BEST WEBSITE BUILDERS FOR STARTERS IN 2022
As someone who wants to start a business in 2022, e-commerce is the obvious place to start. However, creating a website to do so might seem unattainable for those of us who don’t know how to code since we need to either spend the time to learn how to do it ourself or spend money to get someone to do it for you. Well that’s where website builder comes in, they are software to help individuals, entrepreneurs, and small businesses to start a website coding.
However, with thousands to choose from it can sure get overwhelming to pick the right one for you. We believes the best website builder is the one that could fit our needs. These needs vary based on whether you need an e-commerce site, an online store, a blog, a community forum, a membership website, or a corporate website. In this article we will introduce some of the best cloud-based website builders for E-commerce and Online stores, they will also be using drag & drop system.
Why cloud-based? We believe that a cloud-based solution is the most cost-effective option. It enables the option to scale up and down your business in a short period of time, typically monthly.
Best for: Shops with larger inventory, physical stores/location, and consistent sales.
Pros: Can scale with your business. Works very well on any platform
Cons: It can get slightly pricey specially for starters.
Pricing: US$21.75 – $299/mo A
Shopify is one of the most popular ecommerce platform in the world, and for good reasons. Whether you’re a first-time seller, or a multi-million dollar business, they are a great option to go with, from a basic plan to start out, all the way to enterprise level planning with custom pricing, so you can keep going all the way when your business gets there.
They also offer a powerful tools we can utilize such as auto tax calculation and abandoned cart systems, all while working on practically any device (cross-platform). Shopify also provides email marketing tools to make it easier to write and execute all while giving your emails a more professional look.
As more and more people using drop-shipping as their method of choice when trying out ecommerce, Shopify is perfect because of the wide option it provides.
A great reason Shopify is great at growing along with your business, is that they offer features to work together seamlessly with physical store system, and the unlimited inventory of products you can add to your stores, 24 hours customer support, and extensive payment options with support over 100 options.
However, everything does come at a price, their basic plan only having a limited number of tools you can use with even some of the fancier templates locked behind pay-walls, it’s better to get the higher end plans to access their tools. We recommend opting for the yearly payment instead of monthly since it would save quite a lot in the long run.
Best for: Small businesses and restaurants with physical stores/location.
Pros: Flexible plans including a free one available.
Cons: Basic customization compared to other builders.
Pricing: Free – $95/mo
Square Online is an online store builder for small shops, food and drink and other small businesses. The free plan is one of their most appealing offerings; which still gives you access to some of the main features they offer including limitless item listing, Facebook and Google ad creation, and automatic tax calculation.
Additionally, Square Online has the advantage of effortlessly linking your online store with your in-store goods or food menu for companies with physical stores. With features like QR codes for table-side ordering, virtual terminal for phone bookings, orders for pickup and deliveries, you don’t need to find another system/app for your physical store.
Square Online also has great connections to social media networks to assist in marketing. It makes it simpler to market the content on your website to different audiences, connect to Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Facebook Ads, and Google Ads.
However, despite all that, Square Online’s design options don’t always result in distinctive online stores. Although it has what you need in building a website, their design options don’t necessarily lead to unique online shops. Businesses may feel constrained by the restricted number of design options and unable to create websites that stand out in a sea of ecommerce companies.
Best for: All-round value on a budget.
Pros: Great SEO tool. Top notch security.
Cons: You can’t switch your template once published. Lack of ownership over technical aspects.
Pricing: A$23 – A$58/mo
Wix has something for everyone. Wix offers fantastic layouts, SEO and marketing capabilities, as well as a ton of apps to help you scale, for enterprises. Wix is also completely mobile responsive. All while keeping things relatively cheap compared to other options.
Wix has over 800 fully customizable templates to choose from, all of which are quite unique from one another, making your website stand out more from everyone else. However, a downside for them is that once your website goes live, you can’t switch templates later on without remaking from scratch.
A key feature they offer is a great SEO tool that creates a personalized action plan for you to follow to optimize your site for search engines. This essentially makes your website easier to find and show up higher when users are searching on places like Google.
Security is always a high priority when it comes to choosing a website builder, that is why Wix comes with a ton of built-in features that help to keep your website safe and secure. From Double payment authentication for online payments to prevent frauds, PCI Compliant which is the gold standard for ecommerce security, it’s clear security is a high priority of Wix.
However, something that aren’t so good when it comes to Wix is the lack of ownership over the technical aspects of your site such as hosting, server locations, and so on. So this means you don’t have control over your website’s uptime.