Are you ready to start your new online business? This guide will help you choose the between the best eCommerce platforms UK to get you started.
To quickly find a website builder, check out our free comparison tool.
In this review…
- What are eCommerce Website Builders?
- Overall Best eCommerce Website Builder
- Best eCommerce Website Builder For Growing Businesses
- Best eCommerce Website Builder For Customisation
- Large Business eCommerce Website Builder
- Best eCommerce Website Builder For Beginners
- Summary – Best eCommerce Platforms UK
What are eCommerce Website Builders?
The best eCommerce platforms UK are website building tools that allow you to build a website with virtually no web development knowledge.
Most of them use drag and drop builders, meaning you don’t need to code, and have various plugins and tutorials so you can quickly build a professional online store for your startup business.
If this sounds like something you need, here’s the 5 best eCommerce platforms UK:
Shopify – The Best eCommerce Platforms UK
Pros
- All plans allow for an unlimited number of products.
- Can create discount codes and offers for your products.
- Choose from over 70 professional store themes.
- Secure payment for credit cards and other payment methods.
- All sites are fully responsive for mobile usage.
Cons
- To sell you incur an approximate 6% fee per product.
- May not be fantastic value for money for smaller businesses.
- Known to be restrictive with SEO performance.
Price: Plans starting from $29.00 per month. Start a free trial
Features
- Has a large app store for various plugins to add eCommerce sales tools and digital marketing services.
- Web hosting included.
- Also has built-in drop shipping tools that connect with eCommerce fulfillment centres.
- Inventory management tools.
- Fantastic customer support.
- Connect your existing domain name or buy a new domain for your shopify store
Shopify wins the contest of best eCommerce platforms UK award in our opinion. It is an all-in-one platform and includes a domain, very reliable hosting, online store, and access to the website builder.
If you choose to use this platform, you must understand the selling fees. There are different selling fees based on which plan you choose, and the types of payment methods.
Shopify is easy to use and great for novice users as well as having more advanced features, which make it the perfect all-rounder. If you don’t have any inspiration for your store design, you can also choose from one of 70 professional templates.
All the websites are also responsive and will display perfectly on mobile and desktop displays. This website builder also has a great array of selling tools and features for your store.
For example, you can create discount codes, gift cards, and customers can benefit from abandoned cart recovery. Also, it offers detailed shipping and inventory management.
We highly recommend starting your new business with Shopify, as we believe it wins as the best eCommerce platforms UK
Start a free trial or check our our review of Shopify for more information.
BigCommerce – Best for growing businesses
Pros
- Great integration for selling on multiple platforms.
- Great for scaling your startup business.
- Largest variety of built-in features.
- No additional transaction fees.
Cons
- May not be suited for smaller businesses with no scaling aspirations.
- Some could find this ecommerce builder more difficult to use.
Price: Essentials plans from $29.95 per month. Start a free trial
Features
- Sell via Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, eBay, and Walmart.
- Mobile responsive websites.
- Easy-to-use website builder.
- Excellent single-page checkout process.
- Accepts multiple international currencies.
If you have aspirations of developing your startup business into something big, BigCommerce is one of the best eCommerce website builders for scaling. You can easily scale your online store as your business grows and it can accommodate a larger team and sales figures.
This website builder also has some of the best multi-channel selling available too. You can sell on Amazon, eBay, and Walmart, for example.
We also like that most of the features are built-in – this means you don’t have to spend time searching through plugin or extension marketplaces and installing additional tools.
The basic plan starts at $29.95 per month and for this you get a mind-boggling array of features. For example, you get a range of reporting tools and business insights which can help your sales.
Also, customers can leave product reviews and ratings. We also like that there is a built-in blog, and the store you create is fully responsive for mobile devices. The downside for BigCommerce, is that for small businesses, you may not use a lot of the features. Therefore, you may be paying extra for tools you don’t need.
That said, we think it’s one of the best eCommerce platforms UK for growing businesses, thanks to it’s advanced features.
Visit BigCommerce for a free trial!
WordPress (Woocommerce) – Best for customisation
Pros
- A huge variety of WordPress plugins to enhance your store.
- Has access to a range of pre-built themes.
- Great options up-selling and cross-selling.
- Large selection of accepted payment methods.
Cons
- Must purchase a separate domain and web hosting.
- Must have knowledge of WordPress.
Price: Free (Open Source)
Features
- Can undertake advanced email marketing.
- Create coupons and discounts for your products.
- Can accept PayPal and credit card payments.
- Integrates with platforms like Facebook and Amazon.
