Are you curious about best ecommerce website builder 2021? Or about best ecommerce builder tools? Read this article on ecommerce website builder free. You will find both information about a professional tool for e-store building and some advice on launching your online store.
However, today more than ever before, people are looking for help in getting the basics taken care of on their websites. Fortunately there are a lot of good tools out there to help them do that. Best Ecommerce Builder Tools
If you are reading this right now, chances are you are looking for a shopping cart solution to start selling online. Although there are numerous options available out there that claim to be the best ecommerce platform, they might not be offering the best value for your money.
You have decided to build an online store for your small business, and you are wondering about ecommerce website builder free tools. The best thing is that you are in the right place here and you can get all the information you need from this article.
Why do I need an ecommerce builder tool?
“An ecommerce website builder? Why do I need one?” Well, they are simply all the rage these days for anyone who wants to launch their own online shop and do so all by themselves! But this brings up many questions and potential problems in terms of selecting the right ecommerce website builder for your specific needs.
Today, we discuss them all to help you decide!
First off, you don’t want to choose a random ecommerce website builder and then realize one year later that you’re paying too much in transaction fees, or that you can’t handle the design tools, because they are made for more experienced developers. In this guide, we teach you how to avoid this and similar issues.
Therefore, a good way to look at your ecommerce website builder shopping experience is consider it twofold: (a) what you want to accomplish, and (b) what your own personal needs are:
- With the personal needs, it all comes down to how experienced you are and how quickly you plan on scaling up. A builder with hundreds of templates is great for a beginner, but what if you’d like to get into customizing the CSS and that’s not available?
- The second area to evaluate is what you want to accomplish. This ties into the tools, settings and features that are offered through the various platforms. With that, we want to take a look at the current state of ecommerce and the major trends to plan for the functionality you’ll require.
In the following sections, we’ll show you everything there is to know about the best ecommerce website builders on the market and how to pick the ideal one for you.
Shopify
Shopify has always been towards the front of the ecommerce pack, but that doesn’t stop the company from moving even further and constantly upgrading their features. In fact, some of the recent releases reveal a whole new future for Shopify, and the world of ecommerce in general.
For example, some Shopify users were getting intimidated by the online store editor. Well, as time has passed, that’s changed with the innovative new online store editor, built to make it easier for new merchants. In addition to that, Shopify also now offers quite robust tools to make your store optimized for mobile shopping, along with sales channel integrations being passed to the merchants.
We recommend the Shopify builder over all of the other options because it’s being used by more than 1.000,000 businesses in 175 countries, and it offers great tools for beginners who have never built an ecommerce store before. Apart from that, a more advanced user can also use Shopify’s custom CSS and design features if they want to get creative.
What are the features and offerings that make Shopify special?
- The price in on par with all the other competitors out there, and there’s also a simplified Lite plan that’s the cheapest option in the market – at $9 per month. This ecommerce plan doesn’t give you the ecommerce website builder functionality like the Basic plan, but it lets you in to the Shopify interface and allows you to use the “Shopify buy button” on your existing website.
- The themes (store designs) are the best in the market and they’re all mobile-optimized. You can choose from more than 100 of them, and there are both free and paid options available.
- There’s good social media integration, plus an option to sell on Facebook directly. You can also offer your customers gift cards and discount codes, which work wonders for keeping people around.
- The platform provides more than 100 add-ons and extensions for everything from accounting to design, marketing tools, orders and shipping, and more.
- The support team is available 24/7.
- Free SSL Certificate included on all plans
What may turn you off of Shopify?
- You don’t get FTP access with Shopify – you can’t modify your store files by hand (can be important for advanced users).
- The customer profiles aren’t as great as in other website builders.
Who should use this ecommerce site builder?
This is our overall no.1 recommendation for business owners who want to build an ecommerce website on their own and then launch it for the world to see. Shopify is very intuitive, offers great customization options and doesn’t require any coding skills on your part, making it the best website builder for your online store.
Wix
Wix is yet another ecommerce website builder that started out as a general website building tool. In other words, you can use it to build any kind of website, not just ecommerce stores. In fact, Wix offers loads of great-looking website templates that fit any niche or market imaginable. The templates are also mobile-optimized, which means that you’re ready to welcome visitors and shoppers coming from all kinds of devices.
