These days, online sales are booming and businesses are opening online stores left, right and center. We’re almost drowning in ecommerce websites. This can be both reassuring, as more people are bringing their business online, but it can also prove to be challenging. Why? There are just too many ecommerce platforms out there. What’s the best ecommerce platform? Which one is right for your business? The best free ecommerce platform for small business…
If you’re selling online, then you want the best ecommerce platform for small business that will give you everything you need to run a successful business. There are a lot of options available, so we took a look at the best ecommerce software and reviewed them to help you decide which one is right for your company.
Ecommerce has taken off over the past decade, with businesses of all shapes and sizes joining in on the action. How do you find yourself joining in on the ecommerce platform game? Which ecommerce platform is the best for your business? There are a lot of platforms to choose from. This article will share a bit about the history of ecommerce platforms, free ecommerce platforms for small business, and a look at some of the most popular ecommerce platforms.
If you are a small business looking to get started with an eCommerce platform, it can be overwhelming. There are a lot of options and it might seem like a daunting process. We want to make sure your business is up and running with the best free ecommerce platform as quickly as possible.
Factors to Consider When Choosing an eCommerce Platform
Before we cover the different eCommerce platforms, let’s briefly talk about what you should look for in one.
Initial Costs
What are the initial, or up-front costs of using the platform? If you’re starting a new eCommerce website, it is likely that you won’t make a significant amount of sales for a sustained period of time. As such, you don’t want to be paying high fees for months without having the sales to cover it.
Thankfully, some platforms have transaction-based business models, free trials, and other pricing structures that start at a very low price.
Others have high flat fees, no matter how many customers you have or transactions you make. Be sure to investigate this before choosing a platform.
Monthly Costs
After the initial setup fees and costs, how much will you need to spend to keep using the platform? Some, like the standard version of WooCommerce, do not have any monthly fees.
However, you’ll also need to pay for a web hosting service, which is usually at least $5-15 per month.
Others, like Shopify, charge $29 and up per month, but this includes your web hosting and access to the eCommerce website software.
Installation and Usage Difficulty
How difficult is setup and installation? Does it take minutes or days? Starting a business is a time consuming endeavor so it’s important to use tools that help save you time — and let you concentrate on building your business.
Once you have it installed, how difficult is the software to use? WooCommerce, Shopify, and Constant Contact are known for being easy to use. Magento, on the other hand, is just as powerful (if not more powerful), yet has a reputation for having a steep learning curve.
Customizability
Do you need to customize your site? How flexible is the platform for doing so? WordPress is well-known for its flexibility; you can customize virtually anything on your eCommerce website.
However, sometimes there are too many choices, which is why you might want to use a premade template created by a professional designer.
Other platforms are more limited in terms of how much you can customize them. This is often by design, as they want to focus exclusively on selling products and services.
When selecting a platform, first decide how many customizations you will need and/or if the platform can accommodate them. Additionally, see if it is difficult to make customizations. Do you just need to install an extra plugin to add a feature? Or does it involve re-coding an entire portion of the platform?
Integration
How well does the platform integrate with other products and services? For example, is it easy to create blog posts, share your content on social media, or link to on-demand printing services?
WooCommerce is often a good choice for this reason, as it integrates seamlessly with other WordPress plugins. However, if you have a very focused type of eCommerce site, this may be less important to you.
Add-Ons and Extra Plugins
Extensions are often the most important aspect of an eCommerce platform as they allow you to add extra functionality. They can also add features that are too niche or complex to be included in the standard plugin.
This is one reason why WooCommerce and Shopify are so powerful. Both have rich libraries of thirty-party plugins.
WordPress, for example, has over 50,000 plugins available. These include everything from collecting emails, adding a forum, displaying stock tickers, and virtually anything else you could possibly think of.
Other platforms have plugins or extensions, including Shopify’s App Store or Wix’s App Market, but there are fewer choices than with WordPress.
Mobile
How is the mobile support for the platform? Does it create responsive and mobile friendly pages for your shop? How do products look on different devices? Try to test it out yourself using a demo.
On a related note, it’s important to be able to manage your site from a mobile device. Are mobile apps available? If not, is there a mobile-friendly version of the website? Can you easily view and manage your products from the app/website?
Joomla
There are a lot of open source ecommerce software options out there, from Magento Community Edition, to WordPress. Joomla is the most advanced system for user management and use access controls, with support out of the box. Created with flexibility for different kinds of content, Joomla’s modules and components offer more flexibility for displaying content types that are non-standard.
