That’s really just the broad strokes. There’s a lot you can do on Zyro’s most souped-up plan. So, let’s get into the price now.
- Zyro Business (100 products): starting at $4.90 per month
- Zyro Online Store (100 products): starting at $8.90 per month
- Zyro Advanced Store (2,500 products): starting at $15.90 per month.
Think carefully about what you need and what would be nice to have. Then, you can use your list of requirements to narrow down your list of choices.
Summary
Note: I only recommend going this route if you already have a website up and running.
This lightweight WordPress plugin adds ecommerce capabilities like accepting online payments, configurable shipping options, and product listings to your site. But that’s just the start.
However, if you already own a physical store or an established brand, design is more important so you can create a cohesive aesthetic from one touch point to the next.
Advanced Ecommerce Features
That same Advanced Store plan can really kick your ecommerce operations into overdrive. In addition to more products, you can set your web store up to be multilingual for your international customers, sell subscription-based services, send out automated marketing emails, and even easily list your ecommerce inventory on other channels to let you easily sell on eBay, Amazon, Facebook, and Instagram.
Finding an ecommerce platform does what you need is a breath of fresh air. After using dozens of different options over the years, I’m confident with my selection of the top options available:
- Zyro – Best for setting up your web store in minutes
- Wix – Best for flexibility and customization
- Squarespace – Best ecommerce platform for creatives
- Bluehost – Best for hands-off WooCommerce store setup
- BigCommerce – Best for medium to large stores
- Shopify – Best all-in-one ecommerce platform
- WooCommerce – Best for WordPress websites
- OpenCart – Best for selling digital products
- Ecwid – Best for integrating with your current platform
And they don’t currently offer support for free, either.
To access ecommerce functionality, you need to sign up for a Wix business package:
I really like WooCommerce. And, fortunately, I’m comfortable enough with WordPress to install, customize, and manage the WooCommerce plugin and the additional plugins that really make it shine on my own WordPress sites.
But others may want more control.
And they have fantastic 24/7/365 customer support ready to answer your questions and help you get things set up the way you want to.
That all makes it a breeze to get started. But what about the long haul?
If you’re just starting out, simple designs and ease of use are more important than design flexibility.
In this post, I’ll break down the major aspects to consider in choosing the right platform for your current situation. Then we’ll take a close look at seven of top options available today.
#1 – Zyro Review — The Best for Setting Up Your Web Store in Minutes
It’s all about finding the right balance of flexibility, customization, and ease of use. The more a platform can do, the harder it is to manage.
Zyro isn’t just a solution for simple web stores that want to stay small.
Plus, Zyro offers an array of more ambitious ecommerce features on some of their plans. Need to offer more than 100 products on your digital storefront? Upgrade to the Advanced Store plan and you’re allotted up to 2,500.
And while the Business plan offers ecommerce capabilities, I highly recommend choosing Basic Commerce to start. It’s the cheapest plan with no transaction fees, plus it includes other essential features like, customer accounts and ecommerce analytics.
Get started with Wix for free.
#3 – Squarespace Review — The Best Ecommerce Platform for Creatives
WooCommerce is wildly extendible and able to be integrated with other business tools. Customize it through extensions in categories ranging from inventory, shipping, and fulfillment to marketing, customer loyalty programs, live chat support, and much more.
Other advanced ecommerce features include:
- Email marketing integrations
- Memberships and recurring payments
- Gift cards and discount codes
- Partial payments or payment plans
- Shipping and fulfillment management
- Product variations
- Product categories
BigCommerce is an all-in-one ecommerce website builder specifically for large online stores. It includes more advanced ecommerce features suitable for managing high volumes and a large number of products.
If you’re just getting started, BigCommerce is overkill for your online store. However, if you’re an established business or plan to sell high volumes, it’s an excellent choice.
#6 – Shopify Review — The Best All-In-One Ecommerce Platform
There are plenty of good ecommerce platforms for launching your web store. Most of those work best with plenty of careful, gradual planning and site building.
This is the price if you pay month to month. If you are willing to sign a contract for a year, the price is a little lower.
Plus, with 70+ professional themes (nine of which are free) and 4,100+ apps, you can create a beautiful and highly functional ecommerce store without having to start from scratch. Or write a single line of code.
