Launching an online store is easier than ever before. You used to need to hire web developers, designers, and it would end up costing you a lot of money to create a fully functional ecommerce website.
Now a days, there are a few different ways that you can quickly create an online store and start participating in the ecommerce revolution.
Just think, you could soon start earning an income online and grow your business into an empire.
There are so many options to choose from. To help out, I’ve put together a list of some of the best online store builders!
1. Shopify
Shopify comes in at the top of this list because of its ease of use, helpful support forum and how-to content, multitude of plugins/apps, and big list of professional-looking themes.
If you’re a beginner, this is a great option to start with. I think that one of the most powerful functions that Shopify has is the “abandoned cart recovery” feature, which allows you to email customers who didn’t complete their purchase. This can help increase conversions.
2. WordPress and WooCommerce
The WooCommerce plugin has been downloaded 18,603,096 times. Wow! You can use this app to add ecommerce functionality to your WordPress website.
If you’re unfamiliar, WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that gives you a dashboard that you can use to manage your own website. You can install themes to change the look and feel of the website. You can also install plugins that extend the functionality of the site.
You’re going to need to choose a hosting provider for your WordPress website. I recommend looking into Bluehost.
3. Squarespace
You can also set up an online store using Squarespace. Squarespace is easy to use, like Shopify, and there are lots of beautifully designed themes to choose from.
Squarespace gives you all of the tools that you need to start selling online, including traffic analytics, a Style Editor for customization, and social sharing features.
Although Squarespace is not as advanced as Shopify, it’s a great option for a beginner who’s new to ecommerce.
4. Bigcommerce
Bigcommerce is another online store builder that’s used by many companies and brands. The software comes with features like sales reporting, purchase funnel analysis, and order trends. There are also many themes to choose from so that you can set up a great-looking shop.
Bigcommerce has an extensive app ecosystem, allowing you to import/export data from apps like ShipStation, MailChimp, QuickBooks, and more.
5. Magento
You can download the open source community version of Magento for free or invest in the enterprise version. You will need to set up your own hosting/domain name/CDN upown downloading Magento. I don’t recommend going with Magento unless you have a bit of technical know how.
Magento offers far more customization abilities than other do-it-yourself online store builders like Shopify and Squarespace.
6. Volusion
Currently, there are over 40,000 stores using Volusion software to service customers. Like Bigcommerce, Volusion will host your store and provide you with all of the functionality that you need to sell products online.
With all of the extensions, themes, features, and the ability to customize the look and feel of your shop, you can quickly get overwhelmed. That’s why Volusion offers 24×7 customer support. You can easily reach and talk with a real person.
7. OpenCart
Finally, you can use the OpenCart online store builder to set up a web presence. OpenCart is open source, meaning that the code is freely available for anyone to use and customize. You’re going to need technical chops if you want to set up a website using OpenCart.
OpenCart also has a marketplace of 13,000+ extensions that you can use to expand the functionality of your store.
Conclusion
There are a lot more ways that you can set up an online store, but these are the solutions that I decided to highlight.
Once you set up your store, you’re going to have to work hard to grow it! Thankfully, I’ve put together a few ideas and resources to save you time and money when growing your online store.
You’ll also need to figure out how to streamline shipping and fulfillment so that you can minimize headaches and maximize profit.
If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment down below.
