Are you looking to launch an online store but feeling overwhelmed by all the ecommerce platform options? You're not alone. With so many choices, it can be tough to know which one is the best fit for your business.
In this article, we'll dive into a detailed comparison of three popular platforms: Wix, Weebly, and Shopify.
You’ll be able to understand their unique capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses and how they fit into different business goals, so you can make the best decision for your ecommerce website.
Wix vs Weebly vs Shopify: Key Takeaways
To start, let’s cover some high-level takeaways on what each website builder offers:
Wix
Wix combines flexibility and ease of use with a highly customizable drag-and-drop editor for website design. It caters to businesses that need a visually appealing site with a mix of content and basic ecommerce functionality. With a wide variety of templates, Wix offers design freedom for diverse needs.
Weebly
Weebly comes with a user-friendly interface and straightforward customization design options, making it ideal for small businesses and beginners. Acquired by Square, Weebly has enhanced its ecommerce capabilities, offering essential tools for online stores.
Shopify
Shopify is a robust ecommerce platform designed to scale. It provides extensive customization options, powerful selling tools, and a strong backend system, making it suitable for businesses looking to manage large inventories and scale their operations.
To get the best of all three, use Replo with Shopify to build your ecommerce store. Shopify gives you all the functions to scale and grow your business, while Replo offers the design customization of Wix and the simplicity of Weebly for building your online store.
Plus, Replo offers a suite of products for all steps of the ecommerce conversion funnel, from Experiments (our A/B testing tool), to AI content generation, to hundreds of landing page and product page templates, to site-wide Analytics.
Use Replo with Shopify to set your business up for success.
Wix vs Weebly vs Shopify: Ease of Use
Let’s take a look at what each of these ecommerce website platforms have to offer for user experience:
Wix
Wix provides an incredibly user-friendly experience with its flexible drag-and-drop website editor. It offers a visual approach to website building, allowing users to place elements freely.
Wix's Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) can further simplify the design process by creating a customized site based on user preferences, making it a great option for those seeking both ease of use and creative freedom.
Weebly
Weebly’s block editor is intuitive and beginner-friendly, making it easy for users to create professional-looking websites. The drag-and-drop functionality simplifies the design process, but the block structure can be somewhat limiting for more advanced customization.
Shopify
Shopify offers a streamlined setup process focused on ecommerce. While it might require a slight learning curve for beginners, its interface is straightforward for managing products, orders, and customer data. Shopify’s comprehensive guides and 24/7 support help ease the learning process.
Wix vs Weebly vs Shopify: Design Customization
When it comes to customization, each platform has its strengths:
Weebly is best for beginners and small businesses to create a website due to its simplicity and straightforward web design options. Shopify is Ideal for larger ecommerce businesses that need advanced customization and have the technical expertise to utilize its full potential.
Last but not least, Wix offers the most flexibility and control over design, making it suitable for users who want to create a highly customized and unique website.
Templates
- Wix: Wix stands out with its extensive customization capabilities, offering over 800 templates and a flexible drag-and-drop editor. Users can freely place elements anywhere on the page, providing maximum flexibility to create unique page layouts. Wix also includes advanced features such as animations and interactive elements, making it a top choice for those with detailed design needs.
- Weebly: Weebly offers a range of site templates or "themes" suitable for various business types. These templates are easy to customize, allowing users to change colors, fonts, and layout blocks. However, the customization within these templates is somewhat limited, making it less flexible for users with specific design needs.
- Shopify: Shopify excels in providing advanced customization options through professionally designed templates. Users can fully customize these templates using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, allowing for unique and highly personalized websites. This makes Shopify ideal for businesses with specific design requirements and technical expertise.
Design Flexibility
- Wix: Wix provides the highest level of design flexibility with its drag-and-drop editor. This tool allows users to move elements freely across the page, offering unparalleled control over the website’s appearance. Wix also includes advanced design features, such as animations and interactive elements, enabling users to create dynamic and engaging websites.
