Top 7 Best Free Website Builder for Ecommerce in 2024

Many easy-to-use website builders for online stores can help you to be unique and boost sales. If you are a new start-up and want the best free website builder for creating your eCommerce, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we will share the Top 7 best free website builders for eCommerce in 2024 that you can use to start an online store.

Nowadays, many wholesale eCommerce platforms have free plans or low-cost options for businesses to build their store at reasonable prices. We will provide detailed information on the following aspects: benefits, key features, and prices for each so that you can easily choose the best website builder for your needs.

What is a Website builder?

A website builder is an online tool that helps you create a website on the internet with many different features and functions. If you want to choose free website builders for e-commerce, you must ensure your platform has the domain, a web address, a name, and a simple way to design web pages and different styles and designs.

How does the best free website builder for eCommerce work?

Ecommerce builders are like regular website builders, meant to be super easy. You pick a modern template for your online store, then use a simple editor to put in the things you want. What you see in the editor is what your website will look like online.

You can use different apps and tools to make your site just the way you want, and you can create everything from the main page to product pages really quickly, like in a few hours, not months.

To make your online store, you’ll need to do these things on the best free ecommerce website builder:

• Get your website name and choose where it’ll be hosted.
• Make your online store look good.
• Put up your stuff to sell.
• Set up how people will pay and taxes.
• Decide how you’ll send your things to customers.
• Connect with other online stores.
• Set up email and social media stuff to link to your site.
• Check if everything works and then make your site live.

Top 7 Best Free Website Builder For Ecommerce

Shopify

Shopify is a simple and reliable way to start your online business. You can make a free online store with it, but to sell things to people, you have to pay for a better plan.

It’s an eCommerce platform that doesn’t require coding skills or a big budget. Shopify is used by millions of businesses and is known for its beautiful website designs and helpful marketing tools.

You can choose from over 100 professional templates when you create a Shopify store. These templates have built-in features like SSL certifications, domain hosting, custom domains, abandoned cart recovery, and other tools to help you find customers, make sales, and manage your daily tasks. You can sell unlimited products on your online store and even expand to other platforms like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy through Shopify’s partner integrations.

Shopify Payments makes it easy to accept payments online. You can connect with over 100 payment gateways worldwide, including Bitcoin, PayPal, and Shop Pay. There are also over 4,000 free Shopify apps that you can use to add more features to your store and increase your online sales.

Key features:

• Over 100 professional themes by renowned designers like Happy Cog and Pixel Union.
• Mobile commerce shopping cart for easy shopping on mobile devices and tablets.
• Full access to HTML and CSS for complete customization of your online store.
• Search engine-optimized stores to improve online visibility.
• Integration with the Shopify POS system for in-person and digital storefronts.
• App store with over 4,000 marketing, sales, and customer support tools.
• Mobile app for on-the-go business management.
• Dedicated 24/7 customer support through email, live chat, and phone.
• Simple inventory management to track stock and prevent overselling.
• No limits on the number of products you can sell in your store.
• Unlimited bandwidth, no charges based on website traffic.
• Streamlined reporting and analytics.

Price: You can use free trial, no credit card is required.

Magento

Magento is open-source ecommerce platform started in 2008 and has two versions. One is free, and the other you have to pay for. The free one is called Magento Community Edition, and it’s good for small businesses and startups that are just beginning. You can make it work the way you want, and there are forums where you can talk to others for advice.

Magento is a great choice for folks who are good at web development. If you know your stuff, you can use lots of features and have a platform that can grow quickly. You won’t have the limits that come with paid website builders. But remember, Magento isn’t the right choice for beginners or business owners who aren’t comfortable with coding.

Magento’s free version is part of a big and active community. They offer free tools to help you grow your business and sell stuff online. The paid version costs more, but the free one is one of the best options for building an online store, and you can also get technical help to set up your eCommerce website.

