Online (e-commmerce) stores are a very popular alternative if you’re looking for a viable business model. They can bring some great benefits to new business owners who want to get their hands dirty, so to speak, and offer their products to a wide audience.
That’s why today we’re comparing the top 6 of the most popular and best e-commmerce and online store solutions available on the market.
We’ve analyzed every important aspect that will help you develop a business in the e-commerce space… From pricing tables, features, design, ease-of-use, to hosting issues, pros and cons of each platform, target audience, number of product attributes allowed, marketing optimization, and more.
In the end, we hope this will become your “complete guide” to getting started with e-commerce and picking between these 6 alternatives: Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, Bigcommerce, Wix, and Jimdo.
| Wix | Shopify | Magento | WooCommerce | Bigcommerce | Jimdo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |  |  | |
| PRICE (MONTHLY) | free $4.08 $9.25 $12.42 $16.17 $24.90 | $9 $29 $79 $179 | free $18,000 | free | $29.95 $79.95 $199.95 | free $7.50 $20.00 |
| UNLIMITED PRODUCT ATTRIBUTES | ||||||
| MOBILE COMMERCE | ||||||
| IN-BUILT MARKETING | ||||||
| EASE OF USE | 10 / 10 | 9 / 10 | 7 / 10 | 8 / 10 | 10 / 10 | 9 / 10 |
| OVERALL SCORE | 10 / 10 | 9 / 10 | 7 / 10 | 8 / 10 | 10 / 10 | 8 / 10 |
| VISIT: |
THE FULL REVIEW COMPARISON:
Wix
PRICE
Based on the plan: free, $4.08, $9.25, $12.42, $16.17, $24.90 (per month). Wix presents the price tags in your local currency.
MAIN FEATURES
- Wide selection of professionally designed templates.
- Drag-and-drop store builder built-in.
- Photo galleries for showcasing your products.
- Optimized for mobile use.
- Global shipping and tax management.
- Secured shopping cart.
- Easy tracking for every order.
- 100 fully customizable templates filtered by categories.
- Tons of additional web apps and services available.
- Hosting included.
PROS
- Comes with tons of templates filtered in many categories. No matter the purpose of your store, you will surely find a template that will fit your website.
- It offers free hosting and the freedom to make your store look exactly the way you have imagined it. Besides that, Wix helps you by providing video tutorials on how to use the platform.
- It has integrated Wix HTML5 editor for customizing every page, and a drag-and-drop builder.
CONS
- Having almost everything customizable can be a little bit confusing because you have to literally create the site by yourself and choose from lots of options (adding a template, text, pictures, buttons, menus etc.)
- Shows only two product attributes: size and color.
PREFERRED USER GROUP
People who want a functional website that they can build on their own, and who also need an e-commerce component to go alongside it.
EASE OF USE
All you have to do is sign up, choose a category of your design, and then pick a template. Wix directs you through all the offerings and options. Overall, this is what every non-technical user needs! Every customization and change are a piece of cake. You can choose this alternative e-commerce tool (vs Magento or the other ones) if you’re very new to the topic.
MAIN FEATURES
- More than 100 professional themes.
- Stores are mobile-friendly.
- You can edit HTML and CSS directly.
- You can hook up your own domain name.
- Usable website builder.
- Full blogging platform available.
- Marketing and SEO optimized (social media integration, product reviews, email marketing, discounts).
- Unlimited bandwidth.
- Site analytics.
PROS
- Shopify offers free hosting. That means you won’t have to do anything else other than getting an account and then creating your products right away.
- Comes with many SEO options and social links. This will help you with your product and website promotion.
- The admin area interface looks modern and user-friendly. It can be pretty intuitive for every user.
CONS
- Shopify doesn’t offer more than their three default product attributes. Every product in the store is defined by its size, color, and material. You can add lots of options for each of these parameters, but you can’t create new ones.