- Weebly: Weebly’s block editor is great for a simple user experience that doesn’t require technical skills can create a professional-looking website. While this is great for beginners, it can be restrictive for those looking for more design flexibility, as the block structure limits the customization options.
- Shopify: Shopify offers extensive design flexibility through access to the site’s code. This allows users to make significant changes to their templates, ensuring their website meets their precise specifications. Shopify’s design tools are ideal for businesses that have the resources to invest in a highly customized online store.
Wix vs Weebly vs Shopify: Ecommerce Functions
Here’s a quick comparison for ecommerce functions across all three platforms:
Wix: Ideal for those who need a flexible, visually appealing site with solid ecommerce functionality.
Weebly: Suitable for small businesses and beginners with basic ecommerce needs.
Shopify: Best for businesses looking for comprehensive ecommerce tools and. This is the go-to tool for scaling your business.
Wix
Wix offers a solid set of ecommerce features suitable for small to medium-sized businesses. Key features include:
- Payment Processing: Supports multiple payment options, including Wix Payments and third-party gateways. Charges 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for credit/debit cards and digital wallets like Apple Pay in the US, with no additional transaction fees on top of the processing fee.
- Product Management: Robust inventory management, product variant options, and the ability to sell digital goods.
- Shipping and Tax: Basic tools for shipping and tax calculations.
- Marketing Tools: Wix has excellent SEO features, including customizable meta tags, alt text, and URL slugs. It also has robust blogging, email marketing, and social media tools to help drive traffic.
- Automation: While not as advanced as Shopify, Wix offers some built-in automation options and third-party integrations to help streamline ecommerce operations.
Weebly
Weebly provides essential ecommerce features that are suitable for small businesses and beginners. Here are some key highlights:
- Payment Processing: Supports payment processors through credit cards and PayPal. Weebly has 2.9% + $0.30 processing fees, plus a 3% transaction fee on some plans
- Product Management: Basic inventory management, product variants, and digital goods sales.
- Shipping and Tax: Integration with shipping providers for real-time shipping rates and tax calculations.
- Marketing Tools: Has on-page SEO options, including customizable meta tags, alt text, and URL slugs. It also offers basic email marketing, an integrated Facebook ad builder, and an in-house popup builder. But overall, its marketing features are more limited.
- Automation: Limited native tools, but allows for a wide range of third party apps and integrations to enhance functionality, such as automated email responses for new subscribers and order confirmations.
Shopify
Shopify is designed specifically for ecommerce business owners and offers a comprehensive set of features to support online selling. Key features include:
- Payment Processing: Supports multiple methods for accepting payments, including Shopify Payments, credit cards, and local solutions. Shopify's processing fees vary by plan from 2.4% to 2.9% + $0.30, with additional transaction fees of 0.5% to 2% if not using Shopify Payments
- Product Management: Advanced options for managing inventory, adding product variants, and selling digital goods.
- Shipping and Tax: Robust tools for setting up shipping rules, tax calculations, and integration with various shipping providers.
- Marketing and SEO: Shopify's SEO is solid, with editable tags, URLs, and sitemaps. It offers many built-in marketing tools as well, including abandoned cart recovery, discount codes, gift cards, and a robust blogging system. Email marketing requires a separate app.
- Automation: Built-in automation tools and integrations with Zapier for advanced workflows, such as automating tasks and managing shopping carts and customer interactions.
Wix vs Weebly vs Shopify: Pricing and Plans
Now, let’s take a look at pricing for Wix, Weebly, and Shopify.
In general, Weebly is the cheapest option for ecommerce. Wix and Shopify have similar starting prices, but Shopify's plans go much higher for advanced features. Keep in mind that Shopify also charges extra transaction fees if you don't use Shopify Payments.
Wix
Finally, Wix offers flexible pricing with a mix of design freedom and ecommerce functionality. It provides a range of pricing options that cater to a variety of needs, from personal websites to business solutions:
Free Plan
- Price: $0/month
- Features: Wix-branded domain, limited features
Combo Plan
- Price: $16/month
- Features: Custom domain, remove Wix ads, 3 GB storage, 30 minutes of video.
