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How-to-Choose-a-Site-Builder-for-Your-Ecwid-Store-

How to Choose a Site Builder for Your Ecwid Store

11 min read

Have you ever heard that saying, “Don’t reinvent the wheel?”

When it comes to building a selling website for your online store, that phrase is an important one to keep in mind. There are countless options that make building your website fast, easy, and affordable — without having to hire a web designer.

There are many ways to sell online with Ecwid, such as:

Ecwid store can be seamlessly added to any website. That’s great, but if you haven’t got one yet, you might wonder how to choose the right site builder for your goals?

In this post, we’ll look at four popular site builders that integrate with Ecwid so you can get your professional-looking online business quickly up and running.

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Why To Use Site Builders

Before we jump into the different options, let’s take a moment to talk about the advantages of using site builders as opposed to hiring a web designer or agency to create your website from scratch.

Ready-made templates

Pre-designed templates for websites act as a framework that you can then customize to fit your branding.

They take the legwork out of layout and web design so that you can quickly build off a pre-established format. Without a template, building a website can be a large time investment with a hefty price tag.

Mobile-friendly

Site builders also work well because they offer mobile-friendly designs that accommodate the growing number of mobile users.

Data from comScore shows that mobile usage outpaced desktop usage back in 2014  and it continues to do so.

With this in mind, it’s important to approach web design with a mobile-first mentality in order to cater to the online preferences of your audience.

Hosting

Most site builders offer hosting as part of their packages — which means your website is securely hosted by the site builders’ servers and you can purchase a custom domain.

The beauty of this is that you can often manage your website hosting right within the site builder — no need to go through an external channel that adds another step to the process.

Read also: How to Create an Online Store Without a Website

Search engine optimization

If search engine optimization (SEO) is a priority for you, some site builders offer templates that have been created with this objective in mind.

Choosing an SEO-friendly template makes it simple for you to optimize your site content and copy to help you achieve your optimization goals. Again — you get this benefit without having to hire external developers.

Affordability

Site builders are an affordable option for e-commerce retailers because they are typically offer different pricing packages based on the size and needs of the business.

This allows the business owner to select the pricing plan that best fits their budget and allows them to select only the features they need.

It also creates an opportunity to scale the services of the site builder up or down as the business evolves over time.

While some online retailers may decide to hire a designer to help with elements of a website created through one of these platforms (like customizing a template, graphic elements, etc.), using a site builder can help make the process faster and more affordable as opposed to starting with a custom-made website from scratch.

Next, let’s compare some of the popular site builders to see how they stack up against each other.

Looking for a way to add an online store to your WordPress, Joomla, or Droopal website? Read How To Add an Online Store to Your Existing Website

Overview of Popular Site Builders

There are many different options for site builders, but we’re going to focus on some of the more popular platforms that we see websites and stores being built with on a regular basis.

Some of the commonly used site builders that integrate with Ecwid are:

Each has different strengths, price points, and resources for users, so let’s see how they compare to each other.

Free trialPaid planCustom domainTemplatesImages baseSupport typesEcwid integration
WixYes$5-25/moPaid plan500+10000+ freeEmail, live chat, forumsApp
WeeblyYes$8-49/moPaid plan100+1000+ free & paidEmail, phone, forumsHtml code
WordPressYesfreen/a2000+1000+Forums, articlesPlugin
SquarespaceNo$12-40/moPaid plan100+1000+ paidForums, articles, Live chat, phonehtml code

As you can see, different site builders are going to be ideal for different online retailers based on their individual needs.

Some might prefer to experiment with a free trial first, while others may need a site builder with extensive support resources. Choosing the option that’s best for you will depend on what you need most.

To help you decide, let’s take a more in-depth look at these four site builders.

Details on Site Builders & Example Stores

Each of these four site builders has different strengths, features, and benefits. And now that you have a better feel for how they compare to each other, we can explore each one in greater detail and see what some example stores look like.

Wix

Wix is a site builder that prides itself on simple website development. Using drag and drop tools, you can easily create a website that’s mobile-friendly and that hosts your online store. Other features include:

  • Unlimited pages
  • Supports video and audio files
  • Social integrations
  • Stock images
  • Free and reliable hosting

Here’s an example of an online store/website built on Wix:

Fortunate

Fortunate

With a clean, simple layout and easy navigation tools, you can create a website and online store using Wix that wows your customers.

