The 6 best ecommerce platforms for small businesses in 2023

Following our rigorous testing and expert analysis, it's clear that Wix is the best ecommerce platform for small businesses. It's a great all-rounder, offering fantastic sales and design features for a very affordable price – helped in particular by some regular Wix deals and discounts that keep it ahead of the competition. That's why it tops our charts scoring an overall 4.8 out of 5.

Shopify comes in a close second, scoring a strong overall 4.6 out of 5. This is thanks to its superb features and extensive app market that give ambitious ecommerce businesses everything they need to scale rapidly.

However, there are plenty of options on the market, and picking out the best ecommerce platform for your business requires careful consideration.

Owing to the cost of living crisis and the ongoing difficult economic climate as we enter the winter months, getting online shoppers to commit to transactional decisions is no easy feat in current times. According to the International Trade Administration, internet shopping is more popular in the UK than in any other country so you definitely need an ecommerce platform you can rely on.

To help you get this crucial decision right, we've compiled a list of the top six ecommerce platforms for small businesses. Our methodology was built on our latest round of in-depth research and user testing.

Short on time? For a quick overview of our top-rated ecommerce platforms and their best features head-to-head, you can visit our handy ecommerce builder comparison page.

Otherwise, read on for a comprehensive review of each ecommerce platform.

What is an ecommerce platform?

An ecommerce platform is a type of software that lets you create an entire online store, with a professional-looking website; it also lets you manage all of your stock and inventory and sell your products or services online.

Ecommerce platforms can be built by any size business, because they are no-code. This means even someone with relatively little experience of using website builder software can get started. Examples of large-scale ecommerce platforms include Amazon or eBay, but for small businesses, you're likely to use a platform such as Shopify, Wix, Squarespace or BigCommerce.

There are a lot of different functions that online sellers need to carry out to run their store. One big advantage of an ecommerce platform is that it integrates all the business and commerce functionalities under one roof, giving you every feature you need to operate and grow your store. You can also have your ecommerce store on mobile, but keep in mind it will have to be optimised. 

1. Wix ecommerce: Best all-round ecommerce platform for small businesses

According to our in-depth user testing, Wix is the best ecommerce platform for small businesses, scoring an impressive 4.8 out of 5 stars overall.

The ecommerce platform takes the top spot for its features, design flexibility, and help and support. Its closest contender Shopify trails behind by only 0.2 points, partly because Wix gives you more value for money.

With more than 70 different ecommerce templates to choose from, each of which can be customised to your heart’s content, you can create a unique online shop that’s perfectly tailored to your brand. However, choose your template carefully, because you can’t change it once your website is live.

From our first-hand user testing, one of our favourite parts about Wix's features was that it recommends you which items to put into your website based on the type, industry and name. For instance, if you're building an ecommerce site, Wix will automatically recommend you put in a chatbot. This makes the process of building a website quicker.

And while it might not be an ecommerce-specific platform – like BigCommerce and Shopify – thanks to its extensive App Market, Wix offers all the sales functionality you could ever need. This includes multiple payment options, secure checkout, and abandoned cart recovery – all of which will help you increase sales and grow your customer base.

It also boasts the most advanced SEO features out of all the ecommerce platforms we tested. One unique element of Wix's SEO offering is its exclusive partnership with SEO giants Semrush, which allows Wix users to access Semrush's industry-leading SEO keyword data directly through the Wix dashboard. Back in February, Wix added SEO reports using Google Search Console to its arsenal of SEO tools. This is great as you can easily create new reports from GSC, including top search queries and top pages in search. However, keep in mind you'll need to be relatively well-versed in SEO in order to make the most out of Wix. Therefore, it's not ideal for complete SEO newbies.

This will help Wix users improve their website visibility for search terms relevant to their business, and increase valuable web traffic by moving up those all-important search rankings.

In our latest round of testing, Wix has improved in a few notable areas – most importantly in its sales capabilities. Our researchers increased its sales features score from a strong 4 out of 5 to an excellent 4.4 out of 5, putting it just behind the ecommerce platform Shopify in this specific category.