Wix has a pricing model that can fit any budget. However! Since we’re talking about launching ecommerce stores here, you need to be careful when picking a plan for yourself. Even though Wix starts at $13 / month, this plan won’t allow you to host an online store. The cheapest option for ecommerce is $23 / month, and from there, it scales all the way up to $500 depending on your needs.
All plans allow you to accept online payments, give you unlimited bandwidth, and let you connect a custom domain name. The $23 plan also gives you 20GB of disk storage, a free domain name for the first year, and $300 in ad vouchers. These are great bonuses if you want to launch your store with a bang!
What are the features and offerings that make Wix special?
- Great designs / site templates for various ecommerce niches, like fashion, arts, home decor, beauty, and many others.
- Cheaper than Shopify, Squarespace and BigCommerce if you want to be able to sell unlimited products and welcome an unlimited number of shoppers.
- Great site customization tools including a drag-and-drop editor.
- You can tweak your site’s mobile appearance separately from the desktop look.
- A Logo Maker tool to help you kick start your brand.
What may turn you off of Wix?
- You cannot switch your website template once you build the site. This is a huge bummer and can make it difficult to grow with the platform over time.
Who should use this ecommerce builder?
Wix is quite frankly a great alternative to Squarespace, and Shopify by extension. It offers much of the same features, just delivers them in a different package. Check out Wix if you don’t like Squarespace’s or Shopify’s features, interfaces, or pricing models.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce used to play second fiddle to Shopify, but things have changed and, nowadays, it’s a fully fledged alternative. It offers much of the same features and it’s not limited in any way.
The themes are also solid, with many modern options, divided into multiple categories, plus they are mobile-friendly and accessible. There are also free and paid ones available, which should help you make your store truly yours and fitting your brand.
What are the features and offerings that make BigCommerce special?
- Good-looking themes that cover all of the most common store categories and niches.
- You get to set up unlimited staff accounts, which is great if there are more people working in your store.
- The easy-to-use backend has features for coupons, discounts, social media and more.
- Lets you sell via Facebook, Pinterest, eBay, Amazon and Square POS.
- The support with this ecommerce website builder is 24/7.
- The app store is filled with options.
What may turn you off of BigCommerce?
- Buying premium themes for BigCommerce can get really expensive. Even $200+ a piece.
- Translations are complex and often impossible.
Who should use this ecommerce site builder?
BigCommerce is the tool that’s the most similar to Shopify in the way it delivers its features, the way it lets you build an ecommerce website and then handle your ongoing work with it. Use it if you don’t like the Shopify interface.
Web.com
Web.com
Most Hands-Off Solution
Why bother with trying to bend a DIY builder to your will? With Web.com, you can lean on their in-house team of design experts to get a custom ecommerce store that’s professional, elegant, and built to match your brand’s needs, all without having to do any design work yourself.>> Get your quote today
Getting an ecommerce store up and running can take time. Even with the easiest site builders, there can be a lot of tinkering with product pages, shopping carts, and other aspects until it feels ready for customers.
The easiest paths to creating a quality web store are often the most limited in terms of customization and design, though. But that’s not the case with Web.com.
In fact, they offer two distinct ways to easily build a new online store.
The first is the more common route—using Web.com’s builder to create your own ecommerce site.
It’s a pretty typical WYSIWYG site builder, with drag-and-drop functionality for moving elements around and a solid set of templates to give your new site a good-looking foundation to start from.
If you played around with other DIY site builders in the past, the interface will be familiar. You have a nice sidebar on the left full of page elements, settings, and site management tools.
But let’s say you need a web store yesterday. You don’t have time to get in the sandbox and build one of your own. But you also don’t want your new ecommerce site to look amateurish.
That’s where Web.com rises above the rest. They offer in-house web design to any customer.
You can give the pros at Web.com all the details of your business, products, customer base, and goals, and they’ll deliver a sleek, SEO-friendly, and fully built out web store that your company can deploy right away.
And they’ll do that with clear communication every step of the way, from the initial getting-to-know-you call to learn about your business and strategy, to a welcome call and walkthrough of your newly designed site before it goes live.
