Even though Shopify is the best platform for building online stores, it still needs to get better in some ways. For example, it took Shopify users more than ten years to be able to change themes without having to re-upload all the images and descriptions of their products on the new theme.
Also, some platforms are completely free, while Shopify’s services cost at least $9 a month. A website is not yet part of that cost. With Shopify, you have to pay at least $29 a month to have a store that works.
Now that we’ve said this, we’ll look at the best alternatives to Shopify.
Magento
Magento is an e-commerce platform that is flexible. This means that you, as a user, can choose between different platforms to build your online store. It is also easy to change the look of your online store so that it doesn’t look like all the other web stores with the same theme.
You can also choose to work with Magento Partners here. These are technology companies that offer solutions that you might not find in the Magento platform itself. They will work with you to design and build your online store the way you want it, including website configuration, software creation, custom web development, integration, and deployment.
Pricing for Magento:
Magento has three plans: CE, EE Cloud, and EE Enterprise. The following are the prices:
- Community — No Cost
- Business – $2,000 per year
- $22,000 a year for Enterprise
Aside from these annual costs, you also have to pay your partner for their services before you can launch your site. They must also be Magento certified to make sure they can run your online store on the Magento platform. On top of that, you have to pay for hosting, domain names, POS, a shopping cart, and a lot more.
You can use the Community Edition if you want to find a cheap store. With this, you’ll be using an open-source software platform. To make changes, you’ll need to know how to code your own website.
PROS:
- Flexible platform
- Multiple store management
- You can get help and support from a large group of users
- Mobile-ready
- It is easy to add more features to your store.
CONS:
- Huge cost
- Compared to Shopify, there aren’t many app makers.
- Slow downloads
- For the website to run smoothly, it needs a dedicated server to host it.
- Magento is great for businesses that are just getting started, but it works best for big businesses that can spend at least $2,000 per year on it.
3Dcart
3Dcart gives its customers a place where they can build and run an online store all in one place. If you build your online store here, you’ll get a shopping cart, a payment processor, tools for managing orders and inventory, help with marketing and SEO, secure hosting, and a lot more.
It is not free, and there are four different prices for it. These things:
- $19 per month for a start-up store
- Basic Store costs $29 a month.
- Plus Store costs $79 a month.
- $229 per month for PRO Store
You can create an online store with even the smallest plan and get the following features:
- No fees to do business
- Web hosting that is safe
- Any number of orders
- How shopping carts work
- Access to themes that work well on phones
- Hosting plans with unlimited bandwidth
- More than 100 payment processors are available.
- Adding the Facebook store
You can try 3Dcart for free for 14 days, after which you’ll have to choose a plan that fits your needs and budget.
Most of the differences between the plans have something to do with:
- Accounts for the number of staff
- How many emails
- Returns software if a customer sends back one of your items
- The feedback function
- Customer Groups are places where you can put your customers into groups.
- Customers can compare products so they can see them side by side.
- Q&A about the product
- Orders ahead of time and robots
PROS:
- There are many web apps that can be used to make a fully functional store.
- Low capital required
- 14 days to try it for free.
- The least expensive package lets you make a store that works.
- There are many topics to choose from.
CONS:
- Doesn’t have many places where you can connect your store.
- Themes that aren’t very good and look old
- If 3Dcart is doing site maintenance or upgrades in their system, your site will not work well.
The great alternative is 3Dcart. You’ll get a lot for your money, and you don’t have to spend a lot to get started.
Wix
Wix is a website builder that gives you full control over how your site looks. It comes with a drag-and-drop site builder, so you don’t have to worry about how themes were re-built. You can choose from more than 500 templates that have already been made, and you can change these templates to fit your brand.
If you want a design that isn’t in the templates, you can use Wix ADI. Here, you fill out a form, and a design is made just for you.
If you sign up for Wix, you can get a professional website with the following features:
- Custom domain name
- Mailbox
- Hosting for free
- Stats about a website
- SSL Certificate
- Sign-in options for members
- Wix chat comes with
Before you can think about price, you need to know what kind of website you want to make. You can make a website or an online store with Wix.
There are four plans for sites.
- $4.50 per month for Connect Domain
- Combo costs $8.50 a month
- $12.50 per month for unlimited.
- VIP costs $24.50 a month
The main differences between these plans have to do with the amount of storage and bandwidth.
There are only three plans for e-commerce.
- Business Basic costs $17 per month
- $25 per month for Business Unlimited
- $35 per month for Business VIP
All of these plans let you set up an online store and accept payments. Wix does not charge any transaction fees or commissions. The main differences between them are how many video hours you can put on your website, how much storage space you have, and whether or not your site has social media icons.