Wix also increased its ease of use score from just 3.6 out of 5 to an admirable 4 out of 5, making it even easier for you to use Wix to create a fantastic online store. This is thanks to its drag-and-drop functionality which makes website building a more intuitive exercise.

It's also important to mention that in comparison to ecommerce-specific platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce, Wix has incredible value for money, costing just £20 per month for its Business plan. This is compared to a whopping £49 per month for Shopify's equivalent plan.

Wix ecommerce pricing

Our dedicated Wix pricing page breaks down the company's ecommerce plans in more detail, so you can work out which is the right fit for your business. All prices are shown when billed annually.

What the users said

2. Shopify: Best for sales-specific features

In our most recent round of in-depth research and testing, ecommerce behemoth Shopify scored a very strong 4.6 out of 5, the second-highest overall rating.

And if we look at the ever-important customer score – in other words, the proportion of users that would be highly likely to recommend a platform to a friend – Shopify held onto its position as our top provider for this metric with an even more impressive 4.7 out of 5.

A simple and straightforward approach to design is central to its appeal. While our researchers found that creating an online shop with other ecommerce builders could be overwhelming – a result of “complex terminology and confusing interfaces” – Shopify’s user interface was described as “clean and refreshingly intuitive”, making it easy to get the results you want.

Shopify's scores have remained pretty steady in our latest testing. It's held onto its position as the second-best overall ecommerce platform, though BigCommerce has just edged ahead of it for sales features. It also has a very solid affiliate program, which we've determined is the best for ecommerce brands.

Although both Shopify and Bigcommerce offer an arsenal of sales features, you can differentiate the two by comparing dropshipping functionality, of which Shopify just edges ahead. Moreover, Shopify also is better at customisable features ad has a larger app store than BigCommerce.

As for Shopify's standout features, the platform preempts and predicts what a merchant might need next in all aspects of creating a website. This kind of automation is unmatched in the ecommerce space, and means small businesses can feel confident that they are setting up an online store perfectly tailored to the needs of their customers.

Unlike other ecommerce website builders, Shopify first prompts you to fill in your inventory rather than building the site. This means it's not a fit for businesses that are still working on their inventory, and instead, is a better match for ecommerce businesses that already have a clear game plan.

Competitively priced, easy-to-use, and with a bevvy of great sales features, Shopify is an excellent option for ambitious, growing businesses. You can also trial the platform for free for three days.

Shopify pricing

Prices shown for annual billing.

What the users said

3. Squarespace: Best for creative control

Like Wix, Squarespace is a website builder first and foremost. But it more than rivals the ecommerce-specific platforms when it comes to creating a professional online store.

Squarespace is now our joint top ranked platform for design functionality (alongside BigCommerce) earning an impressive 4.6 out of 5 overall score. It offers a range of beautiful, stylish, themed templates for nearly every single industry we evaluated – and, unlike Wix, you can change your theme whenever you want. It even has a checkout style editor, so you can make sure your checkout page matches your site’s aesthetic.

Another feature we liked from our first-hand user testing was that you can import directly from Etsy, which is handy if you already have an established customer base there.

The editing interface itself is clean and easy to navigate, and our testers praised the creative freedom allowed. However, they found that there can be a steep learning curve for beginners.

It is also lacking in the sales features department, achieving the lowest score in the category with 3.4 out of 5. This is largely due to the lack of sales features available on its less expensive plans, only when you sign up for its most expensive plan do you get access to features like subscriptions and abandoned cart recovery – and dropshipping functionality is nonexistent.

Although alongside Wix, it’s now our joint second-best value ecommerce platform. You'll struggle to find a more design-focused ecommerce solution, with a genuine focus on its users’ needs, for such a great price. Check out Squarespace’s pricing plans here.

Squarespace pricing

Struggling to work out which Squarespace plan is right for you? Our Squarespace pricing page gives you the lowdown on which features come with which plans, and what sort of business each plan is suited to.

