Shopify is one of the most popular eCommerce solutions, with a market share of 29% and 400,000+ active stores in 2021. It has revolutionized the eCommerce industry by almost replacing legacy enterprise software by minimizing time and the need for code. Shopify is quick, simple, and perfect for setting up a new store from scratch, with its complete tech bundle. You can design pages with the built-in editor; you can sell across channels by linking local languages and offer reliable support in your online stores. Not only that, mobile responsive outlines, 100+ themes, 6000+ applications, and end-to-end integrations with toolsets like Google Ads and payment providers alike make Shopify the popular choice. But even the greatest of platforms have their drawbacks. Shopify’s monthly pricing fee is too high, and unless you’re using Shopify payments, which operates only in a few countries, you end up paying transaction fees for every sale made. Plus, the Shopify dashboard isn’t as intuitive as we’d like it to be. Creating dropdown menus, adding items, or using “collections” is quite complicated. While Shopify does support customization, it’s a little roundabout as it’s not based on the standard PHP. Hence, the learning code can be quite steep, and complete creative control is a no-go with Shopify. But what’s truly a dealbreaker about Shopify is its vendor lock-in policy that restricts you from moving your shop to another vendor. Combined with its recent efficiency issues and lack of support, you may want to look elsewhere. The needs of users have evolved; the need for better support is crucial. And so is the need for affordability, advanced customization, and the option to migrate. No matter what your requirements for seeking alternatives are, find the best Shopify alternatives worth noting below.
Square Online
In comparison to other Shopify competitors, Square Online is the only online store that can be made to order. Set up is quick and easy; you can start selling right away. Perfect for restaurants and retail lines, Square Online charges you only when you make a sale – that too, a reasonable rate for all the features it comes with. You can integrate with existing POS inventory and be up and running in no time. Moreover, enjoy convenient payments, local delivery options, accept gift cards, and support shopping via Instagram. As you must have guessed, Square Online is a comprehensive eCommerce solution ideal for offline POS features. Not only that, you enjoy access to a POS app, inventory and customer management, reporting, and analytics. Payment is also based on the add-ons or integrations you opt for. Now, afterpay processing fees can get quite high in comparison to Shopify. And while we’re on the talk of cons, Square Online doesn’t have a robust social channel, so you might be losing out on a large audience basis. However, it’s incredible how easy it’s to integrate your POS inventory online. That makes Square Online a perfect choice for restaurant and delivery pickups!
WooCommerce
Being the world’s top open-source e-Commerce platform, WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin with over 400 official extensions. It comes entirely integrated with WordPress themes and offers flexible solutions powered by a global community. Whether you’re getting ready to launch your own retail line or start a new business, WooCommerce can help. It has a host of built-in tools and useful integrations to help you manage your business operations effectively. You can build attractive storefronts (with great free themes), and customize your product pages. A number of services are free to add using the Setup Wizard. You can manage payments easily with 100+ payment gateways. Not only that, connect with well-known carriers (including exclusive WooCommerce shipping for U.S. only) and calculate sales tax automatically. WordPress is already known for being a top content management system, popular for its SEO edge. When you power it up with WooCommerce, you have the opportunity to appear in top search results and grow your business. You can also monitor it using performance metrics with the WooCommerce Admin, an entirely customizable dashboard. In fact, all of WooCommerce is very customizable. You can even create your own personalized theme if you don’t like the countless themes it comes with. While paid extensions are available, you can get a lot done with free extensions. You can add share buttons and expand your audience across social channels like Facebook, Google Ads, HubSpot, or even Mailchimp. Another advantage of WooCommerce is that all your data is forever yours. Unlike a lot of other eCommerce solutions, you’re free to export all your content. There are no hassles if you want to take your business elsewhere without any restrictions.
BigCommerce
While WooCommerce was the most popular among Shopify competitors, BigCommerce is definitely the most versatile. BigCommerce is known for its scalability, stability, and security. Best for big businesses and store owners, BigCommerce is a perfect contender among other Shopify competitors. That’s because it offers more built-in sales tools and integrations than Shopify. In fact, when you use Shopify, you pay a percentage of your sales for customers not using Shopify payments. BigCommerce doesn’t have any such limitations. Moreover, BigCommerce comes with its own set of integrations and 1100+ apps. So, it won’t make you install third-party apps, unlike Shopify. With plans starting at $29.95 per month, BigCommerce has an easy-to-use app. It also comes with a built-in blog to help you improve your SEO ranking. If you’d like enterprise-level plans, you can contact the team for custom pricing options. While features will vary on the plan you opt for, there are a few core features you’ll get with BigCommerce. They include unlimited staff accounts, advanced reporting functionalities, 12 free templates, integration with PayPal, and useful SEO tools.
