An online store builder is a website platform with features tailored exclusively for e-commerce sales. With it, you can market physical products, digital products for download, offline and online services, and even reserve appointments in advance to market classes online. It is of great essence to make a comparison of different online store builders when choosing your online business.
Whether your business is all digital or you have a physical store and want to expand online, it’s important to give your customers a memorable online shopping experience.
It’s not enough to have a website that looks good. If you want clients to keep shopping at your online store, your website must have the functionality, style, and capacity to produce the kind of memorable experience that customers have grown to expect from today’s brands.
Choosing an online store builder
Your business needs to be represented in the best and most functional way possible to grow online.
Various online store builders offer different features at different rates. Knowing the one that suits your business is a great guide to choosing and making an informed decision.
But that is not all. Choosing the best builder involves more than just considering what’s best for your business as it is right now. Investing in a platform that can grow with you will help you improve customer satisfaction and your bottom line by lowering friction between your products and customers.
This online store builders comparison article delves into the benefits and drawbacks of the best platforms to help you choose the best for your business.
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| Online Store Builders | Olitt | BigCommerce | Square Online | Shopify | Wix | Squarespace |
| Overall Rating | 4.13 | 4.1 | 4.2 | 4.6 | 4.7 | 4.5 |
| Best Store Type | Best for new online stores | Best for a purely online store | Sell for free | Best for large online stores | Best for the small online stores | Best value for money |
| Ease of Use | 4.0 out of 5 | 3.3 out of 5 | 3.9 out of 5 | 3.5 out of 5 | 4 out of 5 | 4.2 out of 5 |
| Customer Support | 4 out of 5 | 3.1 out of 5 | 3.6 out of 5 | 4.7 out of 5 | 4 out of 5 | 4.3 out of 5 |
| Sales Functionality | 4 out of 5 | 4.6 out of 5 | 3.5 out of 5 | 4.5 out of 5 | 4.4 out of 5 | 3.4 out of 5 |
| Value of Money | 4.5 out of 5 | 5 out of 5 | 4 out of 5 | 5 out of 5 | 5 out of 5 | 4 out of 5 |
Top 6 online store builders comparison
Below, I’ll outline each platform’s key features, benefits, costs, and use cases. I’ll also mention any potential pros or cons.
I’ll also include the main criteria to consider when choosing the finest e-commerce website builder for your requirements.
#1. Olitt
Olitt offers a straightforward website builder and web hosting solution for those looking for streamlined web services. Contrary to many other online store builders, you can use it to establish an online store for free.
Olitt offers affordable domain name costs and free DNS management. New businesses launch their online sales in less than 10 minutes, meaning it is easy to set up.
It is the preferred website builder for free domain name mapping and hosting. It includes more than 20 plug-and-play connectors, such as Facebook Pixel, Google Analytics, PayPal, Mailchimp, Google Tag Manager, and Google Analytics.
With Olitt, your business will rank higher on Google and other search engines as they offer optimized SEO. With each package comes free web hosting. Its collection includes more than 200 premium designs for all commercial use cases.
Olitt offers a free SSL certificate for every published website and landing page.
The Olitt features, plans, pricing, pros, and cons are listed below:
Main features
Supports domain name transfer
DNS management is free and secure
SEO Tools & Free SSL Certificates
Real-Time Editing
SEO Management
SSL Security
Plans and pricing
Free (DIY) $0.00
Pro $29.99
Pros
User-friendly software
Kind and prompt customer service
Stunning and original templates
Best price in the market
Value for your money
Availability of free trial
Cons
Not based in some countries like the US
Not full agency feature
#2. BigCommerce
Many online store builder platforms, compared to BigCommerce, concentrate especially on startups, established companies, and small businesses. BigCommerce, on the other hand, focuses on online shops that are in the middle but want to expand as quickly as possible.
Even though the entry-level subscription costs more than for a platform like Wix, it offers significantly more functionality and more sophisticated features to help you set up your online store for expansion.
