Tools for Building Ecommerce Website

Building an ecommerce website has become a trend for most online businesses. There are many tools available for ecommerce websites, in this article we present you some popular tools for building ecommerce sites to create and run your ecommerce store.

In researching this list, we looked at more than 50 different options for building eCommerce websites. There are solutions for every kind of business, from indie creatives to multinational corporations, but for this list, we focused on platforms that best fit the needs of small and medium businesses, especially those newly exploring selling online or selling physical products. This isn’t to say our picks won’t work for other kinds of businesses, but if you’re selling a couple of dollars a month worth of Lightroom presets or $5 million worth of potatoes, you might want to look elsewhere.

Building an ecommerce website takes more than just a great looking shopping cart. You’ll want to integrate your checkout process into your site, organize the logistics and shipping concerns, maybe even offer customer loyalty rewards. The great news is that there are a lot of free tools for building ecommerce websites available to help you manage all those aspects of your project.

There are many tools available for building ecommerce websites. It is important to find a tool that can not only help you with your business, but also save time and money. Here we bring you our favorite tools for building ecommerce businesses.

What makes a great eCommerce platform for small businesses?

How we evaluate and test apps

All of our best apps roundups are written by humans who’ve spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it’s intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We’re never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.

For small businesses looking to sell online, we identified five key features that every platform had to offer. There are other good platforms out there, but if they don’t offer a feature on the list, they didn’t make the cut.

• A hypothetical average person had to be able to build a good-looking, responsive, modern online store with the tools and themes offered—without needing a computer science or graphic design degree. They also had to be able to make it fit with their existing brand reasonably well by being able to use their own brand assets and color schemes. This one criteria actually eliminated quite a few platforms from consideration for being either too limited with boring, super similar, or outdated themes, or requiring too much technical know-how to make the most of.
• The platform had to enable you to sell whatever you want, wherever you want, however you want. This meant it had to be able to handle both digital and physical products and offer some way to manage sales taxes and international shipping. This last point is particularly important for small businesses: if you have physical premises or plan to sell internationally, you may be liable for collecting and filing various kinds of taxes.
• We only considered full-service eCommerce platforms. You need to be able to sell your product through a consumer-facing website, but also manage orders, ship goods, track inventory, and otherwise deal with the back-end running and admin of your store without using some other service or (please no) a giant spreadsheet.
• Whatever platform you choose, it has to play nice with any other apps and services you rely on for your business. For this reason, we required the apps on this list to have a range of integrations, either through a plug-in and extension marketplace or built-in features.
• All of this had to be available for a clear and affordable monthly price. Opaque fees were a big no, and while done-for-you solutions are wonderful, they cost thousands of dollars per month—far more than any SMB needs (or has) to spend on setting up an online store.

Shopify (Web, iOS, Android)

Shopify has been around for more than 15 years—with more than two million stores built using the platform—and it’s hard to find a better option for most small businesses looking to get an online store up and running quickly.

Sign up for a credit card-free 14-day trial, and within a few minutes, you can have a first build of your store ready to go. The onboarding wizard walks you through adding your products, customizing the look of your store, connecting your own domain, and getting set up to take those all-important payments.

Even if you’ve never built a website before, you’re unlikely to get lost in Shopify’s intuitive web app. Adding a product, for example, is as simple as clicking Products in the sidebar and then the Add Products button. Fill in the name, price, quantity you have on hand, and any other relevant details, change its status to Active, and it’s straight in your online store and ready to be sold.

While Shopify ticks most boxes right out of the gate, its extensibility and app store are what really make it such a powerful option. Take the theme situation: Shopify has 10 free themes and more than 50 paid themes starting from $140. To browse them, go to Themes, and then, under Theme Library, click Visit Theme Store. Not a bad selection, right?

But because Shopify is so popular, you can also find more than 1,300 themes available on ThemeForest or get a professional designer who is already experienced with the platform to make you a custom one.

It’s the same with almost any feature you could want. If it’s not built in to Shopify, you can find an extension, plug-in, or service that does it in the app store. Just go to apps.shopify.com, find the app you need, and click Add App. Head back to your Shopify dashboard and click Apps in the sidebar to manage all the ones you’ve installed.

