You might be found by your customer searching the internet. You cannot control your business by using social media. Websites are essential for your business because they will help you to be more professional and give you more options and flexibility.

If you are a small business owner looking for an easy-to-use platform that will allow you to build a professional online store without spending a lot of money, you have come to the right place.

This list includes both paid and free e-commerce website builders. Continue reading to find the best one for your business.

How to Choose an eCommerce Website Builder

One tool may not be the best for another business. These are the top factors you should consider when selecting a tool for your business.

Use it quickly

Your website builder should be easy to use, and offer a variety of templates to suit all circumstances. It should be easy to add things:

• A few basic web pages, such as the home page and services page, contact page, or about page.

• Advanced features like image galleries and video content are available

• Other elements of a website include membership, blogs and a booking/reservation service.

Product management

It is important to consider how your online store builder will handle your product data.

Any ecommerce platform provides product management as an integral tool. However, you should verify how the system integrates front-end and backend product management support.

Good front-end product administration ensures that descriptions and prices are accurate, images are loaded quickly, and product quantities are constantly updated. Back-end product management will manage inventory, shipping and delivery.

Marketing integration

Website marketing is essential for any e-commerce company’s sustainable growth. It is important to have easy-to-use tools that promote your website, products, services, and business.

Remember that your chosen e-commerce platform integrates with other marketing systems and provides powerful tools that can be used to achieve your campaign goals.

Analytics in-depth

Online store success is also dependent on analytics and reporting. This doesn’t mean your online business is any less important. Dashboards and reports that show the performance of your store will be needed.

Multi-channel sales

While your online store is your main point of contact and repository, selling should be done through channels that are most convenient for you. The e-commerce platform should support sales through your website, social media channels and Amazon.

Free eCommerce Website Builders For Small Businesses

1. Weebly

Weebly, one of the most popular web builders, offers an e-commerce plan for free with many amazing features. This is great news for anyone looking to create a simple store.

This platform is simple to use with its intuitive drag and drop features. You can also access stunning, mobile-responsive templates that will make your store look more professional and appealing. The platform doesn’t limit the products you can add in your store, even if you are located in the US. You can sell as many products as you like.

Weebly also offers helpful SEO guides in its help center. These can help you rank higher on search engine result pages.

Weebly has its limitations. It does not support the features that are required for larger stores, such as multichannel integration (the ability to sell via social media) or inventory management (so you can monitor stock levels during busy times).

You cannot create your own domain name with Weebly’s Free Plan. Your website will also have Weebly ads. We advise that you don’t stay on the free plan too long. You can switch to Weebly’s monthly paid plans starting at $6 per month

Who should be Weebly’s target audience?

Weebly is a good choice for small businesses who don’t intend to move entirely to an online shop model. It is a good idea for a local business to offer its customers the option to shop online.

2. Square Online

Thanks to its Artificial Design Intelligence, it’s much easier and faster to build a store using Square Online. It will create a website according to the answers to a few simple questions.

There is no monthly fee for the platform. There is a 2.9% + 30c processing fee per transaction. You can also arrange in-store pickups and manage your inventory online.

You can also get personalized support via chat, phone and email. You can also ask questions and receive answers from fellow members of the community forum.

Square Online makes it difficult to set shipping prices. You can choose from free shipping or flat rates for all products. If you sell products with different weights, sizes, or price ranges, this can be difficult.

Square Online: Who should you choose?

Square Online is a great option for those who already own a physical shop and want to try e-commerce. The monthly fee for upgrading to Square Online’s paid plan starts at $12.

3. Constant Contact

ConstantContact offers a free plan that allows you to create an online store with no cost. Constant Contact is a design-assisted website maker. This means that instead of editing your website and choosing a template, Constant Contact creates it for you. You only need to answer some basic questions about the type site you are interested in. Besides, the website builder hosts the store and even gives you a free subdomain (store name.constantcontact sites.com)

Although you can only add three products to your shop, it may be sufficient if you are just starting out. If you wish to sell more products, you can upgrade to a paid plan.

Constant Contact lets you sell physical and digital products with a transaction fee of 3%. You can also add a blog directly to your website.