But I know many folks who would rather not have that responsibility, whether because of a lack of familiarity with WordPress plugins or just a lack of time to self-manage WooCommerce.
For example, the refund policy generator will do exactly that—create simple, easy-to-read refund policy for your store and its customers. Or, use the AI writer to generate blog or product copy that you can tweak to meet your needs.
If you have a WordPress site and want an easier way to set up your WooCommerce store on it, you can’t go wrong with Bluehost’s WooCommerce Online Stores.
If you can’t find what you’re looking for on their community forum, you have to pay for dedicated help. Dedicated support starts at $99 per site per month or $99 for a one-time fix.
#9 – Ecwid Review — The Best for Integrating With Your Current Platform
Squarespace is well-known as a free website builder, but they also have a trio of attractive ecommerce packages.
With Bluehost’s package for ecommerce powered by WooCommerce, you get a handy guided store creator, plus:
- Built-in SSL and Jetpack for security
- Unlimited product listings
- Payment processing
- Customer reviews
- Coupon codes
- Manual order creation
- One year free of CodeGuard Backup Basic, for daily site backups
But, with Zyro, you can get a solid online store up and running in no time.
Shopify Lite is a great option if you want to embed products and “buy” buttons onto an existing website. However, it doesn’t come with the all-inclusive website builder.
OpenCart offers a powerful set of ecommerce features, including:
- Simple and centralized admin dashboard
- Advanced user roles and access controls
- Manage multiple stores from a single dashboard
- Limitless product variables and variations
- Built-in affiliate management and rewards system
- Discounts and coupons
- Unlimited products
- One-click digital downloads
- Product reviews and ratings
- 36 built-in payment methods
- Recurring payments
However, some of the extensions aren’t free, so watch out for that if you start digging into those.
Whether you’re starting with a simple ecommerce site before growing into a larger operation or your company needed a web store yesterday, Zyro is the fastest path to an online store you can be proud of.
While you can sell products of any kind, the no-fluff interface (and free price tag) makes it an excellent option for selling digital products to make more money with your online business.
But that doesn’t make the platform any less powerful.
Do you want to be able to offer discounts or accept payments through different payment processors? Maybe you want to send visitors a reminder email when they exit your website with something in their cart.
If you already have a website, the best option is integrating an online store rather than creating a brand new website on a new platform. This way, you build on what you’ve already done. OpenCart is ideal for this use-case.
I love the Wix mobile app. This makes it easy to edit your site from anywhere, with just a few clicks from your pocket.
You’re getting the same high quality of templates that Squarespace is famous for, with plenty of customization potential to create a unique shopping experience for your customers.
What do you need to do to get your ecommerce platform up and running?
You’ll also have access to marketing features like email accounts and social media from your Wix dashboard.
If you’re starting from scratch, you’ll want a website builder and other tools to help you design your platform.
Plus, all of their plans include unlimited products, file storage, bandwidth, and staff accounts.
The platform, like many good WordPress tools, is developer-friendly. Use REST API to tweak and tailor WooCommerce to your needs with custom coding and modules.
Order management, product creation, tracking orders, and dashboard navigation are important factors of day-to-day ecommerce management.
Plus, with 13,000 modules and themes in the marketplace, you can add any functionality you can imagine including service integrations, conversion modules, email marketing, and more.
It’s also incredibly versatile, powering micro to large stores, and everything in between. Shopify plans include access to an incredible suite of ecommerce features, including:
- Point of Sale for brick and mortar shops
- Real-time carrier shipping rates
- Abandoned checkout recovery
- 100 different payment gateways
- Automatic tax calculations
- Customer accounts and profiles
- Fulfillment centers
- Advanced inventory management
- Unlimited products
- In-depth analytics
Combine that with award-winning 24/7/365 customer support and you have an excellent ecommerce platform.
It integrates with platforms like Weebly, Wix, WordPress, Squarespace, and more. So, if you already have a website set up and want to add ecommerce functionality, Ecwid is an excellent choice.
With that said, high-volume ecommerce shops with extensive product catalogs would likely be better off using Shopify or BigCommerce. Wix is better for smaller ecommerce businesses.
