Are you curious about design tools for ecommerce website? I’ve got your covered. In this article, we will explore options for the essential ecommerce website design tools. We will also cover what to look for when you are choosing a tool to use. There are tons of options available which is why we will cover a few of the top choices that are out there. Ecommerce websites have become very popular over the last 10 years. And while they do offer some unique challenges in regards to web design and development, they also come along with some unique software options to help you create them. Let’s take a look at these options for ecommerce websites in more detail.
Ecommerce Websites are a big advantage over traditional business worlds. It can maintain higher customer satisfaction and increase customer buying experience. Commerce website design is more complex and powerful than an average website as it serves the purpose of show room and online shopping sites both.
If you are an ecommerce entrepreneur and have a web-site with your products, then you probably have faced the challenges of having a nice looking design for your online shop. The main reason is you understand how customers judge online products and just don’t trust any website that doesn’t look professional or does not make it easy for them to search for the product they want.
If you are a web designer and have been working hard on numerous ecommerce platforms, trying to come up with better design tools for your clients can be a daunting task. There is an overwhelming number of e-commerce platforms, both on the web and mobile. Finding just the right platform to sell your goods online can be tricky.
4 Types of Necessary Tools
1. Website Builders/eCommerce platforms
These days, there are various choices of eCommerce platforms designed to take out almost all of the heavy lifting typically associated with building and designing your site. Most of these out-of-the-box SaaS solutions act as a one-stop-shop for all of your eCommerce needs, packed with tons of features and tools that help you manage your business. Some of the most popular eCommerce platforms include:
Most of these services let you pick from a variety of pre-installed themes and styles, which you can then alter with drag-and-drop tools. This means that you don’t need to be a tech savant or a coding wizard to create a store, and if you get stuck, technical support is usually available to help. Additionally, eCommerce platforms manage essential parts of your business, including inventory management, SEO, payment processing, and more. Some even take care of your store’s hosting and domain name registration!
2. Web Accessibility Tool
Unfortunately, web accessibility is a far too often neglected topic. While the world of eCommerce grows exponentially, very little has been done to make online stores more accessible to those who lack the skills, knowledge, or physical/mental ability to properly use these sites. In the USA, 26% (one in 4) of adults have some type of disability, which works out to be around 61 million people.
Interestingly, this same demographic is estimated to possess hundreds of billions of dollars in disposable income, which is a tremendous amount of buying power that is severely underrepresented in the marketplace. With this in mind, you must put provisions in place to make your website more accessible to all kinds of customers, including those with disabilities.
So can you go about this? The truth is that manually customizing your website to be more accessible is not easy. It takes time, skill, and knowledge of web accessibility to make sure your efforts are worthwhile.
Fortunately, tech start-up accessiBe has developed an AI-powered automated tool that enables you to create an exceptional digital experience for people with disabilities without having to lift a finger. Their product will bring your business in line with ADA and WCAG guidelines which will prevent lawsuits, but more importantly, it will improve the user experience for all visitors on your site.
3. Email Marketing Tool
Email marketing is an invaluable tool for all online businesses, and eCommerce is no different. The great thing about owning an email list is the simple fact that you can initiate direct contact with your audience without the need for a third party. You see, when you build an audience on social media, through Shopify, or even on a blog or YouTube, all it takes is for the platform to cease operations or change its policy, and you could be left without a customer base.
Tools like MailChimp make it simple to build an email list as they can usually be integrated directly into your eCommerce platform. Once you’ve accumulated enough subscribers, you can launch coordinated marketing campaigns to promote your brand, new items, and sales events. It also assists in the tracking of abandoned shopping carts and automatically sends follow-ups emails to existing customers, which helps to increase conversions.
4. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
The art of keeping customers happy is fundamental for any business to succeed. Regardless of which e-commerce channel you have chosen, you need to know who your customers are, their needs, how you can reach them, their preferred methods of engagement, and their buying patterns. Once you’ve got all that down, you can start to put steps in place to make customer satisfaction your number one priority so you can keep them coming back time and time again.
One great set of tools that allow you to gain valuable insights into your customers are customer relationship management (CRM) systems. These platforms will enable you to analyze past, current, and future customers on a variety of levels. With this customer relationship data, you have the power to improve your business in specific ways, mainly through providing a more personalized experience for your customers as you slowly refine your strategy through a series of trial and error. Currently, there are tons of tools out there for you to experiment with, such as Zoho, which includes functionality for sales automation, marketing, reporting, and forecasting.
1. Shopify the best ecommerce platform
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.
Check out the full Shopify review if you’d like to learn more. For more info about Shopify Payments check out our review here, and for more info about Shopify’s pricing plans check out our full guide here.
2. 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.
Check out the full Wix review if you’d like to learn more.
3. 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.
Check out the full BigCommerce review if you’d like to learn more.