Automation, individualized client experiences, and improved customer acquisition techniques are essential for rapid growth. To enable you to scale your business as quickly as possible, BigCommerce combines the strengths of all three.
Additionally, you may choose your own payment gateway, sell through various channels, like Facebook and Pinterest, and avoid transaction fees to keep a larger portion of your sales.
Compared to Shopify, BigCommerce is substantially more affordable. It has a blog function that store owners can incorporate into their e-commerce site for content marketing activities and good layout options that enable you to establish a business in a matter of seconds.
The BigCommerce features, plans, pricing, pros, and cons are listed below:
Main features
Community forum with committed support
Plugin POS solution
Specialized Page Builder tool
Inventory management tools
Plans and pricing
BigCommerce has revenue limits on its plans compared to other online store builders. The cheapest package has an annual revenue cap of $50,000. The bottom line is that while it’s a terrific place to start, as your shop grows, you’ll fast outgrow it.
The good news is that upgrading shouldn’t put too much of a strain on your finances because you’ll be able to afford a larger investment once you exceed the $50,000 threshold. You can continue on this plan until your income is sufficient to warrant an upgrade once more because the second tier has a ceiling of $180,000 in annual revenue.
Below are the BigCommerce plans and their prices:
Standard $29.95
Plus $79.95
Pro $299.95
Enterprise: Custom
Pros
Ton of features
Easy and flexible product variants creation
Scalability
No transaction fees
Solid SEO features
Full control of your customer’s database
Cons
Yearly sales threshold
No email marketing tools
No subscription features
Steep learning curve
The app is a little clunky
No multilingual options
#3. Square Online
Square is the online store builder for anyone looking for a simple and affordable platform to get started online.
It’s simple to set up, and the business considers it an all-inclusive solution. Consequently, this is the ideal website builder for those who own e-commerce stores and want to launch their companies rapidly.
The company is well-known for its point-of-sale systems, but they are now expanding, and the Square Online Store is a great option for people looking for a hassle-free solution.
Square has transformed the market with rapid, economic monetizing strategies after starting as one of the few options for users to accept “mobile” transactions on the go.
Currently, practically anyone can open a Square account and start accepting payments wherever they are, from one-time vendors to small company owners to startup companies. It makes sense that Square is the preferred option for POS systems and offline payments.
Did you know that Square also allows you to change your digital transactions?
Going digital is now simpler than ever, thanks to Square, which enables businesses to launch online stores for simply the cost of their payment processing.
The Square online features, plans, pricing, pros, and cons are listed below:
Main features
A free URL
Free unlimited hosting
Inventory management and tracking
Responsive web design
Inventory management and tracking
Integrated and advanced reporting
Seamless integration with Square’s other products
Support for in-store pickup
Plans and pricing
Free
Plus $29+
Premium Custom
Pros
Reasonable pricing plan
Intuitive dashboard
The free option has no monthly fees
Unified payment system
Simple to load products
A great way to connect your POS to your online business
Sophisticated features that are unique for paying accounts
Other e-commerce programs can be integrated with Square Online
There are many wonderful themes available
Cons
Limited customizations
Limits to Square payment to avoid additional fees
Not developer-friendly
Awful shipping plan with fixed prices
Account stability difficulties are frequent
Customer service may use some improvement
Certain features are only available to premium accounts
#4. Shopify
One of the most popular online store platforms is Shopify. It includes everything you might need to start, run, and grow an online store. The platform powers millions of online enterprises in 175 countries throughout the world. Shopify offers everything from payment processing and email marketing tools to support for dropshipping.
Shopify has more than 100 free and premium themes for designing your online store. You can adjust the parameters for each theme to suit your preferences. Installing apps from the Shopify App Store will give your store new capabilities and features.
Keep in mind that Shopify integrates with over 100 other payment processors, so you can always utilize a different payment gateway.
