I’ll be honest — I’m not a designer, but I am a web developer. I am passionate about creating online businesses that give entrepreneurs and small business owners the platform they need to succeed in today’s ecommerce world. For my consulting clientele, I have been working on a number of new web application projects that require more visual design than other web development work.
With the surge of ecommerce, it’s not surprising that there are many ecommerce tools for web designers and some of them quite good. In this article, I run through my top picks for you to consider and why. I’m going to discuss everything from payment solutions and shopping carts, to membership platforms and promotional tools.
Whether you want to sell your own product or not, most of us web designers want to earn more money. A web designer’s job is never done, especially if you hold yourself responsible for the success of your website. While in school we were told that looking into ecommerce tools for web designers and download websites templates for free will enable us to earn more.
If you’re a web designer and want to learn about ecommerce tools for web designers, this article is for you. I’ll talk about t-commerce tools list, development tools list and link building tools. All the other stuff I mention might be related to ecommerce too but they are more linked to web design in my opinion.
Top eCommerce Website Builders
MailChimp
MailChimp is another good email marketing automation software that allows you to customize your emails. You can send a welcome sequence to new subscribers automatically or send birthday wishes or any content you want.
Also, you can use it to prevent and recover from cart abandonment. If you want to personalize your order notifications from your store or re-engage with inactive customers, MailChimp is for you!
For those who are looking for effective email marketing automation software, it is a great tool to use.
Pricing is not that affordable when you compare it to other marketing automation software. It’s free for up to 2,000 contacts. However, it costs upwards of $425 or more per month depending on your total number of subscribers.
Pros:
- Saves templates and contacts so you won’t have to start over everytime
- Provides an internal database that helps you store contacts
- Intuitive interface
Cons:
- Understanding list segmentation can be a bit tricky.
- Since they price based on the number of contacts, it can quickly get pretty expensive.
Pricing
Free plan available with 2,000 contacts. Paid plans start at $10/mo for 500 contacts with custom branding and A/B testing.
G2 Rating: 4.3 out of 5
Wishpond
Wishpond is not only concentrating on your email marketing automation but also covers a large portion of your marketing needs.
You can use Wishpond to,
- capture leads
- create landing pages
- run social content, promotions, and discounts.
Wishpond has some functional features like other email marketing automation software that I’ve mentioned above. Dripping campaigns, customizing emails, and benefitting from real-time analytics and integrations might be given as examples.
You can track each lead in your database with a comprehensive overview. That means you can track your visitor’s activity individually.
It offers various packages for pricing but when you consider the service you get, it has reasonable pricing plans.
Pros:
- Excellent customer support
- Drag and drop feature
Cons:
- No search bar to search a particular lead
- Lag between campaigns
- Unreliable email deliverability (based on user reviews)
Pricing
Staring at $49/mo for 1,000 leads. You can schedule a demo for a custom plan.
G2 Rating: 3.9 out of 5
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.
Trello
Trello’s platform makes it simple and manageable to create spreadsheets, emails, and do tasks that involve major teamwork and collaboration.
Projects, tasks, and assignments are all transparent – all team members can see what everyone else is doing, as well as what tasks are pending by accessing the relevant board and cards. This makes for excellent productivity.
Figma
This flexible design platform helps demonstrate designs over the web. Designers and developers working independently or in a digital agency should consider adding Figma to their web design tools inventory for easy collaboration and real-time feedback from their clients.
With Figma, there is no need for other third-party tools to enable the exchange of mockups or updates. What’s more, its in-app commenting feature eases design review feedback without the need for making constant design updates.
Larq
LARQ uses crisp product images and animations to make us genuinely excited about something as simple as drinking water. The reusable water bottle retailer persuades us to join their Bottle Movement and explore more of their stylish products through spot-on copywriting, color-block product features and an interactive plastic waste calculator.
Adding multi-regional capabilities (using BigCommerce) was another pivotal moment. According to LARQ, their conversions increased by 80% within three months.
Burrow
Modular furniture retailer Burrow skipped words in favor of a home page video to demonstrate their main value proposition — assembling new furniture can be fun, quick, and tool-less. Using a mix of product and lifestyle pics, Burrow makes it easy to picture their latest designs in your home, customize them for the right fit, and order in several clicks.
Revelry
Revelry knows that swatches are the shortcut to any bride’s wallet when it comes to the bridesmaids’ dresses — not to mention free sample delivery and at-home try-ons for the entire party. Both options have a prominent spot on the e-tailer’s homepage, along with excellent category navigation that allows customers to discover different dress styles, materials, and colors.
Advantages of Ecommerce
Low Financial Cost
One of the ecommerce benefits is that it has a lower startup cost. Physical retail stores have to pay up to thousands of dollars to rent one of their store locations. They also have several upfront costs such as store signs, store design, buying inventory, sales equipment, and more. And let’s not forget, the store owner also has to hire staff to work and run each location. They may also need to hire security staff depending on the product value in the store.
However, for an ecommerce dropshipping store, startup costs are estimated at $418and ecommerce stores only pay $3192 a year on Shopify at most for virtual ‘rent’. Shopify also includes an easy to use platform, hosting, free Shopify themes, great apps, and lots of other great perks.
Depending on what type of ecommerce business you run, you may only need to hire employees when you grow to a certain level. As your online store is online, these employees can work remotely, making it easier to find staff that will suit your company.If you choose to dropship online, you won’t need to buy bulk inventory saving you a lot of money.
Branding is also cheaper with ecommerce. Your store logo is often more affordable than a store sign. And graphic designers (yes, even the best ones), often cost less than what an offline paint job will cost you. Your business expenses are generally much lower., which is one of the most attractive benefits for new entrepreneurs.
Easy to Showcase Bestsellers
Ecommerce benefits like displaying best-sellers make it easier to show off products to your customers. While you can design a brick and mortar store to sway people to buy certain products, compared to going through different aisles and shelves, it’s easier for a customer to find the best-sellers in an online store.
The reason why you want customers to buy your best-sellers is that they’re proven. Other customers have already bought them and are happy with their purchase. If you want to showcase new products to customers, you can include them in your upsell, email marketing, or retargeting ads. With an ecommerce store, you can include great product photography and product descriptions to sway the customer’s choice.
Personalized Online Experience
Website personalization can help enhance the online shopping experience. One of the biggest online business advantages is that you get to create personalized landing pages for different audiences. This can entice them to buy from you without much extra work on your part. It is not like customers coming into a physical store who you need to nurture from the first minute. You can do all the hard work before you launch a campaign and then relax once you start marketing to your customer base.
You can also personalize the experience you provide through your email marketing campaigns. Try segmenting your email lists based on purchases made, location, or even how much money a customer spent. Another recommendation is to retarget customers who visited your online store, showing them an ad for a product they added to their cart and forgot about. If your online business has a login feature, you can have a welcome message appear such as ‘Welcome back (name).’
Product bundles can help the customer buy more for a better price, increasing the average order value. You can also personalize upsells based on what the customer has looked at or what you think they might like based on their purchase behavior.
Conclusion:
Whether you’re a freelance web designer, or running an agency, you will still be required (unless you’re lucky enough to only work with one client) to create and set up ecommerce websites for clients. If it’s your first time, this can be daunting, as there are so many different platforms at your disposal.
Ecommerce tools are a must when you’re designing or redesigning an ecommerce website. From payment solutions and sales analytics to shipping management, you’ll find that there’s a lot of tools out there that make it easy to jump into ecommerce web design. But at the same time, you may have a limited budget for both buying software and your own time to learn the intricacies of ecommerce solutions for web designers.