For those who want greater control and freedom, WooCommerce is an excellent choice. Web developers tend to favour it as one of the best eCommerce website builders due to it’s customisation features.
WooCommerce is an ecommerce plugin for WordPress – it is not a standalone, all-in-one eCommerce website builder like the other options in this list. To use WooCommerce, you must first have WordPress. Also, you must have a hosting package and a domain name linked to your WordPress website.
You can then download and use the WooCommerce plugin for free. If you have no knowledge of WordPress – this may not be the solution for you.
However, if you do, it offers many advantages and features. Firstly, you can have access to many free and premium store themes. Also, there is a wide array of WooCommerce extensions, and WordPress plugins to enhance the utility of your store.
In terms of payments, WooCommerce can accept a good choice of methods including credit cards and PayPal. Also, it can integrate with other selling platforms like Amazon and Facebook Marketplace.
The store features are also fantastic and you are presented with many options for cross-selling and up-selling if you have a large catalogue of products. WooCommerce is viewed as being the best eCommerce website builder for those wanting a high-level of customisation.
Magento – Better suited to larger businesses
Pros
- Offers self-hosting with any PHP web hosting server.
- Has a great array of plugins.
- Ecommerce stores can easily be scaled with your business.
- Coupon and discount options for products.
- Extensive marketing tools and business insights.
Cons
- Could be overly complicated for first-time users.
- Does require a little technical knowledge.
Price: Community version is free to download
Features
- A good selection of built-in SEO features.
- Great optimization for tablets and mobiles.
- 5000+ extensions.
- A good choice of payment gateways and payment methods.
Magento is one of the best eCommerce website builders for larger businesses. There are two versions of Magento – the community version which is free to use, and the enterprise version.
For this version, you must contact their sales team for a price. It is important to understand that Magento is a self-hosted platform.
This means you must purchase web hosting and a domain name separately to use the ecommerce builder. Therefore, for those who want an all-in-one package, this may not be the choice.
Regardless, Magento is packed full with useful selling features for your online store. These include coupon management, support for multiple languages and currencies, inventory management, and marketing tools.
Also, we like that you can create customer groups, product bundles, and even allow customers to purchase items as gifts. To extend the utility of this platform, businesses can also benefit from 5000+ extensions from a thriving developer community.
For themes, Magento does not offer any pre-built templates.
However, you can find thousands of quality themes through Magento Connect, or sites like ThemeForest. Magento is generally viewed as being one of the best eCommerce website builders for larger businesses, so if you fall into that category – it comes highly recommended.
Weebly – Best for beginners
Pros
- Beginner-friendly and easy to use.
- One of the cheapest ecommerce website builders available.
- A decent selection of professional store themes.
- Plenty of data and sales insights to improve your business.
Cons
- Limited multi-channel selling options.
- May not have great control over customization of the checkout page
Price: Plans from $9 per month. Start a Free Trial
Features
- Excellent features for blogging.
- SEO & site stats for useful business insight.
- Abandoned cart feature & automated emails.
- Well-developed accompanying mobile app.
- A fantastic shipping tool for domestic and international sales.
Weebly is a cheap eCommerce website builder and is one of the best eCommerce platforms UK for novices. If you have literally no knowledge of web design, this is a great platform. It is also incredibly inexpensive. The basic ecommerce plan starts from just $9 per month.
There is a free version, however this is just for basic website design, and also contains adverts. For the basic package, you get a free website domain, $100 in Google Ads credit, and SSL security.
Also, you get unlimited storage which is a nice touch.
The business and business plus plans offer all of this, plus a host of extra store features like inventory management, coupon codes, item reviews, and a shipping calculator.
We would recommend the business plan at $18 per month as the best option and offers the most tools to create a comprehensive and successful online store. In terms of design, you can choose from a decent selection of professional themes from which you can then customize.
Also, the store builder is incredibly user-friendly and uses simple drag and drop tools. It has a small learning curve and you will quickly understand how the various tools and features work.
Start a free trial with Weebly or read our full Weebly review to learn more. Check out our Weebly vs Wix comparison of the best free website builders.
Summary – Best eCommerce Platforms UK
Ecommerce website builders are changing the landscape of online sales. Gone are the days where you would need a professional web developer to build a site from scratch.
Instead, you can use a website builder and do it yourself! As you can see from the above platforms, they are generally easy to use, have hundreds of templates, and allow you to build a quality online store for your thriving startup business.
Want to start with a free solution? Check out these eCommerce website builders!
Did this guide to the best eCommerce platforms UK help you? If so, please recommend DigitalSupermarket.
