Shopify is a cloud-hosted SaaS ecommerce platform that lets you rapidly start selling products online. But all those plug-ins and fees really add up fast. Plus Shopify isn’t super flexible and to make an attractive store that really showcases your products, you’ll need some coding skills (or to hire a developer to do this for you). And you’ll pay a commission on all your sales to Shopify... forever.
That’s why these 5 alternatives are well worth a quick scroll down.
5 alternatives to Shopify
Builder.ai
First up, this ‘Shop-in-a-Box’ is a complete ecommerce solution. Studio Store gives you iOS and Android apps on top of the usual website storefront, but you also get software maintenance and even free cloud hosting thrown in too!
Where Studio Store really stacks up well against Shopify is fees. Unlike the other alternatives on this list, there’s no revenue share. So those hefty fees (up to 25%) other platforms or marketplaces change stay in your pocket.
Maybe that’s why the Studio Store ecommerce package won ‘Best Covid-19 Innovation for Recovery’ at CogX last year? Well worth checking out, anyway.
Pros
- 0% commision – no revenue share
- Complete ecommerce solution (web, iOS & Android apps)
- Apps make 3x more sales than mobile websites
- Free plan (up to 50 orders a month)
- Highly scalable
- Own your brand
- No coding skill required
Cons
- Get website first, apps take 2 weeks to build
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is an open-source, free ecommerce plugin for WordPress. WordPress is the world’s leading content management system (CMS) – according to Digital.com, it powers some 35% of the entire web!
WordPress is the ultra-scalable, cost-effective route to web design. WooCommerce integrates with WordPress to offer you free ecommerce solutions that integrate seamlessly with your WordPress site.
This is perfect for those who already run a WordPress self-hosted site and want to add ecommerce functionality.
Pros
- Excellent for those who are offering ecommerce as part of a mixed-use website or blog
- Expandable with plugins and tons of design options
- Free
Cons
- Steep learning curve
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is one of the key Shopify competitors. In essence, the two are very similar and hard to split in most ways. The pricing structures are similar and both come with straightforward drag-and-drop page builders.
BigCommerce is perhaps the more scalable option, offering more for shops with very complex product catalogues. It also has more SEO flexibility than Shopify but can be more expensive, if you want to access extra features.
Pros
- Easy to build beautiful sites
- Excellent SEO features
- Scalable to big businesses
Cons
- Similarly pricey to Shopify
Big Cartel
Marketed to a similar audience as Etsy, Big Cartel is a scalable platform that suits makers and artists. It’s jammed with contemporary design features, quality SEO tools and enough features to fully customise sites from the ground-up.
Big Cartel has a product limit of 300, so if you’re looking to sell more products than this, it obviously isn’t the right choice for you.
Pros
- Free plan (for 5 products or fewer)
- Tons of superb design options
- Simple to use
Cons
- Not particularly scalable
Magento
Magento is a self-hosted, highly scalable ecommerce platform suitable for businesses of all sizes. It’s arguably the strongest ecommerce platform for enterprise-level businesses and brands and since it’s open-source, it’s practically limitless in customisability.
Magento also serves the niche market of B2B ecommerce and is probably the best ecommerce software suitable for non-typical stores and product categories.
Pros
- Powerful with huge plugin marketplace
- Scalable to the max
- Open-source
Cons
- Steep learning curve
Add an app – and make even more sales!
Decided? Great. If you’re selling on an online marketplace, it makes sense to add an app to your ecommerce strategy. Here’s why: according to Statista, 72.9% of global retail ecommerce is set to be generated on mobiles in 2021. And even pre-pandemic, in-app sales have been growing 46% year-on-year.
Sounds like a no brainer but smaller retailers can worry about the spiralling costs and missed deadlines that most people link to app development. This is where Studio Store has your back (and why it won ‘Best Covid-19 Innovation for Recovery’ at CogX).
Start straight away
There’s no hanging around. Your apps are delivered in as little as 2 weeks and it’s simple to integrate them with any marketplaces you like.
There’s a low monthly fee with EVERYTHING included. And you can even try for free – with 50 free orders each month. Really, what have you got to lose?
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