These 12 Ecommerce Platforms Are 100% FREE To Start An Online Store

probably the number one question I get asked is which e-commerce platform to go with when starting your own online store and the immediate next question I get is Steve are there any free e-commerce platforms out there so for all of you budget-minded e-commerce entrepreneurs out there the following 12 platforms that I'm about to describe are 100 free to use enjoy all right before I list off the 12 free platforms this is a comparison video and I'm going to compare all 12 platforms based on the following criteria cost how much does a shopping cart cost to run on a monthly basis including all plug-ins extensibility if there's a feature that you need can you easily add functionality to your site third-party support are there companies actively developing plugins for the shopping cart in control do you have the freedom to change the shopping cart and tailor it to your own needs and then finally there's easy use is a shopping cart easy to use and maintain all right so the first e-commerce platform is shift four shop shift four shop is a fully hosted eCommerce platform that is as powerful as Shopify and Bigcommerce and it's 100 free to use for store owners in the United States similar to Shopify ship for shop handles all the technical aspects of selling online and you can get up and running right away and they also provide free technical support for all subscribers so what's the catch while shift Workshop is 100 free you must use their payment processing which costs 2.9 percent plus 30 cents per transaction credit card processing is how shift Workshop makes money but they don't charge any monthly fees to use their platform so overall shift for shop is just as powerful as Shopify or Bigcommerce but it's not as easy to use in addition shiftware shop does not have as strong of a developer Community as Shopify so there are far less apps on the platform but you can't be free here's how i rate shift workshop on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is the best cost I give it a nine out of the box features I give it an 8 out of ten third party support Port I give it a 5 out of 10. control I give it a 5 out of 10 and ease of use I give it a 7 out of 10. now if you live in the United States it's pretty much a no-brainer to try shift Workshop free Ecommerce platform number two is ecwid ecwid is an e-commerce platform that allows you to embed your online store on any website or social media platform to start selling online ecwid is fully hosted which means that you don't have to worry about managing a server or touching a line of code to handle all the tech ecwid is also 100 free if you sell less than 10 products online their free plan is literally free forever and there are no limitations on features or support now the primary advantage that ecwid has over all the other free e-commerce platforms mentioned in this video is that ecwid is headless you set up your online store once and then you can easily sync and sell across any website Tick Tock Instagram Facebook and marketplaces like Amazon at the same time your inventory levels are automatically updated across every Platform One a sale is made so all of your Stores stay in sync now the only downside is that ecwid does not have great third-party developer support and their feature set is limited compared to Alternatives like shift Workshop however ecwid offers most of the features that you need to start selling online and the plot form is extremely easy to use plus it's 100 free here's how i rate ecwid on a scale of one to ten where 10 is the best startup costs I gave it a 10. out of the box features I give it a 6 out of ten third party support I give it a 5 out of ten control I give it a 6 out of ten ease of use I give it an 8 out of 10. by the way if you're enjoying this video then sign up for my free six day mini course below free Ecommerce platform number three is Wix Wix is a drag and drop website builder that allows you to easily create a great looking online store and wix's Main strength is its Simplicity their user interface is intuitive easy to use and you can quickly put up a beautiful online store for free using their platform however their Ecommerce feature set is limited and as a result which is actually only recommended for small hobbyist sellers who want to casually sell online now even though Wix is 100 free their free plan is quite limited and you have to pay money to get access to the majority of their e-commerce features for example free plans have no domain free Wix sites get an assign URL of accountname.wixite.com and your site name you also get unwanted ads Wix displays ads on every page for free accounts you also get limited storage freewix accounts get up to 500 megabytes you get limited bandwidth freewix accounts get up to 500 megabytes in monthly bandwidth now overall Wix is ideal for people who are Tech challenged and want a great looking website but here's how I rate Wix on a scale 1 to 10 where 10 is the best startup costs I give it a 7 out of 10. out of the box features I give it a 6 out of ten third party support I give it a 5 out of ten platform control and extensibility I give it a 6 out of ten and ease of use I give it a 10 out of 10. free e-commerce platform number four is woocommerce woocommerce is one of the most widely used e-commerce Platforms in the world because it's based on the popular open source platform WordPress and it's 100 free to use now similar to Shift 4 you can build a fully featured shopping cart at woocommerce that Rivals Shopify or Bigcommerce but the main disadvantage is that Wu is an open source e-commerce platform that requires you to be a little bit tech savvy now what does open source mean in open source eCommerce platform is software that allows you to create your own eCommerce store website for free and the software is often maintained by an active community of developers who volunteer their time because they're passionate about the project the most famous example of Open Source is Linux and today Linux is maintained by tens of thousands of developers and as well one of the widely used server operating systems in the world now when it comes to websites the most well-known open source platform is called WordPress which is a Content management system that powers over 30 of the web