Wix eCommerce
Wix is best suited for single entrepreneurs and individuals who like to DIY it. You can create mobile-first stores that are attractive and customized in a matter of minutes. With over 500 eCommerce website templates to choose from, Wix is entirely a drag-and-drop builder. By that, we mean you can literally move around any content anywhere. With a lot of flexible design options, Wix eCommerce is perfect for newbies. To elaborate, it’s ideal for small businesses that have no more than 100 products. It’s a good platform to get started, as it simplifies everything and it has excellent support. While Wix doesn’t have comprehensive tools like Shopify, it’s perfect for people who don’t want to code a lot. It has a powerful editor and in-house design tools. In addition, its advanced features include abandoned cart 🛒 recovery, automatic backups, and a custom domain name. Now, Wix does have a free plan. But you’ll need the premium plan to accept payments, remove ads and connect your own domain. Looking to enhance the functionality of your store? Take advantage of a huge App market and 300+ integrations. Besides not letting you create more than 100 pages, Wix doesn’t have support for newer sales channels like TikTok. So, you might be missing out on a number of prospective leads. However, don’t let that change your mind. Wix is an excellent all-in-one website-building tool that’s perfect for beginners.
Kibo Commerce
Another ideal alternative to Shopify, Kibo Commerce is a feature-rich, cloud-based and omnichannel eCommerce platform. It lets you handle B2B and B2C operations from a single interface. What’s more, one can use shared services (pricing, product catalog, marketing) through a single admin dashboard. Moreover, you get full API coverage, built-in integrations, and brilliant site scaling capabilities when you work with Kibo. To directly compare Kibo with Shopify, the cart experience and abandoned cart 🛒 recovery options are better in Kibo, whereas Shopify takes the trophy in online payments. Designed for all stages of the headless journey, Kibo lets organizations design personalized eCommerce experiences, thereby helping them grow fast. To elaborate, Kibo helps you create customized shopping experiences not only across traditional channels like social media and online marketplaces. But also across newer leading channels like smart appliances, wearables, and voice assistants. If you’re looking to boost your revenue and grow customer loyalty, you can work with Kibo Subscriptions Management. You can offer subscriptions for frequently bought products and increase your customer base by sending curated packages or exclusive products. Kibo also provides help with order management. Increase sales, optimize inventory, and fulfill orders faster with a highly flexible interface. Remain connected to your customer throughout the journey, as well as store associates, fulfillment partners, and even customer support teams. The best part about Kibo is you enjoy all of these services (from headless eCommerce to order management to subscriptions) within a unified platform.
Intershop
If you’re looking for Shopify competitors that are cloud-based, you might want to take Intershop for a spin (read: demo). A SaaS commerce solution built exclusively for complex businesses, Intershop is secure and accessible on the Microsoft Azure cloud. When you want to add advanced functionalities to your site, you don’t need any major migrations. All thanks to the microservices Intershop comes with. Plus, it has an open AI architecture that allows you to expand easily. And, you get to create custom experiences for any user, any device using its headless commerce functionalities. While Shopify’s market share is more than Intershop, Intershop is getting popular due to its omnichannel service. With hassle-free integrations, Intershop helps you scale your business to the next level. With 500+ APIs, you can be ready to provide a unique online experience that’ll help you simplify buying processes, product information, and sales at every touchpoint. Worried about your SAP integration and the amount of code it’ll take? Intershop takes the lead on that with its Integration Hub. Moreover, Intershop has excellent expert-guided resources, global community, and training options for optimizing your approach. Be on top of seamless order management. Or, empower your customer support center to build better relationships that get you a lot of returning visitors.
Shopware
Not many know this, but Shopware was actually founded in 2004, two years before Shopify. One of the most popular among all Shopify competitors, Shopware has a free version. In comparison, Shopify has only paid versions. While both Shopify and Shopware are intuitive and have a load of SEO features, Shopware has a faster loading time. That, in turn, has a positive effect on SEO. Another advantage that Shopware has over Shopify is customizability. With over 1500+ extensions, Shopware lets you develop individual plugins and customize your store. Shopify has a lot of themes and plugins; the chances of customizability are limited, however. With complete access to the source code, your data is yours without any restrictions. Shopware also helps you to grow faster with API, headless, and automated features that require no code. Whether B2B or B2C, you get to manage online or offline commerce across different business models. Also, get to enjoy powerful SEO tools, storytelling features, and customizable product options with Shopware. Moreover, you’ll get help running promotions, engaging your customers via co-browsing and video shopping, and more.
