10 Best Ecommerce Website Builders for Selling More in 2024

Shopify is our top choice for 2021. It’s also one of the most popular website builders that are dedicated to ecommerce. 

Shopify isn’t perfect, and some other options on this list are certainly easier to use. But the folks at Shopify know ecommerce from top to bottom. Everything you need to start and run a store is under one roof. 

The platform’s 100+ templates are excellent and fully customizable. Additionally, Shopify has an app store where you can find most ecommerce functions in the form of apps. You can integrate all the features your store needs without a single line of code. 

Shopify also has its own payment processing gateway, Shopify Payments. You can also choose one of the hundreds of other payment options, but you can avoid some transaction fees if you work with Shopify Payments. 

Need more proof that Shopify is worth your consideration? Notably, Heinz chose to partner with Shopify for its first-ever direct-to-consumer offering, Heinz to Home. 

Shopify is a 100% turnkey option for an online store. All the plans include web hosting, SEO tools, customer engagement tools, and even POS software. 

By and large, Wix is a comprehensive ecommerce solution. It’s a fantastic site builder with a lot of customization that leaves little to be desired in terms of ecommerce functionality. 

Wix’s most significant selling point is how easy it is to use. A complete beginner can have a basic store ready to go in less than an hour with Wix. Yet, it retains all the versatility and depth of a full-fledged drag-and-drop builder. 

Like Shopify, Wix has a payment gateway you can use right out of the gates. Additionally, you can use just about any significant payment processing service instead of Wix Payments. 

All of Wix’s ecommerce tools are designed to be used by anyone. The simplicity also extends to the SEO and optimization tools. And it’s packed with small features that make a big difference, such as ribbons to highlight new products. 

What’s more, for anything you can’t fix directly from the Wix ecommerce builder, you’ll probably find a solution in the app market. Wix supports many excellent tools, such as Mailchimp, Google AdSense, and rankingCoach.  

The one complaint that plagues Wix in user feedback is loading speed. Wix has a reputation for creating sites with less than optimal load speeds. 

Web.com is a solid website builder – among everything else in its catalog. It makes perfect sense to be used as an e-commerce tool as well. Thus Web.com recently introduced its e-commerce website builder.

It works by letting you customize one of its templates to fit your needs as closely as possible. With its intuitiveness as one of the best e-commerce solutions for small businesses, Web.com is also great for creating online store sites.

Setting up a website is pretty straightforward. However, while its editor is powerful and can deliver quality results in the end, the actual number of customizations is quite limited, depending on the template you choose. 

But if you’re looking for a basic website, it isn’t a problem at all. Once your e-commerce website is set up, you can start adding products. The product info is extensive; all it takes is to fill out a form on the product page. 

Creating orders is easy, and they’re centralized in their own tab along with shipments, so once you have your shipment channels set up, you’re ready to sell. Additionally, you can even have your e-commerce website created for you.

BigCommerce is the best ecommerce website builder for growing stores. It’s highly optimized to accommodate product line expansions, product categories, sales channels, and more. 

BigCommerce’s selling point is the sheer number of features it has. To list a few, BigCommerce supports:

• In-depth SEO customization
• Multi-channel selling
• Inventory management tools
• Customer group targeting
• Multiple currencies
• Product ratings

And that doesn’t even include the hundreds of app integrations available on BigCommerce. 

It’s fair to say that BigCommerce offers a range of features. But very small stores that want to remain small won’t get as much value out of that feature variety. 

Like Wix, BigCommerce does not charge transaction fees on top of payment processing fees. To top it all off, it’s unlimited across the board — unlimited storage, bandwidth, and products. 

BigCommerce has a simple drag-and-drop builder on par with other options in the same class in terms of customization. It has a more than adequate template library as well, but some of the templates are paid options. And they’re quite pricey, some as high as $300.   

All this is to say that BigCommerce is not a cheap ecommerce website builder. But if you have a growth mindset and aren’t a complete beginner to online sales, you’ll get your money’s worth. 

Like Wix, Squarespace is primarily a website builder rather than an ecommerce platform. That said, its top-tier toolset for websites also makes it an excellent choice for an ecommerce store. 

Squarespace’s order, inventory, and catalog management are all comparable to services focused mainly on ecommerce. It even supports discount codes, gift cards, and other types of sale incentives. 

However, Squarespace doesn’t have its own payment gateway like some other options. That means you’re limited to third-party providers, which is hardly a drawback given that it supports most of the major options. 

Squarespace also falls short when it comes to selling on multiple channels. It doesn’t integrate with Amazon, Facebook, or Google Shopping. 

And, while SEO tools are present, they’re a little challenging to access and implement. You’ll have to examine the advanced settings to figure out how to get all the SEO tools to work right. 

Overall, Squarespace has an easy ecommerce website builder well-suited for people who want to showcase their products in a beautiful online space. It may lack a little functionality, but it more than makes up for it in style.

