Archive for category: Random Stories

Original Source: https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/shopify-vs-wix-vs-bigcommerce

Welcome to my Shopify vs Wix vs BigCommerce comparison!

As you may already know, eCommerce Platforms has reviewed all three platforms separately — see our Shopify review, Wix review, and BigCommerce review.

We’ve also pitted these online store builders against each other — see Wix vs Shopify, Wix vs BigCommerce, and BigCommerce vs Shopify.

All that to say, we know these platforms inside out and back to front. So you can trust us to guide you through our Shopify vs Wix vs BigCommerce comparison!

However, if you don’t have time to read this entire review, here’s the bottom line up front:

Squarespace is my pick for creatives looking for stunning web design.

I think Shopify is best for building a scalable online store.

Wix is my top choice for ease of use and flexible web design.

That’s enough preamble; let’s dive into the nitty gritty of my Shopify vs Wix vs BigCommerce review:

Shopify vs Wix vs BigCommerce: Pros and Cons

Shopify Pros 👍
Shopify Cons 👎

Shopify Pros 👍

Themes are attractive and contemporary, covering a range of industries.
The self-help resources and 24/7 customer support provided are excellent.
There are 8,000+ apps in the Shopify App Store
It’s easy to sign up and use Shopify

Shopify Cons 👎

There’s no drag-and-drop editor. So, customization freedom is limited.
If you don’t use Shopify Payments, you’ll incur additional transaction fees,
The number of free themes is limited
The free trial is very short.

Wix Pros 👍
Wix Cons 👎

Wix Pros 👍

Wix offers a huge number of free templates
You get a free domain name for a year
Wix’s drag-and-drop editor is exceptionally easy to use.
Wix’s free forever plan provides all the time you need to design your site.

Wix Cons 👎

You have to upgrade to Wix’s most expensive subscription to unlock unlimited storage ($159 a month)
There have been a few reports of glitches/bugs.
A few users report Wix being slow to load.

BigCommerce Pros 👍
BigCommerce Cons 👎

BigCommerce Pros 👍

BigCommerce has a multi-store feature. You can run several storefronts from your dashboard.
There are no transaction or commission fees.
All plans come with real-time shipping quotes.
BigCommerce is feature-rich
24/7 support is available to all.

BigCommerce Cons 👎

BigCommerce isn’t as simple to learn as Wix and Shopify.
You can’t access the abandoned cart feature on its cheapest plan
Trustpilot users only give it 1.5 stars out of 5 vs. Wix’s 4.5 and Shopify’s 1.9

Which Is the Most Cost-Effective?

Winner: Wix

To determine the cost-effectiveness of Shopify, Wix, and BigCommerce, we took into consideration their:

Monthly/annual subscription prices

Transaction fees

I’ve also included a link for ‘further reading’ where you can find more info about what’s included in the pricing plans for each platform.

Shopify

At the time of writing, there’s a three-day free trial, after which you pay $1 a month for three months.

The below packages are Shopify’s main offering.

Basic: $39 a month or $29 a month if you pay annually

Shopify: $105 a month or $79 a month if you pay annually

Advanced: $399 a month or $299 a month if you pay annually.

However, the following plans are also available: 

Starter: $5 a month

Retail: $89 a month

Shopify Plus: Starting at $2,000 a month

Commerce Components: Contact Shopify for a bespoke quote

Shopify transaction fees breakdown:

Basic: 2.9% + 30¢ for online transactions and 2.7% + 0¢ for in-person

Shopify: 2.6% + 30¢ for online transactions and 2.5% + 0¢ for in-person

Advanced: 2.4% + 30¢ for online transactions and 2.4% + 0¢ for in-person

Further Reading

Shopify Pricing Plans and Fees: Which One is Right for You?

Wix

At the time of writing, Wix doesn’t offer a free trial.

However, you can build your store for free and test Wix’s features for as long as you like – you only pay when your site goes live.

Subscription Plans Costs for Wix:

Light: $16 a month

Core: $27 a month

Business: $32 a month

Business Elite: $159 a month

Enterprise: A bespoke plan – you’ll have to contact Wix directly for a quote

There are no discounts for paying annually.

You can accept payments through Wix Payments, which accepts major credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, plus other payment processors (depending on your location). 

