Best E-Commerce Platforms 2023: Pros, Cons, Pricing – NerdWallet

Every online business needs a digital presence. E-commerce platforms help shape how your business looks online and provide tools and services that help you manage it.

If you want a unique website with your own domain name, a platform with a built-in e-commerce website builder is a must. But if your business will rely on a marketplace like Etsy or Amazon for sales, setting up your online stores directly on one of those platforms might be a better fit.

The right e-commerce platform for you offers the features you need at a complexity level you can handle and a price you can afford.

Shopify is a market leader in e-commerce. Its online store builder can help you set up your own website with a domain name. Then, you can sell products on that site and on other platforms and manage all your orders from a single dashboard. Shopify offers tools for web hosting, payment processing, inventory management, shipping and returns, marketing and more — most of what you’re likely to need if you sell physical products.

• Unlimited product listings.

• Inventory management, shipping, fulfillment and returns features.

• Drag and drop website builder.

• Multi-channel sales on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Google and Walmart.

• No native integration with Amazon. 

Square Online is one of just a handful of free e-commerce website builders. Like Shopify, you can use Square to list an unlimited number of products. It’s not as customizable as Shopify and lacks B2B features, but offers core features like a website builder, social media integrations and payment processing that should be sufficient for many small businesses — especially those already using Square POS in their stores.

• Unlimited product listings.

• In-store pickup, in-house delivery and third-party delivery options.

• Other Square software solutions for appointment scheduling, marketing, loyalty programs and more.

• No direct integrations with Amazon, Walmart or eBay.

Compared with Shopify and Square, Squarespace’s product sales features are somewhat limited — for instance, it doesn’t offer direct integration with other online marketplaces, and shipping label printing is only available if you use the U.S. Postal Service. But Squarespace offers advanced online appointment booking tools and helps you limit parts of your website to paying subscribers.

• Native appointment bookings.

• No direct integration with other online marketplaces.

If you shop for handmade goods, you’ve probably heard of Etsy — the platform is almost synonymous with arts and crafts. Etsy makes it easy to launch a store and list products even before your business is fully developed; for instance, you can change your shop name up to five times without support from Etsy. You’ll pay for that convenience with high transaction fees, though.

Who should use Etsy: People who make handmade goods as a hobby and want to reach a ready-made audience interested in buying arts and crafts.

• Is known for handmade goods.

• No need to build your own website.

• Transaction and payment processing fees add up to 9.5% plus 25 cents per sale.

• You’ll have to upgrade to a paid subscription for a dedicated URL.

Big Cartel is a bare-bones e-commerce platform. Its free version only lets you sell five products at a time, it doesn’t offer appointment booking or ticket sales, and you won’t have access to inventory management or marketing tools. But you can still list your products, offer promos and collect sales tax, and that’s enough for some businesses. If you only need to sell a handful of items at once, it may be a good choice.

• No fees other than payment processing fees.

• You can offer discount codes. 

• Shipment tracking information shared with customers.

• Limits on product listings. The free plan includes just five products. The top plan, which costs $19.99 per month, caps your store at 500 product listings. 

• Must purchase your domain name from a third party.

You can use Shift4Shop to sell to individual customers, but it’s more notable as a B2B e-commerce platform thanks to features like custom pricing for recurring customers, pre-orders, wholesale pricing options and a wide variety of payment methods, including paper checks and money orders.

Shift4Shop is free for businesses that process at least $500 in monthly sales using Shift4, a payment processor. Shift4 doesn’t publish its pricing — you’ll have to contact that company for a quote to understand how much the software package will cost. Still, with no monthly fee, it’s potentially cheaper than competitors.

• Wholesale and customer-specific pricing.

• Wide variety of payment methods. 

• Pre-orders, which can also be used for event ticketing.

• May require more setup work than B2C platforms like Shopify and Square, since some features are customized to specific customers.

• No price transparency for payment processing.

BigCommerce is an e-commerce platform that can help facilitate omnichannel commerce — in which your business sells products on a variety of other platforms but manages inventory and revenue from a centralized dashboard. BigCommerce offers integrations with a wide variety of online sales channels, from eBay, Amazon and Google Shopping to Facebook, TikTok and Instagram.

• Native integrations with many other sales channels.

• Ability to set up additional storefronts and operate multiple brands.

• Unlimited user accounts with all plans. 

• If you process payments with Braintree, you’ll begin to see payment processing rates drop as you upgrade to costlier subscription plans.

• Maximum annual sales volume of just $50,000 with the cheapest plan.

• Only a handful of free themes for customizing your website.

Wix is an online store builder that offers dedicated features for fitness businesses, hotels and restaurants, so it’s worth exploring if your business operates in one of those industries. You can also use it to sell tickets, subscription products and gated content for members.

Beyond that, you can customize your Wix website in other ways too — you can choose whatever payment processor you like without additional fees from Wix, and the platform offers more than 500 free design themes. But you’ll need to rely on third-party apps if you want to sell on other platforms.

Who should use Wix: Businesses that want access to the largest number of choices for payment processing, website features and customization options. Read NerdWallet’s review of Wix.

• Tools for selling not only physical products but also tickets, exclusive content, appointments and more.

• Dedicated tools for fitness businesses.

• Storage limits: The Basic plan includes just five hours of video and 50 GB of storage.

• Third-party apps facilitate integrations with other marketplaces like Instagram and Amazon. 

Ask these questions when evaluating e-commerce platforms to choose the best one for your business.

Some e-commerce platforms make it easy to set up a shop, list a few products and go live — for instance, you can open up an Etsy shop in a matter of minutes. With others, like Wix, you’ll need to spend time exploring all the features available, choosing a theme and designing your site.

The more customization options a website builder presents, the longer it tends to take to get your store up and running. Try to set enough time to launch your store before the trial period ends so you can cancel if it’s not the right fit. On the other hand, the more infrastructure your e-commerce platform provides, the higher the fees tend to be.

Most e-commerce platforms can help you sell and ship physical products to individual customers. But if you need features beyond that — like subscriptions, appointment booking or B2B pricing — you may have to shop around.

In general, look for platforms that offer native, built-in tools instead of third-party apps. Apps can work well, but they may present data syncing issues and come with additional costs.

Etsy offers a built-in audience — lots of people already navigate directly to the website when they want to shop for a certain type of product. That can make it easy to experiment with running an e-commerce business before committing to it fully or establishing a specific niche. Amazon, Depop, eBay, Poshmark and other platforms occupy niches of their own.

But in exchange, these platforms charge much higher fees than e-commerce website builders. And if you choose to grow your business beyond those platforms, you may have to build a new website at that time. Weigh your current needs against your potential future ones as you evaluate your options.

If e-commerce is your primary source of revenue, it’s important to understand your sales and customers in as much detail as you can. Look for an e-commerce platform that offers detailed reports about what you’re selling and to whom. Also, look for SEO, social media and other online marketing tools that can help you compete in the crowded online space.

If you primarily focus on in-person sales, local marketing may be more important than emails or online ads. In that case, a platform like Big Cartel, Square or Etsy may make more sense — you can connect with customers in person, then hand them a business card with your URL for repeat business.

For some e-commerce businesses, a strong brand is paramount. They’re focused on drawing shoppers to their websites, completing sales and turning them into repeat customers. If that’s you, look for a website builder that allows you to create a site that looks uniquely yours — and can facilitate those repeated interactions with your customers via email marketing.