PROS:
- Designed to be very flexible
- Low cost to get started
- Simple to use
- Long-term plans shouldn’t be locked in.
CONS:
- Not many choices for payment processors
- Few apps offer
- If you don’t upgrade to a higher plan, your website will show an ad.
Overall, Wix is a great choice for people who want both a website and a store. The only thing is that you only have a few ways to process payments.
Big Commerce
BigCommerce is one of Shopify’s most important rivals. With this platform, you can build an online store with a blog, a payment system, and a shopping cart. Here, you can sell both physical goods and digital goods that your customers can download right away.
Dropshippers are welcome on BigCommerce, just like they are on Shopify. You can find apps here that will help you find products. If a customer places an order, the supplier will be notified automatically, and he will then send the item to the customer.
You can get help at any time, and you can also connect your store to other channels. eBay, Amazon, Facebook, and Google Shopping are all examples of these.
BigCommerce has a range of prices and packages to choose from. These things:
- Standard costs $29.95 a month. With this plan, your bandwidth and storage space are both unlimited. You will also get free SSL, an online store, shipping quotes from couriers in real time, analytics, and a system for rating products.
- Plus, it costs $79.95 a month. You’ll get everything in the Standard package, plus customer segmentation, an abandoned cart saver, a persistent cart, and storage for credit cards.
- PRO: This will cost you $249.95 per month, but you can save up to 68% on shipping costs. You will also be able to see what other people have said about Google.
PROS:
- Rates that are cheap
- With the Standard package, the store works well.
- There are many parts.
- No fees to do business
CONS:
- You can only get an abandoned cart on higher plans.
- No RSS feeds are on the blog.
- There are no mobile apps that will help you run your store.
- Online sales each year are limited.
BigCommerce is a great choice if you want to sell both physical and digital goods and if you want to keep shipping costs low.
Ecwid
Ecwid is another platform that lets you create both a store and a widget that you can add to a website you already have. You might already have a WordPress site that you want to sell, for example. With Ecwid, you can make a widget and put it on your WordPress site so that people can buy things.
But Ecwid’s free account only gives you one web page. What you’re doing here is pretty much a landing page. If a customer clicks on that, he can buy your product or be sent to another website you already have.
PROS:
- Easy to set up and use.
- Compatible with many platforms, such as Foursquare, WordPress, and Facebook
- POS can take payments online.
- Can use PayPal as a method of payment
CONS:
- There can only be one landing page.
- Not many design choices
- Ecwid has two price plans: the Free plan and the Venture plan. The Venture plan costs $15 per month and gives you more features.
If you want to, Ecwid will let you add more products, but this will cost you.
Woo Commerce
WooCommerce is a web design platform that can be changed in many ways. You can make a store here, which is especially helpful if you use WordPress. Since the software is free, you can do anything you want with your online store.
WooCommerce has an app that lets you run your store even when you’re not at home. With this app, you can process orders, look at your store’s statistics, and be alerted when an order comes in.
WooCommerce is free on its own. But you have to pay for other important parts of building a store, such as a web host, a domain name, and others. You can get these things from WordPress, and you’ll need to add WooCommerce if you want to start taking payments on your site.
To build your online store, you also need to buy a theme or get one for free.
PROS:
- No cost to use
- Free software
- Has a mobile app you can use from anywhere.
CONS:
- Not a tool for everything.
- Will cost more than Shopify in the long run to build a store that works.
- If you know how to code or already have a WordPress account, you can use WooCommerce.
Volusion
Volusion lets you build a web store for free for 14 days. After that, you have to choose a plan and pay at least $29 per month. With Volusion, you can set up a store, add products, and set up a way for customers to pay right from their shopping cart.
Here are Volusion’s different plans:
- Personal costs $29 a month. This is the basic plan. You build a store, but you can only make $50,000 a year in sales. You can have up to 100 products and only one staff account.
- This one is for professionals and costs $79 per month. You can have up to five staff accounts and up to 5,000 products.
- Business: For $299 per month, you can sell up to $500,000 per year, and you can give up to 15 staff members accounts. You can add as many products as you want, and you’ll get priority customer service.
- Prime is the most expensive plan, but how much it costs depends on what you want to do with your website. Here, you can do anything you want.
All plans from Volusion have no transaction fees, so you get to keep everything you make from sales.
PROS:
- There are a lot of features in the basic plan.
- No fees to do business
- Can be connected to Amazon and eBay
CONS:
- There are only so many sales a year, so you will have to upgrade.
- Depending on what plan you have, customer service is limited.
- If you want all of Shopify’s features but don’t want to use Shopify, use Volusion. It’s one of the best options available.