Better still, if there are issues with your site or changes you want to make to it, you’ll always have access to Web.com’s designers for fixes and updates. You don’t need to get your hands dirty at any point.
Not only is this great for people who don’t have the time or desire to build their own online store—it’s also fantastic for standing out from the crowd. Despite a wide array of templates available today, it’s easy to feel like you can’t customize a DIY site enough to truly look and feel different.
With Web.com’s ecommerce store design service, you get a completely custom design that matches your branding and grabs the attention of your customers and site visitors.
If you want to go the DIY route, Web.com makes it pretty easy on your wallet. Paying monthly will cost you a bit more than some other options (it’s $3.95 for your first month, but $20 per month after that), but paying annually is a steal. That only runs you $100 for your first year, then $200 annually after that.
Getting a bespoke site designed by the experts at Web.com requires reaching out for a quote and introductory call. And, for a limited time, you can get their professional design service for 50% of its normal rate.
Get the online store you’ve dreamed of with literally no design work on your part. Tap into the expertise of Web.com’s team and get a fantastic ecommerce site designed for you.
Zyro
- PRICES STARTS AT $2.90 PER MONTH
- INTUITIVE USER INTERFACE
- DRAG-AND-DROP SITE BUILDER
- TONS OF PAYMENT OPTIONS
GET UP TO 69% OFF YOUR WEBSITE
Zyro offers a very beginner-friendly experience that comes at a highly affordable price plus includes 24/7 support for all users.
Using drag-and-drop tools, you’ll be able to lay out exactly how you want your website to look and see it change in real-time. In fact, you’ll be able to get your website up and running very quickly.
This is also known as the “What You See Is What You Get” method of website building. You don’t need any coding knowledge. You don’t need to switch back and forth between preview and edit mode. All you need is to move elements to your exact specifications.
You’ll also be able to promote and sell your products across websites like Instagram, Facebook, and Amazon.
There are a ton of different customizable themes across nine categories—so you can pick the perfect theme for your business.
One thing that sets Zyro apart from the competition is its powerful AI business tools. These tools leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to help you create your brand identity using:
- Business name generator
- Slogan generator
- Logo maker
- AI content generator
- AI heatmap
The AI content generator will furnish SEO-friendly content for your website. That’s perfect for those who are new at writing copy for the web or anyone who might be a little nervous about their word choices.
Zyro prices and plans are as follows:
- Website — from $2.90 per month
- Business —from $4.90 per month
- Online Store — from $8.90 per month
- Advanced Store —from $15.90 per month
As you can see, even the most expensive plan is still pretty affordable.
Recent updates to Zyro’s offerings include an email integration to have a dedicated email account associated with a domain and blog post scheduling to make content management easier.
If you really want to get the most out of your ecommerce experience with Zyro though, I highly suggest you go with the Business plan at least. That’ll give you unlimited storage and bandwidth, along with a free domain, the ability to accept online payments, and their line of ecommerce functionality.
How much does it cost to build an ecommerce website?
Broadly speaking, Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly’s cheapest ecommerce plans will cost you between $20-30 per month. Wix’s ecommerce plans, for example, range from $23 per month for the Business Basic plan to $500 per month for the Enterprise plan. Meanwhile, Shopify’s cheapest plan is $29 per month, and gives you access to a serious ecommerce experience. However, its other plans cost $79 per month and $299 per month. These are designed for established ecommerce stores, so there’s no need to worry about the high prices if you’re just starting out. Not all ecommerce website builders cost the same amount. In fact, platforms such as Shopify or BigCommerce cost significantly more than platforms such as Wix or Weebly. This is largely due to the complexity of each platform. While Wix and Weebly will let you create a really small, basic site with only a few products, Shopify and BigCommerce are designed for much larger operations.
Conclusion
Ecommerce website building has started to receive a lot of attention in recent years. Thousands upon thousands of online businesses depend on the capability of their ecommerce websites. Now, there are many companies that offer professional ecommerce website building services for anybody who needs help. As you could imagine, all these ecommerce website building services must cost quite a bit. However, it is possible to build an entire ecommerce website without spending anything at all.
The world is changing rapidly, and the way in which we communicate with each other as changed over time. While the most popular way of communication that people use is still through text on a screen, what we use to connect to each other has drastically changed in the last few years.