Transaction fees are as follows: 

Credit/debit cards: 2.9% of the transaction amount + 0.30 

Wix Payments POS: 2.6% of the transaction amount. Tap to Pay: 2.6% of the transaction amount + 0.20 

Apple Pay: 2.9% of the transaction amount + 0.30

Google Pay: 2.9% of the transaction amount + 0.30

Afterpay: 6% of the transaction amount  + 0.30

Further Reading

Wix Ecommerce Review: Pros and Cons

BigCommerce

At the time of writing, BigCommerce offers a 15-day free trial and the following pricing plans.

Standard: $39 a month or $29 a month if you pay annually

Plus: $105 a month or $79 a month if you pay annually

Pro: $399 a month or $299 a month if you pay annually

Enterprise: Contact BigCommerce’s sales team for a bespoke quote

There are no transaction fees, and BigCommerce integrates with 48 payment providers. 

However, if you wish to accept customer payments via PayPal powered by Braintree, rates are:

Standard: 2.59% + $0.49

Plus: 2.35% + $0.49 

Pro: 2.05% + $0.49 

Enterprise: 2.05% + $0.49

Further Reading

BigCommerce Pricing Plans: How Much Are You Going to Pay With BigCommerce

Which Is Easier to Use?

Winner: Wix

All three eCommerce platforms offer easy-to-use dashboards, website editors, and plenty of useful self-help resources.

However, upon further testing, it’s evident that customers find Shopify and Wix easier to use than BigCommerce. However, this could be because BigCommerce has its eye on more prominent companies and those wanting to scale, so its array of in-depth features is less beginner-friendly.

Adding Products

It’s pretty simple to add products to your Shopify, Wix, or BigCommerce store:

For Shopify:

Just select the ‘Products’ tab on the left-hand menu.

Click ‘Add product.’

Enter the product’s details.

Click ‘Save.’

You can then keep an eye on your product and sales data from Shopify’s easy-to-view dashboard.

For Wix:

Go to ‘Products’ on the left-hand menu.

Click ‘New product’ and select the type of product you want to add.

Enter the product’s details.

Click ‘Add to page.’

For BigCommerce: Head to the control panel and select ‘Products,’ then ‘Add.’ You can then add your product’s details. You can also import products in bulk via a CSV file.

Designing

Each builder has a different approach to design:

Shopify users don’t have access to a drag-and-drop editor. As a result, customization freedom is somewhat curtailed. You’re largely restricted to the scope of your theme – unless you have the coding know-how to make more granular modifications.

To tweak the look of your Shopify theme:

Head to your Shopify Admin.

Select ‘Online Store’ followed by ‘Themes.’

Click ‘Customize.’ You can then change your theme colors, content, layout, font, and so on.

Elsewhere, with Wix, to modify your theme, head to your dashboard and click ‘Edit site.’ You’ll then be taken straight to its intuitive drag-and-drop editor, where you can add and edit a multitude of elements and customize your site’s colors, text, backgrounds, page transitions, etc.

Finally, BigCommerce provides a drag-and-drop builder to create and customize web pages, accessible from its control panel. You can change text blocks, images, panels, etc. Just select a web page element and drop it wherever you want it to appear on the page. It’s pretty intuitive and flexible.

Which Has the Better Design Capabilities?

Winner: Shopify

Whichever platform you choose, you’ll have a choice of free and paid contemporary-looking themes in a selection of colors, designs, layouts, and so on.

Each ecommerce platform organizes its themes into industry categories.

If you’re interested in free themes, Shopify provides 12 free ones in different styles, layouts, and colors. There are also 160 paid themes, with prices fluctuating between $150 and $400 (one-off fee). You can switch themes anytime.

There are themes available for the following industries:

Food and drink

Arts and crafts

Clothing

Electronics

Services

Pet supplies

Home and garden

…and lots more.

You can also filter themes according to features like:

Layout style

Age verifier

Infinite scroll

Sticky header

EU translations

Countdown timers

…and lots more.

For Wix users they can access 900+ free templates organized into the following store categories:

Fashion and clothing

Jewelry and accessories

Arts and crafts

Home and decor

Beauty and wellness

Food and drinks

Sports and outdoors

Electronics

Kids and babies

Books and publishers

Pets and animals

CBD

In addition, Wix offers themes designed for specific industries, including:

Photography

Design

Music

Creative arts

…And more.

Lastly, BigCommerce offers 14 free themes and more than 220 paid ones. These typically require a one-time payment between $195 – $400.