Miva
While Shopify competitors are many, Miva is all about helping you adapt to emerging eCommerce trends. With large SKU-count-based inventory management and high-volume order processing functionalities, Miva promises unmatched agility. Plus, it has a cloud-based hosting environment with all essential tools that help you sell B2B and D2C from the same platform. Miva’s best-of-breed integrations for shipping, warehouse, payments, taxes, accounting, and marketing ensure you have everything to succeed. Building a powerful and compelling storefront and maximizing engagement is easy with Miva’s catalogs, and navigation features. Not only that, your buyers will receive dynamic product recommendations and promotions. You’ve interactive product visualizers, upselling, and bundling features to your rescue! With a great support center, Miva also has advanced features. They include live inventory visibility, custom pricing for B2B, automated subscriptions, and a host of configurable wholesaler applications. It might be a little hard to use in comparison to Shopify, and the subscription cost tends to be on the higher end. However, with 20+ years of experience, Miva has all the essentials you need to increase revenue and drive conversions.
Volusion
With a free trial for 14 days, Volusion is one of the popular Shopify competitors known for its solution-driven approach. Brilliant mobile-friendly themes, intuitive functionality, and best-of-breed SEO tools are what you get with Volusion. But that’s not all! Volusion has excellent product display features (including a homepage slideshow), promotional tools, and advanced search tools. You can also take Volusion’s in-house studio’s help for designing your website. That’s a one-of-a-kind offering, not provided by other Shopify competitors. Streamline warehouse functionalities, implement product variant pricing or offer subscriptions via Recurring Pricing Tool with this all-in-one eCommerce solution. All of the sites also have 99% uptime guarantee with Google Cloud. It has four paid plans: personal, professional, business and custom (for large enterprises). Volusion is known for its emphasis on analytics. You can be on top of insights and analytics with Volusion, and we think that’s a serious plus! Track RIOs, create reports, create discounts, manage social accounts, sell on multiple platforms, and manage reviews easily with Volusion’s functionalities. From creating a seamless checkout experience to getting help from in-house marketing, design, and studio experts, Volusion is a powerhouse.
Big Cartel
A fully hosted eCommerce platform, Big Cartel is currently the cheapest one among Shopify competitors. Not only that, it’s the most ideal choice for artists and creators who want to showcase their work and earn. It’s perfect for startups as well, with product pages not exceeding more than 500. Even then, it provides more solutions than Wix with its 100 product page limitations. Coming back to Big Cartel, it has a free plan to showcase five different products. It doesn’t have complex features or interfaces. Rather, it’s easy to use, allows multichannel selling, and integrates with Google Analytics well. Big Cartel has essentials-only features, which can be a downside in comparison to leading eCommerce giants. However, the simplicity and easy-to-use functionalities make it ideal for beginners. Talking about disadvantages, you might feel limited when it comes to payment options, flexibility, number of extensions, and product management. However, it’s the best website for creative professionals like photographers, painters, and designers who want to commercialize their art. Plus, it’s really affordable!
PrestaShop
Want a highly flexible eCommerce solution that lets you design and own it? PrestaShop is best known for customizability. Unlike Shopify, it isn’t fully hosted for a subscription plan. It’s free and open source. You have access to its code, and you can make any changes you deem fit. However, site maintenance, web hosting, and performance updates are all on you (unlike Shopify). But that’s great for individuals who want to develop their own site and have unlimited personalization. 100% creative freedom! You can tweak its main theme to create your storefront or choose from 6000+ templates (paid and free). You can list products, track inventory, create your order, fulfillment and return flow from the admin. Enjoy free payment integrations, and international selling as built-in features, or choose integrations from its 10,000+ services to expand functionality. You can also opt for a paid version of premium customer support. While PrestaShop might require you to hire a developer, it’s easy to use and convenient in comparison to other open-source Shopify competitors.
✍️Conclusion
As you can see, there are a lot of great Shopify competitors that exist out there. However, choose the one that works for your business depending on the functionalities it requires. BigCommerce is perfect for large enterprises, Square Online is great for restaurant businesses, and Big Cartel is great for artists and those who love affordability. Shopware allows maximum customizability, whereas Volusion also offers in-house studio services. Each of the Shopify alternatives above shows great potential. So, select one that delivers on your needs! P.S: Unless you’re someone who’s a developer or don’t mind hiring one, stick to the ones that require the least coding. If you still haven’t made up your mind, why not check out these online platforms to start selling?
