The Best Ecommerce Platforms in 2024

Wix stands out for me as an ecommerce platform due to its highly intuitive drag-and-drop editor, which simplifies the process of building and customizing your own online store. You can easily arrange and design your store layout by simply dragging elements into place, making it accessible even for those without technical or design expertise.

The platform also offers a wide variety of professionally designed templates that can be tailored to fit any brand, allowing users to create a visually appealing store without needing extensive design skills. Additionally, Wix provides integrated tools for managing products, processing payments, and handling shipping, streamlining the ecommerce setup and operational tasks into a single, cohesive experience.

Moreover, Wix’s App Market further enhances its flexibility by offering numerous third-party applications and integrations that can be added to your store with just a few clicks. This includes marketing tools, customer management systems, and advanced analytics, allowing you to expand your store’s functionality as your ecommerce business grows.

The platform’s scalability means you can start with a basic store setup and gradually incorporate more advanced features as needed. Wix’s comprehensive support resources and user-friendly interface ensure that even those new to ecommerce can easily navigate and utilize its full range of features, making it a top choice for building and managing an online store efficiently.

Wix offers a free version, but like its cheapest Light plan, it lacks ecommerce integration. So, users interested in ecommerce services must choose between the three higher-tier Wix pricing plans.

• Core Plan: This is the first Wix subscription plan that adds ecommerce features, along with site analytics, up to five collaborators, 50 GB of storage space, and access to drop shipping and booking platforms.
• Business Plan: This plan offers up to 10 collaborators, 100 GB of storage, and automated sales tax calculations. It also allows for product reviews, back-in-stock notifications, and multiple currencies.
• Business Elite Plan: The Business Elite tier offers up to 15 collaborators, unlimited storage space, customized analytics reports, and priority customer support.

All Wix plans come with a 14-day money-back guarantee, so you can get a refund if you’re not completely satisfied with the service.

Wix’s user-friendly approach, SEO-focused features, and customizable settings make it the right ecommerce platform for business owners aiming to dominate search engine results. Whether a small boutique or a large ecommerce store, Wix can help climb the SEO ladder and attract more organic traffic.

From customizable templates for your online store to secure payment processing, Shopify offers everything needed to create a professional online business. Notable features include inventory management, abandoned cart recovery, and global retail ecommerce sales tools.

It also includes seamless integration with various sales channels, including social media platforms and online marketplaces. Shopify’s extensive App Store allows businesses to enhance their store’s functionality with a wide range of third-party apps, covering everything from marketing automation to advanced analytics.

Additionally, Shopify provides built-in tools for SEO and abandoned cart recovery, ensuring that startups can effectively attract and retain customers. With its ability to handle high traffic volumes and a secure, reliable infrastructure, Shopify supports growth and scalability, making it an ideal choice for startups aiming to expand quickly. I also like that Shopify provides a secure, user-friendly environment and seamless customer shopping experience

All Shopify plans enable users to start ecommerce companies and sell and market unlimited products or services online or in person.

• Basic plan: The Basic plan offers 10 inventory locations, localized global selling (3 markets), 24/7 chat support, and access to POS lite settings for retail stores. Card rates start at 2%.
• Shopify plan: The next tier includes everything in the Basic plan plus five additional staff accounts. Credit card processing fees are reduced to 1%.
• Advanced plan: The Advanced plan includes access to custom reports and analytics, 15 additional staff accounts, and 10x checkout capacity. Card rates are as low as 0.6%.
• Plus plan: Finally, the Plus tier offers competitive rates for high-volume merchants and includes unlimited staff accounts, 200 inventory locations, 200 POS Pro locations, localized global selling (50 markets), and a fully customizable checkout with 40x capacity. Subscribers also get to enjoy priority 24/7 phone support.

Shopify plans are on the higher end of the price range, especially considering users still have to pay for most themes and numerous features for their online store. However, Shopify takes the hassle out of the entire ecommerce experience, not just website building, especially with its higher-tier plans.

Shopify is ideal for time-strapped entrepreneurs with no technical expertise looking for a quick, easy, all-in-one platform to start their first ecommerce business. It may be expensive to start, but makes scaling your online business a breeze.

Squarespace stands out for its stunning designs, making it a true haven for creatives and one of the best website builders for artists.

With its intuitive drag-and-drop editor, you can build an enterprise-level website without any coding skills. Its omnichannel capabilities are essential for enterprise-level businesses operating both online and offline.

These features also include social media integrations and marketplace tools, which play a crucial role in attracting, engaging, and maintaining customer relationships. For example, Squarespace offers seamless integration with Facebook, Instagram, and other social media sites, allowing customers to buy products, digital goods, or services from the user’s online store via any of these platforms.

It offers a wealth of other ecommerce features, including inventory tracking, order fulfillment, payment gateways, and client invoicing.

Squarespace’s built-in point-of-sale (POS) system offers a cohesive customer experience and allows users to sell physical and digital products. The cherry on top is Squarespace’s Scheduling Invoices feature, which allows business owners to create unique templates with customized fields to fit the specifics of each service provided.