Themes are organized into industries, including:

Animals and pets

Arts and crafts

Automotive and industrial

Books and entertainment

Electronics and computers

Fashion and jewelry

Food and beverage

Gifts and specialty

Health and beauty

Home and garden

Sports and recreation

Toys and games

Themes are also organized by the type of content you might publish/ inventory you might sell, for example:

B2B

Editorial

Large images

Mega navigation

New releases

Optimized for large catalogs

Optimized for small catalogs

Shopify vs Wix vs BigCommerce: My Final Thoughts

So that brings us to the end of my Shopify vs Wix vs BigCommerce review!

At first glance, this head-to-head may have one clear winner. But the best option for you really does depend on the needs of your business, so I recommend using each one’s free trial/freemium package to test them yourself.

However, here’s a quick recap of my key takeaways to help you make your final decision:

Consider Shopify if you want:

A website builder built with ecommerce in mind

An easy-to-use platform

Access to 12 free themes and hundreds of paid ones

Access to an excellent selection of in-built features

Access to an extensive app store

Consider Wix if you want:

Access to 900+ free customizable themes

An intuitive drag-and-drop editor

A freemium plan to test Wix for as long as you need

A personal/portfolio website or small eCommerce store

Consider BigCommerce if you want:

A builder aimed at more experienced users

To manage multiple eCommerce stores from one dashboard

Access to tons of built-in, sophisticated eCommerce tools

A platform aimed at businesses that plan to scale

That’s all from me! Now it’s time to hear from you: Have you decided between Shopify vs Wix vs BigCommerce? Let us know in the comments below.

Further reading 📚

Shopify vs Squarespace vs Wix (2023): The Battle of The Website Builders

BigCommerce vs Shopify (2023): The Ultimate Comparison

Wix vs Shopify (2023): Which is the Absolute Best?

Wix vs BigCommerce (2023): Which Comes Out on Top?

The post Shopify vs Wix vs BigCommerce 2024 Comparison: Who’s Better? appeared first on Ecommerce Platforms.

Original Source: https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/sumo-vs-leadpages

Are you struggling to narrow down the differences between SumoMe vs Leadpages?

Both of these tools are designed to give companies the solutions they need to capture information and contact details from their target audience.

However, the platforms approach lead generation from very different angles.

SumoMe, better known today as simply “Sumo” is a plugin for WordPress, built to make it easier to build an effective email list.

Sumo is simple, straightforward, and brimming with useful tools, like advanced email integrations, and A/B testing.

Leadpages, on the other hand, is a more comprehensive landing page builder and lead capture tool.

While SumoMe builds lead capturing functionality into your existing WordPress website, Leadpages gives you the freedom to build complex and comprehensive landing pages from scratch. It’s a more advanced tool than Sumo, with a wider range of customizations to choose from.

Table of contents

Leadpages vs SumoMe (Sumo): An Introduction

Leadpages vs SumoMe: Ease of Use

Leadpages vs SumoMe: Lead Generation Features

Leadpages vs SumoMe: Testing and Analytics

SumoMe vs Leadpages: Pricing

Sumome vs Leadpages: Final Verdict

Toggle

Let’s take a closer look at how the two services compare.

Leadpages vs SumoMe (Sumo): An Introduction

Let’s start by introducing both SumoMe (Sumo) and Leadpages. Both of these tools are excellent for capturing important leads on your website, through email contact forms.

With either Sumo or Leadpages, you can connect with your target audience, and start nurturing prospects. Both tools also integrate directly with WordPress, so you can publish pages and forms to your existing site.

Leadpages is one of the most popular landing page creation tools on the market. It offers support to tens of thousands of companies worldwide, allowing them to build custom pages, and forms for capturing customers.

Companies can capture customers through floating bars, pop-ups, scroll-triggered forms, and a host of other features.

Leadpages has a convenient WordPress plugin which allows you to publish your landing pages, pop-ups, and alert bars on your website instantly, without the need for complicated coding. Leadpages also has its own site building tools if you don’t have an existing online presence.

Some of the most interesting features of Leadpages include:

Multiple engagement options, including alert bars and pop-ups

Full website building or integration with existing site builders

Integration with social media platforms and email marketing tools

Real-time reporting and conversion optimization

Unlimited publishing and access to endless optimized templates

Excellent customer service and support

Sumo (previously SumoMe) is a plugin form builder and lead capture tool. The solution offers plugins for WordPress, Shopify, and Google Tag Manager, and helps companies to build state-of-the-art forms for collecting email addresses.