It should be no surprise that Shopify integrates with Zapier, so if you want to automatically add new customers to your email marketing list, track orders with a project management tool, or connect Shopify to any of the other apps you use, you can do it easily. Add new Shopify customers to a Mailchimp list Use this Zap Create Trello cards from new Shopify orders Use this Zap See more Shopify integrations powered by

Shopify Price: Free for 14 days; from $29/month and 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for Basic Shopify plan with unlimited products

Square (Web, iOS, Android)

If you want the option to sell in-person, like at a farmer’s market or craft fair, as well as through your online store, Square is the best choice. Your online and offline orders are all organized under a single dashboard, so there’s no jumping between apps, trying to track down customer details using random spreadsheets, or having to enter things manually after the fact.

Square bought the website builder app Weebly in 2018, so when you set up your store, that’s what’s running under the hood. If you occasionally see a URL direct to weebly.com, it’s nothing to worry about. (Note: we noticed fewer Weebly URLs popping up in the most recent review.)

Square has some of the best onboarding around. When you sign up, you have to fill in a quick questionnaire about your business and its needs. You’ve got the option to set up a single booking page, a full online store, or simple checkout links, depending on what you’re looking for. The default theme will also be tweaked to match the business category you chose.

In terms of storefront customization, Square is a little more limited than some of the other options. Instead of picking a theme that does most of the work, with Square you have to make your own design using the (admittedly excellent) site builder—or you can hire a designer from $99 to do it for you.

From the Square Dashboard, click Online then click Website > Edit Site to get started. In the sidebar on the left, you can select the different page elements, or you can just click on them directly. For more options, click the three little dots. You can change the colors, fonts, and layout of everything individually and, of course, upload your own images. It works well, but it is a bit constrained.

You can create “items,” what Square calls products or services for sale, through both the regular Square Dashboard and the Square Online Dashboard, and they’ll be synced to a common Item Library. This means that you can sell the same products both online and off, or have some things you just list in one location. Just go to Items > Item Library, and click Create an Item.

When you want to make an in-person sale, open up the menu and select Virtual Terminal, which acts just like a digital cash register. If you have a Square credit card reader (available for free), you can swipe your customers’ cards for a 2.6% + $0.10 fee from Square, and their details will automatically upload to your account. Otherwise, you can type in your customers’ credit card information for a 3.5% + $0.15 fee per charge. Online, Square’s charges are similar. On the free plan, you’re charged 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.

Square also integrates with Zapier, so you can connect it to thousands of other apps to do things like post your in-person transactions to a Slack channel for the rest of the team to see or record the details using Airtable. Post new Square transactions to a Slack channel Use this Zap Add new Square transactions to Airtable as records Use this Zap See more Square integrations powered by

Square Price: Free with 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for unlimited products and a Square branded site; from $12/month billed annually with 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction to use a custom domain and remove ads.

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. Send Ecwid order notifications by text using Twilio Use this Zap Add line items from new Ecwid paid orders to Google Sheets as multiple rows Use this Zap See more Ecwid by Lightspeed integrations powered by

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. Add new BigCommerce customers to a ConvertKit tag Use this Zap Create Salesforce contacts from new BigCommerce orders Use this Zap See more BigCommerce integrations powered by

BigCommerce Price: Free for 15 days; from $29.95/month Standard Plan for unlimited products; transaction fees depend on payment gateway.

WooCommerce (Web, iOS, Android)

Most eCommerce solutions work best if you use them to build your full online store, rather than to add payment processing to your existing site. It’s just simpler if everything runs seamlessly from a single dashboard and is built using the same tools. What, then, do you do if you already have a website set up?

Well, presuming you use a service like Squarespace or Weebly, then their built-in tools should be your first option. But if, like huge swaths of the internet, you use WordPress, then WooCommerce is your best bet. Instead of starting over on a different platform, this WordPress plugin seamlessly integrates into your WordPress site for easy selling.