Joomla has multilingual support available for growing global teams, which makes it an excellent choice for a lot of companies that want to expand across the world. There are many tools out there that can’t provide the same kind of flexibility. At the same time, to help your business stand out, Joomla offers a range of templates too.
If you’re looking for a convenient way to make a unique eCommerce website from scratch, then Joomla gives you all the functionality you need. You do need to put a little time and effort into your website with Joomla, however. There are some confusing aspects to overcome.
For instance, there are different categories and article spaces for the content on your website, so before you start creating, you need to create categories that highlight the kind of content you want to create. It’s not too overwhelming, but it’s a more involved process than WordPress, particularly for non-developers.
Branchbob
There’s no shortage of options when it comes to finding the best free Ecommerce platform these days. From better-known tools like Ecwid, to new options like Branchbob, there are plenty of ways to start taking credit card payments. The key to success is finding something that works for your team.
Branchbob is a lesser-known ecommerce platform that promises ease of use and simplicity. There’s no monthly fee or transaction fees to worry about. What’s more, the tool is clear, straightforward, and excellent for beginners. Branchbob even performs well when it comes to optimized payment processes and page speed too. Faster page performance means that you can deliver better experiences to your target audience.
Like most eCommerce tools, there’s support for unlimited products, on a platform where you can choose your own design from a range of templates. What’s more, Branchbob aims to be the best ecommerce platform around for both developers and designers. You can access the full source code behind the software to adjust it to your needs. There are even more than 100 APIs to experiment with.
If you’re not certain how to make the most of code, you can always use the Branchbob Experts too. These are professionals that can help with building your site, for a fee.
Big Cartel
Big Cartel is not your regular platform for typical ecommerce websites. Rather, it’s optimized for artists and creators.
If you’re one, then here’s the good news. You can use Big Cartel to not only building a specialized free ecommerce site, but also proceed to sell your artworks. Check out the detailed Big Cartel review.
The simple online store features on this platform are particularly suitable for individuals and small businesses that might not be expanding any time soon. And in case you face challenges while setting up your ecommerce website, you can rely on Big Cartel’s onboarding process to guide you accordingly.
Sadly, things might turn out to be disappointing when you start adding products. From the look of things, free ecommerce websites can only sell five products. And to make matters worse, you only get a single image per item.
However, on the bright side, at least you can also sell them on Facebook and in-person. Plus, you can always upgrade to a paid plan when you need additional functionalities. The most basic one supports 25 products at $9.99 per month.
Shopify
Shopify is a full-fledged eCommerce platform, hosting included. It’s rather popular among free eCommerce platforms and takes care of everything – marketing, payments, shipping, and secure checkout, and is easy to set up.
Note: Like Wix, Shopify will let you create a free eCommerce website – but you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan to start selling to customers.
Free plan
While there’s no fully free plan, you can subscribe to Shopify’s free trial for 14 days, without submitting credit card details.
Free plan limitations
During your free trial period, you can set up your store and explore features. But before you sell products or services, you’ll need to pay up for one of the plans.
Key features
- Online store with customizable themes, Shopify POS apps, multiple sales channels are part of Basic Plan
- Also in Basic Plan, unlimited products, manage products and inventory, track sales, and growth trends
- Shopify includes a dashboard with a complete eCommerce builder
- Hosting, domain names, design, themes, and marketing – all included
- 100+ mobile-ready themes and hundreds of apps to enhance store functions
- Integrates with most social media forums
- Possible to create regular web content as well — static pages, blog posts, contact forms, and so on
- Downtime is minimum with round the clock support
Shopify is a delight for anyone who wants a hands-off approach to online store setup and maintenance. With a range of plans to suit every need and type of online business, it has something for everyone.
Price & transaction fees
Four plans with varying features and monthly fees are available:
- Lite – $9 per month
- Basic – $29 per month
- Shopify – $79 per month
- Advanced – $299 per month
All plans, except the Lite, allow you to create fully-functional Shopify stores. The Lite plan only allows you to sell on Facebook and in physical locations, as well as integrate a Buy Button on an existing site.
Transaction fees:
There are no separate transaction fees when you use Shopify Payments (available in some countries). If you choose an external payment gateway, there’ll be an additional fee of 2%, 1%, or 0.5% for the Basic Shopify, Shopify, and Advanced Shopify plans, respectively.
