If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you are someone who wants to start a business and make it successful. Congratulations. There are many ways to do it, but with the e-commerce app industry growing exponentially, the best way forward is to create an app for your business. And if you’re not sure about what e-commerce website apps can do for your business, then this article is for you.
Want to experience the real ecommerce website apps? The top list of best ecommerce websites and ecommerce apps will give you all the right things you want. A lot of new features await for you to be exposed to, especially if you are a starter among ecommerce websites. You will find that there are many great options and solutions available for your website. These websites will ease your transaction and operation for setting up business in ecommerce line.
Nowadays, there is an ecommerce app for everything. There are so many out there that it can be overwhelming to choose one. We found some of the best ecommerce website builder apps, compared their features and prices, and compiled a list of our favorites.
Every business is looking for the best way to gain more customers and make more sales. Ecommerce website apps are quickly growing in popularity, as a way to connect with your customers in a fun and exciting way. If you have an ecommerce website, you’re probably curious about which applications you ought to be using
Ecommerce Shipping Best Practices
There are a few strategies you can implement to boost your ecommerce shipping sales. Try some of these best practices when you’re implementing your shipping solutions.
- Place a threshold or purchase limit for free shipping (example: free shipping when you spend $49)
- Provide multiple shipping options to avoid large costs and abandoned carts
- Offer international shipping options to increase your audience size
- Use a multi-carrier shipping software to cut down on your shipping costs and to offer more options to your customers
- Offer free shipping and expedited shipping to your customers
- Offer tracking numbers to customers
Webnode
Launched back in 2008, Webnode made its debut. Fast forward to today, and over 30 million users have an account. Millions of entrepreneurs have created their own websites, portfolios, personal blogs, and ecommerce stores with Webnode (read our Webnode website builder review).
The website builder is incredibly straightforward to use, so you don’t need to be overly techy to make the most out of it.
All you have to do is choose from one of their many stunning templates. From there, you can customize it to exude your brand in just a few minutes. Best of all? It’s free.
Plus, all their sites are mobile-friendly. So, it doesn’t matter what kind of device your visitors are using to browse the web; it’ll look beautiful no matter what.
What’s good about Webnode:
- Ease of use: you get access to an intuitive website editor
- Low prices if you want to upgrade to one of their paid plans
- Website backup and recovery features
- Ecommerce functionality available across all plans
Some of Webnode’s drawbacks:
- The ecommerce option included in Webnode is clunky. It uses an outdated interface for its main store design.
- The free plan is limited to 10MB of storage space.
- There’s no SSL certificate included until you choose their most expensive plan.
Who should use this free website and ecommerce builder?
Webnode’s a good option if you want a simple-to-use and decently priced website builder. But, it isn’t the best choice if ecommerce is your main focus because, as we’ve already said, their ecommerce functions look incredibly old and outdated.
But, if you’re looking to gather data or want a members area attached to your website, Webnode requires you to purchase their most expensive plan. So, be sure to bear that in mind!
Weebly
Weebly is a fabulous solution if you’re a small business, and want to launch your first ever website. Its drag-and-drop editor is pretty intuitive, so it shouldn’t take you and your team too much time to learn. It also offers users an extensive list of features, so you can create something that leaves a lasting impression with your visitors.
In short, if you want to publish a simple yet stylish site to launch a blog, promote your business, or display a portfolio, you can’t go too far wrong with Weebly.
Users get access to plenty of sleek-looking templates you can easily customize to reflect your brand’s feel (all of which are mobile-friendly).
We also love that Weebly provides lots of useful SEO guides in their help center. By reading and putting their advice into action, you’ll stand a way better chance of ranking highly in Google’s search results for the keyword of your choice.
The main drawback to Weebly is that they don’t have a personal restore option. Consequently, if your site goes down, you’re reliant on them to fix this for you.
What are the advantages of Weebly?
- Ease of use: Weebly’s straightforward to use, its drag-and-drop features are nothing short of intuitive and require no coding whatsoever.
- All payment plans provide unlimited storage and the ability to connect your web domain. So, any size shop looking to expand can do so without incurring extra costs.
- Weebly provides free analytics to track website traffic.
- There are plenty of themes to choose from. These designs are pretty stylish, so your free ecommerce website is sure to shine!
The cons of Weebly:
- Weebly doesn’t provide much opportunity to add functionality to your site. Anyone with programming skills of their own might feel frustrated by these limitations.
- It’s challenging to alter or customize the themes entirely. Those with web design experience or a specific vision for the look and feel for their site might find Weebly limiting.
- Content categorization is limited, making it challenging to handle larger websites with lots of content.
- Other missing features could make the service more intuitive and user-friendly. For instance, being able to name images for better SEO. Or, an undo function to help you change and edit things on your site quicker.
