What is an eCommerce Website Builder?

An eCommerce website builder is a service provider hosted software that allows its users to launch a fully-functional online store with very little or no web-design, programming or any other special technical skills.

View Top 5

Online Store Builder Features

Here are the features that any eCommerce website builder must have. This is what makes an eCommerce website builder different from an eCommerce platform or a shopping cart software:

"One-Click" Setup

eCommerce website builders don't require software installation and server setup. All these things are already taken care for you and all you usually need to start selling online is to follow a streamlined process.

eCommerce Tools

From shipping and tax calculators to accepting preferred payment methods and managing inventory, all these features are usually an integral part of most online web-store builders.

Easy to Use

Store builders feature an intuitive admin interface that is friendly to an inexperienced user to allow focusing more on selling products and processing orders rather than wasting time on managing the software.

Design Customization

Online store builder plans come with free and premium templates that allow you to customize the front-end to the needs of your business. They also offer easy WYSIWYG style editors and built in Drag and Drop design functionality.

Marketing Tools

Online store builders incorporate best search engine optimization and user experience practices, including meta tags, SEF URLs, user reviews, product page layout options and other tools essential for online business that help drive traffic and convert users.

Free Technical Support

In contrast to web-hosting providers that are not responsible for the software you use on your account as a part of their customer satisfaction eCommerce website builder companies provide software-specific support to their users.

Recommended Store Builders

These online store builders satisfy most of the criteria we used to create our reviews and ratings. Read our featured reviews and find out if these top eCommerce Website builders are the best fit for your future online store.
All Reviews

What Makes a Good Online Store Builder?

Our main goal is to help you choose the software that will help you easily build online presence for your business. Here are some of the criteria we used to review and rank various eCommerce website builders:

Integrations

Integrations with third party services allows to streamline shipping, CRM, email marketing, accounting and other processes and becomes crucial when your e-commerce business starts to grow.

Extended Features

Some extra features added on top of basic store functionality with the help of various apps and plugins allow to convert more visitors, create more social media engagement and get more visitors to the store.

Themes & Templates

Varying from one online store builder to another, appealing and professional design is crucial to build visitor trust and establish the presence of your brand online.

Pricing Model

Comparing different price tiers is not the most reliable way to evaluate costs of running an online store. Some companies profit from selling SSL certificates, bandwidth usage and other charges.

What Makes a Bad Online Store Builder?

These criteria were used to discard some online store builders from our research

Bugs

eCommerce store builder doesn't have to comprise all technological advances, but it shouldn't have coding bugs that make it impossible to use it's functionality.

Hidden Fees

Some eCommerce providers offer attractive entry prices that are part of the pricing model including various future charges. While not completely "hidden" in the terms of service these chareges are not always clear to a newbie user.

Frustrated Customers

While there's no common deminator for customer satisfaction, online store builders for which customer frustration and negative reviews have become a common pattern were not included in our research.

What users say about different Online store builders?

When online sales slowed down someone told me that my current platform could be the cause. Migrating my website is the best decision I've ever made for my business. I wish I would have done it earlier!

Jen

Moved form one store builder to another
We spent countless hours managing inventory and updating product information and no design change was possible without professionals. Now I save tons of time and thousands of dollars I would have wasted on developers.

ALEX

Migrated from an opensource store
I was stuck in paralysis analysis before opening my business - so many complexities and technical things to learn! I didn't realize I should simply follow what others have tried a thousand times. I could never imagine managing my website could be as easy as it currently is.

ANNA

Started a new business

E-Commerce Articles, Tips & Reviews

Read the latest e-commerce website builder reviews to choose the best platform for your future business!

Stuck between two options and can't choose the best?
Check out our store builder comparisons.

Compare Stores