Shopify has virtually become associated with online shopping. For a good purpose. It is one of the most widely used e-commerce platforms, powering over one million enterprises in over 175 countries.
But, just because something is popular does not always imply it is the best choice for you. As you’re certainly aware if you’re looking for Shopify alternatives.
We can assist you whether you are an existing Shopify customer searching for additional options or are just starting to investigate what e-commerce platforms are available. We’ll go over the best Shopify alternatives, including the benefits and drawbacks of each e-commerce system.<\/p>
Before we get into our list of the best Shopify alternatives, it’s important to define Shopify. Shopify is one of the most popular eCommerce platform suppliers in the world. The cloud-based platform is simple to use and packed with features, with alternatives for Shopify businesses of all sizes and backgrounds. To increase your odds of sales, you can convert your existing website to Shopify or add a sales button to your website on another platform.<\/p>
Shopify allows merchants to receive payments in a variety of currencies and sell almost anything. With a free name for your website, POS solutions for brick-and-mortar stores, and connectivity with social media outlets, the platform even offers multi-channel selling. With Shopify, you receive everything you need to develop a scalable store, from website designs and marketing add-ons to payment processing tools and inventory management.<\/p>
Shopify isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, and it can’t suit some specific needs.
If you already pay for a CMS, such as WordPress, you may be annoyed by the additional cost of the second platform. And if you’re an artist, you can end up paying for features you don’t need or want to learn how to utilize.<\/p>
Fortunately, alternatives cover the holes that giants like Shopify have left unfilled. If you explore some of them, you could discover that an option to Shopify is better for you.
Some of the most typical Shopify concerns are:<\/p>
BigCommerce, one of the most well-known Shopify competitors, is a popular e-commerce platform for larger enterprises. When you want a seamless, no-sweat experience and the versatility of a drag-and-drop editor, BigCommerce may be just about the perfect option. It is a well-known supplier that provides a complete solution for your e-commerce website.
Their themes are fantastic, however, there are just seven free themes across all industries. If you want more than the free minimum, you’ll need to pay for premium themes. <\/p>
Because you can manage your storefronts on Amazon, eBay, Facebook, and Pinterest from BigCommerce, multi-channel selling is simplified. Your inventory is synced across all stores, ensuring that you never oversell.<\/p>
On the negative, when I personally tested load times on BigCommerce sites, I discovered a handful that was quite slow. During testing, one BigCommerce site gave me a bandwidth problem.<\/p>
Costs range from $29.95\/mo to $249.95\/mo, however the expense can be prohibitive. Every plan includes an extra yearly sales volume cap, so if you expect to sell more than $50,000 per year, you must upgrade. <\/p>
Use BigCommerce if you want to run a large ecommerce site and SEO is critical to your growth.<\/p>
As far as Shopify competitors go, Zyro is a low-cost solution that provides many of the same features at a fraction of the price. The simplest plan costs less than $5 a month, and the top-tier plan costs $15.90 per month. Even with monthly plan pricing, the Advanced Store plan is less expensive than Shopify Basic.<\/p>
Similar to Shopify, it provides a drag-and-drop page builder, an app marketplace for additional functionality, and a selection of templates. The app marketplace supports dropshipping, print on demand, marketing options, and more.<\/p>
Wix gets right to the point by offering everything you need in an easy-to-use interface with inexpensive pricing. More than 100 useful templates, a diverse set of apps, highly configurable theme choices, and a user-friendly editor make it a go-to solution for both novice and advanced users.<\/p>
Wix offers two options for setting up your site: ADI, which is more of an automated assistant that suggests a setup based on your responses in its questionnaire, and Manual. Wix Editor, on the other hand, offers for complete user control and customization, and it’s basically drag-and-drop, allowing you to insert any material anywhere on your website.<\/p>
Wix’s app store has over 280 apps, add-ons, and plugins for embedding social media, live chat, payment gateways, coupons, and other services. You may also insert HTML codes, light boxes, and use different button styles – all at very low prices, giving Wix an advantage over Shopify.
A $5\/month package includes 1GB of bandwidth and 500MB of storage, as well as the flexibility to link to a custom domain, making it a popular choice among many online business owners.<\/p>
Wix eCommerce plan costs $16.50 per month and includes 10GB bandwidth and 20GB storage, a free domain name, and certain add-ons, but VIP costs $24.50 per month (which is cheaper than Shopify) and includes unlimited traffic.<\/p>
Sellfy is a digital product sales-focused ecommerce platform. It’s ideal for artists selling illustrations, music, or video courses. Similar to Shopify, it is a cloud-based solution with a monthly subscription fee and separate credit card processing fees. <\/p>
Similar to how Shopify offers the Lite plan with buy buttons, Sellfy offers a basic solution to embed products and buy buttons onto an existing website. There is a 14-day free trial period with no credit card required. Pricing ranges from $29 to $129 per month ($19 to $89 per month on an annual plan).<\/p>
Shift4Shop is a cloud-hosted shopping cart platform with comprehensive functionality and variable pricing. The platform gives an unlimited product storage option, which makes it a highly scalable platform for developing organizations. And security is second to none.<\/p>
Costs range from $19\/mo to $229\/mo, and include basic SEO tools, abandoned cart email, coupons, subscriptions, tailored products, drop shipping, tracking, Facebook sync, and a slew of other perks. Please keep in mind that there is no product search functionality.<\/p>
If you\u2019re just getting started, you\u2019ll like Shift4Shop\u2019s varied capabilities and the in-house web design service that will personalize your shop\u2019s UI, UX, and SSL certificates for a fair charge.<\/p>
Few ecommerce solutions are as well-suited to WordPress as WooCommerce. It’s a free, open-source platform with a positive visitor experience.
