Have you got a great idea for an online store and not sure how to get it set up? Got an existing business and want to expand into the online world? Now it is easier than ever for even the smallest of fledgling businesses have a webshop and to bring their products to market.

Adding an online store can take your business to the next level – according to eMarketer eCommerce Data statistic retail eCommerce sales are expected to increase to over $4 trillion in 2020 and comprise 14.6% of total retail spending that year.

Today you no longer need a huge amount of technical expertise to build a functional online store, or to invest in a specialist website developer to get your store up and running. There is now a whole range of e-Commerce website builders which you can utilize to have your shop open amazingly quickly.

Here we have compiled a list of the best e-Commerce website builders around to help you decide and can get started today. Before we get into looking at some specific e-Commerce website builders, let’s think about why you might consider using one for your online business. And, also a few drawbacks.

Advantages of using an e-Commerce website builder

• Generally, a very user-friendly and accessible option for people with a low level of technical website skills.
• WYSIWYG design, templates & no coding required
• Offer security of the transaction
• Cost efficient and time-saving
• Automatically optimized for mobile devices

Drawbacks of e-Commerce website builders

• The best e-commerce platforms are not free
• Generally, web hosting and domain registration will need to be paid for separately
• Some e-commerce builders charge per transaction fees, which lowers your profitability
• There’s always the risk of failed transactions, and issues related to cybersecurity and data privacy

Some questions to ask yourself when making your decision:

• How big will your online store be, do you expect to grow a lot, and how fast?
• How much are you willing to spend (per month)?
• How important are customization and the design of your website?
• How skilled are you already are in building an e-commerce website?
• How important is it to have immediate customer service help?
• Are you interested in having additional tools, like reporting, accounting, tools for social media etc.?

Each individual option might be better or worse on the above issues, but keep these in mind as you are reading through the options below. You need to pick the one that’s best suited to your requirements, and probably will need to do some testing before you make a final decision. Spending the extra time now will serve you will in smoothly growing your business for the long term.

Shopify

This is the leader in e-commerce platforms, running over 600 000 websites and utilized by many popular ones. It regularly makes the number one spot on lists of the best e-commerce website builders, and it is the very good choice for small businesses, and for absolute beginners.

Shopify allows you to have a great deal of control over the design of your website – there are hundreds of templates to choose from, so you will surely find an option to suit your business and product offering. With a little more effort, but still no coding you can also create your own.

Good analytics are available, where you can let clients set up accounts, get detailed customer profiles, and also create customer groups. Shopify is very accessible for as many businesses and ends consumers as possible, supporting: multiple languages, differing tax rates around the world, a large range of payment options, and multiple currencies. It also offers SEO and marketing resources, lots of app tools, secure shopping carts, and mobile device compatibility, very quick customer service.

The basic package is $29 per month, but they have a range of option to suit even the very largest of businesses.

WIX

WIX has millions of users worldwide and is a very good choice for small businesses which are not looking to be scaling up any time soon. It is good for being able to get something set up almost instantly and does a very good job of helping you set up with the perfect template to suit your business. It is a very simple drag and drop process to get your site just how you want super fast and will be responsive for mobile devices at the same time.

WIX offers a number of powerful and important features like inventory management, taxation, and shipping cost calculation widgets, social media integration tools, smart SEO tools, marketing features (coupons management and newsletters) to target your existing customers and prospects.

WIX has a range of pricing options, including a completely free one with limited features. An e-commerce plan is around $17 per month, which comes with your own domain plus 20GB storage and 10 GB bandwidth.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is another top, dependable one-stop e-commerce builder that can set up your mobile ready store without out fuss, or be getting bogged down in technology. It is very suited to large businesses and offers top security, 24/7 customer service, and many features to help your website really sell your product. It is the biggest competitor to Shopify.

Right from the beginning, there is a solid range of features available, and as your business scales up, so do the features you have access to. BigCommerce has excellent SEO tools that improve search engine rankings, and your site will appear on multiple selling platforms like eBay, Shopzilla, Facebook, Pricegopher etc.

It also integrates well with social media, has excellent conversion tools, and provides built-in marketing options like discount and coupon codes, newsletters, automatically generated customer lists and even an abandoned cart saver. There is a huge range of additional tools available through app add-ons.

The standard package is around $30 per month.

Weebly

Weebly is a basic, but powerful website builder that requires a smaller investment than the other options here. It is most often compared to WIX.

It has some features that offer your customers nice features to search and filter your products and locate exactly what they are after. It also offers blog integration for content marketing, good SEO options, and an easy way to set correct tax rates for your customers’ location.

You can get it for $8 per month, and it also offers a very limited free option.

Squarespace

Squarespace lets you create stunning websites with ease. All the options are right at your fingertips immediately in the powerful admin panel – the e-commerce options are all seamless built-in, not an add-on. It is a stylish and minimal look option, that is popular with artists, designers, and creatives.s

However, it is also a very powerful option and has a lot of e-commerce tools that work very well. Squarespace automatically generates good SEO options, has social media integration, powerful analytics, lots of control over product variants, a newsletter option, and excellent security.

All their packages allow you to sell unlimited products, starting from $12 per month for personal sites.