If you want to establish your online presence or start selling online, you have a wide range of options when it comes to website builders that provide you with easy and convenient access. Let’s say you’re all ready to go for a new website for your blogs and e-commerce ventures. You also know what type of features you want to integrate into the website and you’re ready to develop it so you can start promoting, selling, and reaching your target audience and products to potential customers.
Before you begin in the development process, you need to identify which e-commerce website builder you want to utilize. This will have a significant impact on your customers’ experience moving forward because it will generally determine what e-commerce service your website offers.
While there are numerous great website builders for your business and/or blog available today, this list is more focused on e-commerce website builders. They are definitely the best option if you’re creating a website from scratch. Normally, you can create a website using another CMS platform such as WordPress and then add a plugin with e-commerce functionalities. Given that, it’s indeed too much work especially to people who are not tech-savvy.
For a new website, a specialized e-commerce website builder is extremely easy and non-tech-people-friendly. You can create a website and start promoting and selling your products and services without any third-party configurations.
We’ve highlighted the top 12 website builders for your e-commerce and blogging ventures. You can definitely find the right platform that’s suitable for your needs and styles.
1. Wix
With an impressive 100+ million users from all over the world, Wix is definitely the largest website builder available on the market. It has ranked pretty well in three major sets of criteria: ease of use, design, and value for money. It integrates plans that are with numerous features; however, its pricing plans are a lot more inexpensive than most website builders.
Wix’s wide range of templates and design collections as well as the level of creative control is outstanding. It is easy to drag elements like text boxes and images and move them around the website layout as you please. This drag-and-drop functionality is extremely easy and straightforward and provides you with total creative control over the aesthetics of your online store or blog.
In summary, Wix offers total freedom over the creative process, making website building or e-commerce site-building easy for starters. It is also jam-packed with features in its e-commerce plans without charging too much.
Pros
- Extremely easy to use
- Lots of creative control integration
Cons
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- Bulk uploads for multiple products not supported
- Multichannel features not available
2. Shopify
When it comes to creating e-commerce websites, Shopify is pretty much the go-to option if you are looking for an e-commerce website builder, e-commerce platform, and hosting platform. It has a powerful combination of remarkably intuitive navigation and easy-to-navigate user interface together with excellent customization capabilities.
A specialized e-commerce website builder, Shopify is developed purely to assist you in creating a website or online store for your products and services. As a result, it is built with much more advanced sales capabilities compared to other popular website builders.
A notable feature of Shopify is its built-in drop shopping tools. This is especially ideal for small and young businesses that do not have well-established storage logistics yet. If you’re already selling, this website builder has apps and tools that allow you to sync your inventories, making it more convenient to manage all your products in one place. What’s more is that Shopify supports multi-channel selling, letting you reach shoppers on Amazon, eBay, and social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
Pros
- Excellent inventory
- Integrated with powerful tools and a huge app market
Cons
- Expensive for small businesses
- Transaction fees for non-Shopify payments
3. Squarespace
If you are looking to create an eye-catching and unique blog, online business, or portfolio, then Squarespace should be your main option. This beautiful website builder has beaten all other e-commerce website builders when it comes to aesthetics and design. Squarespace’s online store templates are sleek, modern, and developed to showcase your products and services. You can even switch your design template any time you want, making it perfect for any rebranding you might have in the future.
Squarespace’s built-in tools are great fuel for your online business to thrive. However, with the absence of an app market, you may be limited in terms of integrating additional sales functionalities.
Overall, this website builder is an excellent choice if you’re looking for a super-looking website or online store.
Pros
- Excellent design templates
- Impressive social media integration
Cons
- No payment options
- No app market
4. GoDaddy
GoDaddy utilizes GoCentral Artificial Design Intelligence to create your online store or website in minutes. If you want your online store or blog to get up and start running virtually in a fast-paced setting, it’s no-frills-and-fuss for this website builder.
