you want to change your website template.

4. Simplified Shipping

You'll also want an ecommerce website builder that makes shipping as easy as possible for you; so look for options that:

  • automatically calculate shipping costs based on the shopper's location.
  • allow instant downloads if you sell digital products like eBooks, courses, etc.
  • allow options for standard and rush shipping.

5. CRM Tool Integrations

A great ecommerce website builder will help you sell your products and manage relationships with your customers.

Look for a platform with customer relationship management (CRM) tools such as client profile features and email marketing integrations that enable you to create lasting connections with customers.

6. Reliable Search Function

Clean and clear navigation will help customers browse your online shop more easily. But, you also need to give shoppers another way to find what they are looking for on your site.

Choose an ecommerce website builder with a reliable search function that accurately delivers results from your website when your shoppers perform an on-site search.

Ecommerce Website Builders FAQ

How Much dose it cost to buils an eCommerce site?

The cost of building an eCommerce website depends largely on the site builder you use and the complexity of the website.

Although you can get a basic eCommerce website for free on eCommerce site builders like Prestashop, you can also pay a freelancer or agency to get a custom-built site. But the problem with custom-built sites is that you can spend thousands of dollars on one site.

Which site builder is best for eCommerce?

Ecommerce website builders all have different strengths and weaknesses. While builders like Weebly make website building easier with its numerous pre-built templates, others like Sellfy offer amazing tools for marketing and analytics. 

When does it make sense to invest in eCommerce website builders?

You can invest in an eCommerce website at any time. Whether you run a small business or a large corporation, website builders are for everyone. The great thing about website builders is that you get all the necessary functions to run your online store at a bargain.

How do I create a professional eCommerce website?

Creating a professional eCommerce website is not as difficult as it may seem. First, you need to decide on the eCommerce website builder, pick a name and get your domain, pick a theme and customize your template, add your product details, select your payment option, sort out your shipping settings, and you’re good to go. 

Can I build an ecommerce website on my own?

Yes, you can! All you need is a good website builder, so you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to get your website up and running.

Sell Online With These Ecommerce Website Builders

Building and managing a website is no mean feat, and while you can choose to hire a professional to take the burden off you, using an ecommerce website builder is much cheaper and less time-consuming.

Here are our recommendations to help you choose the best ecommerce site builder for your business:

  • Squarespace Commerce is the best ecommerce website builder with high-quality graphics.
  • Shopify is an efficient ecommerce platform designed to enable small-scale businesses to transition to large-scale enterprises.
  • Wix eCommerce is a reliable ecommerce website builder best for solopreneurs and small businesses.
  • BigCommerce is an amazing ecommerce platform for large and fast-growing organizations.
  • Zyro is an excellent low-cost ecommerce website builder best for market analytics.

For more on ecommerce and selling online, check out the following articles:

Best Overall

Squarespace Commerce

A fantastic e-commerce platform for artists, illustrators, and everyone that values creativity and wants their website to appear as amazing as the information they're showcasing online.
Best For Beginners

Shopify

Simple to use platform designed to serve all types of businesses and help them go all the way from the first sale to large-scale enterprise.
Best For Small Brands

Wix eCommerce

An efficient and reliable e-commerce platform offering a wide range of customization options primarily aimed at small brands that want to sell goods or services swiftly.
Best For Large Businesses

BigCommerce

A platform for building web storefronts for large businesses and also provide web hosting and several customization options for tech-savvy company owners that want to grow.
Best For Analytics

Zyro

A website builder with ecommerce capabilities that uses AI to enable users to quickly and simply develop an e-commerce website without the need for coding.

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Anastasia Belyh

Editor at FounderJar

Anastasia has been a professional blogger and researcher since 2014. She loves to perform in-depth software reviews to help software buyers make informed decisions when choosing project management software, CRM tools, website builders, and everything around growing a startup business.

Anastasia worked in management consulting and tech startups, so she has lots of experience in helping professionals choosing the right business software.