Shopify is a well-known brand, and the reason’s easy to understand. It’s easy for beginners, inexpensive and quick. Additionally, it has all the features you require to begin an online business–and I mean everything.
Although Shopify can handle all the hosting and processing of payments from the beginning, it’s not the only choice for creating your online shop. Many Shopify rivals are waiting to be tried by you. They have a shot.
In this article, we’ll list the 10 top Shopify competitors that could suit your business. Sure offers platforms that target small and medium-sized companies and others are built to help enterprises run their operations.
Wix: simple drag-and-drop website builder
Wix has earned a reputable reputation for user-friendliness. That’s why it frequently makes the top list of Shopify competitors. Its drag-and-drop website builder lets you create stunning, personalized stores in just a few minutes.
You can select from over 100 eCommerce templates and handle various aspects of your site–such as tracking orders and printing shipping labels through your Wix dashboard. Additionally, Wix has a huge App Market where you can discover tools that will enhance the efficiency of your online store. From flexible payment options and loyalty programs, many useful options can be found.
However, there are a few negatives with Wix. It doesn’t allow you to include more than 100 web pages on your website. It also doesn’t support the newest sales channels like TikTok So, launching an online Wix store may result in missing out on potential sales. Therefore, these options for Wix could be appealing to those who are.
Squarespace: Beautiful online store templates
In Squarespace, the emphasis lies on making the store appear stylish and modern. This site builder provides more than 100 store templates. The majority of them have a minimalist, elegant design. They’re also all mobile-responsive.
Squarespace offers a wide array of e-commerce features. It allows you to sell unlimited physical and digital products, send out emails for abandoned cart recovery, set up shipping zones, receive automated tax calculations, and many others. The website builder is user-friendly, and you can create your store how you want it effortlessly.
One of the disadvantages of Squarespace is that it cannot offer your customers different payment choices. It is possible to accept payments through Stripe, PayPal, and Squarespace; however, that’s it. If you’re planning for international sales, it may negatively impact your customers’ experience.
Big Cartel: an ecommerce solution for primary, small stores
Big Cartel says it’s “built to stay small,” and the platform is best suited for newcomers needing essential sales tools. Big Cartel merchants get access to a wide range of E-commerce tools, such as discounts and the option to sell through Facebook.
Making an online store with Big Cartel is extremely simple, with prompts and reminders to help you through the procedure. The disadvantage of using this Shopify rival is that you’ll have to learn how to code specific elements.
For example, Big Cartel lets you include your photos for your store online. However, you cannot modify images with codes. Furthermore, HTML/CSS editing features are only available to customers on the paid plan. If you are with a free program, ensure you cannot modify it shortly.
Square Online: sync offline and online sales
Easy to use, convenient, and packed with sales-related tools, Square Online allows you to start an online business quickly. You can sell unlimited products, make gift cards, mail abandoned cart emails, and so on.
The area where Square Online shines is unifying offline and online sales. If you physically own an offline retail store, you can connect your inventory, customer information, and website. There’s a free edition of Square Online for companies making their first moves into digital sales.
Unfortunately, all this convenience for cross-channels can hinder the ability to customize. For instance, you cannot access templates with just five design options and 15 colors to pick from. Although Square Online keeps things quick and easy, it restricts your creativity.
WooCommerce is an e-commerce plugin that allows endless customization
WooCommerce is an entirely free WordPress plugin that provides e-commerce capabilities for the WordPress website. It allows for creating product variations, showing ratings and reviews, and comes with a range of extensions that will enable you to expand your online store.
However, it’s not only the capabilities of e-commerce that make WooCommerce an attractive option. As with the WordPress platform, WooCommerce can be highly customizable. You can, for instance, include custom widgets such as shares buttons, which will make your websites more efficient and engaging. You can also modify the theme of your WooCommerce store and make your custom theme to customize your store’s appearance.
However, WooCommerce makes store creation more difficult by requiring you to set up hosting and install WordPress. If you’re unfamiliar with e-commerce platforms, the WooCommerce learning curve might force you to consider other options.
Zyro: build an operational store in just a few minutes
Zyro may not be as popular as other Shopify competitors, but it’s worth looking into. The Lithuanian website builder comes with various ecommerce functions in its more expensive plans, such as multilingual settings and recovery of abandoned carts.
To build an online store using Zyro, it’s possible to use one of the templates available for online stores. Zyro offers only a handful of themes specifically for e-commerce. However, the templates offered are sleek and modern. It’s a breeze to use these themes, and in a matter of hours, you can create a functioning store. Zyro can integrate into Amazon, Facebook, and Instagram stores to help you increase sales through your channels.
What are Zyro’s weaknesses? One drawback is that you aren’t able to change the template you’ve chosen after selecting one. If you begin to modify the template only to realize that it’s not the one for you, it will be necessary to design an entirely new website to use a different style. Additionally, Zyro’s drag-and-drop elements are available in five different types of content, including text, image buttons, maps, and videos. Nothing else.
BigCommerce is designed to handle high volumes of sales
BigCommerce was explicitly designed for large-scale online retailers that deal with many products. It comes with a wide range of features that can aid in managing vast fields of products, with the option of categorizing products and bulk editing. It is also possible to apply changes in variants of products to many items to save time and make it easier to roll out the latest versions.
In addition to the features for managing products, BigCommerce offers plenty of online tools that can increase sales rapidly. They include various payment options and abandoned cart emails and the ability to group customers into groups that allow you to offer them products in specific ways.
Despite these features, BigCommerce isn’t suitable for all retailers. If you’re selling items in both online and offline channels and want to streamline your sales with a system, BigCommerce doesn’t offer something suitable from the beginning.