The more advanced packages come with A/B testing, enhanced visitor targeting, social media sharing, and email integrations.

SumoMe was designed to make it easier for companies to connect with leads through their existing websites, without having to design a new website or landing page from scratch.

The solution prioritizes ease of use, with a convenient and customizable interface, and a free service for beginners. Some of the most impressive features of Sumo include:

Social media sharing

Visitor targeting capabilities for segmented pop-ups

Email integrations and email campaigns

Ecommerce functionality for reduced cart abandonment

Discount codes and tools for increasing average order value

Insightful analytics for emails, forms, and more

Go to the top

Leadpages vs SumoMe: Ease of Use

One of the first things you’re likely to consider when choosing a lead capturing tool for your business, is how easy the software is to use. Both Sumo and Leadpages are excellent in this regard, developed with user experience and easy adoption in mind.

Leadpages makes it quick and simple for companies to design a range of landing pages, pop-ups, alert bars, forms, and even their own websites.

There are two page-building options available, including and drag-and-drop editor, or a static editor. The code-free drag-and-drop functionality comes with access to a host of different templates you can use to make your pages stand out.

Leadpages also offers a range of helpful assets and knowledgebase articles to guide you if you ever get stuck when creating your own website or page.

The templates included are already optimized to boost conversions, and they’re all ready to work well on mobile devices. Plus, you can adapt your contact forms, alert bars, and pop-ups to suit any use case.

One of the best things about Leadpages is there’s no limit to how many pages and assets you can publish. You’re free to create as many forms and lead capturing tools as you choose, on any plan.

SumoMe was designed specifically for ease of use. The solution naturally integrates with Shopify and WordPress, so you can publish your pages and forms directly in your existing website, without having to create anything new. There’s also access to social sharing pages for reaching a wider audience.

SumoMe comes with access to a range of different apps, including an in-built list builder to integrate with your email marketing tools, and scroll box functionality. There’s also a highlighter, image sharing function, and useful analytics. The highlighter allows customers to highlight any portion of your page and share it directly with their social followers.

Like Leadpages, Sumo offers a range of resources and guides to help businesses get started. What’s more, even if you choose the free package, you’ll still get access to the one-on-one onboarding experience, to walk you through getting everything set up.

However, the templates available for your forms and pages are limited unless you upgrade to the premium plan.

Go to the top

Leadpages vs SumoMe: Lead Generation Features

Where Leadpages and Sumo differ most is in the ways you can capture and convert leads for your website. Leadpages is a lot more advanced than Sumo, with a wider range of ways to connect with your customers.

To begin with, you’ll have more than 500 templates to choose from for a dedicated landing page, with access to a host of customization options.

You can sort through templates using tags and categories, or choose a template based on the specific industry you’re in. The landing pages come with built-in conversion guidance, fantastic lead collection components, and unparalleled page loading speeds.

You can also create a fully functional website with Leadpages. The websites available are mobile optimized, and easy to edit with no coding required. All of the templates for web pages are also designed to be high-converting.

Websites come with access to all of the other conversion and lead generation features of Leadpages too, such as pop-ups, opt-in forms, and alert bars. They promise phenomenal leading speeds, and built-in SEO to help attract the largest audience on Google.

Outside of landing pages and websites, Leadpages also offers access to:

Pop-ups: The highly customizable pop-ups ensure you can target your audience at the right time, with triggers for exit intent, events, and time delays. You can publish the pop-ups on WordPress, an existing website, or a landing page. Plus, you can connect your email service provider to your pop-up for easy lead capture.

Alert bars: Mobile responsive and quick to load, the alert bars in Leadpages come with flexible publishing options and links to opt-in forms. They’re easy to customize to suit your website layout, and connect to your email service.

Checkout forms: Leadpages checkout forms make it easy to accept recurring payments, sell your services online, and deliver digital products to customers. The checkout forms are powered by stripe for quick payment processing, and come with flexible publishing options.

Plus, you can create a range of other forms for capturing and collecting audience information according to your specific needs.

Sumo, or SumoMe, is a little less advanced, but it’s still a fantastic tool for lead capturing. The solution embeds into your existing website, so you don’t have to build a new site to get started.

With SumoMe, you can create fully-customizable email opt-in forms, and access convenient social sharing tools. There’s visitor targeting, so you can boost your chances of conversions too.

