There are so many ecommerce platforms available that it can be tricky to choose the right one. However, you have landed on the right article because we are going to talk about best ecommerce platforms, but specifically ecommerce platforms that offer their services for free!
Our mission is to give our customers the best ecommerce experience possible by providing a free ecommerce platform that can be used by everyone. Choose one of our modern, professionally designed themes to get your online store started, then add products and start selling in minutes.
Ecommerce platforms such as BigCommerce, Shopify, Squarespace and more are the most sought after solutions for online businesses. Everybody wants the best ecommerce platform solution. The truth is that all these solutions are good for different kinds of businesses and overcoming the nuances to choose the best ecommerce platform can become overwhelming sometimes.
There are so many eCommerce platforms you can use, though, which one is the best for your needs? There are dozens of ecommerce platforms out there, each with different features and approaches. Some are free and some are not free. The first step in choosing the right platform that meets your needs is understanding what you need, who will be using the website, and how much control over the design requirements you have.
How to Choose the Best Web Hosting Company?
Without the best web hosting, your ability to run a successful website is going to be seriously hindered. There is a dizzying array of web hosting providers competing for your business. How can you pinpoint the best one? Start by keeping the following points in mind:
- Bandwidth
The first thing you need to do when shopping for a web hosting service is to evaluate your disk space and bandwidth needs. If your site features lots of graphics, dozens of pages, and large amounts of traffic, you’re going to need decent bandwidth and disk space. Unlimited plans are available, and they make life easier.
- Compatibility
Keep compatibility in mind, too. In the excitement of looking for a website hosting provider, you might overlook one critical thing: the type of operating systems that are supported. You’re not going to want to switch operating systems, so double-check this point before settling for a provider.
- Reliability
Reliability and availability are critical characteristics to consider when shopping around for web hosting. The best web hosting companies offer availability rates of 98 and 99 percent, frequently referred to as “Uptime.”
- Security
Security is also an essential concern. Choosing a web hosting provider without learning about its available security features is a big mistake. Things like firewalls, daily backups, and user authentication should all be included.
Take a look at how we choose the best web hosting sites in the industry in order to make a better decision about which is right for you.
Ecwid (Web, iOS, Android)
If you’re launching an online store but want to minimize your initial outlay, Ecwid is the best place to begin: it’s got a great, free plan that lets you start selling your first 10 physical products, and affordable upgrade tiers starting at $15/month as you grow or need extra features. There are also no additional transaction fees on top of what your payment gateway charges, so it isn’t skimming any profit with hidden fees.
When you sign up, Ecwid gives you the option to integrate your store with your existing website—it supports most platforms like WordPress, Weebly, Drupal, and the like—or to set up your own store with a company.site domain name (although you can change that to a custom domain at any time by upgrading to the Venture plan).
At the Dashboard, you’re presented with a big, bold to-do list that walks you through setting up your site, adding your first products, localizing your store, and choosing how you want to deliver goods—and get paid for them. Working through the full list takes less than 15 minutes.
Where Ecwid stands out from some of the other free options is its customizability. In the sidebar, click Website and then Edit Site to open the site builder. To change the theme, click Themes and choose from one of the dozens of different options. Whatever you’re planning to sell, there’s a decent base theme to work from. Then, dive deeper into the intuitive builder to customize every section, text block, and photo.
While Ecwid is a great free option, it doesn’t skimp on the features with the paid plans. It integrates with social channels like Facebook and Instagram so you can sell directly to your followers, you can list your products on Amazon or eBay, or take payments in person. It automatically calculates tax, offers discounts, and tracks your inventory. If you set up a free store on Ecwid, you don’t have to worry about moving to a new platform if things take off.
Ecwid integrates with Zapier too, so you can connect it to all your other apps and do things like receive texts when someone places an order or track sales with Google Sheets.
Ecwid Price: Free for standard features; from $15/month Venture Plan for professional features; transaction fees depend on payment gateway.