now open source software is free to use and you can modify it as you see fit not only that but it's extremely powerful and can often perform better than paid Solutions if you know what you're doing so if the software is free though what's the catch well the caveat is that you have to host the software on your own server and maintain it yourself so if you don't mind maintaining your own website then woocommerce is easily the most popular open source Ecommerce Solution on the market with a plethora of third-party developer support now while the base shopping cart is free woocommerce makes money by charging for extra functionality in the form of Wordpress plugins some plugins carry a one-time fee whereas others incur a recurring charge now when deciding between woocommerce and paid Solutions like Shopify or Bigcommerce you must also factor in server maintenance costs into the equation now the number one reason to go with woocommerce is if you want full control over your website and source code you already have a WordPress blog and would like to sell products directly from your website and you want access to a large third-party developer Community now here's a video that walks you through how to install woocommerce for less than three bucks using Bluehost Azure web host here's how i rate woocommerce on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is the best startup costs I I give it an 8. out of the box features I give it a six third party support I give it a nine platform control I give it a nine and ease of use I give it a six for Ecommerce platform number five is Pinnacle card Pinnacle card is a shopping cart software solution that allows you to create and manage an online store and Pinnacle cart has actually been around for a long time and is comparable in feature set to Shopify and Bigcommerce their platform allows for customizable product pages inventory management and secure Payment Processing the best part is that if you use their payment processing solution prepay you can run your online store for free in addition Pinnacle cart will provide you with the source code if you want to host your own online store by purchasing a license now the main downside to Pinnacle cart is that there's no point of sale system and there's a limited number of themes and apps available for the platform here's how i rate Pinnacle cart on a scale of one to ten startup costs that give it a nine out of the box features I gave it an 8 out of ten third party support I give it a 5 out of ten platform control and expandability I give it a 7 out of 10 and ease of use I give it a 7 out of 10. free eCommerce platform number six is Big Cartel Big Cartel is a fully hosted e-commerce platform that primarily serves artists and Crafters founded by a musician named Matt Wiggum in 2005 Matt used his own platform to sell his band's merge online now today Big Cartel Powers over 180 000 stores primarily because they offer a free plan that allows you to sell up to five products with zero fees but here are some of the limitations of the free plan you can only sell up to five products you can't edit your site's code you can't add analytics you can't track inventory now outside these limitations Big Cartel is truly a hundred percent free to use every plan offers free themes a custom domain and the ability to offer discounts and promotions now the downside is that Big Cartel is not a powerful e-commerce platform and is meant only for casual sellers so for example Big Cartel is poor SEO features and very limited third-party support furthermore Big Cartel only offers email support with no phone or live chat options now overall Big Cartel is a cheap and simple way to sell online for casual Sellers and artists but it lacks the functionality to run a fully featured online store there's no multi-currency selling no abandoned cart support and poor SEO here's how i rate Big Cartel on a scale of one to ten startup costs I give it a 10 out of 10. out of the box features I give it a 5 out of 10 third party support I give it a two platform control and expandability I give it a four and ease of use I give it an 8 out of 10. free e-commerce platform number seven is square online Square online is a fully hosted eCommerce platform that allows you to sell your own physical and digital products online for free now Square started out as a payment processing and point of sale solution and then later added e-commerce functionality to their platform now the advantage of square is that you don't need to know anything about design or coding to get started however the Simplicity of square comes at a cost square is not designed for advanced or Enterprise users now getting started with squares 100 free but here are the limitations of the free plan there's no point of sale solution there's no inventory tracking there's limited reporting and limited storage and square ads are displayed on your site now overall the main advantage to square online is that it's free and easy to use but for serious sellers square is not a good choice to start a fully featured online store there's limited third-party integration limited templates and limited functionality here's how I write Square online on a scale of one to ten startup costs I give it a 10. out of the box features I give it a 5 out of 10. third party support I give it a 2 out of ten platform control and expandability I give it a 3 out of ten and ease of use I give it 8 out of 10. platform number eight is Weebly Weebly is a website building platform that allows users to create and manage their own websites without any technology they offer a drag and drop interface and a variety of customizable templates to help users design their websites they also offer e-commerce functionality that allows users to create their own online stores and sell products online now Weebly is a great e-commerce platform to start out with because they offer a plan that is 100 free here are the limitations of the free plan you are capped at 500 megabytes of storage you can't use your own domain and you must display a Weebly ad on your site now the main advantage of Weebly is that they offer an intuitive drag and drop Editor to create your website now overall Weebly is a great choice to create a great looking website they've got excellent pricing and a good user experience but the main downside is