Squarespace does not have a free plan, but potential users can test all its functions for 14 days before they commit to one of four paid plans.

• Personal plan: The Personal plan includes unlimited storage and bandwidth, SEO tools, an SSL certificate, and Squarespace AI, but lacks ecommerce features.
• Business plan: This tier provides access to a professional Google email, CSS and Javascript customization, advanced marketing features, and basic ecommerce.
• Basic Commerce plan: This plan includes point-of-sale functionality, customer accounts, and advanced merchandising tools. It also allows users to sell products on Instagram. There are no transaction fees.
• Advanced Commerce plan: This highest tier is ideal for high-volume ecommerce businesses because it offers advanced shipping and discounting. It is also the only Squarespace plan that includes the abandoned cart recovery feature.

As usual, the choice of appropriate plan depends on the user’s needs. Users designing an enterprise-level ecommerce website should choose the Basic Commerce or Advanced Commerce plan.

Squarespace is best for those who want to create visually appealing online stores without needing extensive technical skills. Additionally, it’s a great choice for creatives, artists, and small businesses looking to showcase their products in a beautifully designed, user-friendly ecommerce site.

Square Online offers an array of beginner-friendly features. Its intuitive interface enables users to design a professional-looking ecommerce website without requiring any coding knowledge.

Its drag-and-drop builder facilitates easy store setup and design customization, even for those with no technical background. I love that Square includes integrated payment processing, automatic tax calculations, and versatile shipping options, all of which contribute to a streamlined UX.

Square Online also provides multi-location support and accepts and manages online and in-store orders. It allows users to keep a centralized directory of customer data, including sales history, loyalty points, and gift cards. Integration with Square Marketing and Square Loyalty enhances repeat business.

Square Online offers an excellent free plan and two paid plans. All plans come with built-in ecommerce functionality.

• Free plan: The free plan enables users to sell unlimited products on Square-branded sites or social media and offers shipping, local delivery, and free in-person pickup. Customers can pay via Afterpay, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Both bandwidth and storage are limited to 500 MB. Users pay standard payment processing of 2.9% + 30¢ for online payments and 2.6% + 10¢ for in-person payments.
• Plus plan: This tier includes a free custom domain for one year, access to free themes, customer accounts, password-protected pages, personalized ordering, professional branding, advanced site layouts, enhanced branded experiences, QR code ordering, abandoned shopping cart emails, and advanced site customization.
• Premium plan: The Premium plan includes real-time shipping rates for your customers, free in-house delivery, and lower transaction rates (2.6% + 30¢ per sale), making this plan attractive to high-volume sellers.

Square Online is an excellent choice for beginners entering the world of online retail due to its user-friendly interface and robust free plan. The free in-store pickup option also caters to businesses with a physical presence.

Thanks to its beginner-friendly Instant Site builder, Ecwid allows seamless integration into existing websites or the creation of new ones. It offers tons of customization options, empowering users to tailor their online store to their needs. Clean code, mobile responsiveness, and built-in SEO tools enhance the store’s visibility.

Ecwid allows you to maintain your current website design and structure while adding robust ecommerce capabilities, including product listings, shopping carts, and checkout processes.

Ecwid’s free ecommerce site plan comes with no strings attached, allowing users to venture into the world of online sales without any upfront costs. Although limited to 10 products, this plan provides unlimited bandwidth and numerous useful ecommerce and marketing features.

Ecwid is also an all-in-one ecommerce solution for multi-channel sales. It connects websites to leading social media platforms and global marketplaces (including Amazon and eBay) and streamlines inventory and order management across channels, eliminating the need for separate tools. Whether selling online, in-store, or via mobile, Ecwid keeps everything centralized.

Ecwid’s combination of no transaction fees, versatility, seamless integration, and essential features makes it an excellent ecommerce site for individuals and businesses looking to establish their online presence without breaking the bank.

Ecwid offers a free forever plan with full ecommerce features but limited sales possibilities. There are also more robust paid plans.

• Free Forever plan: The Free Forever plan offers unlimited bandwidth and storage, free templates, e-mail support, and basic ecommerce and marketing tools. It allows users to list five products at a time.
• Venture plan: The Venture plan allows users to list 100 products or digital goods and sell them on Facebook and Instagram. It also offers automated tax calculations, inventory tracking, an Android and iOS store management app, advanced SEO tools, gift cards and discount coupons, live chat support, and a custom domain.
• Business plan: This tier offers 2,500 listings, phone support, full marketing and order management suites, a multilingual catalog, and recurring subscriptions. You can sell products and digital goods on Amazon, eBay, mobile POS, and more.
• Unlimited plan: The highest tier offers unlimited products, priority support, and connection to retail POS systems like Square, Alice, and Clover.

Ecwid doesn’t offer a free trial because people can use its free plan for as long as they like.

Ecwid is an excellent ecommerce solution for users who want to add an online store to an existing website – at no cost. Even though the free version lacks some advanced ecommerce features and limits the number of products, it is a great opportunity to test the market.