PREFERRED USER GROUP
This tool is a good alternative for both beginners to e-commerce and professionals. Beginners will appreciate the friendly design that takes you by the hand through the whole process of building a great-looking store. While professional users can take advantage of the multitude of options and settings that Shopify has to offer.
EASE OF USE
Shopify offers a simplified way of launching an online store that’s doable for everyone. All you have to do is create an account, select a free theme, easily customize the design, and that’s it. Simply follow what’s going on in the left-hand side menu, add products and their details, and select your preferred options. Making a store operational is really straightforward. Shopify does a lot better job in this department vs Magento or any other tool.
Magento
PRICE
Based on the plan: free (downloadable software), $18,000 (per year).
MAIN FEATURES
- Responsive structure (available on the iPhone, iPad, Android, and mobile HTML5 is pre-integrated).
- Fully customizable design, using templates.
- Customer segmentation, targeted promotions and merchandising available.
- Automated email marketing reminder.
- Private sales feature (restrict catalog to specific customers).
- Multiple wish lists.
- Content management system integrated.
- Polls and customer groups.
- Unlimited product attributes.
PROS
- It comes with a professional look, with well organized information and categories, covering each aspect that could help you build an ideal store.
- Magento comes with very detailed content and information. Any category offers lots of options that will surely lead to a professional and a successful website.
CONS
- It has not a very user-friendly layout, it takes many steps to customize the settings and the design has also a classic old forum design. It can be a little complicated and confusing the users.
- The premium plan is hugely expensive.
PREFERRED USER GROUP
Magento definitely offers a set of complex settings and options for starting and growing a big business. If you need it for big companies and enterprises, it will surely help you develop a great store, with everything on the list checked.
EASE OF USE
Actually, it may take a little time to get familiar with Magento’s design. It is created in an old school-way. Accessing Magento’s admin area can be a little difficult at the beginning and a real burden for people who are unfamiliar with this kind of work. Overall, vs Shopify or other tools, Magento comes with a complex and not-so-friendly front-end, and it can take a while to find all its “secrets.” But for more advanced users, it’s an e-commerce alternative that offers a lot of things needed when building a larger online store.
WooCommerce
PRICE
Based on the plan: free – it’s a WordPress plugin.
MAIN FEATURES
- Bundled with payment gateways … PayPal, BACS and Cash on Delivery.
- Options to offer free shipping or flat rate shipping.
- Reporting on incoming sales, reviews, inventory levels and general store performance.
- Configure tax settings with tax classes and local tax rates.
- Marketing campaigns (discount options, usage limits, product/user restrictions, etc.).
- Built as a WordPress plugin and available from the wp-admin of your site.
PROS
- Comes with user reviews and ratings. Clients can easily vote every product by adding ratings to their comments.
- It comes with nicely organized reports. They are carefully filtered in specific categories: sales by date, by product, by category, coupons by date etc.
- WooCommerce is a free plugin. All you have to do is to download it and start adding products right from your WordPress dashboard.
CONS
- Even though WordPress is free, it doesn’t come with free hosting. So you will need to pay for it separately.
- Even though it’s simple, you still need to take care of the setup on your own – which involves downloading and then installing the plugin on your WordPress site. If you don’t have a WordPress site, that’s even more work. A WooCommerce-friendly theme helps too.
PREFERRED USER GROUP
People who can benefit from this plugin the most are those who work with the WordPress platform. If you already own a WordPress website, have your own hosting, and everything is going well, you have to only install WooCommerce and that’s it. If not, you have to create a new site from scratch.
EASE OF USE
This plugin is pretty straightforward alternative once you install it on your WordPress site. You can customize everything from within your dashboard, test it and change all the options until you’re satisfied with the result. As long as you know a little bit about WordPress, it shouldn’t be a problem. Overall, WooCommerce makes WordPress people’s lives easier when they need an e-commerce store installed. The plugin itself works smoothly, provides helpful features and is user-friendly. Vs Shopify or other tools on this list, WooCommerce seems like a nice alternative.
