Do you run a business or want to start a new venture and sell products online? ECommerce platforms can empower your business to reach new markets and drive revenue in various ways.
The primary objective of these website builders is to manage and grow your business online. Before you open a physical store, ecommerce stores help you gain brand recognition. But how? By letting you build an online store that comes equipped with robust marketing and promotional tools.
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Leveraging the best ecommerce platforms of 2024, you can even offer product samples to allow your prospects to try the product before they purchase it, which can be a powerful way to nurture relationships with your customers, build authority, and boost your sales.
Building your website with a top ecommerce platform can make you a showstopper in your market. This blog will tell you about all the top-rated ecommerce websites that can list your products, take payments, and handle shipping without leaving the comfort of your home or office. So, without further ado, let’s discuss the best ecommerce websites for beginners.
Why Use an Ecommerce Platform?
Here are some benefits of using excellent ecommerce platforms for your business:
1. Reach a Wider Audience
Expand audience reach by optimizing product listings and enabling customers to shop at their convenience, regardless of time zones. You can also optimize your listings with SEO to make your website appear prominently in the search engine result pages.
2. Simplify Orders Management
Building your online store makes order management easy by automating and integrating at every stage before & after the sales process, ensuring faster tracking of inventory & delivery, and providing robust customer support to your customers.
3. Ease of Use
You do not need to be tech-savvy to create an online store. With the best ecommerce platforms of 2024, you can build a professional-looking website quickly. These platforms come with built-in ecommerce tools that allow you to manage your online store hassle-free.
4. Shopping Cart and Checkout
Setting up an online store enables your customers to purchase products & services straightforwardly. Whatever products your customers like and want to purchase, all they need to do is add them to their shopping cart and checkout system to make the payment.
Moreover, these websites also protect your customer’s data and bank details by encrypting and storing them securely.
What are the Top 6 Ecommerce Sites?
The ecommerce platform you choose can make or break your business. Understanding the importance of choosing the best and cheapest ecommerce website, we have curated the list of the top 6 builders of your online store. Let’s know about all of them:
1. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin that offers advanced built-in features like a pre-installed payment gateway, advanced inventory management, geological support, and easy tax calculation. If you are using a WordPress site, this plugin can easily allow you to add a shopping cart.
The best part is you can install WooCommerce for free and start selling products straight away. Another benefit of using this plugin to build your online store is that it provides you with great access to international selling tools like automatic currency calculators or multilingual options.
Features
- Allows you to sell an unlimited number of items, including digital and physical goods.
- Woocommerce supports multiple payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe.
- Use the WordPress Site Editor to customize the design of your store.
Pricing
WordPress and WooCommerce are both free. You are only required to pay for the domain name and hosting.
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2. Ecwid by Lightspeed
Do you want to engrave your name on the next online success story? Start selling your products online by building an ecommerce website with Ecwid. This ecommerce tool plugs into your existing site or social media accounts to enable you to sell products online.
This platform allows you to use a ready-made ecommerce template and gives you access to over 50 content blocks, security updates, and automatic maintenance.
Features
- Automated tax calculations
- One-tap checkout with Apple Pay (via Stripe)
- Access to extensions on the App market
- Features SEO tools
Pricing
This ecommerce tool offers a free plan and 3 paid plans that start from $19 per month (Venture) and go up to $99 per month (Unlimited).
3. Shopify
Shopify is an excellent platform if you want to sell manufactured products online. This tool is built-in with powerful features and an extensive range of themes that are ideal for small, fast-growing businesses and those who have a vision of creating an ecommerce empire.
With Shopify, you can easily set up an ecommerce subscription model and ship your products hassle-free, thanks to its 8,000+ apps and integrations.
Features
- Strong customer support
- Incredible inventory tools
- Abandoned cart recovery on all plans
- Tracks stock levels and orders
Pricing
You can build an online store with Shopify by spending $39 per month and 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for a basic plan with unlimited products.
4. Wix
Wix is one of the best ecommerce platforms of 2024 that offers a comprehensive package. This tool eliminates the need for third-party apps and is constantly adding new implementations.
Wix is one of the best ecommerce websites for beginners as it is an efficient tool for small enterprises, and not if you run a large business. This is because this tool is not specialized enough and does not have automated low-stock alerts. Thus, this ecommerce platform is most suited for small stores or those with handcrafted products.
Features
- Sell an unlimited number of products on social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and more.
- Easy to use
- Drag and drop editor, no code required
- More than 500 premade website templates
Pricing
The starting price of Wix is $27 per month plus 2.9% + $0.30 transaction fees.
5. Squarespace
With Squarespace, your search for the top ecommerce platform to build an online store is over. The platform is known for offering the most trending and award-winning templates in the market, which makes it ideal for photographers selling photos online.
However, you must refrain from choosing Squarespace if you are into a business of industrial and electronic components. So, if you are worried about editing and giving your website a design that immediately hooks your audiences, this is the perfect tool for you.
Features
- Unlimited products
- No transaction fees on higher tiers
- Captivating designs
Pricing
You can build an online store with Squarespace by opting for its basic plan, which starts at $23 per month.
6. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a website builder that caters to large online stores. The platform provides you with 12 free mobile-responsive design templates and a wide range of paid customizable templates to sell a digital or physical product.
The tool supports multiple payment processors, including Stripe, Braintree, and PayPal. Moreover, it also offers built-in SEO tools and personalized assistance, such as technical managers, customer success, solutions architects, and enterprise launch coaches.
Features
- Highly customizable online store builder
- Robust customer support
- No extra transaction fees
- Aids in multichannel sales
Pricing
Price starts at $39 per month for unlimited products. However, you can use the platform for free for the first 15 days. Transaction fees depend on the payment gateway you choose.
Wrapping Up
Before you build an online store with any of these ecommerce platforms, you must clearly define your goals, understand your target audience’s needs, develop a unique value proposition, craft a compelling brand story, and establish a consistent brand identity to achieve success.
It’s time to cultivate the sales mindset and start selling your products by building an online store. These platforms can bring a game-changing opportunity for people of all expertise levels to build cheap, fast, and responsive sites.
FAQs
Many ecommerce platforms allow you to create online stores for free. Some of these websites include Wix, WooCommerce, Square Online, Shopify, Ecwid by Lightspeed, and many more. However, these platforms are not totally free, as some of them offer only a free trial.
You can easily build your own online selling business with support from website builders and ecommerce platforms. You can even do it even if you do not have any technical skills. However, make sure you conduct research, know your target audience, study your competitors, and sell an in-demand product.
The top 3 ecommerce platforms include Ecwid by Lightspeed, Shopify, and Wix.
Nikita Sikri is a content creator and marketer who simplifies complex ideas and structures words to make them easy to understand for all audiences. She is a professional writer and editor- currently running her content writing agency, Aim2write, in Gurugram, India.