Installing WooCommerce on your site is ridiculously easy. Sign up on WooCommerce’s website. Then, when you reach the final step of the onboarding process, select Auto-install WooCommerce on an existing WordPress site. You’ll be prompted to log in and then set up the plugin. If you’re already rocking WordPress, it couldn’t be handier.

Similarly, WooCommerce slots perfectly into your existing backend. You can manage your orders, create coupons, and view sales reports from your WordPress dashboard. Adding new products is as simple as creating a typical post—since WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, it has the same interface as WordPress, which means that you won’t have to take the time to learn a new platform. The only difference between adding a new product and creating a new post is that you’ll have to add specific information about your product, such as a description, image, categories, and tags.

If WooCommerce doesn’t have some features you need, there’s a serious extensions marketplace. WooCommerce offers a variety of free and paid options that can enhance your store: get real-time shipping rates with the USPS extension, integrate various payment gateways, or add WooCommerce Subscriptions to let your customers subscribe to your product, services, or even your paid newsletter. You can also combine these extensions with any plugins from WordPress to customize your store even more.

You can connect WooCommerce to thousands of other apps with Zapier, to do things like saving orders to a spreadsheet or adding new customers to your email marketing tool. Save new WooCommerce orders to Google Sheets rows Use this Zap Add new WooCommerce customers to ActiveCampaign Use this Zap See more WooCommerce integrations powered by

WooCommerce Price: Free for standard features on a self-hosted WordPress site; from $29 for additional extensions; transaction fees depend on payment gateway. WooCommerce is included in the $45/month billed annually eCommerce plan from WordPress.com.

Wix (Web, iOS, Android)

Most eCommerce platforms make it possible for you to add an about page, contact page, or even a basic blog to your site, but it’s normally more of an add-on than an out-and-out feature. If you’re looking to build a full website where an online store is a part of things, but not the whole package, then Wix is your best option. It’s a powerful site builder—but it doesn’t skimp on the eCommerce features like order tracking, automated sales tax, and abandoned cart recovery.

When you first sign up, you tell Wix what kind of site you’re looking to build, and it makes a few suggestions. Then you get the option to choose from one of more than 500 templates and make your own site, or answer a few more questions and let Wix’s “Artificial Design Intelligence” or ADI do it for you.

The ADI option is surprisingly quick and effective. Click Start Now, and, after answering a few questions about what you plan to sell and what sort of look you like, selecting the features and pages you want to add to your site, and adding your details, you’ll have a site ready to go in a few short moments. You can even import content from an existing site or Google My Business listing. And, of course, you can dive in and customize things further once Wix’s robo-designers are done.

With so much going on, Wix’s onboarding to-do list is long but comprehensive. In addition to adding things like shipping rates and your shop’s opening hours (if you have physical premises), you’re guided through setting up a professional email address, building an email list, advertising on Google and Facebook, setting up a payment gateway, and a lot more. At times, it might veer a little close to hand-holding, but too much guidance is better than too little.

Wix is one of the most popular site builders around, so there’s also a healthy third-party app and extension marketplace. If you want to integrate your store with accounting services like QuickBooks or shipping coordinators like Shippo, there’s a simple one-click install app. Or you can use Zapier and connect Wix to thousands of other apps like Trello and Google Tasks.

EngageBay

EngageBay is a platform that offers customer relationship management (CRM), marketing automation tools, a help desk, and live chat, all in one. It’s ideal to help with managing contacts, proposals and deals, sales, and scheduling appointments. You can also use it to build landing pages, forms, and email sequences.

Before, during, and after the sale, you need tools to help you manage your customer service. The help desk and live chat software help you do just that.

It integrates with many popular apps, including:

• Shopify
• BigCommerce
• WooCommerce
• DocuSign
• ReCaptcha
• Stripe
• Zapier
• And more…

Users can get the whole stack, or purchase only what they need. They’ve got a free plan for up to 15 users with no credit card required.

• The all-in-one pricing is $14.99/user/month.
• The Marketing tools are priced at $12.99/user/month.
• The CRM & Sales Bay tools are priced at 12.99/user/month.
• The Service Bay, or help desk plan, is free.

You can save 10% by signing up for an annual plan, and 20% with a biennial plan.

