The Best Ecommerce Website Builder
Every great online store starts from the same place—with an eCommerce website builder. These tools make it easy for anyone to launch an eCommerce business by building a website from scratch.
So if you’re interested in selling products or services on the web, you’ll need to find an ecommerce builder to create your online store.
You don’t have to have any web design experience whatsoever to get started. To find an option that suits your goals, check out recommendations below.
You’ll find in-depth reviews of the best ecommerce website builders.
#1 – Wix Review — The Best Drag-and-Drop Ecommerce Builder
Wix is one of the best overall site builders on the market today. The platform can be used to create any website—including ecommerce sites.
More than 160 million people across the globe have used Wix to create a website from scratch. There’s no code to write, no technology to master. If you know what you want, you can build it in Wix.
Wix is a great option for beginners. Anyone can use this platform to build an ecommerce site, regardless of technical skill level. Here’s what makes Wix so great:
- Intuitive drag-and-drop site builder
- 500+ stunning templates
- Optimized for SEO
- App marketplace for custom functions
- Advanced design features like video backgrounds, animations, and scroll effects
- Mobile-optimized ecommerce site
- Custom domain, free hosting, and free SSL certificate
- Supports multiple payment methods
- Product pages and store manager tools
- $300 in advertising vouchers
- 24/7 customer care
- Unlimited products
Ecommerce plans from Wix start at $23. But I recommend starting with the Business Unlimited plan, at a minimum. It’s just $4 more per month and comes with enhanced features.
#2 – BigCommerce Review — The Best for Large Ecommerce Sites
BigCommerce is another industry leader in the ecommerce world. For more than a decade, this platform has served ecommerce sites in 120+ countries.
Over $25 billion in merchant sales have been powered by BigCommerce. It’s a great option for people who don’t want to hit annoying limits about what their site can and can’t do.
This platform is great for wholesalers, international ecommerce sites, B2B sellers, and multi-channel sales. For selling at scale, look no further than BigCommerce.
- Easy to use and secure platform
- Powerful ecommerce analytics and customer insights
- Drag-and-drop building tools with no coding required
- WordPress integration
- Custom checkout capabilities with checkout API and SDK
- Built-in Javascript, HTML, and CSS for full theme customization
- Optimized for mobile and SEO
- Built-in faceted search
- Cross-channel sales support (brick & mortar, social, marketplaces, etc.)
- Multiple currency support
- Global CDN
- Cross-border fulfillment
- Built-in payment processing
Overall, BigCommerce is my top recommendation for large ecommerce websites. If you want to sell online without restrictions, this will be a top option to consider.
#3 – Bluehost Review — The Best Turnkey WooCommerce Store Builder
It can be a hassle to get a WooCommerce store up and working brilliantly.
From managing the WordPress plugins—both WooCommerce itself and the companion plugins needed to power up WooCommerce for your needs—to conducting regular updates, health checks, backups and so on, building a WooCommerce store can be daunting.
With their specialized WooCommerce Online Stores offering, Bluehost has made setting up a WooCommerce store a breeze.
It starts with Bluehost’s Online Store Creation Experience, a tool that will guide you gently through initial store creation and product uploads.
I love this because Bluehost has long been one of WordPress’ recommended hosting providers. They get WordPress, so who better to trust with maximizing the best ecommerce store plugin for it?
And remember what I said above about companion plugins?
Well, Bluehost has picked out the top ones your web store will need and included them at no charge to you.
That’s a big deal since it would cost you $80 each to install and utilize USPS shipping, FedEx shipping, and UPS shipping, for just one example. Right off the bat, you get the three major shipping providers and Bluehost saves you $240.
And that’s just three of the many plugins included.
Bluehost is generous with included features beyond that, as well. In the basic package, you’re allowed unlimited products and access to traffic analytics, 24/7 support, easy payment processing, manual order creation, and much more.
Plus, you get a free year of CodeGuard Basic for regularly backing up your site.
All of this comes at a good price of $12.95/month if you agree to a 36-month commitment. But if you’re serious about running an ecommerce store, I’d expect you want to be around for at least three years.
Upgrade to Premium—which starts at $24.95/month for the same 36-month term—and you’ll also get the ability to sell subscriptions, customize your products on a deeper level, and book appointments online.
Plus, they’ll give you CodeGuard basic completely for free, as well as domain privacy and protection.
In essence, Bluehost is taking so much work, research, and upkeep off your hands, there’s no question that this is one of the easiest ways to build and maintain an ecommerce store on your WordPress site.
#4 – WooCommerce Review — The Best Ecommerce WordPress Plugin
If you currently have a WordPress website and need to add shopping cart functionality to it, WooCommerce will be the best option for you.
This plugin is built specifically for WordPress, and it’s one of the most popular WordPress plugins on the market today.
What makes WooCommerce so great? Let’s take a closer look:
- Fully customizable with features that can extend its functionality
- Flexible and open-source
- 140+ gateways and payment integrations
- Ability to manage orders on the go
- Supports physical products, digital products, and subscriptions
- Hundreds of free and paid extensions
- Fully scalable
- Developer-friendly with REST API
To get started with WooCommerce, you’ll need to have an existing WordPress site. That means you’ll have to handle the domain registration and hosting on your own as well.
The WooCommerce plugin is free to install.
#5 – Shopify Review — The Best Out-of-the-Box Ecommerce Functions
Shopify is king in the ecommerce space. Trusted by 1+ million websites in 175 countries, it’s one of the most popular ecommerce platforms available on the market today.
More than $200 billion in online sales have been facilitated via Shopify.
The platform is extremely versatile. Whether you’re starting a new ecommerce business from scratch or expanding your physical presence to an online store, Shopify can accommodate your needs. It comes with everything you need to build your website and start selling online:
- Industry-specific templates
- Supports multiple sales channels (point-of-sale, social media, online marketplaces, etc.)
- Drag-and-drop store builder
- 70+ templates
- Custom domains
- Secure checkout
- Gift cards
- 24/7 support
- Unlimited products
- Built-in payment processing
- Shipping discounts
- Marketing tools
- Business insights
Regardless of your business size or industry, Shopify’s ecommerce platform is versatile enough to support your site.