Unlimited Plan
- Price: $22/month
- Features: Everything in Combo Plan, 10 GB storage, 1 hour of video, ad vouchers, site booster app.
Pro Plan
- Price: $27/month
- Features: Everything in Unlimited Plan, 20 GB storage, 2 hours of video, professional logo, social media logo files.
VIP Plan
- Price: $45/month
- Features: Everything in Pro Plan, 35 GB storage, 5 hours of video, priority support.
Weebly
Weebly offers a range of paid plans suitable for small businesses and individuals. It’s affordable and straightforward, ideal for small businesses and personal use. Here’s a breakdown:
Free Plan
- Price: $0/month
- Features: Basic ecommerce functionality, 500 MB storage, Square ads, Weebly subdomain.
Personal Plan
- Price: $10/month (billed annually) or $13/month (billed monthly)
- Features: Connect custom domain, remove Square ads, limited storage.
Professional Plan
- Price: $12/month (billed annually) or $16/month (billed monthly)
- Features: Everything in Personal Plan, free domain, unlimited storage, advanced site stats.
Performance Plan
- Price: $26/month (billed annually) or $29/month (billed monthly)
- Features: Everything in Professional Plan, priority support, abandoned cart emails, real-time shipping rates.
Shopify
Shopify’s paid plans are higher cost but provide extensive ecommerce tools and for growing businesses:
Basic Shopify
- Price: $29/month
- Features: Basic online store, unlimited products, 2 staff accounts, 24/7 support.
Shopify
- Price: $79/month
- Features: Everything in Basic Shopify, professional reports, gift cards, 5 staff accounts, abandoned cart recovery.
Advanced Shopify
- Price: $299/month
- Features: Everything in Shopify, advanced report builder, third-party calculated shipping rates, 15 staff accounts.
Shopify Plus
- Price: Custom pricing
- Features: Tailored for large enterprises, advanced features, dedicated support.
Use Shopify with Replo For the Best Ecommerce Website
So, which platform should you choose for your ecommerce website? Each platform—Weebly, Shopify, and Wix—offers unique features that cater to different user requirements.
Shopify stands out as the most powerful and scalable ecommerce solution, ideal for businesses planning to grow and manage extensive inventories. It provides robust tools, extensive third-party integrations, and customization options, although it comes with higher costs and a steeper learning curve.
Wix excels in providing design flexibility and a user-friendly experience, making it a great option for those who need a visually appealing website with solid ecommerce functionality. While it offers numerous templates and customization options, it may not be as robust as Shopify for large-scale ecommerce operations.
Weebly is best suited for beginners and small businesses looking for an affordable, easy-to-use platform with basic ecommerce functionalities. Its integration with Square enhances its capabilities, but it may be limiting for larger businesses due to its less advanced customization and automation features.
Ultimately, your decision should be based on the specific needs of your business, the level of customization required, and your budget. Consider what features are most important to you—ease of use, advanced ecommerce tools, or design flexibility—to choose the platform that best aligns with your goals. To get the best of all three, use Replo with Shopify. Replo is an ecommerce funnel builder that is easy-to-use, provides pixel-level design customization, and directly integrates with Shopify. With Replo and Shopify, you can continue growing your business, without sacrificing ease of use or design flexibility. Replo integrates directly with Shopify, pulls in your Shopify catalog data, and publishes directly to your Shopify theme, meaning that you can start building in minutes with a top landing page builder designed for Shopify. While you can dive into building pages from scratch, we’d recommend leveraging our collection of hundreds of page templates inspired by top brands to start building your own website.
Best of all, Replo comes with a community of professional Experts for hire and 24/7 support to help you make the most out of Replo. For more resources on all topics related to marketing and ecommerce—from comparison shopping engines to dropshipping to A/B testing—check out our blog! Visit us to get started, or reach out to schedule a demo with us. Join our Slack community and follow us on X to stay updated.