Constant Contact will display their ads in your store if Constant Contact subscribes to the free plan. The platform is only available for English-speaking sites and doesn’t support multilingual ones.

Constant Contact: Who should you go to?

Constant Contact is an option for small businesses that want to sell a few products without having to manage an e-commerce site.

4. Big Cartel

Big Cartel allows you to open a store with a low cost eCommerce platform.

The free plan allows you to list and sell 5 items in your shop. For selling digital products you will need third-party apps. You’ll also get the subdomain “.bigcartel.” after your URL.

Big Cartel’s free plan offers very limited features. For more advanced features such as inventory monitoring and discount codes, you will need to upgrade to a paid subscription. If you wish to personalize your website’s theme, you will need to be familiar with HTML. This might not be a good idea for beginners.

Who should join the Big Cartel?

It’s a website builder that is specifically designed for artists and creatives.

Paid eCommerce Website Builders For Small Businesses

5. Wix

Wix is one of the leading e-commerce website builders in the market. It is easy to use. With its intuitive drag and drop page builder, you can quickly create a website. To personalize your online store, you can also add products and media.

Wix also offers dropshipping, which allows you to source inventory directly. There are many suppliers and manufacturers that can supply products for your shop. Dropshippers will manage the delivery and inventory so that you can focus on your business.

The built-in SEO tools allow you to optimize your pages and content for specific keywords, increasing organic traffic.

Wix’s abandoned-cart-saver functionality will send emails to customers right after they have left your store and not completed their order. Wix offers excellent social media advertising tools that will help customers connect with your business and your products via social networks.

Pricing

Wix offers four different plans for websites, including:

• Connect Domain plan: $4.50 per month
• Combo plan: $8.50 per month
• Unlimited plan: $12.50 per month
• VIP plan: $24.50 per month

Three business and ecommerce plans are also available.

• Business Basic: $17 per Month
• Business Unlimited $25 per Month
• Business VIP: $35 per Month

Wix is for everyone

Wix is ideal for small businesses looking to quickly get online. Wix allows users to customize the appearance, feel, and function of their stores without having to code. Wix can also be integrated with your existing social media channels to help you market your business to your current audience.

6. Self-hosted WordPress

WordPress can be used on nearly all web hosting platforms because it is free and open-source. Bluehost, for instance, is an official WordPress partner and offers a 1-click installation.

You can easily design your website using a variety of premade WordPress themes. These themes are suitable for every type of business niche.

You can also customize your layout easily with the theme customization options and widgets. You can also integrate the drag-and drop page editors of WordPress such as SeedProd ($39.95), and Beaver Builder ($99).

WordPress has thousands of plugins that can be used to enhance your website’s functionality. You can, for example, add the following plugins to your WordPress site:

• Web forms that can be customized
• E-commerce shop with shopping cart
• Forums
• SEO tools
• Calendars
• Online course
• Google Analytics

Pricing

WordPress lets you choose to pay monthly or annually

• Personal plan: $7/month (billed monthly) and $4/month (billed annually).

• Premium plan: $14/month (billed monthly) and $8/month (billed annually).

• Business plan: $25/month (billed monthly) or $33/month (billed annually).

• eCommerce plan: $59/month (billed monthly) and $45/month (billed annually).

Who should choose WordPress?

WordPress allows users to follow easy tutorials and learn the basics of running a business online. This option is for people who don’t want to spend a lot of money on a website that they run.

7. Squarespace

Squarespace makes it easy to use, even if you are a total novice. There are many templates and designs to choose from. The basic plan allows you to create a website of 20 pages, which is an excellent way to get a small business started.

Squarespace makes it easy to create an attractive e-commerce store. Squarespace’s intuitive drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to customize every element of your pages.

You can also choose from a variety of templates that have won awards. These templates will suit your needs whether you are selling physical products or digital items.

Squarespace’s mobile app allows you to manage your website and report on any problems. It offers a lot of functionality for a very affordable price. The basic plan includes a SSL certificate and web analytics.

You can also unlock advanced functionality such as accounting and checkout, inventory management, abandoned cart recovery and ecommerce reporting on higher-tier pricing plans.