Sumo comes with support for unlimited subscribers on both the free and paid plans, and allows you to send 10,000 to 50,000 emails per month. There are built-in campaigns for welcome emails, and drip campaigns. Plus, you can access a range of integrations.

To help make the most out of the leads you capture, Sumo also comes with included ecommerce features. You can connect your store, use strategies to reduce cart abandonment, and leverage built-in discount codes.

Go to the top

Leadpages vs SumoMe: Testing and Analytics

Leadpages and SumoMe both offer a variety of analytics options to help you make the most of your lead capture strategy. Both options come with A/B testing, so business leaders can examine the performance of one campaign against another.

SumoMe has an included integration with Google Analytics, so you can see how your campaigns are performing with one of the most popular tools on the market. There are on-page analytics, to show your site’s stats on each of your pages, without opening an app or leaving your site.

Plus, you can gather real-time information about how many people are visiting your site at any moment. Sumo also offers visitor targeting features, insights into your emails, forms, and other details, as well as behind the scenes views of your results.

Leadpages is also a fantastic tool for analytics. There’s an easy-to-use A/B testing solution, with unlimited functionality for any landing page.

You also get real-time analytics, to show you how your pages are performing in the moment, and there are third-party analytics integrations too. You can connect with both Facebook pixel and Google Analytics.

Leadpages also provides you with guidance to assist you in making the most out of your lead capture strategy. Real-time conversion tips are included alongside your analytics, to give you the best chances of finding more customers.

SumoMe vs Leadpages: Pricing

Budget is always a significant consideration for any business leader investing in new tools and technology for their website.

Both Leadpages and SumoMe have a few different options to choose from when it comes to pricing, so let’s explore your options.

Leadpages allows users to test the functionality of any package with a 14-day free trial. After your trial has finished, there’s no “forever free” plan, but the packages are relatively reasonable. Your options include:

Standard: $37 per month when paid annually: Support for a single site, access to landing pages, pop-ups, alert bars, unlimited traffic and leads, and a free custom domain. There’s also free hosting, lead notifications, 40+ integrations, mobile responsive templates, and tech support delivered via email and chat. Plus, you get a quick-start onboarding call.

Pro: $74 per month when paid annually: All the features of Standard, but with support for 3 sites. On top of the of these features, you also get online sales and payments tools, unlimited A/B split testing, and savings of up to $300 per year with annual billing.

Advanced: Custom pricing for all the sites you need, as well as all the features of the Pro plan. You can create 5 “client accounts” with access to the Pro plan. You’ll also get one-on-one onboarding for every account.

There are only 2 plans for SumoMe, with a money-back guarantee for 30 days for the premium plan. The first option is completely free, so you can start accessing lead capture tools straight away.

With the free plan, you get access to email opt-in forms, fully customizable designs, visitor targeting, social media sharing, welcome emails, email campaigns, integrations, store connectivity, and cart abandonment tools.

You can offer discount codes, and take up to $500 in sales. Plus, there are built-in analytics and one-on-one onboarding.

The paid plan starts at $39 per month, when you pay annually, and comes with all the features of the free package.

There’s also advanced visitor targeting, A/B testing, the option to remove Sumo branding, and support for 50,000 emails per month, instead of 10,000.

The premium plan includes advanced ecommerce design templates, advanced integrations, and unlimited stats from your emails and forms. You also get advanced analytics.

Sumome vs Leadpages: Final Verdict

Ultimately, both Sumo and Leadpages have a lot in common. Similar to other leading tools for lead capture like Thrive Leads, Optinmonster, Aweber, Clickfunnels and Convertkit, these tools both help bloggers, entrepreneurs and business leaders collect opportunities with automation.

Both of these tools have their own integrations with a range of other tools too, so you can link your campaigns to email tools like GetResponse and MailChimp, or create custom Facebook ads. There are even CRM connections for options like HubSpot and Salesforce.

The main difference between Sumo and Leadpages, is Sumo is relatively straightforward, designed for complete beginners who don’t want to worry about reading tutorials to set up the ultimate lead generation funnel.

While Leadpages is easy enough to get with a little practice, there are more advanced features like HTML customization.

Both tools are a little basic on the standard plans too, so if you want to really accelerate your conversion rate, we recommend testing the functionality and customer support, then upgrading to a more advanced package as soon as you can.

The post SumoMe (Sumo) vs Leadpages 2024 Comparison: Who’s Better? appeared first on Ecommerce Platforms.