Integrating Wix with Ecwid is as simple as adding the app from the Wix App Market to your site.

Weebly

Weebly boasts more than 40 million users, and is a site builder beloved for it’s no frills approach to website design.

In minutes, you can create a mobile-responsive site from the templates they have available, and you can study your progress with their back-end metrics. Other features include:

  • SEO tools
  • Custom domain hosting
  • Video embedding
  • Fast load times

Take a look at this example of an online store/website built on Weebly:

OnlineBikiniShop

OnlineBikiniShop

Notice how in this example bold images are front and center and the top navigation makes it easy for shoppers to browse by category. Using Weebly, you can put a store like this one together and go live within a day.

Weebly sites integrate with Ecwid when you drop in the appropriate html text.

WordPress

More than 25% of the entire web runs on WordPress, and because of its open source platform, many integrations, tools, and developer-friendly resources, it’s come to be a favorite for e-commerce websites, too.

With flexible pricing and endless templates, you can use this site builder to create a customized website that’s completely unique and professional-looking. Other features include:

Here’s an example of what a WordPress e-commerce site looks like:

Sheakardel

Sheakardel

WordPress sites are often more customizable than other site builders because there are so many existing resources for this particular platform — from templates to integrations and beyond.

Related: 25 Must-Have Plugins For Your WordPress Website

You can integrate any WordPress site with Ecwid by adding a simple plugin.

Squarespace

Squarespace is another easy to use tool with many different templates that allow you to build and launch a customized online store and website in minutes.

With hosting and custom domains available for purchase within this platform, you can take care of all of your website needs without ever leaving this one site. Other features include:

  • Award-winning designs and templates
  • Analytics and tools for inventory tracking, shipping, customized emails and more
  • SEO resources
  • Social media integrations

Here’s an example Squarespace site:

Adirondak

Adirondak

If you’re looking for a site builder that’s ultra-easy and prides itself on design, this option might be ideal for you. You can launch a professional-looking store that makes your offerings look great in no time at all.

You can tie together your Squarespace website and Ecwid accounts with a piece of html code.

Site Builders: Fantastic Resources

If you do not have a website, check out Bookmark, a free website builder. Bookmark allows you to instantly integrate your Facebook page with a click of a button using their A.I powered website builder which creates your website in 30 seconds or less.

Now that you know some of the best-loved tools that integrate with Ecwid, it’s time for you to pick one and create a website and online store that wows your customers.

Tip: site builders are great for creating a website with multiple pages, a blog, or a picture gallery. If you need a one-page website to tell your customers who you are and to quickly start selling, consider free Ecwid Instant Site. Use customizable blocks to tell your business story, to show customer reviews, contact info and the store itself.

Happy building!

Want to know more? Read on!

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Sell online

With Ecwid Ecommerce, you can easily sell anywhere, to anyone — across the internet and around the world.

About the author

Kristen is a сontent creator at Ecwid. She finds inspiration in sci-fi books, jazz music, and home-cooked food.

Ecommerce that has your back

So simple to use – even my most technophobic clients can manage. Easy to install, quick to set up. Light years ahead of other shop plugins.
I’m so impressed I’ve recommended it to my website clients and am now using it for my own store along with four others for which I webmaster. Beautiful coding, excellent top-notch support, great documentation, fantastic how-to videos. Thank you so much Ecwid, you rock!
I’ve used Ecwid and I love the platform itself. Everything is so simplified it’s insane. I love how you have different options to choose shipping carriers, to be able to put in so many different variants. It’s a pretty open e-commerce gateway.
Easy to use, affordable (and a free option if starting off). Looks professional, many templates to select from. The App is my favorite feature as I can manage my store right from my phone. Highly recommended 👌👍
I like that Ecwid was easy to start and to use. Even for a person like me, without any technical background. Very well written help articles. And the support team is the best for my opinion.
For everything it has to offer, ECWID is incredibly easy to set up. Highly recommend! I did a lot of research and tried about 3 other competitors. Just try ECWID and you'll be online in no time.

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