Prestashop
Prestashop is another open-source platform with MySQL data management and extensive backend code customizability. It boasts a huge variety of add ons and themes, enabling merchants to develop a web store from scratch with limited tech abilities. However, watch out for the total cost, as some of the extensions are quite pricey.
The good news is that you don’t need to be a developer to build a website on Prestashop, making it a great option for startups and medium-sized stores. Businesses may overlook Prestashop due to its lack of free support
OpenCart
One more open-source content management system for ecommerce, OpenCart is a free and multifunctional solution. It offers a bunch of templates for quick setup and also has a thriving plugin marketplace. OpenCart integrates with over 20 payment gateways and eight shipping methods. As an ecommerce CMS with no monthly fees, it’s a popular option among newcomers with a small budget.
Wix
Wix is a leading, drag-and-drop website building platform for online business. Although it’s not technically an ecommerce CMS, website owners have the option to add the commerce module if they need to. With a variety of templates, built-in features and a no-code approach, Wix is an appealing option for complete beginners and non-coders. If you have a limited range of products and want to get your business off the ground quickly, it could work. However, keep in mind that once you choose a template for your store, you won’t be able to change it in the future.
HubSpot
HubSpot is a pioneering CMS and marketing automation platform. It doesn’t have the ecommerce functionality but can easily integrate with purpose-built ecommerce platforms like BigCommerce and Shopify. Connecting HubSpot to your ecommerce store will help you understand your customer behavior, automate marketing campaigns and track and report on revenue streams with specialized reports.
Jimdo
Jimdo is another beginner-friendly website builder that happens to offer supplementary ecommerce features. Check out the detailed Jimdo review here.
Right off the bat, you can leverage its Dolphin AI system to create a custom free website in a few minutes. But, if you’d prefer to take charge of the whole process, you can opt for the alternative creator website building mode. It comes with additional privileges for editing Jimdo’s predesigned themes.
Unfortunately, you won’t be able to sell anything on your free site. To unlock online store functionalities, you have to subscribe to either the Ecommerce plan for $19 per month, or Unlimited for $39 per month. And each of these paid packages, for your information, are billed on a yearly basis.
Well, if you decide to proceed, you’ll notice that Jimdo’s online store features are seemingly suitable for basic ecommerce websites. Therefore, it’s more of a website builder than an ecommerce platform.
Weebly
Weebly is one of the most generous tools for payment processing and site building on the marketplace today. Similar to Squarespace and Square Online, Weebly offers a state-of-the-art site building experience that’s great for beginners.
Weebly only recently made ecommerce functionality available as part of its free plan. However, that means that store owners can now unlock all the benefits of Weebly selling without having to spend a fortune. Whether you’re selling physical products and need help with inventory tracking, or you’re selling online services, there’s something for everyone with Weebly.
The biggest downside for business owners using Weebly is that there are a few ecommerce options missing. For instance, it’s hard to figure out how to sell on social media and tracking your stock levels isn’t always easy either.
The good news is that Weebly does come with the ability to add unlimited products and choose from a range of payment options. However, it’s worth noting that those payment methods do come with a significant transaction fee. What’s more, like with many of the other best ecommerce platform options, Weebly doesn’t offer a custom domain with its free plan.
Why should I use a website builder or an open source platform?
Using an ecommerce site builder will surely make your life easier when designing an online store. Many of the platforms have templates readily available and advertise creating your ecommerce store in six easy steps. That is great if you’re starting out, don’t have any web design experience, and want to get your store online smoothly.
However, if you want more control over the design of your online store, then open source is the way to go. An open source ecommerce platform allows you to modify the platform’s code. It requires knowledge of computer programming and web design, but it provides more flexibility and control over your online store.
You should choose between a website builder or an open source platform based on your comfort level with coding and design. If you want help, a website builder is a simple and easy ecommerce solution.
Conclusion
An e-commerce website, also commonly called a virtual shopping cart or a B2B (business to business) site, is an online store where people can buy and sell products and services, and do business with each other. There are many platforms available in the market today that provide all the things in place to create, launch and run an e-commerce business. These platforms vary in terms of features, price, security etc.
Selling online has become a necessity for many entrepreneurs whose small businesses are based on physical products. Retail websites give small business owners the ability to conduct sales 24/7, access thousands of new customers, and make more money than if they were limited to selling only from their local region. With so many ecommerce platforms available today, it’s important for business owners to understand how each platform functions.