Prices shown for annual billing

What the users said

4. Square Online: Best for selling for free

Square Online is unique in this ranking of the best ecommerce platforms for small businesses, in that it’s the only provider that allows you to start selling products for free, without signing up for a premium plan.

But that doesn’t exactly mean you can sell for free, as it is also the only platform that does NOT allow you to waive the transaction fee, imposing a 1.4% + 25p charge for every payment processed.

That's why, according to our researchers, it's held onto its position as the best value ecommerce platform on the market.

But what's it like to create an online store with this ecommerce site builder?

Well, for what it is, Square Online is pretty solid. There are no limitations on how many products you can feature, or on the type of product – be it physical, digital, donation, event, service, or even to sell as a restaurant. This is great because you can literally sell your products and services without having to spend money on a premium ecommerce plan, some of which (with the likes of Shopify and BigCommerce) will be setting you back £50-plus.

The other handy feature we found from our testing is its ‘hide category' in its inventory management. This means you can set up everything you need for a new product so that on the day of the launch you just have to hit publish.

And stock and inventory can be configured any way you wish, with decent analytics and reporting tools available even on a free plan to help you make data-driven decisions based on your best-selling products.

On the design front, Square Online scores incredibly low, with a score of 2.7 out of 5. This is because there’s no choice of templates and the only changes you can make are to things like font and colours. That said, the basic online store design it offers is very clean and follows user experience best practices.

This is in stark contrast to the likes of Wix and Shopify, which offer a multitude of templates and design features for you to take advantage of.

Overall, then, a neat, easy, and affordable online shop builder that’s partnered with an industry-leading payment system.

Square Online pricing

Prices shown for annual billing

5. BigCommerce: Best for multi-channel selling

BigCommerce does what it says on the tin. With the most expansive range of sales features of any platform we reviewed, and multiple languages and currencies supported, this should be your go-to ecommerce platform if you’re an ambitious, growing business that wants to expand its operations overseas.

And, unlike rival Shopify, most of its ecommerce features are in-built (rather than from third parties), which means they’re generally of a much higher quality. That's why, in our latest round of rating and ranking, BigCommerce has overtaken Shopify as the platform with the best sales features. Howevre, based on our first-hand testing, we do think BigCommerce's sales features are more advanced than Shopify so you'll experience a learning curve if you're a beginner in the world of ecommerce.

Despite being slightly hard to use for beginners, BigCommerce is a great option as it has made some recent improvements to its ease of use. BigCommerce's drag-and-drop builder offers you design flexibility, so all you have to do is select a page element you like and insert it wherever you want it to go.

BigCommerce offers a 15-day free trial for any Standard, Plus, or Pro plan. So you can try out the platform to see if it is right for you, before signing up for any of its (rather dear) plans.

Although BigCommerce runs the show in terms of sales features, particularly when it comes to its integration with Facebook Marketplace, it falls short in many other aspects. For one, it is easily the most expensive ecommerce platform available (scoring just 3 out of 5 in our value for money category). From our first-hand testing, we also found its Drag & Drop wasn't super intuitive. If this is a feature you're expressively after, we'd recommend looking at Wix instead.

To put it into context, BigCommerce's cheapest plan will set you back £23 per month, compared to Wix, which will charge you £15 per month for far better ease of use and customer support.

BigCommerce is not for everyone, but scaling ecommerce businesses should look no further, particularly if you have the budget to spend.

BigCommerce pricing

For more detailed information about BigCommerce pricing plans, visit our dedicated page on BigCommerce Pricing.

Prices shown for annual billing and only available in USD

What the users said

6. GoDaddy: Best for ease of use

GoDaddy is an entry-level website builder that makes starting your own ecommerce site a breeze, even if you’re not technically inclined. It scored 3.9 out of 5 overall in our analysis.

Our researchers rated GoDaddy the second easiest ecommerce platform to use, with an accessible, helpful editor, and an Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) function that saves time and makes your online store look slick and professional with minimal effort.