Original Source: https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/squarespace-vs-shopify-vs-godaddy

When you’re ready to launch your store online, you need an eCommerce platform that will display your product beautifully and let buyers make purchases without any hassle.

And for that, today we have the top contenders: Squarespace, Shopify and GoDaddy.

All of them will help you create a robust online presence that you can use to sell your products. But of course, there are differences in these platforms. If you’re a new merchant and have been considering these three services, this article is for you.

We’re going to dissect these services piece by piece and examine them in detail. But first, a lazy version.

The TL;DR Version

Use Squarespace for visually appealing websites that offer beautiful designs and several customization features.

Use Shopify for everything related to eCommerce as it has versatile features for inventory management, payment processing, and a variety of third-party integrations.

Use GoDaddy for a quick website that offers simple services for a basic store. While GoDaddy is new to eCommerce, it comes with several features for merchants.

But you want all these features on your website, right?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could combine all three into one? While you can’t do that, you can select the best service.

We’ll discuss these services in detail so you can find out the best option for your store.

Let’s begin.

We’ve reviewed these platforms individually here: Shopify review, Wix review, and Squarespace review, and we’ve compared them one-on-one — see Shopify vs GoDaddy, GoDaddy vs Squarespace, and Squarespace vs Shopify.

Table of contents:

The TL;DR Version

Squarespace vs Shopify vs GoDaddy: Features

Squarespace vs Shopify vs GoDaddy: eCommerce Powers

Squarespace vs Shopify vs GoDaddy: Pricing

Squarespace vs Shopify vs GoDaddy: Visual Appeal

Squarespace vs Shopify vs GoDaddy: Marketing Options

Final Words

Toggle

Squarespace vs Shopify vs GoDaddy: Features

Let’s begin by understanding what these services are and what they offer.

Squarespace Features

Squarespace is a website building platform that offers a free website trial so you can understand how your prospective e-store will look like. Like most other modern website builders, you don’t need programming knowledge to create a website here.

Use its drag and drop features to fit elements into blank spaces and create an amazing store using pre-existing templates. Squarespace offers stunning templates that can make any website stand out. While it’s not specifically geared towards eCommerce, it includes several customizations and marketing features.

Let me summarize the major features of Squarespace.

Drag-and-drop Builder

You can just drag and drop the desired elements on the web pages. It’s pretty simple and anyone can create an eCommerce website on Squarespace without programming knowledge.

Template designs

It offers striking templates that look amazing and let you get started with website designing with minimum effort. The templates are responsive and you can create beautiful websites with them.

Readymade Layouts

Your eCommerce store will need several other pages apart from product pages. For example, you would need an About Us, Contact Us, and Portfolio, etc. Squarespace offers readymade layouts for these pages so you can add them in no time.

Various Types of Content

What type of content do you want on your website? Squarespace lets you have text, images, audio, videos, galleries, newsletters, products, appointments, reservations, menus, and so much more. This makes your website very versatile.

Sell Products, Services, or Subscriptions

With Squarespace, you can showcase your products, services, digital content, or subscriptions. You can even sell print-on-demand products on your Squarespace platform.

Categories and Sub Categories

Squarespace lets you create subcategories of products so you can easily manage inventory and your customers can browse them more easily in your retail store. This also helps SEO since categories are made automatically and search engines can index your website more clearly.

Inventory Management

The Squarespace dashboard lets you check the status of inventory in one place. You can even set up alerts with the stock levels go too low. The inventory management interface is pretty easy to use, which is useful for new merchants.

There’s so much more in Squarespace that I could go on. But for the sake of brevity, let’s move to the next platform, Shopify.

Shopify Features

I wouldn’t be wrong in saying that Shopify is the first crush of all retail merchants. Whenever it comes to setting up a website, Shopify is the first name that crosses our minds. At Ecommerce-Platforms, we get daily questions from online merchants and most of them are around Shopify.

Yes, Shopify is a great ecommerce platform. But there’s a reason why other platforms are still running. It’s not the best option for every store.

The best bit about Shopify is that it’s solely geared towards eCommerce. So if you’re solely looking for an eCommerce store, Shopify is a good choice.

But what is the reason why many merchants prefer other options such as Squarespace and GoDaddy?

Let’s see.

I’ll start examining the main features of Shopify.

Product Management

I’ve tried several eCommerce platforms, but Shopify has the best product management, hands down. Adding new products and organizing them in the right categories is super simple. You can also add product variants and track inventory.