4. Squarespace
Squarespace delivers a stunning web design interface, with some of the more remarkable and modern templates out there. It’s important to remember that Squarespace is primarily for building regular websites, but it does have a nice Commerce plan starting at $26 per month. All you have to do is hook up your payment processor, choose a theme and get selling.
We recommend this ecommerce website builder for companies that are interested in a more modern, media-based look, while also focusing on minimalism. The features are there for social media, design, inventory and marketing, literally anything that a new ecommerce store might need. However, at the same time, you shouldn’t expect to build a huge store with Squarespace since that’s not what it’s meant to do.
What are the features and offerings that make Squarespace special?
- The themes are even better than Shopify’s (and you can get third-party themes if you want to).
- The sites run smoothly, and they always seem to load pages quickly.
- The 24/7 support is helpful, and we really like the live chat support.
- Connect with customers through full social media integration, sell on Facebook and Instagram.
- SEO features are solid.
- There are great tracking tools for your overall website traffic as well as sales.
What may turn you off of Squarespace?
- The only payment options are Stripe, PayPal and Apple Pay.
- Abandoned cart recovery is available only on the $40 / month plan.
- Some of the themes aren’t necessarily built for ecommerce websites so you need to be careful when picking your design.
Who should use this ecommerce site builder?
Squarespace is a great “website building tool” all around. It gives you the full package of tools that you might need on your way to DIY a website – and these tools include ecommerce features as well. That said, we recommend you check out Squarespace only if you don’t like Shopify for some reason.
Check out the full Squarespace review if you’d like to learn more.
5. Square Online
Square Online is an interesting solution if you’re looking for an ecommerce website builder.
Actually, the Square company began as a provider of storefront hardware for businesses that wanted to start accepting credit cards. This wasn’t such a straightforward thing a mere couple of years ago.
Even to this day, businesses can get Square’s easy-to-use credit card readers, cash registers, and other equipment that makes their day-to-day easier.
And now, on top of all that, you can also build a fully-fledged ecommerce store using Square Online. The tool is very easy to use, and the onboarding sequence gets you through the most key stages smoothly.
Lastly, Square Online has a quite attractive pricing. Actually, that would be an understatement. Square Online comes with an entirely free plan. What’s even more interesting (and uncommon compared to the competition) is that Square doesn’t limit the number of products you can have in your store on that free plan.
In case you need more features and want to be able to brand your store website better – with a custom domain name and without Square’s own branding – you can upgrade to one of the paid plans, which start from $12 a month.
What are the features and offerings that make Square Online special?
- There’s an entirely free plan that doesn’t limit the number of products and sales you can get. Plus, you also get unlimited file storage and bandwidth.
- The paid plans are very affordable, starting at $12 a month.
- Square Online lets you set up unique types of ecommerce offerings such as restaurant table bookings, event ticket selling, appointment bookings, donations, and more.
- Whatever you sell can be set up with standard shipping, but also pickup or delivery.
- Square’s famous POS equipment will make it easy for you to open up a storefront and have it integrated with your online operation seamlessly if you ever want to.
- There’s 24/7 customer support via live chat and phone.
What may turn you off from Square Online?
- Not all features seem to be available internationally, which makes Square Online a viable solution mostly for US-based businesses.
Who should use this ecommerce site builder?
Square Online is a great solution for two kinds of businesses. First, if you are a US-based business, you already have a storefront, and you want to make sure that whatever you’re going to be doing online will integrate well with what you’re doing in the storefront already. You can get Square equipment to seamlessly link your offline and online activities.
Second, Square Online is also a good solution for new businesses that want to launch an online store as soon as possible and not deal with any technical aspects of the task. At the same time, such businesses can later join Square’s suite of offline tools as well. This means that Square can fit the current needs of your business, whatever they might be. Thus, you will probably not have to change your ecommerce platform as you grow.
Check out our full Square Online review if you’d like to learn more.
6. WordPress with WooCommerce
Every ecommerce website builder listed above is considered “hosted.” This means that you pay for a monthly ecommerce solution and the hosting is packaged in with it. However, you have a few solutions that are considered “self-hosted,” meaning that apart from getting the ecommerce software itself, you must also find your own web hosting and pay for it as a separate investment. In this model, the ecommerce software often comes for free and is open source.
A self-hosted system requires a beginner to intermediate level of website knowledge, while the hosted options are usually out-of-the-box products. That being said, installing WordPress and WooCommerce is not difficult, and some hosting companies offer to take care of that installation for you as soon as you sign up (SiteGround does this, for instance).
Currently, the best such self-hosted ecommerce option in the market is the pairing we’re looking into here – WordPress and WooCommerce.
WordPress is a website engine – a piece of web software that allows you to build and run a website in a user-friendly way. WooCommerce is a plugin that you install on top of WordPress to turn it into a fully fledged ecommerce store.
