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Shopify: Best for Scaling Your Business
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Price: $19 per month for Shopify Basic.
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Free trial length: 3 days.
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Integrated sales channels: Online store, in-person, social media, email, marketplaces, online search, B2B, and more.
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Mobile app: Yes.
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Native POS: Yes.
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G2 rating ⭐: 4.4/5.
Shopify is the best ecommerce platform for small businesses. The comprehensive website builder helps merchants sell online, in person, on social media, and on marketplaces. With Shopify, you can design your store using more than 100 professional designed themes. You can even use AI to generate a free personalized theme from the Theme collection of your Shopify admin.
Where Shopify stands out
Shopify stands out as the top choice for dedicated online retailers, offering unmatched sales capabilities. It enables you to oversee inventory across various locations, handle tax calculations, manage international shipping, and so much more.
Additionally, it excels at incorporating marketing into your website with apps like Facebook and Instagram, making it easy to sell directly through these channels. With the launch of Shopify POS, you can now utilize the same software for both in-person and online sales.
Shopify is recommended for both small and scaling businesses. It’s a great option for ecommerce businesses looking to grow, sell internationally, or manage both in – person and online.
Shopify’s User-Friendly Interface
Shopify is designed for anyone looking to launch an online store effortlessly. It provides a step-by-step guide for newcomers, complete with ready-made themes and user-friendly tools, allowing users to get their store up and running in just a few hours—no coding skills needed.
Design and Customization Flexibility
With a wide selection of professional themes, many of which are optimized for mobile devices, Shopify ensures a seamless experience for users on any platform. Additionally, the ability to customize these themes allows you to establish a distinctive brand identity without needing extensive web design knowledge.
Payment Integration and Security
Shopify offers smooth integration with over 100 payment gateways, including its own Shopify Payments, which simplifies the transaction process and removes extra fees. With features like PCI compliance and SSL encryption, Shopify ensures secure online transactions, which is essential for building customer trust.
Shopify’s App Ecosystem and Third-Party Integrations
The Shopify App Store has a vast range of applications, from marketing and SEO tools to advanced analytics and inventory management. These integrations help merchants expand their store’s functionality, making it adaptable to unique business needs.
SEO Features and Digital Marketing Tools
Shopify comes equipped with robust SEO settings to help businesses rank on search engines. From editable meta tags to customizable URLs and sitemaps, Shopify makes SEO straightforward. The platform also integrates with marketing tools, like email campaigns and social media ads, directly from your dashboard.
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WooCommerce
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Price: Free (not including essential ecommerce features like hosting, domain registration, SSL, shipping services, and payment processing).
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Free trial length: n/a.
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Integrated sales channels: Online store, in-person, online search, marketplaces, social media.
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Mobile app: Yes (limited functionality).
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Native POS: Yes.
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G2 rating ⭐: 4.4/5.
WooCommerce is WordPress’s online selling platform. Initially created as a platform for blogging, it has transformed into a website builder tailored for small businesses, offering the option to integrate WooCommerce for online sales capabilities.
WooCommerce is open-source, allowing for extensive customization if you possess the technical skills to design and code websites.
Like Shopify, there are various third-party integrations available to enhance the platform’s features. Like Shopify, it offers integrations from other companies to expand its functionality. Although the core WooCommerce plugin is free, growing small businesses may need to pay for extra integrations.
What WooCommerce stands out
Cost-effectiveness
WooCommerce is a free plugin for WordPress, making it an incredibly cost-effective solution. Unlike many platforms, it doesn’t operate on a tier-based system, so features don’t scale up with cost.
Advanced product handling capabilities
WooCommerce is good at managing a large number of products, whether digital or physical. It can cover unlimited products makes it ideal for businesses at any scale.
The platform’s ability to manage a variety of products is highlighted by its efficient inventory management system, which seamlessly supports different product types, enabling a flexible and responsive eCommerce approach.
SEO and marketing tools
The platform’s strong connection with WordPress provides WooCommerce a significant advantage in search engine rankings. This integration enables businesses to leverage robust SEO tools and techniques to boost their online presence. Additionally, WooCommerce’s compatibility with a range of marketing plugins and tools simplifies the process for store owners to connect with customers and effectively market their products.
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Squarespace
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Price: $23 per month for the Business plan.
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Free trial length: 14 days, with a one-time extension.
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Integrated sales channels: Online store, in-person, social media, marketplaces.
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Mobile app: Yes.
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Native POS: Yes (mobile app).
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G2 rating ⭐: 4.4/5.
Squarespace presents itself as a user-friendly alternative for small businesses, allowing them to build online stores using its templates, intuitive drag-and-drop features, and dependable performance. Initially conceived as a website builder rather than a dedicated e-commerce platform, Squarespace has since incorporated tools to support online sellers. While many users leverage Squarespace for selling services, it remains a viable option for businesses dealing in physical products. Its features include scheduling and calendar integration, email marketing tools, social media connectivity, and embeddable maps for physical store locations. Additionally, Squarespace supports recurring payments for subscription-based businesses.
