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Ecommerce Website Builders: 2020 top-10 [global stats by Alexa]
We have analyzed 10 of the builders that could get you from a zero online presence to the stars, ranked them, and put a verdict: who is it best suitable for. Do you want to know?
Liz Kasian
Apr 15, 2021
2020 witnesses huge variety of choices, everywhere. Ecommerce owners now have as much as possible tools, plugins, and soft for literally everything – even for ordering product shots for the whole collection in minutes.
And ecommerce website builders keep up. The offers are multiple and it's easy to get lost in all of the diversity.
We have done the homework and analyzed 10 of the builders that will get you from a zero online presence to full-fledged ecommerce businessperson in 30 bucks a month and a few days.
5 of our top 10 picks for the title of Best Ecommerce Website builder 2020 rank in Alexa’s Global 700 world’s most visited websites as of March 2020.
Taking into account, that the first Alexa’s 100 contains only giants like Facebook, Insta, Google, Reddit, Youtube, Netflix [and their Chinese versions], being in the world's 700 most visited websites is a big deal. A huge deal in fact.
Get comfortable and let's get throught our e-commerce website builders comparison table and website builder’s ranking together.
Website builders are specialized software, accessible like a regular website for a user, that allows users to build websites without coding skills, but by using intuitive drag & drop interfaces. Many leading website builder solutions include hosting services and have multiple integrations like dropshipping modules, payment gateways, mail marketing and more.
All newbies in ecommerce will face this question. What website builder do I use to build my first online shop? Where do I find reliable best ecommerce website builder review? What is the best website builder for ecommerce? What’s the difference? How do I install the payment system? What other tools can I integrate with each solution for dropshipping? How much are they? Do I pay monthly? Do I need hosting? Do I need a domain name? Can I build a website if I have zero coding skills?
We all have been there. Please see below our ranking so you can base your decision on our experience of decades of interaction with our clients – ecommerce entrepreneurs, who have tried and tested them all.
Users choose website builders because:
Users choose to build their website from scratch if:
A must-have for ecommerce, if you sell digital products or physical ones, you need to be able to ascribe their price, description, title, attach images, sort them, categorize them, etc.
This is a hugely competitive feature on the website builders market, that doesn't cost that much.
Asia is full of amazingly talented people on insanely low rates – while it takes governments decades to modernize, talent in India, Philippines, Indonesia is fully up the speed in terms of all the technological advancements.
Many are capable to rival the talent of Silicon Valley at the fraction of the price tag. We found many ecommerce entrepreneurs discover this sooner, rather than later, having heard it from Neil Patel ourselves.
On the other hand, a great design is what budding entrepreneurs can appreciate instantly and ultimate website users see as a hefty token of credibility.
This one is complicated as is – all the financial docs, restrictions, legalities, integrations are super nuanced, differ from country to country and are time-consuming to install into a standalone website.
The more payment gateways are offered by a website builder, the more integrations are part of the default package, the less hassle it is for the ecommerce business owner.
Data is everything. If you cannot measure it, you cannot fix it or improve it.
The better the analytics the easier you convert figures into actionable steps on your to-do list.
One-click integration with Google Analytics, Facebook pixel, Google ads, Google console are all default expectations of a website builder platform customer.
Word Press has Yoast. Even the free version gives users quite a bit of tool to control and implement the best and most recent SEO practices.
But the platforms for website construction, like Shopify, WooCommerce, Weebly, Wix need to be optimized too. Ecommerce depends on the Google rankings big deal.
Possibility to implement on-page optimization, use H1, H2 tags, provide meta descriptions and page titles are all a must-have for an ecommerce website building platform. Otherwise, how your customers will find you?
Google is not only one of the most complex systems there are, but also such, that evolves by the second. This is why when it comes to compatibility with Google algorithms it takes a giant to face a giant.
The creation of every feature should be done in a way, that sings along the Google ever-changing algorithms.
This is where out Alexa comparison table comes into play. This is just one of the print screens of Alexa rankings the websites in our review. This is the comparison table, that gives one an idea of just how big these platforms are in fact.
We provided 2 world-known websites: Amazon & CNN for comparison reasons and to work as a scale.
For example, 145K sites are linking into CNN – how on Earth could Squarespace squeeze into 116K of the websites worldwide? Obviously, backlinking is a HUGE part of their SEO.
For example, GoDaddy enjoys the lowest Bounce rate of just 19%, while Amazon sits at 24,8%. With all that traffic maintain such a low bounce rate is a mastery – and a mystery too.
Enjoy the stats – they do speak volumes. We are not urging you to follow the social proof here and pick the one higher up the global ranking, vice versa. Please take the table in its entirety and compare all major factors and their correlation to each other.
The data was taken on the 7th of March 2020.
People looking for website builders are looking for an intuitive user-friendly interface. Otherwise, they would code their own thing, right?
The simpler the interface – the more likely that users will prolong after the free trial expires.