BSS Commerce is a trusted Magento 2 development agency with over 10+ years experience in providing top Magento development services & solutions.

Key features:

• The free version is open-source and gives you many ways to make it your own.
• You can easily make your online stores bigger.
• It offers a lot of features to use.
• You can quickly connect with other services like payment gateways, databases, shipping, and order tracking.
• Magento is really good for SEO.
• It’s the best when it comes to how fast your pages load and handle different tasks.
• Being part of Magento’s global community is a big advantage.
• Give user a massive of useful Magento plugins

Pricing: The Business Basic plan starts at $23 per month.

Wix

You can use their drag-and-drop builder to create an ecommerce website for free but to start selling, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.

Wix offers tools to help you manage your ecommerce business. You can track orders, accept online payments, sell on different platforms, and create campaigns for abandoned shopping carts. However, the basic plan lacks inventory management features like low-stock alerts, tax calculators, and dropshipping options. You might need a different ecommerce software with more advanced inventory tracking tools if you have a large inventory.

Key features:

• An editing interface for building online stores.
• Templates to customize your site from the storefront to the checkout.
• Integrations to help you sell on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Google Shopping, and eBay.
• A free SSL certificate to secure customer information and payments.
• SEO-optimized product pages to improve search engine rankings.
• The ability to import your store’s inventory using CSV files.

Pricing: The Business Basic plan starts at $23 per month.

Square Online

Square Online, previously known as Weebly, is an online free online ecommerce website builder. You can create a website with Square Online for free, but you’ll need to purchase a plan to use your own domain name or remove ads. The free plan offers real-time shipping and coupons, but you’ll need to upgrade for more advanced features. It also works seamlessly with Square for processing payments.

Key features:

• A website builder and management platform to control inventory and orders.
• Bulk inventory functions for editing large batches of products and importing/exporting data.
• Mobile-friendly websites to ensure your site looks great on mobile devices.
• A coupon builder (for paid plans) to create promotions in your store.
• A drag-and-drop builder and media library to guide you through website creation.

Pricing: The basic plan is free, and paid plans start at $10 per month.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a platform designed for users of WordPress. It’s not a standalone website builder but a WordPress plugin that adds ecommerce functionality to a website. To use WooCommerce effectively, you might need the assistance of a developer.

With WooCommerce, you can manage various website features such as inventory, taxes, secure payments, and shipping integrations. Like WordPress, WooCommerce’s capabilities can be expanded through plugins and themes.

Key features:

• Exclusively built for WordPress, seamlessly integrating with its ecosystem.
• Mobile-friendly stores to ensure your products are accessible on any device.
• Complete control over customer and business data, without third-party software having access.
• A global community with over 350 contributors.
• Being 100% open source provides control over your website’s appearance and operation.

Pricing: WooCommerce is free when used with other WordPress products and services. Compare Magento Vs WooCommerce: Which One Was Developed For You?

Squarespace

Squarespace is a user-friendly & free online ecommerce website builder that allows you to sell products online once you upgrade your plan. It provides templates to help you design your store. After selecting a template, you can personalize it by changing colors, text, and images to match your brand.

Squarespace accepts payments through Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Afterpay. If you opt for the Commerce Advanced plan, you can even sell gift cards and subscriptions.

If you prefer not to set up ecommerce functions directly on Squarespace, you can turn your basic website into an online store using the Shopify Buy Button. For just $5 per month, you can add a small piece of code to your Squarespace site, giving you access to over 100 payment options, sales and growth tracking, easy shipping integration, currency support, and more.

Key features:

• A drag-and-drop builder with templates and starter layouts.
• Responsive web designs and image scaling.
• Custom WYSIWYG editing for various content types and complex layouts.
• The ability to sell an unlimited number of products.
• Automated post-purchase email sequences.
• Extensions for finance, marketing, shipping, and sales.