that Weebly offers limited e-commerce functionality and very poor third-party developer support as a result Weebly is primarily suited for casual Sellers and not Advanced eCommerce store owners here's how I write Weebly on a scale one to ten startup costs I give it a 10 out of 10. out of the box features I give it a 6 out of ten third party support I give it a 2 out of 10 platform control and expandability I give it a 5 out of 10. and ease of use I give it an 8 out of 10. free e-commerce platform number nine is mozello mozello is a fully hosted eCommerce platform that is designed to serve small International sellers you can easily translate your site into multiple languages and set up wire transfers as a payment option Mozilla also offers a plan that is 100 free however there are limitations you can only sell up to five products you're only allowed up to five product variants you only get 500 megabytes of storage and you can only use PayPal as your payment provider you can't use a custom domain and you can't issue discounts overall Mozilla is not an e-commerce platform for serious users however if you're a casual seller that sells internationally mozello might be a good starter platform here's how i rate mozello on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is the best startup costs I give it a 10 out of the box features I give it a 1 out of ten third party support I give it a one out of ten platform control and expandability I give it a 2 out of 10 and ease of use I give it an 8. free Commerce platform number 10 is called Free Web Store free web stores and e-commerce platform that allows users to create and manage their own stores for free now if you're looking to start an online store with a very low budget free web store is a decent place to start there are no contracts and they offer an adequate feature set for you to create an online store here are the limitations of the free plan it is free up to thirty thousand dollars per year in Revenue ads are displayed on your site you don't get a free domain there's limited Payment Processing options no blogging support and limited design options so overall I'd say free web store is a Bare Bones platform for selling online there's no third-party developer support and a limited feature set but it gets the job done for a small casual shop here's how I write free web store on a scale of one to ten startup costs I give it a 10 out of the box features I give it a five third party support I give it a one platform control and expandability I give it a three and ease of use I give it an eight free eCommerce platform number 11 is strikingly strikingly is a website building platform that allows users to create and manage their own websites without any coding they also allow users to create online stores and sell products online now strikingly is actually popular among small businesses bloggers and individuals who want to create a simple and modern looking website now strikingly offers a plan that is 100 free but there are limitations you can't use your own domain there's a five gigabyte bandwidth limit you get 500 megabytes of storage you can have up to five pages but you can only list one product for sale overall strikingly is best for websites with a single page in other words it's meant for beginners and offers only Bare Bones functionality for an e-commerce website now the main benefit of strikingly is basically its ease of use so here's how i rate strikingly on a scale 1 to 10. startup costs I give it a 10. out of the box features I give it a two third-party support I give it a one platform control and expandability I give it a 1 and ease of use I give it a nine now the final free e-commerce platform is open card open card is an open source Ecommerce platform that is fast well supported and 100 free now the platform is well coded easy to understand and plugins can be purchased very cheaply for a one-time fee unlike plugins on Shopify or Bigcommerce which require a monthly recurring fee open cards plugin library is also quite large and you can find add-ons that do practically anything that you need many third-party eCommerce service companies also offer out of the box support for open cart however open card is much less popular than platforms like woocommerce and Shopify and carries a much greater risk of obsolescence if open cards small team of devs were ever to lose interest then you could be stuck with a dead end platform and here's how i rate it on a scale of 1 to 10. startup costs I give it an 8 out of the box features I give it a seven third-party support I give it a five platform control and expandability I give it a 7.5 in Easy use I give it a 7.5 so the million dollar question here is which e-commerce platform should you use now before you jump on board with a free or a fully hosted platform you have to ask yourself what you need if you reside in the United States and you don't mind using a free fully hosted Ecommerce platform with a steeper learning curve than Shopify Bigcommerce go with for shop if you want maximum control flexibility and lower costs at the expense of having to manage a server and your software then go with an open source platform like woocommerce or open cart if you already own a website and you want to add e-commerce functionality for free then go with ecwid now if you'd rather focus on selling and nothing else then Outsource all the tech issues away with a fully hosted platform like Shopify or Bigcommerce just remember that there's really is no such thing as free every platform has a trade-off and now that you know about all the free platforms at your disposal make sure you watch this video to learn how to find profitable products to sell online

Channel: MyWifeQuitHerJob Ecommerce Channel

Views: 75,904

Keywords: best ecommerce platform, make money online, shopify, ecommerce website, top ecommerce platforms, online business, how to start an online business, ecommerce business, ecommerce platforms, top ecommerce platform, ecommerce business for beginners, ecommerce website wordpress, ecommerce website wordpress free, best ecommerce platform for small business, best ecommerce platform 2023, best ecommerce platform for beginners, ecwid, bigcommerce, woocommerce, shift4shop

Id: pTbe_-TAHWY

Length: 16min 46sec (1006 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 06 2023