And that’s not all. What if you’re totally starting from scratch or you’re just building a web store for your side hustle or hobby? Zyro offers a bunch of free tools to help you fill in any gaps quickly.
Keep in mind that Shopify has its own payment processor. They charge 2.4% – 2.9% + $0.30 depending on the plan you choose. They also charge additional fees (0.5% – 2%) if you use a separate payment processor like PayPal or Square.
#7 – WooCommerce Review — The Best for WordPress Websites
Aside from beautiful templates, Squarespace’s web store plans include:
- Subscriptions, digital products, and in-person compatibility
- Built-in tax tools for automatic tax calculations
- Discount codes and gift cards
- Abandoned cart recovery
- Mobile-optimized checkout
- Mobile store management
- Rich product listings
- Quick view capability
- Inventory management
- Real-time shipping estimates
But the good news is that you can start on the limited free forever plan to try it out before making any investments.
The best ecommerce platform for your business depends on several factors like your experience level, your customization requirements, and the type of products you want to sell.
This ecommerce platform includes a wide range of features, like:
- Multi-channel selling (social media, marketplaces, in-person, etc.)
- Integrated email marketing and advertising features
- Centralized inventory and order management
- No transaction fees
- Fully responsive designs
- Built-in POS integrations
- Customer accounts for easy checkout
- Real-time shipping rate calculator
- Poduct variations
- Digital product capabilities
- 40 payment options
There are a few different ways to deploy your platform depending on where you are starting from and where you want to go.
As a stand-alone store builder you might be better off with other options (like Wix and Shopify).
That’s huge. Some of these plugins cost around $200 a pop to install.
Squarespace offers three ecommerce plans:
- Business — $18 per month + 3% transaction fees
- Basic Commerce — $26 per month + 0% transaction fees
- Advanced Commerce — $40 per month + 0% transaction fees
BigCommerce plans include access to powerful, industry-leading features, including:
- Customer accounts for faster checkouts
- Mobile-optimized checkout
- Abandoned cart recovery
- Google AMP and Akamai
- Advanced product filters
- Coupons and discount codes
- Advanced inventory management
- Customer groups for personalized shopping
- 65+ payment gateways with no extra transaction fees
- Built-in shipping management
The biggest downside is that you can’t manage your store from inside your website account dashboard. You have to log in to Ecwid instead. So, you need to manage two separate accounts.
You can simplify your workload by choosing a platform that offers just enough flexibility without going overboard for your specific needs.
Design Capabilities
First, you can keep iterating on the ecommerce site you begin with. Zyro’s site builder is easy to use, but holds a lot of customization capability. Expand your inventory, add custom landing pages, completely rebrand the colors and look of your site—there’s plenty of potential for building something incredible over time.
Other platforms integrate into your current site, taking the look and feel of your existing website with very few customization options. For some users, this is perfect.
They also have an enterprise plan with a dedicated account manager, SEO consultations, and prioritized technical support.
And that’s all in the Standard Plan. The built-in SSL certificate is really helpful because it encrypts information customers enter on your website (like credit card numbers or login credentials), and protects everyone from hackers. All you have to do is click a button and your set with Bluehost–this can be much more challenging if the host doesn’t manage SSL certificates for you.
But if you want a lot of the features we covered, plus even more tools for optimization and growing sales, go with Zyro’s Advanced Store package. At under $16 per month, that’s a better deal than some of the entry-level plans of other options on this list.
So, if you want to get a WooCommerce store up in no time with no hassle on your end at all, head over to Bluehost today.
#5 – BigCommerce Review — The Best for Medium to Large Stores
But selling and delivering digital products isn’t the same as delivering a physical product to someone’s doorstep.
So, I only recommend Ecwid if you want to integrate ecommerce into your existing website.
Shopify offers five plans for businesses of all sizes, including:
- Shopify Lite — $9 per month
- Basic Shopify — $29 per month
- Shopify — $79 per month
- Advanced Shopify — $299 per month
- Shopify Plus — custom pricing
With a customer base of 100,000+ stores, including some big names like Ben & Jerry’s and SkullCandy, they’re a smaller player in the industry.
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