The 6 Best Online Store Builders for This Year
When setting up an online store , it is important to know the different online store creators that exist on the market.
If you don’t have time to read everything, from our experience, we believe that the best online store creator today is Shopify , due to its ease of use and eCommerce functionalities.
In this comparison, I will explain the main characteristics, prices and type of business that each online store creator is aimed at based on my experience.
At the end I have included the key factors that I have taken into account to select the 7 best online store creators thinking about all audiences.
Comparison of the Best Online Store Creators
Below you will find a comparative table of the price of each platform, if they have a free trial period and/or free plan to start setting up your online store:
| Platform | Plans from | Free trial |
|---|---|---|
| Shopify | 25/month | 3 days |
| WIX eCommerce | 9,50/month | 14 days |
| Sellfy | 19/month | 14 days |
| WooCommerce | According to Hosting | Free |
| Ecwid | 14,08/month | Free Plan / 14 days |
| PrestaShop | According to Hosting | Gratuitous |
That being said, let’s look at our list of the best online store builders .
1.Shopify
In our opinion, Shopify is the most complete Ecommerce platform to create an online store from scratch for all types of businesses, including beginners and large companies.
With a monthly subscription, you forget about maintenance and hosting costs. In addition, it allows you to create an online store with templates and themes , professionally designed and adapted to any device.
Shopify Key Features:
- Sell your products on social networks, point of sale (POS) and Marketplaces.
- All-in-one E-commerce solution hosted in the cloud without maintenance costs.
- +6000 applications available to set up an online store.
- Easy to manage.
- 24/7 technical service.
Price
Shopify plans and prices start with the Starter plan (1/month) to sell through Social Networks. The eCommerce plans start at 25/month ( Basic Plan ) with all the functionalities to manage your online store.
To learn more about Shopify plans, pricing, and features, check out our full Shopify review .
You can try Shopify for free for 3 days and take advantage of its 3-month promotion for 1/month.
2.WooCommerce
More than an online store builder, WooCommerce is an open source E-commerce plugin that allows you to create an online store from scratch in WordPress.
In Usa, it is the platform most used by businesses to sell their products and services online, with a market share of 23% according to data from Builtwith.com.
WooCommerce Key Features:
- Professional templates at an affordable price.
- Unlimited customization options.
- Calculation of shipping and taxes.
- Best option for SEO positioning.
Prices :
WooCommerce is a free plugin available in the WordPress plugin repository.
The cost of an online store hosted on WordPress will depend on what you pay for the domain name (around 15/year) and web hosting or Hosting (Between 5 and 25).
Other additional costs are choosing a theme for WooCommerce and plugins for your online store (E-mail Marketing, SEO Positioning, payment gateways, logistics, etc.).
Lastly, you may need to hire a developer for something specific.
3.Sellfy
I recommend Sellfy for content creators looking to sell their digital products, subscriptions, or print-on-demand products without the hassle.
Sellfy offers a 14-day free trial , so you can use it without obligation. Its control panel is divided into several sections, which allow you to configure your online store and start selling immediately.
A plus point of Sellfy is the fact that you can sell almost anything . Some of the success stories sell digital products such as:
Drum kits, Deejay courses, presets for Adobe Lightroom and other editing programs, Merchandising,
Sellfy main features:
- Easy to learn and add products.
- Sell any type of digital product (music, ebooks, videos, presets).
- Native integration with print-on-demand (POD) products.
Price: Sellfy rates vary between plans ranging from $29 to $129 per month.
4.PrestaShop
PrestaShop is one of the E-commerce solutions with the most years of experience and used by many online stores, although not so much in Latin America and the rest of the world.
Unlike other cloud-hosted solutions, with PrestaShop you own your online store and maintain full control over it, making its configuration and design options limitless. However, it is not a recommended solution for beginners,
To start selling your products with PrestaShop, the first step is to download PrestaShop Edition Basic for free . Once downloaded, you can add web hosting and a domain name for your store.
After completing the installation, you can access the Back-office of your online store to create your product catalog, define the design of your online store (logo, theme, etc.) and add essential modules to launch your online store.
PrestaShop main features:
- More than 6,000 modules with which to configure your online store.
- Aimed at medium and large companies.
- Complete control over the maintenance and ownership of the store.
- It can be downloaded and installed locally.
Price : PrestaShop is a free E-commerce solution. The cost will depend on the price of your web hosting and domain, online store design or the modules you add as your online store grows.
Regarding this online store creator, I suggest you look for expert PrestaShop developers who offer a tailored budget that breaks down the different maintenance costs and considers what modules you need to set up your online store.