Pricing

Squarespace offers four pricing options, including:

• Personal plan: $16 per Month
• Business plan: $26 per Month
• $30 per month for Basic Commerce Plan
• Advanced Commerce Plan: $46 per Month

Squarespace also allows you to pay your bills every year, which can help you save up to 30%.

Who should sign up for Squarespace

Squarespace is a great choice for business owners who are looking to create a stunning online store.

8. Shopify

Shopify is the best platform for small businesses that are serious about selling. Shopify also has a large app store that you can explore if you don’t find what you are looking for.

Shopify can be considered an e-commerce platform that was specifically designed to build online stores. It offers a variety of features, including customer management and product management.

Shopify also has dropshipping tools built in. Shopify is the ideal tool for small businesses looking to store their goods.

Shopify has apps that let you sync your inventory in the event you are selling. This makes it easy to process all of your sales from one location. Shopify also offers multi-channel selling options such as integration with Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, eBay and Amazon.

Pricing

Shopify’s pricing plans start from $29/month. However, you can save money if you choose to pay an annual plan rather than paying monthly bills. Shopify plans offer 10% off if you sign up for one year and 20% for two years. This means that you will save approximately $190 each year.

Shopify: Who should you go to?

Shopify’s powerful tools won’t help you if your products are small. Shopify offers the complete package for small businesses if they are ambitious and wish to build a strong foundation.

9. BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a great e-commerce website building tool. It’s designed to assist businesses with managing online sales. BigCommerce has been used to power online shops such as Skullcandy and CamelBak.

BigCommerce can be used to launch an eCommerce store and sell profitable products. The Essential plan includes everything you need to start, manage, and grow your online store.

With the beautiful templates available on the website builder, users can easily create their first online store. You can also choose from more than 80 templates for different industries that are all mobile-friendly.

You can also customize your store easily with BigCommerce apps. These apps allow you to access additional features that will help you scale your business such as customer reviews, shipping and stock solutions, email marketing automation tools and more. You can also integrate Google Shopping into your store so that you can bring more customers to your website via Google.

BigCommerce also offers a choice of over 55 payment gateways like Stripe, PayPal and Amazon Pay.

Pricing

• Standard plan: $29.95/month
• Plus plan: $79.95/month (paid monthly) or $71.95/month (paid annually).
• Pro Plan: $299.95/month (paid monthly) or $269.96/month (paid annually).
• For custom pricing, contact BigCommerce sales at 1-866-991-0872

BigCommerce: Who should you choose?

This builder is not recommended if you are not looking to expand your business, or a total novice. This option is for you if your goal is to grow your small business on an even larger scale.

10. Zyro

Zyro has been a popular e-commerce website creator with a wide range of tools and a low price.

Its main advantage is its ease-of-use. A grid format will appear as an instruction when you edit your site using Zyro’s drag and drop builder. It’s very difficult to misplace content elements such as images and text boxes. They will snap into place when you move them.

Zyro offers 17 templates you can customize using the drag-and drop editor. The templates are optimized for mobile devices so your store will look great and be responsive regardless of what device it is being viewed from.

Notably, Zyro requires no commission at all. This is good news for beginners. All of the sales revenue you make can be used to buy products. The platform offers a unique set of artificial intelligence tools that can be used to promote your brand. An AI Writer is available to help users create SEO-friendly content without having to touch the keyboard.

Zyro does not offer phone support but its customer service is professional and responsive. Usually, they respond to customers within one hour. You can also search for answers and learn from the knowledge base.

Pricing

• Basic plan: $14/99/month
• Unleashed Plan: $15.99 per Month
• eCommerce plan: $24.99 per month
• eCommerce Plus plan: $29.99 per month

Who should choose Zyro instead?

Zyro is highly recommended by smaller online shops on a tight budget who don’t need scalable advertising tools.

Conclusion

You have many options when it comes to website builders for small businesses. These incredible builders will help you launch your online store at an affordable price, helping you to get started in the e-commerce market.

You don’t have to take on any risk at the beginning. The website builders offer free plans. These plans will allow you to begin building the foundations of your future empire for free.