While some features could be more robust, especially when it comes to creating a blog, GoDaddy is unparalleled for a hassle-free and straightforward website. The majority of users have ranked this website builder as the easiest to use. As a result, even if you are a total newbie in the tech world, you’ll discover that GoDaddy is extremely easy for website building.
On the contrary, what you lose in total creative control and freedom, you have made up the time as compensation. GoDaddy is unmatched when it comes to speed.
Pros
- Easiest and fastest to develop
- Supports different kinds of niches/industries
Cons
- Low quality of some features
- Limited creative functionalities and tools
5. Weebly
The majority of small business owners are wary of hidden charges and extra fees. Thanks to Weebly, creating a website is made even more affordable through its budget-friendly e-commerce starter pricing plans available. You can even promote and sell your products on Weebly’s free e-commerce subscription, which is a big feature to have at no fees. Aside from inexpensive pricing, Weebly is completely easy to use and navigate.
Despite being able to sell on the free subscription, if you are serious about promoting and selling your products online, it is recommended to purchase Weebly’s Performance plan as the best subscription for e-commerce. The Professional plan is best for small stores.
This website builder is also integrated with unparalleled extra features specifically in blogging and its password-protected modules. The only drawback of Weebly is that you can’t sell your products across popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. As a whole, Weebly is an excellent option for your small business needs.
Pros
- Extremely easy to use and navigate
- Inexpensive pricing
Cons
- Customization for checkout pages not supported
- No multiple channel integration
6. 3DCart
3DCart is the opposite of some other website builders. It depends on efficient and state-of-the-art back-end tools and inventory functionalities, emphasizing less on design and creativity and more on practicality. With the unavailability of a mobile app, you can’t modify your website anytime anywhere; however, 3DCart comes with an excellent range of built-in sales functionalities. As a result, it saves you purchasing numerous apps, which can be a costly factor when creating websites.
This website builder is integrated with an excellent inventory system and numerous management controls from a backend perspective. 3DCart also reformats your e-commerce website or blog for you when you switch to different themes, which is a great point in terms of design perspective.
Pros
- Flexible design templates
- Unmatched inventory system
Cons
- No mobile application
- Least likely to be suggested by customers
7. BigCommerce
BigCommerce has the most built-in developments and features out of any e-commerce website builder, indicating it as more self-reliant compared to other popular platforms. This implies that you can keep your costs at a minimum. At the same time, you can get maximum possibilities in terms of expanding your website.
The site also enables you to promote and sell your products across multiple channels including Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, Square, Amazon, and eBay. This allows you to expand your online presence and target reach while still maintaining costs low.
The main obstacle with BigCommerce is that numerous tools are dedicated to helping businesses expand rapidly and advocating bigger online stores. If you are not considering up-scaling your business, then you’ll end up paying for unnecessary features that aren’t suitable for your small business ventures.
In a nutshell, BigCommerce is perfect if you prefer some advanced features and tools under your belt as you expand your small business. It’s one of the best choices for big-scale and expanding businesses.
Pros
- Several multichannel integrations
- Highly scalable
Cons
- Steep learning curve
- Requires some technical knowledge to set up
8. Volusion
Volusion offers no illusions when it comes to data reporting functionalities. Everything you desire for tracking your website’s progress and performance is integrated into one platform. Indeed, Volusion is a data lover’s haven.
Volusion’s data tools make it suitable for expanding your business at the pace and time frame that you prefer. It offers insight into each page’s level of success and effectiveness and lets you make enhancements to up your sales.
The downside of Volusion is that it doesn’t provide you with any blogging tools and services, which are essential to business promotion. However, overall, Volusion scored impressively when it comes to sales functionalities and features. Similar to BigCommerce’s integrations, a lot of Volusion’s features might be an overkill and unnecessary for small businesses.