Pricing: Squarespace offers a three-day free trial, with the Basic Commerce plan starting at $27/month. Compare Shopify vs Squarespace

Big Commerce

BigCommerce is an online ecommerce website builder mainly designed for big businesses. It provides web hosting and customization features. You can’t register a domain name directly with BigCommerce, so you’ll have to purchase a domain from another source and link it to your store.

BigCommerce offers various features like the ability to sell globally, tools to improve your store’s visibility in search engines, and the option to sell on different online platforms and social media.

Key features:

• A visual editor for easy webpage editing using a drag-and-drop tool.
• Customizable themes created with HTML, CSS, and Javascript.
• The ability to customize your checkout process using server-to-server checkout technology.
• Acceptance of digital wallet payments like Amazon Pay and Apple Pay.
• The option to sell on multiple online marketplaces like Amazon and Google Shopping.
• Support for multiple currencies and languages to reach international customers.

Pricing: It offers a 15-day free trial, and monthly paid plans start at $29.

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Choosing The Right Best free website builder for ecommerce

Pricing

Price is really important, especially if you’re a small business with not much money to spare. Each builder has different plans with different things you can do.

Before you spend your money, take a good look at what each plan offers.

In our article, we talk about both the free and paid plans in each of these website builders to help you decide better.

Ease of use

If you’re new to making websites and need to be more tech-savvy, it should be easy for you to use a website builder. While some eCommerce website builders don’t need you to know code, some are easier to use than others. To make it simple to change things on your website, go for a website builder that lets you drag and drop things and has an editor that’s easy to understand. They can also have ready-made templates created by designers to give you more options for your website’s appearance.

But if you’re good with technical stuff, this will be fine for you, and you can think about other things like how safe the builder is or how much it can grow as your business gets bigger.

Features

Every online store has needs, but a good website builder should have some important features. It should let you write blogs, have designs that work on phones, give you lots of good pictures you can use without worrying about copyrights, a good shopping cart for customers, and connect with other marketing tools from different companies. The more features it has, the better. That way, people running the online store can pick the ones that help their business grow the most.

Customer Support

When you’re picking the right free eCommerce website builder, it’s really important to think about this. If business owners have any issues while making their website or after it’s already running, they should be able to get in touch with the support team fast.

Nobody wants to lose a lot of customers and sales just because the website was down for a few minutes. So, having help available 24/7, every day of the week, is a big advantage.

Marketing & Analytics

You should get some help with marketing from eCommerce website builders. They can help by making your site and content better for search engines (SEO), letting you use outside marketing tools like Google Ads, and making it easy to share your stuff on social media.

The top free eCommerce website builders should give you access to your website’s statistics, at the very least. This way, you can see how many people are coming to your site, how long they stay, and how many buy something. They should also let you use other analytic tools like Google Analytics.

>>> Take a look: The Best ECommerce Platform For SEO: 7+ Options For Success

Conclusion

Picking the best free website builder for ecommerce can be challenging and requires much effort. It’s a big decision that can really affect how much you sell and how well your business does.

BBS Commerce has talked about what you need to think about, but you should also consider what your business needs now and in the future.

Just like with anything that turns out well, this also needs you to spend money and time.

We do hope this article helps you make the right choice and build the online store you’ve always wanted!

FAQs

1. Can I create an e-commerce website for free?

Wix is a great tool for building online stores, and you can make an eCommerce website for free with it. But if you want to sell things to customers, you’ll have to switch to a paid plan. So, creating the online store itself doesn’t cost anything, but to make it work for real, you’ll need to invest some money.

2. Can you build an eCommerce site for free?

You can make an online store using a free eCommerce website builder. Both Shopify and Wix have options for free eCommerce websites. However, if you want to sell your products to the public, you might have to switch to a paid plan.

3. Is eCommerce website free?

There are only some completely free eCommerce platforms. Even with a free eCommerce platform, you’ll still have to spend money on things like a website address, hosting, fees for processing payments, and other extra features you might want.