Square, the merchant services giant, acquired Weebly in 2018 and recently started to shake things up. Weebly remains the easiest ecommerce website builder, but it has not the most straightforward pricing, probably due to ongoing internal changes.

All of Weebly’s plans include some ecommerce options. But realistically, you don’t get a shopping cart with any plan below the Pro one. In other words, anything below the Pro plan isn’t worth considering if you’re serious about ecommerce.  

Weebly’s biggest selling point is simplicity. It’s widely considered to be the top commerce website builder for beginners. Unfortunately, that simplicity comes at the expense of customization. You can’t customize checkout pages, and changes to templates are limited. 

Another reason why Weebly is beginner-friendly is its free plan. But keep in mind that while you can sell on the free plan, it lacks many of the features you’ll need to be successful. On the right plan, though, Weebly offers excellent tools, including discounts, tax calculators, etc.

Overall, if you commit to Weebly’s truly viable ecommerce plan (Business Plus), you’ll find both an accessible website builder and all the tools to create a booming ecommerce business.  

Shift4Shop used to be 3dcart and, for all intents and purposes, has kept the most sought-after features of 3dcart and updated it with some industry-leading practices. 

The main gripe with 3dcart was that it was getting outdated, but Shift4Shop has no such issues. The only thing it’s missing is market share, which it’s been increasing rapidly. 

The selling point of Shift4Shop is its value. It’s not the cheapest ecommerce builder by a long shot, but you’ll get your money’s worth regardless of the performance plan you choose. 

Every pricing tier includes domain registration, a shopping cart, unlimited orders, a built-in blog, a Facebook store, and everything else you’d expect from the highest-paid plan. 

On top of that, US merchants can try out Shift4Shop free for 30 days. That’s a $229 value, and you pay nothing if you cancel within 30 days. 

There are many customization options for its themes, and everything from store design to cart actions can be modified with a few clicks. 

Zyro is a relative newcomer to the website building game. Its singular focus on branding makes it a good fit for a small business that needs a store. 

Zyro’s building capabilities are comparable to others in the category. Our extensive Zyro overview reveals great features, such as snap-to-grid elements that make it easier for beginners to build an elegant site. 

There aren’t many templates to play with, especially for ecommerce, but the ones available are exceptionally designed. Unfortunately, once you choose a template, you’re stuck with it unless you want to start all over. 

In terms of ecommerce tools, Zyro has everything you’d expect from a website builder for selling products or services. Users get access to excellent inventory management tools, shipping calculators, and end-to-end order tracking. 

It also supports multi-channel selling, abandoned cart tracking and recovery, and multi-language sites. 

A nifty feature that Zyro includes is an AI copy generator. Just by selecting a few categories, Zyro’s AI will produce a paragraph of SEO-friendly copy to help you populate your store and blog. You’ll need to tweak it a bit, but it can save you a lot of time if writing is a bottleneck for you. 

One of Zyro’s only glaring omissions is the lack of product filters, which website builders for ecommerce typically include. 

If you’ve read the ecommerce website builder reviews above, you might already know that Square bought Weebly some time ago. And while Weebly still operates as a separate entity, Square Online is its branded ecommerce website builder. 

If you think the free builder sounds too good to be true, you should know it comes with a couple of caveats. First, you’ll have to use a branded Square domain for your store; and second, you’ll be using Square to process payments regardless of the plan you choose. 

Square’s ecommerce builder also integrates with the Square POS systems. If you’re already its user, Square Online is a perfect way to stake your claim in the online space. 

Now, how does this ecommerce website builder perform in comparison with Weebly? Predictably, Square Online’s builder is extremely similar to Weebly’s. But it takes a detour in the template variety. Instead of offering a wide range of templates, Square Online provides only five, categorized by the industry they’re made for. 

This approach cuts back on the customization options but makes it a great offer for beginners who don’t want to spend hours designing a store. Some users will find that the lack of options makes decisions easier. 

GoDaddy is one of the most recognizable names in the web hosting arena, thanks in no small part to its aggressive advertising in the early aughts. Nowadays, GoDaddy is still an excellent web hosting provider with amazing ecommerce website builders. 

GoDaddy only has one ecommerce plan, and it’s not the cheapest ecommerce website builder you’ll come across. But don’t let that deter you; GoDaddy has some unique features that may well be worth the price for you.

All the standard features are there, including abandoned cart notifications, stock management, coupons, and discounts. And it also has some not-so-standard features, such as revenue tracking. GoDaddy even lets you sell on most major online marketplaces, including eBay and Etsy.

GoDaddy’s main feature that makes it stand out as a top ecommerce website builder for beginners is its assisted design intelligence (ADI). With the ADI builder, you answer a series of questions and get a full-built website based on your answers. 

You’ll probably still want to do a little tweaking, but it’s a fantastic way to get started quickly and painlessly. And if you get stuck at any point, GoDaddy has a system that produces customized advice for what to do next in your business.