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Shopify Alternatives

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Shopify is widely considered the best ecommerce platform because it’s filled with features, offers great resources for learning the ropes, and delivers everything you need to start a web store in one place. Millions of users agree. But while Shopify often proves superior to other options, they’re not the best at everything. That’s why we’re here to show you some ecommerce platform alternatives, just in case your needs aren’t fully met by a Shopify plan. Whatever your reason for starting an online store, we have a provider to help. Let’s get to it. 

The Best Shopify Alternatives 

Wix is known for making site building easy on beginners. Their AI builder can create an ecommerce store for you in a matter of seconds. Or, you can design it yourself with inspiration from designer templates. Create your free Wix site today. 

Squarespace is for your creative side. With this platform, you can sell your work easily and with style, helped by modern templates that help you create a look that represents your creative output. Try Squarespace and get your first 14 days free

BigCommerce helps you sell more easily by expanding your ecommerce selling channels. Integrate brick-and-mortar sales or selling on social platforms into your ecommerce site. Use BigCommerce’s years of experience to build quickly, plus you can try them for free for 15 days

WooCommerce is the undisputed champion of WordPress ecommerce plugins. If you are kicking around the idea of adding online sales to your current website, WooCommerce can do that for you in one easy-to-deploy yet powerful plugin. The best part is it’s completely free to use

Volusion is the ecommerce platform you want if you’re not a large enterprise but want to sell hundreds or thousands of products. They have been around for over 20 years and make selling and expanding your large product lines a walk in the park. Start your 14-day free trial today

Shift4Shop is a developer-friendly platform that lets you take your web store’s design and construction in any direction. It’s designed for experienced developers, but allows you to build an ecommerce site that is like no other. Plus, it’s free forever—no hidden fees, no nonsense. Try Shift4Shop today and build a web store that truly stands apart from the crowd. 

More Top Ecommerce Platforms

Craving more information about other ecommerce platforms we recommend? We have a full list of options that we spent weeks researching and testing. From there, we picked out the best and worst parts to pay attention to, in hopes of saving you countless hours of online searching. See all of our top picks

Our Take on Shopify 

Shopify home page

Shopify is one of the safest bets in the ecommerce space. Their years of delivering a comprehensive ecommerce platform that anyone can use have solidified their prowess. This drag-and-drop website builder takes all the guesswork out of structuring an online store. If you want to make money selling products and services online, Shopify takes you from zero to hero in just about one or two hours.  

Shopify vs. Wix 

If you are looking to create a store with modern features like point-of-sale integration to unite your online and in-person selling, then Shopify is the winner. It delivers on more advanced features than just about any other platform, including Wix.

But Wix is built for beginners, first-timers, those in a rush, or just about anybody else with simple ecommerce needs who want a web store built well and quickly. Leverage Wix’s assistance in building your online store or start from one of many great templates and create something more uniquely your own. Either way, you’ll have a working ecommerce site in mere minutes. You’ll need a paid Wix plan to sell products or services, but its price points are comparable to Shopify’s entry-level and mid-tier plans.

Shopify vs. Squarespace

Shopify is all about building functional ecommerce sites for any industry. They offer features to allow you to customize your store how you want and allow you to integrate in-person sales with your ecommerce revenue. 

But artists, photographers, and other creatives flock to Squarespace because of how the platform is designed for their products and services. It’s a platform that makes selling super simple and helps you expand out into selling gift cards, subscriptions, and anything else you can think of. Squarespace’s templates are modern and mobile-ready, which helps a lot for showing off and selling from your portfolio online. 

Shopify vs. BigCommerce

Shopify offers multi-channel selling so you can sell across marketplaces and social platforms. That makes it easy to build a Shopify store and sell those products on digital venues like Instagram, TikTok, and eBay. 

The same goes for BigCommerce, but they do Shopify one better by offering the ability to push your products on Amazon as well, plus integrate your Square, Clover, or other POS platform. The other big perk is how easily you can switch between multiple storefronts with just one login. So, if you’re a business owner and want to compare how your sales are doing from each channel, you don’t need five or six different passwords to stay organized. 

Shopify vs. WooCommerce

This comparison is a bit different because Shopify is a full-fledged site-building and ecommerce platform while WooCommerce is a plugin that you add to a WordPress site to make it ecommerce-ready. WooCommerce is full of features that can make a WordPress site into a web store every bit as powerful as any other. Plus, it’s totally free to add to your WordPress site and use.

But there are some downsides to having an open-source plugin that needs to be updated frequently. Compatibility issues can break elements on your website, for one example. Or, you won’t have access to 24/7 support like you do with Shopify. With that said, if you already have a WordPress site and want to add a new revenue stream without paying for it, WooCommerce is a great choice. Just be aware of the learning curve and the corresponding maintenance that can affect your site. 

Shopify vs. Volusion

Shopify is very capable when it comes to the amount of products you can sell. All Shopify plans allow for a theoretically unlimited number of products, just like Volusion offers. For all intents and purposes, these platforms are pretty even.

But when it comes to selling products online, you have transaction fees to deal with. These depend on the payment processor and gateway you choose to use with your ecommerce store. Shopify, like many others, takes a small percentage of credit card payments whenever someone buys from your store—between 2.4% and 2.9%. But Volusion offers the most competitive rates in this regard, ranging from 1.25% on its cheapest plan to a mere 0.35% on its highest-octane package. Think about it. How much more money can you hold onto with transaction rates that are one to two percent lower? We’ll save you the math: it’s a lot. 

Shopify vs. Shift4Shop

Shopify is an all-in-one platform that offers you tons of customization and freedom, but it still has its limits on what you can do. Shift4Shop demolishes those limitations because it’s a platform built for developers. Create whatever your heart desires and add functionality no other online ecommerce store can boast.

Now, you aren’t getting the accessible drag-and-drop interface here you do with a lot of other platforms. So, you have to hire a developer or code your site yourself on Shift4Shop. But even if you hire a dev, you’ll save on money in the long run because Shift4Shop is free forever. You can make millions of dollars on this platform and never pay a monthly fee. 

Summary 

There are several alternatives to Shopify that may fit some use cases better. It all depends on what your needs are and how quickly you want to begin selling online. 

Shopify is a great start if you want to get the ball rolling with a reliable ecommerce platform that millions of users confirm is amazing. But if you want to save more on transaction fees, Volusion is a great choice. Or, if you’re a total site-building novice, Wix may be the better decision. And,  if you already have a WordPress site with tons of traffic and a healthy email list, WooCommerce can open your site up to the world of ecommerce. The options are numerous, but now you have the comparative shopping information to make the best decision with ease. 


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