ProTexting

ProTexting is a SMS and MMS messaging platform that works in over 200 countries, with all languages supported. All major US carriers are supported, including AT&T, Verizon, TMobile, and U.S. Cellular. The platform operates in compliance with all mobile marketing rules and regulations.

Beyond text and multimedia messaging, Protexting also works with social media messaging. Multiple integrations are available, including:

• Shopify
• Constant Contact
• MailChimp
• Amazon Seller Central
• Zapier
• Custom integrations are available via API access

Pricing starts at $49/month for 1,000 credits and one keyword. If your business exceeds the limits of the Corporate plan at $499/month for 11,000 credits and 8 keywords, you can request a custom plan. There are no contracts or setup fees. Discounts are available for annual plans.

All plans include:

• Free unlimited signups
• Instant access to a text code
• Free unlimited incoming messages
• The option to change your keywords at any time
• MMS
• Unlimited email and phone support

Omnisend

When it’s time to get serious about email marketing for ecommerce, many online sellers will find that generalized email marketing tools won’t work for them. After all, why settle for fewer features when there are email marketing platforms built specifically for ecommerce needs? 

This is where Omnisend comes in. Packed with ecommerce-focused workflow and email templates, features that allow you to pull merchandise directly from your online store, and custom discount codes you set up in a matter of clicks, Omnisend offers a platform that responds directly to the specific needs of anyone selling online. From customizable marketing automation templates to a visual drag-and-drop email builder, Omnisend makes email marketing easy for ecommerce merchants. 

Omnisend offers a free plan for basic email marketing, and automation comes included with their Standard Plan (starting at $16 per month). They also offer free SMS credits to try out SMS marketing with their Pro Plan ($99 per month). You can test any of their paid plans with a free 14-day trial. 

Campaign Monitor

Offering seven levels of pricing ranging from $9/month-$899/month, Campaign Monitor offers a lot of price points for customers, but no free plan. The ouch point? This email campaign automation SaaS is MUCH pricier than competitors like MailChimp. There are fewer templates to use than most competitors, too, but the design quality is higher. Sticking with the theme of great design, the UX is amazing, and the drag-and-drop editor is beautifully simple. Importing data is a snap, and you can target and segment your list in beautifully complex ways. The tool includes a landing page creator, but it can be clunky to use. Support options are also limited. If you’ve got the cash and list size to opt for the unlimited plan, it might be worth your while. Otherwise, there are better tools available for less.

Feeds4

Feeds4.com is created to aggregate and distribute content for affiliate marketing. They provide assistance to merchants in distributing promotional content all over the web and facilitate importing of promotional content from merchants through convenient API, publisher platform, and code examples. Feeds4 offers Coupon Datafeed Plans starting at $99 per month.

Active Campaign

Although the user interface could be better and the sheer amount of data on your dashboard will probably intimidate you, Active Campaign has a great reputation for updating and changing based on user comments. A free trial is available and paid plans range from $9-$415/month based on the number of contacts on your list and user accounts you need. You can run a single campaign or base all of your email marketing out of Active Campaign, and trust their hefty analytics to help you make the most of the resulting data. One caveat if you’re thinking about this option: if you want to see how your email campaign looks on different devices and browsers, you’ll have to pay. Prices for these platform tests range from $5 for 5 tests to $60 for 100 tests.

Bulk.ly

In the world of simple social, Bulk.ly dominates by allowing you to upload a spreadsheet of social media posts and sending them to your Buffer account. You can shuffle post order, add relevant hashtags, categorize, and drip schedule your social media from a single CSV file. The tool makes content curation hassle-free but is still in beta, so you’ll need to request an invite if you want to use this tool. If you want to test the app, a 7-day free trial is available.

Buffer

Content is still king, despite yearly predictions that its reign will end. Tracking your social media audience’s interest in topics, planning your social media calendar, and boosting engagement are easy with the Buffer app. The browser extension makes it almost too easy, and the analytics dashboard offers interesting insights into your audience’s behavior. Individual plans range from $0-$10 but don’t include the analytics tools, RSS feed, or the social calendar. Team and agency plans range from $99-$399. Prices are annual. The free plan does not integrate with Pinterest, and all premium plans have a limit of 2000 posts per month, regardless of the number of users (up to 25 team members can be added to 150 total social accounts on the most expensive plan).