Weebly
Weebly is like Wix. It is a tool for making websites, but it can also be turned into a store. Weebly is great because you don’t have to sell physical goods to use it. Here, you can set up a classroom and teach your students online.
If you want to sell on Weebly, you must also use Square, which is its parent company. Square handles the payment processing, and you can get things like a backend management platform, inventory and order management systems, and website development software that you would get from Shopify.
If you have a physical store, you can also buy cash registers or point-of-sale systems from Square.
Weebly has two different ways to charge for its services. One is for an online store and the other is for a website. Here are the prices for online stores:
- PRO: For $12 per month, you get a free domain, SSL, unlimited storage, a shopping cart, and a payment system.
- Business: This plan costs $25 per month and gives you more features like badges, a tax calculator, inventory management, coupon codes, and so much more.
- Business Plus costs $38 per month and is best for people who sell a lot. Here, you can get things like real-time shipping rates and emails for carts that were left behind, which aren’t available on the first two plans.
PROS:
- Only $12 gets you a web store that works.
- As you move up to new plans, you get a lot of new features.
- No fees to do business
- Products and bandwidth have no limits.
CONS:
- The price to pay is once a year; if you pay monthly, the price will go up.
- Poor content management system
- You can’t leave this platform.
If you don’t want to move your store to another platform, Weebly is a great choice. And it only gets better if you sign up for one of the higher plans.
BigCartel
BigCartel is a platform for building websites that was made for artists. You can open an online store, show off your art, and sell it. This includes shirts, paintings, crafts, and other things that can be touched.
BigCartel has three main price points, which are as follows:
- Platinum: This plan costs $10 per month and lets you add a maximum of 10 products. There is a limit of five images per product, and you can use Google Analytics, make discounts, get statistics in real time, and do a lot more.
- Diamond costs $19.99 a month and lets you buy up to 100 items. You will get everything the Platinum plan has to offer.
- Titanium: This plan costs $29.99 per month and lets you list up to 300 items. Platinum and Diamond are both the same in every other way.
PROS:
- Simple to use
- Intended for artists
- You can sell both online and in person.
- Themes you can change
CONS:
- The only difference between the products is how much you can buy of each one.
- There are no apps to add or connect.
- To change how your website looks, you need to know how to code.
Prestashop
You can move your existing store to Prestashop, which is a cool feature. It works with Magento, Shopify, 3dCart, Volusion, and a lot of other shopping carts.
You can make a store, add products, add a way to pay, and then add a shopping cart, just like with Shopify.
It also has an app store where you can find things like shopping exporters, SEO tools, pop-up ads, and more that you can add to your store.
Prestashop is free in every way. But you also need to buy things like hosting and domain names. And if you want your site to be better, you have to buy apps that you pay for every month.
PROS:
- Building a site is free.
- has a system for keeping track of stock and taking orders
- There are no limits on what you can sell.
- Free software
CONS:
- You won’t have a one-stop shop because you’ll need to buy other web parts.
- Not easy to use, and you have to download and install the software.
- To make changes to your website, you need to learn how to code.
- If you can code, Prestashop is a great choice. If you don’t, you should use a drag-and-drop web builder instead.
Pinnacle Cart
This one has everything you need to build a working online store in one place. It has payment options, themes, e-commerce hosting, SSL certificates, domains, and so much more.
You can also connect your store to Facebook and Google, which is a good thing. You also have a dashboard where you can add products, fulfill orders, and keep track of your stock.
There are no transaction fees with Pinnacle Cart, and you can choose from four different plans. These things:
- Start-up costs $44.95 a month, and you can sell as many items as you want. You have only 1GB of space and 2GB of bandwidth.
- Standard: For $94.95 per month, you can store 10GB of data and use 20GB of bandwidth.
- Advanced: For $199.95 a month, you can use as much bandwidth and storage as you want.
- Enterprise: Prices vary, and this is for large businesses that need services that are tailored to their needs.
All plans come with the same features, like real-time shipping quotes, a Facebook store, an online store, a mobile store, payment and checkout, a shopping cart, reports, and more.
PROS:
Simple to use
More than 450 highlights
CONS:
- The only difference between plans is the amount of bandwidth and storage space.
- Costs are high at the beginning.
You can save money with Pinnacle Cart if you host your website yourself or if you pay someone else to do it.
Summary
Shopify is the company that offers e-commerce solutions. They are in the hundreds. Before making a decision, you need a good plan so you know what features you want. Since different providers offer different features, you can’t expect to have everything.
If you know what you want, you should be able to compare the different providers and choose the one that gives you the most for your money. Also, use the free trial so you can try out the platform before you decide to use it.