WooCommerce is an open-source ecommerce platform for WordPress that operates as a modular ecommerce plugin, allowing you to add features as you go. It is designed to work in conjunction with thousands of other free and paid WordPress plugins so users can choose the features that best suit their personal needs.

Most importantly, WooCommerce users can sell, market, and deliver all types of products and services, receive customer feedback, and accept and process payments via the WooPayments gateway, which is compatible with all major credit cards, Google Pay, and Apple Pay.

To support the specific needs of a site’s visitors, WooCommerce users may choose between 25 customer support extensions. WooCommerce analytics is another great feature that helps business owners manage their stores by letting them know what is and is not working.

WooCommerce is a free WordPress plug-in, so there are no pre-determined pricing plans. Unfortunately, this means users can’t build a fully functional ecommerce site with WooCommerce alone. You will need to use an existing or build a new WordPress site.

Depending on the user’s choice of theme and third-party integrations, the costs might rise further. Here is a table that can help estimate the final cost:

Since WooCommerce is actually a WordPress store builder plugin, you’ll need to register a domain and purchase a web hosting service for your WordPress website if you’re going for a paid plan. Typically, this will cost between $13 and $77, depending on the user’s bandwidth and storage requirements. All WooCommerce users must also pay the WooPayments base fee (2.90% + $0.30) when selling products and services.

WooCommerce is the number one choice for WordPress users who want complete control over their online store, including its customization and functionality. I love it because it lets you integrate existing themes and plugins while staying in full control of their cost.

Shift4Shop combines ecommerce, payment processing, inventory management, and marketing tools into a single platform. This integration simplifies workflow, reduces the need for third-party apps, and enhances overall efficiency.

It offers customizable pricing tiers and discounts tailored to different customer groups, robust bulk ordering capabilities for large purchases, and flexible payment options that accommodate various business models. The platform also offers integration with multiple sales channels and detailed analytics to track performance across both B2B and B2C segments.

Additionally, Shift4Shop supports complex shipping rules and tax configurations, ensuring it can handle the unique requirements of diverse sales environments efficiently.

Its clean code, mobile responsiveness, and built-in SEO tools enhance the website’s visibility, attract more organic traffic, and lead to higher conversions. Finally, Shift4Shop offers PCI-compliant payment processing and built-in fraud protection for customer data security.

Shift4Shop has a unique pricing system and offers one of the most robust free plans on the market. The platform is free for all users who process at least $500 in sales per month. Those who don’t meet this threshold must pay $29/month.

However, to enjoy the free service’s benefits, users must use the Shift4Shop payment gateway and pay transaction fees (2.9% + $0.30). Using alternatives, like PayPal, requires a paid plan.

Shift4Shop is an ideal ecommerce store for U.S.-based businesses that sell a variety of products to multiple B2B or B2C customers and want to enjoy an unlimited, enterprise-grade plan without spending a fortune.

BigCommerce offers advanced product management, customizable pricing tiers for wholesale customers, and extensive bulk ordering capabilities. The platform’s scalable infrastructure handles high traffic and large product catalogs efficiently, while its built-in tools for multi-channel selling and integration with popular third-party apps enhance its functionality.

BigCommerce enables users to assign wholesale customers to unique groups and customize their site experience based on factors like pricing, product availability, and re-ordering processes. Thanks to built-in price list functionality, business owners can also tailor pricing for individual clients or entire customer groups.

BigCommerce’s Multi-Storefront Compatibility (MSF) feature enables users to launch and manage multiple storefronts from a single back-end. This feature allows for greater operational efficiency and scalability across different brands, geographies, or customer segments (such as B2B alongside B2C).

Additionally, BigCommerce offers robust analytics, comprehensive inventory management, and flexible shipping and tax options, making it well-suited for businesses that require both scalability and specialized wholesale features.

BigCommerce does not have a free plan, but three great-value paid plans have unlimited staff accounts, products, storage, and bandwidth. Plus, there are no transaction fees.

• Standard plan: This plan is best for users with a maximum annual revenue of $50,000. It includes access to ecommerce features like real-time shipping quotes, ratings, and reviews on product listings. Users can also offer coupons, discounts, and gift cards.
• Plus plan: This tier is for users with a maximum annual revenue of up to $180,000. It offers up to five storefronts and inventory locations, an abandoned cart recovery feature, the option to store credit cards, and customer segmentation.
• Pro plan: Finally, the Pro tier allows a maximum online sales limit of $400,000. It offers up to eight storefronts and inventory locations, custom product filtering, and Google reviews.

The Plus plan seems to be an excellent solution for most new wholesale businesses. The Pro plan is what they will move to once they grow and exceed the Plus plan’s maximum annual online sales.

BigCommerce offers numerous ecommerce features that cater to wholesale retailers. Unfortunately, it is not as beginner-friendly as some other options on my list, and thus, some less tech-savvy users might find it a bit overwhelming.