All packages include unlimited email forwarding, web hosting, bandwidth, and a content delivery network for top efficiency. Analytics, mobile optimization, and marketing and SEO tools are also advantageous to you.
Shopify provides live chat, email, and phone assistance around-the-clock.
You can set up dropshipping and customer accounts, target abandoned carts, and control your shipping costs with Shopify.
The Shopify features, plans, pricing, pros, and cons are listed below:
Main features
One-stop online store
Support for a wide variety of apps
The choice to open development stores
Plans and pricing
Basic $29
Shopify $79
Advanced $299
Pros
The platform is simple and intuitive
Technical support is available 24/7
Wide variety of themes to choose from
In-house app store
Inbuilt SEO
Completed self-hosted
Cons
No free version
Limited customizations
High transaction fee
#5. Wix
Wix is a remarkably flexible drag-and-drop website builder that transforms non-developers into experts in website creation. It is renowned for its process automation features and easy-to-use page editor. Also, it offers different layouts and designs and allows you to go live in a matter of seconds.
Wix has approximately 1,000 ready-made templates for any type of online store, a free domain name, and everything else you need to establish and launch your online business.
One of my favourite features is Wix doesn’t impose any additional transaction fees. Consequently, you get to retain whatever you earn. Wix’s 0% offer is exceptional compared to other online store builders that charge up to 3% or more in addition to processing fees.
Over 50 secure payment processors that are all compliant with PCI DSS are available through Wix. And TLS 1.3 encryption is built-in as standard, protecting everyone’s data from prying eyes.
That’s advantageous because a data breach, or even a web browser reporting your web store as possibly unsafe, can destroy an e-commerce business faster than anything else.
Additionally, it’s quite easy to use and learn. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to easily make changes, update your website whenever you like, add new products, and handle orders with no problem.
You can have as many products as you like without any restrictions. You can also earn as much money as you like from your online store because there are no limits. Compared to other online store builders, Wix does not have a cap on these, forcing you to use higher plans.
The Wix features, plans, pricing, pros, and cons are listed below:
Main features
Plenty of custom-made templates
Drag and drop builder
Image Editor
Plans and pricing
However, the storage capacity and built-in functions are the most important restrictions, so upgrading is a sensible idea eventually.
The least expensive package offers 20 GB of storage, abandoned cart recovery, and the capacity to conduct social media sales. In addition, you can use Wix’s online booking tool to manage online orders for delivery or in-store pickup, sell services and classes, host public or private events, and organize events.
eCommerce $17
Unlimited $12.50
Combo $8.50
Connect Domain $4.50
Pros
Upgraded design templates
The intuitive interface, even for non-technical users
Site backup
Cons
Expensive pricing plan
Lack of template customizations
Not the fastest loading speed on mobile devices compared to other online store builders.
#6. Squarespace
The Squarespace online store builder offers plenty of high-quality add-ons, templates, and tools to design your e-commerce website compared to other website builders.
Squarespace is a great option if you strongly rely on branding and imagery to help sell your work online because it prioritizes your aesthetics. Users cannot engage with your products, so you must rely on your website, photographs, and videos to perform the bulk of the work.
It is designed primarily for creative, highly visual websites with dozens of beautiful designs ready to use right out of the box. The templates from Squarespace stand out among all the products we examined.
The Shopify features, plans, pricing, pros, and cons are listed below:
Main features
SSL security is included
Optimized for mobiles
Professional templates
Plans and pricing
Personal $8
Commerce $26
Business $18
Pros
Ready to publish templates
Intuitive dashboard
Bundled offers
Strong customer support
Cons
Expensive pricing plans
Lack of marketing tools
Lack of third-party add-ons
Not ideal for blogging
Conclusion
With the aid of the best online store builders, you can establish a website with a user-friendly design that appeals to customers and showcases your product line.
When comparing different online store builders, remember to pick one that is customized for your business’s needs.