WordPress is not too big a learning curve, especially with such drag & drop builders like Elementor and tons of do-along YouTube vids. This is one of the major reasons website builders are so affordable and many will offer hosting as part of the package.
So, let's get to our top-10?
Monthly rates: Standard $29.95 | Plus $79.95 | Pro $249.95 | 15 day free trial
Best features:
Worst features:
Verdict: With the pricing policy pretty much aligned with that of Shopify, this is a solid choice for B2B ecommerce for ambitious projects with prospects of multi-channel sales.
Monthly rates: Basic $23 | Unlimited $27 | VIP $49 | Enterprise $500 |14 day free trial
Best features:
Worst features:
Verdict: It is indeed THE choice for ecommerce beginners. If you are only starting your ecommerce online store, WIX will minimize the agony and maybe even be fun – if you love creating, you will love this intuitive tool.
With the lowest price for ecommerce, you can even further minimize your costs by building a site on a personal plan at $13 and switching to Business when all is ready for the selling.
Monthly rates: Personal $12 | Business $18 | Basic commerce $26| Advanced Commerce $40 | 14 day free trial
Best features:
Worst features:
Verdict: this is a leader in the site builder platforms industry, which is confirmed by our Alexa ranking table: it is the most visited website in the USA №146 with GoDaddy at 132. Shopify, for example, is №321 in the USA, has 9 times as few backlinks and 31% less average time on site. Wix and Weebly though outperform Squareshot in the global ranking, hitting more global engagement, even though lagging behind in USA Alexa rankings.
Monthly rates: Basic $29 | Shopify $79 | Advanced $299 |14 day free trial
Best features:
Worst features:
Verdict: Shopify has seen massive growth in recent years and is becoming the ecommerce website platform of choice for over a million entrepreneurs. The functionality is just overwhelming in terms of saturation of technological offers to meet every need of an ecommerce store owner. Usability, intuitiveness is amplified by customer service and advanced technological solutions in ecommerce.
Monthly rates: Pro $12 | Business $25 | Business Plus $38 |forever free trial
Best features:
Worst features:
Verdict: the cheapest website builder out there with the possibility to do all the pre-launch work done in the free mode for as long as it takes, no limit of the 14-day trial. So if the budgets are tight and you are only exploring the ecommerce and trying to figure out how it works – Weebly is a viable option. The best ecommerce website builder for small business.
Monthly rates: Personal $26 | Professional $71 | Startup $161 |Business $269 | 14 day free trial
Best features:
Worst features:
Verdict: Volusion is a run-of-the-mill website builder that has little wows to offer aside from analytics. Specifically unsuitable for smaller businesses with 10-20 items to sell.
Monthly rates: $19.99 [billed annually only]| 1-month free trial
Best features:
Worst features:
Verdict: Once again, GoDaddy is all about domain business. So expecting great speed is one thing, but not expecting much of the trend-setting features is also on the menu. Do you know that Motorola specializes in military equipment design and manufacturing? Some phones were sold too along the way.
Monthly rates for the 1st year [get doubled in the 2nd+ year]: Startup $9.50 | Basic $14.50 | Plus $39.50 |Pro $114.5 | 15 day free trial | 30 days money-back guarantee
Best features:
Worst features:
Verdict: unless they manage to find their USP and invest some talent and buck into perfecting it, the service may be stuck forever in the middle-of-the-road range, that no one remembers or recommends much.
Monthly rates: 25 products $9.99 | 100 products $19.99 | 300 products $29.99 |14 day free trial
Best features:
Worst features:
Verdict: The free website builder for ecommerce. Big Cartel does offer the free plan and it is created for artisans and hand makers. If you are a hand maker with nothing to lose and no budget – this is the right product for you to explore the possibilities of ecommerce with this basic but free website builder.
Monthly rates: freemium, sort of.
Best features:
Worst features:
Verdict: If you do have a WordPress site, that you want to turn into an online store and a successful ecommerce business – than WooCommerce is the solution for you. If you are tight on budget but would like to try your hand in the ecommerce entrepreneurship, WooCommerce might be the way to go. In the best-case scenario, you are technically savvy and are ready for long hours of code-along vids like this one [disclaimer: there is no real coding involved and Nayyar is an awesome teacher].
That's it, choose your fighter!
If you have zero budget, you will be guided by that and have a limited choice anyway.
If you have 30 bucks to spare monthly on this experiment, that just hover around in the area of top 3-5 recommendations for the website builder by choosing what’s more important – sleek design or backend functionalities like SEO and analytics for scaling.
This is one of the questions you might face when considering creating a new ecommerce website. Seasoned etailers know, that hi-quality product photography is both: fundamental and vital to the success of an online store.
If you are only starting your business and have a few products to shoot or if you are scaling your existing store and thinking to upgrade to a better website builder – there is a chance your product images needs need to attend too.
Squareshot has accumulated decades of experience in the niche, making a converting image of clothing, accessories, jewelry, cosmetics.
Want to see what your products look like through our lens? Explore our portfolio of product imagery and try the service for yourself.
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