However, this very same ADI also severely limits your creative control. This isn't a problem if you just want to get up and running with a great-looking online shop, but it's less appealing if you’re after something a little more unique. Once you've created your store using ADI, you can't change much more about it, compared to Wix and Shopify which will still give you the creative freedom to make any changes you want.

GoDaddy Online Store is ultra-easy to get to grips with, even for complete beginners. It’s also one of the cheapest ecommerce website builders, and promises real business growth (not just a pretty shop front).

However it is seriously lacking in website features, scoring just 2.5 out of 5, the worst category score of any of the providers. You will get the bare minimum with GoDaddy, and SEO prompts and reporting are pretty lacklustre.

GoDaddy is still a solid choice for small businesses that want to get up and running as quickly, and as simply as possible.

GoDaddy pricing

To learn more about what is actually included in each GoDaddy plan, head to our dedicated GoDaddy pricing page.

What the users said

Our methodology: How do we choose the best ecommerce website builder for small business?

As we said in the introduction, each platform has been put through rigorous user testing and ranked on the six key factors that matter to you most.

By gaining an understanding of the factors we used to determine our list, you can decide to what extent each matters for your online store.

Customer score

Our customer score is based on three areas of investigation: user experience (UX), “likely to recommend”, and brand awareness (an assessment of popularity based on keyword research)

Design functionalities

This factor is based on several areas of investigation including Templates/themes, flexibility of design, Mobile editor and more.

Help and support

Help and support is based on testing of things such as restore options (whether a website builder offers the option to restore your website), customer support, and knowledge centre availability.

Sales features

An assessment of a plethora of sales features including security, multi channel integration, payment options, and shipping options among many more.

Value for money

Based on three areas of investigation: features vs price (a combination of the average pricing plan score and quality of feature score), free trial availability, and average pricing plan.

Website features

Covering everything from the quality of website features to internationalisation, marketing power, SEO features, blogging competence, and beyond.

How does an ecommerce platform work?

An ecommerce platform is a website builder that's specifically designed to create online stores. In a short amount of time, a business owner can design and build a no-code ecommerce website using drag-and-drop functionality, so you can have complete control over what your store looks like.

On top of that, you can add third-party apps and extensions to oversee everything from managing stock, to taking customer payments.

Customers will then be able to find your products and add them to their cart for checkout via a fully-automated sales process where products are catalogued, payments taken, and shipping is managed all from one end-to-end location.

What types of businesses are ecommerce platforms suitable for?

If you will sell a product or service online as part of your business offering, you should invest in an ecommerce platform.

Ecommerce builders are DIY software, so we recommend them to companies that don't have a complex sales cycle and need a cheap and easy tool to get their online store set up quickly. If you just need a site for customers can click and checkout a product, ecommerce builders are the way forward.

Dropshipping companies are a good example of a company that would use an ecommerce platform to sell from.

Using an ecommerce website builder, dropshippers can design an entire online shop front for customers to purchase a product from. Businesses can then automate the sales process to review, process, and deliver the product straight to customer.

Best ecommerce platforms: Final verdict

Hopefully, one of the six ecommerce website builders above is jumping out at you as the best choice for your online shop.

If you’re after a great all rounder, then Wix – our top ranked ecommerce platform for small businesses – has everything you need for a great price. The fact its lowest score was 3.8 out of 5 (for help and support) speaks volumes about its capacity as an ecommerce platform.

If, however, you want a dedicated ecommerce platform that allows full optimisation of your online store with a full arsenal of top-quality sales features – and that gives your online venture endless opportunities to scale and grow – look no further than Shopify.

If you’re looking for maximum creative control, then Squarespace is the online shop to go for, even over both Wix and Shopify.

When it comes to the best ecommerce platform, there's no one-size-fits-all approach. It all depends on what your business model is, and what you're looking for.

If you’re not absolutely sure which one is the right choice for your business, why not try out their free trial or free versions?

With Wix, you can try the (very limiting) free plan, or just sign up and get a money-back guarantee on your subscription if, for any reason, you change your mind. Squarespace, BigCommerce, GoDaddy, and Shopify all offer free trials.

Whichever you choose, happy selling!