It may be tough to scale, and you may have to purchase enhanced functionality if you want all the bells and whistles. Yet, its free package allows you to create a site that can compete with pricey carts.<\/p>
With WooCommerce and a little tinkering, you can create a mobile-friendly site while only paying for hosting. If your budget allows for it, WooCommerce offers Product Bundles for $49, and you can pick and choose which extensions you want.<\/p>
WooCommerce Freshdesk ($79) is a slick plugin that allows you to embed a ticketing system to provide customer support to your customers directly from your store. Overall, the platform provides a massive selection of plugins of all shapes and sizes that work particularly well with WordPress.<\/p>
Unlike Shopify, which is based on monthly subscriptions, WooCommerce offers premium add-ons for a one-time fee or in annual subscriptions.<\/p>
However, its weakest point is troubleshooting because WooCommerce will not make it easy for you. If your store experiences a problem, WooCommerce will blame your hosting or a plugin, whereas your hosting provider and plugin developer will most likely blame the theme. This does not happen with Shopify; they simply fix the problem for you without any hodgepodge.<\/p>
The English-bred Volusion is very dependable among the Shopify alternatives that serves over 200,000 enterprises. It’s a cloud-based shopping cart that’s popular among small businesses and solopreneurs with basic computing expertise. You don’t have to bother about hosting or integrating necessary applications with Volusion.<\/p>
Volusion plans are differentiated by the number of add-ons and plugins that can be linked to your online store. It also outperforms Shopify in terms of additional transaction fees, as it charges none.
A one-page checkout and an incorporated eBay integration are offered as a standalone premium upgrade.<\/p>
Volusion excels in terms of design because its huge library of templates is available in all of its products.<\/p>
Volusion plans range from $15 to $135 per month and include a slew of amazing features like the option to produce a “Add to Cart” link, gift certificates, and the ability to set categories and subcategories for items in your shop. Our mobile app allows you to manage your store while on the go.<\/p>
BigCartel has gained popularity among artists due to its affordability, unlimited bandwidth, inventory tracking, HTML and CSS customization, and essential features.<\/p>
True, it has fewer features than Shopify, but it’s also cheaper and works well for solopreneurs and small businesses. It integrates with Google Analytics, Facebook, and PayPal, and setting up your shop is simple even if you have no coding experience.<\/p>
Although BigCartel does not charge any additional transaction fees, PayPal does charge you higher fees on webshop orders. Another disadvantage is that the platform does not provide live chat or phone support, so use the free plan before upgrading to a paid subscription. The latter are priced between $9.99 and $29.99 per month, which is low by modern standards.<\/p>
Finally, because BigCartel lacks an inventory search function, it is best suited for shops with a small number of products.<\/p>
If tech skills and resources are limited and you intend to keep your product catalog small, try Squarespace. The platform includes a powerful website builder as well as a wide range of templates and themes. With that and a little tweaking, you can achieve pretty impressive results and have an e-store that looks like you spent a fortune on it.<\/p>
For $26\/mo, you get the basics: unlimited pages, galleries, blogs, bandwidth, storage, contributors, checkout, free domain, and SSL security. Add to that a $100 Google Adwords credit, orders, tax, discounts, customer accounts, label printing via ShipStation, and integrated accounting via Xero. For $40 per month, you also get abandoned cart auto recovery, real-time carrier shipping, automatic discounts, and gift cards (pretty expensive for such essential features).<\/p>
On the other hand, Squarespace only accepts PayPal and Stripe. Both processors impose additional transaction fees, despite the fact that it does not. The suite also loads slightly slower than Shopify, and its mobile load times are the slowest among the other contenders on the list.<\/p>
Although you have to pay for web hosting and a domain, you could say it’s free. Prestashop does offer a hosted version through partnerships with 1&1, WebHostingHub, TMD, Microsoft Azure, and others.<\/p>
Prestashop, understandably, does not have as many themes and templates as Shopify, but the usability is as good as you might expect from a free platform. It also has no additional transaction costs, supports 25 languages and numerous currencies, international sales, an unlimited number of goods and attributes, and details on abandoned carts.<\/p>
It will be difficult to scale as your shop grows, and you only receive one pre-installed theme, but you can also add a third-party theme. The number of free modules is limited, but the premium ones allow you to significantly improve your site. Additionally, if you hire a developer or take the time to read the various manuals and courses available for PrestaShop users, you may construct a respectable online store with a low initial expenditure.<\/p>