BigCommerce (Web, iOS, Android)
BigCommerce is, unsurprisingly given the name, an enterprise eCommerce solution used by multinational companies like Ben & Jerry’s. BigCommerce Essentials offers a similarly powerful platform for small businesses looking to sell online, at significantly more affordable prices.
With that said, BigCommerce Essentials is still aimed at businesses that are already selling a lot, either in units or dollars (less than $50,000 a year is considered “just starting out” when you sign up). This means that, unlike most other options, as part of the onboarding process, you’re prompted to set up sales taxes and automated shipping; both things that smaller stores that are just getting started can kind of improvise on until they’re up and running properly. If you only sell 10 T-shirts a month, you’re not going to suddenly be on the hook for a multi-thousand dollar tax liability.
Similarly, while BigCommerce integrates with online payment processors like Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, and Amazon, you can also configure your store to take payment by bank transfer, check, or money order.
It’s also super simple to list your products on other marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, and Facebook, so customers don’t have to buy directly from your store. Just head to Channel Manager in the sidebar and connect the option you want. BigCommerce will automatically import any products you’ve got set up and keep any changes you make up to date across all your channels.
This focus on bigger small business isn’t without its downsides, however. While BigCommerce has 12 free themes built in, the majority of the ones available in the theme marketplace (in the sidebar, click Storefront > Theme Marketplace) cost between $150 and $300. They look great, and the drag-and-drop site builder is powerful enough that you can customize themes as you please, but you need to be in a position to justify the investment.
The $29.95/month Standard tier is capped at $50,000/year in sales, while the $79.95/month Plus tier is capped at $180,000/year. You don’t necessarily need to be shifting that level of inventory for BigCommerce to be the right choice for you, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.
BigCommerce also integrates with Zapier, so you can connect it to the other apps in your tech stack to automate tasks like sending all of your customers to your CRM.
BigCommerce Price: Free for 15 days; from $29.95/month Standard Plan for unlimited products; transaction fees depend on payment gateway.
Shopify – the Most Popular Platform
Shopify Pros
+ Same features across plans
+ Additional shipping discounts
+ Unlimited products
+ In-house payment platform
+ 24/7 live chat, email, and phone support
+ 14-day free trial
Shopify Cons
– 2 accounts with the cheapest plan
– 2% commission outside Shopify Payments
– Only 10 free themes
Shopify is a well-known eCommerce platform provider, with over one million stores, 2.1 million active users, and $155B+ worth of sold goods on its platform. Their plans start from $29/month. They have an in-house payment processing platform and substantial discounts on shipping rates.
You have a choice between 81 mobile-optimized themes from which 10 are free, and 71 are paid, starting from $150. There’s no limit on the number of products you can add. However, you need a plugin app to process subscription services, something you can purchase from the Shopify App Store.
Some of the other notable features are abandoned cart recovery, gift cards, custom discount codes, and integrated marketing tools such as email marketing, and social media distribution (availability based on the country). Yet, with the cheapest plan, you can only add two contributor accounts.
Payment Options
Shopify gives you the option of using their in-house developed Shopify Payments platform. What is great about it is that it’s integrated with most of the major gateways from credit cards to Google Pay, Apple Pay, etc.
They also have increased security protocols with Level 1 PCI compliance and a default fraud analysis. You can also track and manage the payments in an integrated back office.
Online Store Management and Reports
Managing your inventory and orders, and setting up product pages are also very straightforward and easy. Their interface allows you to drag-and-drop your products, includes automatic image optimization, and you can purchase additional plugins from Shopify’s App Store.
You can print shipping labels and send customers automatic tracking updates. Also, Shopify has cooperation agreements with DHL Express, UPS, and USPS, which get you additional discounts on shipping costs.
Shopify allows you to easily integrate your website with Google Analytics to get basic data about your store’s performance. However, the professional eCommerce reports come from the Shopify plan. Building custom reports are only possible from the Advanced Shopify plan.
Customer Support
Shopify has 24/7 customer support over email, live chat, and phone for paying store owners. Otherwise, you can find answers to your questions through forums or Shopify Help Center.