MAIN FEATURES
- Stores are mobile-friendly.
- SEO-friendly.
- Built-in marketing features.
- Design options: themes, point-and-click tools, customizable CSS/HTML.
- Integration with hundreds of leading accounting, marketing, and inventory management systems.
- You can hook up your own domain name.
- Reports, and payment gateways built-in.
PROS
- The admin page is very user-friendly and can guide you very well through every step. It has a drag-and-drop builder integrated, which makes it even easier.
- Bigcommerce comes also with free hosting and with a variety of themes, both premium and free. Also, it gives you the option to code your own theme right on the site in a special HTML/CSS editor. So if you’re good at coding, you can personalize your design.
- The customers database provides a lot of information on every client. So you can get to know your audience very well.
CONS
- Despite its great features and its friendly layout, Bigcommerce doesn’t offer a free plan or a cheap entry-level plan.
PREFERRED USER GROUP
This can be a good choice for big companies because the platform works efficiently on big installs.
EASE OF USE
Is has Magento’s complexity when we talk about settings and features, but they are showcased in a more friendly way. It has a modern design and a very friendly admin page. It should be relatively easy to create a shop with Bigcommerce, which makes it a good overall alternative vs Shopify or other tools on the list.
Jimdo
PRICE
Based on the plan: free, $7.50, $20.00 (per month).
MAIN FEATURES
- Modern design templates, covering a lot of niches.
- Possibility to use your own domain name.
- Customizable themes.
- PayPal integration (including credit cards).
- Allows test orders.
- No transaction fees.
- SEO-friendly.
- Mobile responsive.
- Mobile apps available.
- HTML5 compatible.
- Drag-and-drop content editing.
PROS
- Easy setup. Helps you out by asking about the purpose of your website.
- Really user-friendly interface.
- Allows you to launch a new e-commerce store in minutes.
CONS
- Only up to 5 products in your store on the free version.
- Editing your product details isn’t as straightforward.
PREFERRED USER GROUP
Jimdo looks like a really good solution for people who want to launch an e-commerce store fast, and would prefer for the platform to suggest the best possible settings for them.
EASE OF USE
Jimdo is really effective when it comes to letting you launch a basic e-commerce store fast. There’s only minimal configuration, and all the settings are quite easy to grasp (only product editing isn’t perfect). In the end, Jimdo can save you if you need an online store ASAP.
The winner?
For me, after all the experiments with each platform on this list, it’s Wix (previously, it was Bigcommerce).
The main advantage of Wix over Bigcommerce is that there is a free plan available. Additionally, I felt very comfortable setting up the store and then doing various experiments with it.
WordPress lovers would say that it’s easier to use WooCommerce because all you have to do is install the free plugin and all is set and done. But a normal user would have many steps to go through in order to create an online store from the ground up. They’d need to get a hosting account, install WordPress, and only then install WooCommerce. However, if you already have a WordPress site, WooCommerce is a great solution.
In other cases, Wix, Shopify, and Bigcommerce could be better alternatives if you don’t need a complicated store with advanced features and customizations.
| Wix | Shopify | Magento | WooCommerce | Bigcommerce | Jimdo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | | | | |
| PRICE (MONTHLY) | free $4.08 $9.25 $12.42 $16.17 $24.90 | $9 $29 $79 $179 | free $18,000 | free | $29.95 $79.95 $199.95 | free $7.50 $20.00 |
| UNLIMITED PRODUCT ATTRIBUTES | ||||||
| MOBILE COMMERCE | ||||||
| IN-BUILT MARKETING | ||||||
| EASE OF USE | 10 / 10 | 9 / 10 | 7 / 10 | 8 / 10 | 10 / 10 | 9 / 10 |
| OVERALL SCORE | 10 / 10 | 9 / 10 | 7 / 10 | 8 / 10 | 10 / 10 | 8 / 10 |
| VISIT: |