Pros
- Many payment gateways
- Insightful data report integration
Cons
- Challenging to use and set up
- Real niche offering not supported
9. Big Cartel
Big Cartel’s primary selling aspect is that you can develop, publish, and sell your products even without paying a single amount of money. For this feature, it is extremely rare for a modern website builder. With the majority of website builders, you have to pay for a subscription to sell your products and services through the platform; however, Big Cartel is breaking stereotypes.
If you want to consider this website builder, you must get what you pay for when using this platform. Big Cartel is a completely basic e-commerce website builder. However, it also has its range of benefits that earn a rank on our list of the best website builders for e-commerce and blogging.
If you are just starting and don’t mind expanding your business right then and there, Big Cartel is a suitable option. It is developed to help creatives, makers, and artists sell their works online. As a result, this website builder is best for selling a small number of unique products. On the contrary, you can’t upload in bulk so be prepared to upload them into the site one by one.
One of the best advantages of Big Cartel is its inexpensive pricing or subscription plans. These are extremely affordable, providing you with a better value for money compared to other website builders on the market.
Pros
- Suitable for small-scale products and services
- Availability of free plan
Cons
- Poor design templates
- Technical expertise/coding skills required for a better experience
10. Square Online Store
Square is a payment processing platform bought by Weebly, another popular website builder. The combined integration is the all-new Square Online Store, which has Weebly’s website building service and Square’s features.
Overall, it’s pretty much the same as Weebly. You can register for an account on Square Online Store and gain additional features; however, you are still using Weebly’s website building platform to actually create your website.
This is a great advantage for beginners since Weebly is extremely easy to use and has garnered unparalleled client satisfaction in some independent research. Since it is powered by Weebly itself, Square Online Store has the limitations of Weebly when it comes to customization features.
Square Online Store utilizes Artificial Design Intelligence to create your e-commerce website or blog that is specifically tailored to your needs. This is a similar strategy implemented by GoDaddy, asking a few questions about your online store to develop customized design and layout for your website.
If you are asking why you should use Weebly instead of Square, the simple answer would be Square Online Store has more additional integrations and features that Weebly doesn’t have, namely, creating custom invoices, and tracking client behavior.
Pros
- Free subscription plans
- Easy to use
- Quick set-up/installation
Cons
- Similar customization restrictions with Weebly
- Features can be outpaced by bigger merchants
11. Webnode
Although not as common as other website builders, Webnode is still one of the most used international website builders around, especially among European markets. Some of Webnode’s offers have more advance features and are almost distinct in the industry; however, it also doesn’t have some of the basic features that can be a non-negotiable for some users.
It includes a free domain name for the majority of Webnode’s subscriptions for the first 12 months. Aside from that, it also comes with a custom email address such as info@your-preferred-domain.com without a fee.
Pros
- Multilingual-friendly integrations
- Robust SEO features with modern and sleek design templates
Cons
- Very basic blogging features
- No app market
12. Jimdo
Jimdo is a German website builder that has over 20 million websites under its belt. Ease of use is their primary reputation. Jimdo Creator is its core offering. Jimdo also prides itself on Jimdo Dolphin, which makes it possible for you to have a fully functional website in three minutes.
It is a robust website builder that complements a decent online store. Jimdo lets you create a website from scratch and provides support until implementation using its Android and iOS apps. Another noteworthy feature is that email accounts are included right into the core product and inexpensive. All their designs and templates are 100% responsive and display well on mobile devices and desktops.
Pros
- Powerful free subscriptions with password-protection features
- SEO optimization
Cons
- Less flexibility and fewer features
- Fewer designs and templates
Final Word
If you’re looking for a comprehensive all-in-one solution for creating a website for your e-commerce and blogging needs, then look no further than the best website builders we’ve listed in this article. These website builders are one of the best options for creating a new online store or blog site from scratch.
Have you already made up your mind on which website builder is best for your small business needs? Did we miss anything on our list? We would love to hear your recommendations and insights in the comments below!