5.WIX eCommerce
There is no doubt that WIX is one of the best website builders , but… What is your solution for creating an online store with WIX eCommerce ?
After testing their platform, we liked the Drag & Drop theme editing , which makes designing your online store a piece of cake.
Main features of WIX eCommerce:
- Dozens of templates to customize your storefront.
- Recovery of abandoned carts.
- Sell on social networks and marketplaces.
- Offer subscriptions and recurring payments for your products.
- Integrations with the most powerful Marketing tools (product reviews, loyalty programs and Dropshipping.
- Multiple currencies and automated sales taxes.
- Integration with more than 50 payment gateways.
- Detailed online store reports and analysis.
All plans offer unlimited bandwidth and free domain for 1 year.
You’ll also receive a $75 ad coupon when you spend $25 on Google Ads.
Pricing : WIX eCommerce pricing is divided into three business plans:
- Basic Business – 9,50/month
- Unlimited Business – 14/month
- Business VIP – 25 /month
Each plan adds more features to your online store, which you can visit on their page dedicated to E-commerce business plans .
WIX offers cheaper plans, but they are aimed at personal websites or portfolios.
6.Ecwid
Ecwid is a plugin that allows you to create an online store on an existing website, aimed at small local businesses.
Ecwid Key Features:
- Sell on an existing website on other CMS, such as WordPress or WIX.
- Sell on social networks (Facebook, TikTok, Instagram)
- Free plan to sell up to 10 products.
- Aimed at small businesses.
- Integration with Square and other point of sale (POS) systems.
- Mobile application for iOS and Android.
Pricing : Ecwid prices are divided by the number of products you can sell.
If you only need to sell a limited number of products (<10), you can use Ecwid for free forever.
Their cheapest plan is Venture ($19/month), more than enough for small stores selling up to 100 products.
If you want to know more about what Ecwid is and its advantages and disadvantages, read our review and opinions on Ecwid .
What is an online store builder?
An online store creator is the perfect showcase to publicize your products. They offer an all-in-one solution that integrates the Ecommerce tools that every online store needs to sell online (web design, payment gateways , web hosting, logistics, etc.).
They are usually cloud-based, known as Software of Services (SaaS) . That is, the platform offers its infrastructure to design an online store in exchange for a monthly or annual subscription for the service.
Other solutions offer greater control over your store, but require hiring quality Hosting and a specialized team for business operations.
The amount and type of product you can sell online will depend on each platform, for example, physical products, digital products, subscriptions or online reservations.
How to choose the best online store builder
When testing the different online store builders, we have divided each tool into three criteria: Ease of use, Personalization, and Variety and quality of templates.
Easy to use
If you’re creating your first online store, you may have little or no experience building websites. And without knowledge of code or web design, believe me, it can be frustrating.
Therefore, it is best to choose an E-commerce platform that makes it easy to create an online store, even if you have no idea about programming.
Quality and Variety of Templates
Each of the online store builders on this list has different templates to make your life easier. We look at two criteria:
- Quality : If you are going to pay for a template, choose a developer who offers themes with a clean design and no unnecessary code.
- Variety : Having a variety of attractive templates is important to make changes in the future and adapt the design of the online store to your brand and what your customers demand.
Personalization
Along with ease of use, it is important to look for an online store builder that integrates additional tools and features to customize your virtual store.
For example, Shopify has a ton of integrations and plugins, like Google and Facebook, and Live Chat Software to scale your online store.
Other considerations
I have also taken into account other elements, which may be important to you and which I mention below.
- Support : What we look for most in an E-commerce platform is that they have support in Spanish, through different communication channels. Also, if it offers documentation and tutorials on how to create your online store from scratch, the better.
- Analysis and reports . If the content creator offers analysis of the performance of the different pages and product sheets.
- Integrations : Most online stores will need the use of different Online Marketing tools to scale the business and brand. The chosen platform must have different integrations in aspects such as payment methods or Email Marketing.
- Prices : We have not included it as a decisive factor in this list, because it depends on each pocket. In the end, creating an online store entails costs and requires a minimum budget. If a platform doesn’t offer a free trial or free plan, don’t even consider starting with it.
Conclusion
From our experience, these are the 7 best online store builders . As a personal recommendation for its general features, I would choose Shopify .
On the other hand, if you are looking to have greater control over your store, options like PrestaShop or WooCommerce offer more flexibility in terms of design and configuration, although this requires technical knowledge.
Another option for small businesses is Ecwid , which acts as an e-commerce plugin that adds E-commerce functionality to an existing WordPress or WIX website.
Finally, if you are looking for a platform to sell digital products, Sellfy is the most complete solution used by content creators to sell all types of digital products (ebooks, music, videos, merchandising).