MyOnlineStore
A young Dutch provider in the ecommerce scene, MyOnlineStore has a small staff of 24 and around 40 000 stores to their name.
We published our test store without problem, but the backend did mention that it was in the Beta stage at this point. Aside from that, the pros and cons are as follows:
What we like:
- Good designs: modern and responsive.
- Payment options: online and offline are supported. Even Bitcoins!
- Multilingual system: to create your site in your preferred language.
What we don’t like:
- No SSL included.
- Limited template choice.
- Expensive premium plans.
- Still in Beta stage: maybe MyOnlineStore needs a bit of time to grow.
Ecwid
Something a little different here, as the strangely named Ecwid is actually an ecommerce plugin you can add to any website. It’s a very interesting proposition that has won nearly 1M people over.
The free option lets you sell 10 items, and the plugin is available in 50 languages. As you can read in our complete review, it’s a perfect mix between a dedicated ecommerce solution and a budget online store. Indeed, the premium prices are reasonable if you choose to upgrade from the free option.
What we like:
- Powerful features: even the free option lets you set taxes, manage articles and create coupons, amongst others.
- 20+ payment processors: PayPal, 2Checkout, Authorize.net and many more.
- Intuitive and easy to use: the interface and user experience are top-notch.
- SSL integration.
- Sleek product presentation: carousels, galleries, you get tons of options to display your wares.
What we don’t like:
- You need an existing website: you need to take that into account for your costs and ease of use.
- SEO could be cleaner: for example, Ecwid adds product IDs to the URLs.
Sign up free here: www.ecwid.com
GoDaddy 3.9/5
Best for building a website quickly
Offering the longest free trial period of them all (30 days), GoDaddy is also the quickest ecommerce platform out there.
It uses ADI (artificial design intelligence) to create a website for you in a matter of minutes, first asking you a few questions about what you’d like.
Speed isn’t everything, though – GoDaddy scored poorly during our research, gaining 3.5/5 for sales features and 2.7/5 for design functionalities.
However, if you’re looking to get a website up and running within an hour, and a long free trial period, then GoDaddy should suffice.
Pros:
- Fastest and easiest-to-use platform we tested
- Create up to five backup copies of your online store
- Flat-fee price after the free trial to help you organise your budget
Cons:
- Very limited creative control due to the ADI function building everything for you
- Scored 2.5/5 for website features
- Cannot sell digital products
GoDaddy offers the quickest way to build a free ecommerce website
Big Cartel 3.1/5
Best for artists
Big Cartel’s biggest draw is its generous free plan, which enables you to sell up to five products (compared to Constant Contact’s three).
Also offering the ability to promote your products through Facebook and Instagram, Big Cartel is well suited to artists selling prints or individual items that don’t require different colour or size variants.
Like most other platforms, though, its free plan is very limited in terms of features. It also comes with a subdomain (‘.bigcartel.com’ in this case) rather than your own personalised URL, which can make your website look unprofessional. To avoid these problems, you can sign up to its Platinum plan for just £7 per month.
You’ll also need to know how to code – assuming you want to grow your Big Cartel store into something more than just a basic, forgettable website.
Pros:
- Generous free plan, enabling you to sell up to five products
- Lots of user-friendly prompts to help you navigate the interface
- One of the best free ecommerce website builders for artists
Cons:
- Very basic template designs with little creative flexibility
- Coding is required for building a beautiful Big Cartel website (unlike on Squarespace)
Big Cartel is the best choice for selling your art at no cost
What Does Shipping Software Do?
You’re growing your ecommerce business, and you’re looking for a way to scale. That’s where shipping software comes in!
The best thing about these solutions is that they are easy to use – even if you are new to the world of ecommerce.
Ecommerce shipping software helps you automate the shipping process. These tools integrate with ecommerce platforms and marketplaces for a streamlined experience with shipping and delivery.
Each shipping software has its own benefits. But typically, you can expect it to include:
- Bulk shipping label creation
- Competitive pricing on shipping rates
- Ways to customize your labels with your branding
- Integration with most major ecommerce platforms
Plus, they work with multiple carriers so you can have the best rates for your needs.
Conclusion
Shopping online has become very popular. For example, a big chunk of Americans shop online every year, and this doesn’t seem likely to change in the future, but there are also other reasons why people like to buy items online: There aren’t any crowds at online stores, you can find products in a matter of seconds, and it is much easier to compare prices. If you have an e-commerce business, then you probably already know that having a great app is essential if you want to attract more customers.
E-commerce is a constantly moving target. Changes in technology, consumer behavior and regulatory changes all have an effect on how e-commerce should be done. No business can ignore the need for having an effective eCommerce solution. At the same time it is equally important…