What Squarespace stands out
Squarespace is an excellent choice for visually-driven online stores, particularly those offering fashionable items, high-end products, or wellness-related goods.
Easy drag-and-drop setup:
Squarespace provides intuitive tools and professional templates, making it simple to build an online store without coding skills.
Originally a website builder, now e-commerce ready:
While Squarespace started as a website builder, it has successfully evolved to support both product and service-based businesses.
Built-in business tools:
Features like scheduling and calendar integrations, email marketing, social media integrations, and embeddable maps help businesses manage their online and offline activities easily.
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Wix
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Price: $29 per month for the Core plan, with limited ecommerce features.
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Free trial length: Limited free version available.
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Integrated sales channels: Online store, in-person, social media, marketplaces, branded app.
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Mobile app: Yes (limited functionality).
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Native POS: Yes.
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G2 rating ⭐: 4.2/5.
Wix has a small-business website builder with ecommerce-specific features. If you pay for Wix, you get online store tools like order tracking, taking payments online, selling in more places, and reminding people about carts they left. You also need a paid plan to see your store’s important numbers. For how your store looks, there are over 500 ready-made designs, and you can change them easily by dragging and dropping things. Wix also lets you charge customers regularly for subscriptions and use other companies to ship products directly to buyers.
What Wix Stands Out
Creative flexibility
Wix provides a true drag-and-drop experience, letting you freely place text, images, videos, and buttons wherever you want, making it ideal for businesses or individuals who want a highly customized website.
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Square Online
Professionally designed templates:
Square Online is renowned for its beautiful, modern, and mobile-responsive templates. Users can easily select a professionally designed layout and customize it without needing any coding skills.
- Price: Free with limited ecommerce features.
- Free trial length: n/a.
- Integrated sales channels: Online store, in-person, online search, social media.
- Mobile app: Yes.
- Native POS: Yes.
- G2 rating ⭐: 4.2/5.
Square Online began as a payment processing solution for retailers but has grown to offer a range of business management tools. Among these is Square Online – a website builder designed for small businesses such as shops and restaurants, featuring customizable templates. It includes built-in payment processing with competitive transaction rates.
What SquareOnline stands out
Seamless integration with payment processing:
Square Online directly connects to Square’s payment system, allowing businesses to accept payments both online and offline with competitive transaction fees.
Templates designed for small businesses:
Square Online offers templates tailored to the needs of retailers, restaurants, and service providers, helping businesses get online quickly and efficiently.
Low barrier to entry:
With a free option available, Square Online is a great choice for businesses wanting to start selling online without high initial costs.
Ideal for brick-and-mortar expansion:
Businesses can sync sales, inventory, and customer data across physical and online stores, offering a unified management experience.
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BigCommerce
- Price: $29 per month for the Standard plan.
- Free trial length: 15 days.
- Integrated sales channels: Online store, in-person, social media, marketplaces, comparison shopping engines.
- Mobile app: Yes (some features Android-only).
- Native POS: No.
- G2 rating ⭐: 4.2/5.
BigCommerce is an e-commerce platform designed primarily for large businesses, corporations, and enterprise-level operations. However, expanding small businesses can also take advantage of its international selling capabilities and tools for multichannel sales across social media and third-party marketplaces.
When your store comes to large-scale e-commerce, the platforms that stand out offer scalability, flexibility, performance, and advanced management tools. Here are the key factors:
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Scalability:
Big e-commerce stores need platforms that can handle thousands of products, high traffic volumes, and complex operations without performance issues. -
Advanced inventory and order management:
Managing a wide range of products, variants, and fulfillment processes efficiently is crucial. Platforms must offer detailed inventory tracking, automation, and bulk editing tools. -
Multi-channel selling:
Ability to easily sell across multiple channels — including website, marketplaces (like Amazon, eBay), social media (Facebook, Instagram), and in-person — from a single dashboard. -
Customization and flexibility:
Big stores often require custom checkout experiences, personalized user journeys, advanced filtering, and flexible APIs for deep integrations (with ERP, CRM, PIM, etc.). -
Security and compliance:
Strong data security (PCI DSS compliance, SSL certificates) and the ability to manage international regulations (like GDPR, tax compliance) are must-haves. -
Speed and performance:
Big stores need fast loading speeds and server reliability to avoid cart abandonment and maximize conversions, especially during high-traffic events (like BFCM). -
Powerful analytics and reporting:
Platforms must offer detailed sales reports, customer insights, marketing performance metrics, and integration with tools like Google Analytics or custom BI systems. -
Support for global expansion:
Multi-currency, multi-language, and international shipping options are crucial for stores operating in multiple countries.
Finding the right ecommerce platform for your small business
Choosing the best ecommerce platform for your small business depends on your needs and goals. Whether your priorities lie in budget, features, or other factors, you can find a fitting choice.
It’s crucial to choose a platform that is user-friendly and capable of scaling alongside your business. Take the time to explore various options by signing up for free trials to help you make an informed decision.