Pricing
The plans start from $29/month and include all the main features, but the significant difference comes from the transaction fees. You also get access to more detailed reports with the higher-tier plans.
The transaction fees for online credit card rates start from 2.9% + 30¢, and the additional charge for using any other payment provider begins at 2%.
Basic Shopify plan: $29/month
- 2 accounts
- Shipping discount up to 86%
- Online credit card fee 2.9% + 30¢ or 2% using other providers
Shopify plan: $79/month
- 5 accounts
- eCommerce reports
- Shipping discount up to 88%
- Online credit card fees 2.6% + 30¢ or 1% using other providers.
Advanced Shopify plan: $299/month
- 15 accounts
- Custom reports
- Third-party shipping rates calculations
- Shipping discount up to 88%
- Online credit card fee 2.4% + 30¢ or 0.5% using other providers
The downsides of the cheapest plans are the higher costs for transactions and the availability of useful reports. However, the plan costs and additional perks scale well with the size of your online store.
Shopify also offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card information required so you can test out their platform rather easily.
Wix
Wix ecommerce has come a long way in a few years. When I first started writing ecommerce platform reviews in 2017, Wix wasn’t even on my list. Once they got added to my list, I gave them a really poor rating and would not recommend them.
Now, Wix is a major force in the ecommerce space and they deliver amazing value for solorprenuers and small ecommerce businesses. Wix’s ecommerce features have evolved drastically in a few years, they now offer multi channel integration, abandoned cart recovery, dropship and print on demand capabilities.
In previous years, they’ve had significant issues with SEO. Few were resolved; some, like the short extra string to the URLs of blog posts and product pages still remain. That’s not ideal for SEO, especially for large ecommerce businesses.
As you grow, you might need to switch because aside from the limited features, the storage space is 20GB and if you are dealing with lots of heavy digital products or other materials, that space might not do.
It’s beginner friendly. Of all the top website builders that I’ve dealt with, Wix topped most for on-page customer support while creating the store.
You can drag and drop elements to add cool videos, functionality, and create the website you want. They have over 500 themes of which 72 are free. Unfortunately, you’re stuck with whatever theme you chose at the time of publishing your site except if you used their ADI.
Pros
- Tons of free amazing themes.
- Really simple to use and set up
- On-page support for numerous needs
- 72 free themes
Cons
- Trying hard to fight a bad SEO reputation. Made improvements, but tested very poorly.
- Many sites were not secured
- Lacks upselling features and advanced automation
- Difficult to fully customize template
Some Top Features When it Comes to Top Hosting Quality
Hosting quality is affected by several factors that are important to weigh during your decision making process. Some of the most significant ones include:
- Uptime guarantee
We mention this in more detail below, and really it’s one of the most important factors to consider, so don’t skimp on uptime. HostGator has one of the best uptime guarantees at 99.98%.
- Load time
Load time is also really important. Recent studies show that the average attention span has shrunk over the years to smaller than that of a goldfish! So, if your website takes even a drop too long to load a page, your business is dead before it’s even started. To keep yourself in the running, be sure your hosting service has a fast load time. A2Hosting will deliver a 360ml load time for pages, the fastest in the industry.
- Customer support
Because having an issue with your website is nothing to take lightly, you want to make sure customer service is available, knowledgeable, and easy to work with. More on this below.
- Location
The number of servers and location plays a huge part in the speed of your website loading and service. Obviously, the more servers available, the faster the service, but where those servers are found in the world will also affect the quality. Look for servers in substantial locations close to you such as the UK, US, or Israel depending on your location.
Conclusion
Ecommerce is becoming more widespread than ever before. With such an enormous opportunity to make money online, more and more people are seeing the potential in creating their own ecommerce store. If you’re interested in making an ecommerce store, you’ll need a platform on which to build your online store. There are tons of options available but many of them are too difficult to use or don’t offer enough flexibility.
Websites are fantastic for building an online shop and promoting your products to thousands of customers. With the proper ecommerce web hosting in place, you can quickly build a professional-looking store, with no coding or design experience necessary.