What are the features and offerings that make WooCommerce special?
- The software itself is free and has a quick installation process.
- If you know how to use WordPress, this is a great choice to ensure that you can scale up properly.
- You maintain full control of your ecommerce website.
- You have access to powerfull blogging tools
- WooCommerce gives out an excellent ecommerce theme called Storefront, along with a handful of child themes that all look great.
- Since the WooCommerce is open-source, thousands of other themes are sold all over the internet.
- If a feature isn’t packaged into WooCommerce, you can go out and find a WordPress plugin to help out. Basically the options are endless with this.
- Great SEO tools available.
What may turn you off of WooCommerce?
- You have to go out and get your own hosting and your own domain name.
- Coding knowledge is often preferable to really get in there and customize things.
- You may have to hire someone who knows what they are doing.
- There’s no customer support with WordPress per se. All you get is the support provided by your web host.
Who should use this ecommerce builder?
WooCommerce is the best 100% DIY ecommerce website builder in the market. It lets retain full control of your website and also modify every little detail of it. WooCommerce and WordPress are both open source. The only downside is that you do need to be comfortable around things like servers and things related.
Check out how to build a store with WooCommerce here.
7. Magento
There are two sides to Magento as an ecommerce website builder. First, there’s the open-source solution that’s similar to the idea of WooCommerce. This one is free, but you need to buy your own hosting and domain. Then, there’s the hosted solution, similar to the other tools on this list. This one is really expensive. Like, $50,000 expensive.
Setting that aside, Magento is one of the most advanced ecommerce platforms in the market, and it’s used by some of the biggest companies in the world. It has almost endless ability to scale up with no problems, so it’s going to be best suited for larger stores.
What are the features and offerings that make Magento special?
- Suitable to handle stores of any size and volume of sales. Great for enterprise solutions.
- Frontend customization is endless.
- The backend is user-friendly and provides all the code editing tools you need.
- Market your products with wishlists, discounts and upsells.
- Lots of apps are available from third party sellers.
What may turn you off of Magento?
- It has a learning curve if you want to install it yourself, so paying for a developer is common.
- The hosted option of Magento is above expensive ($50,000 or so). This is a price tag that none of the other ecommerce website builders even come close to.
- It has so many features that many people get overwhelmed.
- You have to find your own hosting and domain name if you go for the open-source version.
Who should use this online store builder?
Magento is a great solution for enterprise and stores handling a huge volume of sales. The learning curve makes it a tough choice for beginners or small teams that don’t have the resources to work on the platform.
Check out the full Magento review if you’d like to learn more.
Benefits of product design software for e-commerce businesses
- More freedom to customers
E-commerce stores are leveraging the software for product designing and ensuring more freedom and choices to their customers. The software, once integrated, will help anyone design, customize and personalize the look and feel of items like t-shirt, shoe, mug, greeting cards, mobile skin, etc. and get value for their money. Before the arrival of the software, buyers could not browse through the product range at online stores and choose what sellers though good for them. The software has clearly altered the landscape of shopping and customers couldn’t have asked for more from e-commerce shops.
- Less budget in managing operations
The popularity and ever-growing usages of software for product designing has get rid online stores of the need to maintain a huge stock and inventory. There will be no need to invest heavily in stocking items to meet and exceed the expectations of customers. Rather, e-commerce stores can now let their customers take the centre-stage and rely more on designing their products rather than choosing from what is available on the store. Clearly, e-commerce is no longer the budget-intensive domain as all the money that were earlier required to maintain stocks can be saved easily.
- Keeping pace with the market trends
E-commerce need to stay relevant to the tides and trends of the market. If they can’t, how will they deliver value to customers whose tastes and preferences keep changing with time? Thanks to the emergence of product designing concept, online stores are better placed than ever before to meet specific requirements of their customers in the form of option of product designing. Your online store needn’t invest elsewhere when it can trust the innovation and enrich customers with product designing features.
- Add product designing dimension to online shopping
Online shopping is making a gradual shift towards more choices and options to customers. Today, e-commerce shops want their target audience to design products on own and deliver value. Take for example, rather than stuffing the store with different t-shirt and shoe designs, shops are rather letting their customers do the design work all by themselves and get the value in return. The only responsibility of online stores is to give buyers the opportunity and then wait for sales to skyrocket.
Conclusion
Web designers have come a long way since the advent of ecommerce and their usage of design tools for ecommerce has changed accordingly. Design tools for ecommerce have progressed in tandem, as well as the development of various platforms and features. However, it’s important to point out that design tools for ecommerce are web designers’ secret weapon when it comes to creating an attractive and, most importantly, unique design canvas.
There are many tools you can use, many SEO best practices you can follow, but nothing beats a great design. No matter how you plan to sell online and big or small your ecommerce business is, drop us a line and we’ll turn your idea into a website that sells.