OmniStar (OSI Affiliate)

OSI Affiliate software is a web based software solution that allows any business to set up and manage their own affiliate or referral programs.  The software includes tools that will allow affiliates to promote via email, social media or directly on their own websites.  Through the administrative control panel the affiliate manager will be able to effectively track the activity and commissions earned of each affiliate. The commissions can also be easily paid through our direct integration with PayPal.

Antavo

Anything that makes shopping and interacting with your brand fun is going to drive sales. That’s the principle behind the gamification mindset, and you’ll find it echoed in Antavo’s app. Used by top retailers and small brands alike, Antavo will work to manage loyalty for your ecommerce store online and via mobile with more than 40 loyalty schemes. Pricing is quoted individually, based on your ecommerce store’s needs.

Smile.io

An alternative to Antovo, Smile.io offers points and rewards, encourages referrals from your customers, and helps you shower extra goodies on your top customers. The app is the new incarnation of Sweet Tooth, and has more than 15,000 active stores using it. Plans are available for ecommerce shops of all sizes, from single-person, single-product stores to massive ecommerce enterprises. The open API allows developers to integrate the app with any platform, and integrations with BigCommerce and Shopify are included right out of the box. Basic membership is $59/month, Small Business membership is $199/month, and Professional membership is $399/month. Enterprise clients are given custom quotes

eCommerce platform fees

While we’re talking about pricing, it can get a little complicated with eCommerce platforms as they charge a little differently from other services. There are three kinds of fees you may have to pay for an eCommerce website builder:

• Monthly fee. This is anything from free to a few hundred dollars and goes straight to the platform. For most of the options on this list, expect to pay around $30 for a basic plan.
• Payment gateway fees. These are the fees you pay when you process a credit card charge. The normal fee is around 2.9% plus an additional $0.30, although this goes down with volume and higher upfront payments. Some platforms, like Wix and Shopify, operate their own payment gateways that you can choose to use, while others rely on Stripe, PayPal, and similar services.
• Transaction fees. These are another percentage-based fee that’s on top of any gateway fees. A lot of services bill themselves as having 0% transaction fees, but this merely means there’s no extra charge. Other services charge a 1% or 2% transaction fee if you don’t use their gateway.

Let’s give this a quick example using Shopify’s current pricing. A Basic plan costs $29/month. On top of that, you pay 2.9% + $0.30 for each transaction. There’s also a 2% transaction fee if you want to use a different payment gateway.

This means that if you were to sell 10 T-shirts at $50, you would pay Shopify $29 for your monthly plan, and $1.75 for each T-shirt sold. That’s a total of $46.50. Of course, if you had a month where you didn’t sell any T-shirts, you’d only pay $29, or if you had a great month where you sold 50, you’d pay $116.50.

Also, if you sold 10 T-shirts but decided to use Stripe’s payment gateway instead, you’d pay Shopify $39 ($29 plus $1 for each T-shirt sold) and Stripe $17.50 (2.9% + $0.30 for each T-shirt), for a total of $56.50.

As you can see, your monthly costs will vary based on what options you choose and how you run your business. We’d recommend doing a few back-of-the-envelope calculations when you’re selecting your plan and payment gateway, just to see what will work out best for you. We’ve avoided services with unreasonably high fees and transaction charges, or ridiculous volume expectations, but run some numbers to be sure.

Conclusion

Building an ecommerce website can be time consuming and overwhelming if you aren’t familiar with the right tools on the market. I don’t know about you but when I’m trying to get a project done, the last thing I want is to work harder, not smarter. As someone who works online all day, my tools of choice need to be simple, effective and easy to use.

There are literally thousands of tools available online. Many of them are designed to help you achieve your goals. If you want to build a website, you’re in luck because there are many e-commerce website builders that will create a site for you at a low cost (perhaps for free). It’s also easy to find information about e-commerce platforms and tools including Magento, Shopify, Squarespace, and WooCommerce. Just Google “tools for building an e-commerce website” and you get almost half a million results!