Integrations

Shopify integrates with so many third-party services that everything is a breeze. Whether it’s your social media feeds, email marketing apps, shipping calculator, print-on-demand services, invoice generator, image optimizer, or just about anything – Shopify offers all types of integrations for your retail store.

Payments and Checkout

While there are several payment gateways that you can integrate with your retail store, some are built into the Shopify store, such as Shop Pay. It’s a secure payment gateway that you can easily activate for your Shopify store.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

Shopify offers artificial intelligence in its stores. For example, Shopify Magic lets you create product descriptions. All you have to do is add a product and enter its keywords – Shopify will create an automatic description for it. They are also going to roll out Sidekick really soon – an AI assistant that will manage small tasks for you.

Analytics

Shopify offers all kinds of analytics so you can track your visitor behavior. Whether you want to keep track of website traffic, sales, or customer behavior, all this data is available on your merchant dashboard. It creates reports for you so you get better insights for decision making.

These were the most amazing features of Shopify (of course there are more). Let’s move on to GoDaddy.

GoDaddy Features

For many years, GoDaddy was known only for its hosting services. But as more companies are coming into online store building, GoDaddy has brought its new range of services. Now you can create an online store with GoDaddy.

While GoDaddy is pretty new in this field, it has already gained the attention of merchants who have adopted its platform. The reason is simple – while the eCommerce options might be new, the brand name has been around for years and has been trusted by millions. Let’s see what GoDaddy has to offer to merchants.

Online Store Builder

GoDaddy lets you create your online store without any requirement of programming skills. You don’t need to have advanced technical skills to create your store, showcase your products, and customize the store.

Striking Visual Designs

Use GoDaddy Studio to create attractive designs in almost no time. With beautiful logos and color schemes, you can create a brand identity for your store. It also offers charming templates that you can customize according to your needs.

SEO Options

Since GoDaddy has been in the market for decades, they understand the importance of SEO and help you boost your site traffic by improving your rank on search engines. It also lets you integrate social media on your website.

Email Marketing

GoDaddy helps you create eye-catching emails to market your new launches or seasonal discounts. It also lets you track the results of your marketing campaigns so you can make tweaks accordingly.

Free Store Builder

This is an amazing feature to attract new merchants. You can create an online store on GoDaddy for free. You can play around and test its functionalities and features. And once you’re ready to launch your store for your customers, you can upgrade your plan and make sales.

Now that we have understood the services offered by these market giants, let’s begin comparing them feature by feature.

Go to the top

Squarespace vs Shopify vs GoDaddy: eCommerce Powers

We all know that Shopify is the god of all eCommerce platforms. It’s way ahead of Squarespace and GoDaddy.

While Squarespace and GoDaddy focus on all types of website building (personal blogs, generic services, etc.), Shopify focuses solely on eCommerce. The entire team of Shopify works on making eCommerce a breeze for retail merchants.

While Squarespace and GoDaddy do feature eCommerce services, they belong to a different league.

Squarespace deals with all kinds of websites. Whether you provide accounting or legal services, you can create a generic website with it.

And GoDaddy has recently ventured into ecommerce. It was basically a hosting services provider. While it has been a trusted name for decades, it hasn’t been active in eCommerce for long. It still has a long way to go to compete with Shopify.

Let’s compare their eCommerce offerings.

Shipping

Squarespace offers several shipping options: Free Shipping, Flat Rate, Rates by Weight, and Carrier Calculated. Carrier Calculated is available only on some plans and only within the United States.

Shopify allows all those options plus Local Pickup, Location Based, and Product Price Based shipping. It also lets you enable third-party based rates during checkout. You can add rates depending on the provider – USPS, FedEx, UPS, etc.

Shopify also has tie-ups with other providers and can offer discounts for shipping within the United States. Plus, it offers carbon neutral shipping, which is good for the environment.

GoDaddy offers Free Shipping, Flat Rate Per Order, Percentage Rate Per Order, and Weight Based Shipping.

Inventory Management

Squarespace offers basic inventory management. You can edit the stock quantity and prices.

Shopify lets you add, update, and track inventory for all your products from one place. It also lets you track inventory that’s coming from your supplier.

GoDaddy also allows basic inventory management that lets you know how many instances of a certain product are remaining in the stock.

Payment Options

Squarespace lets you integrate PayPal, Stripe, or Square payment processors. While these three are the top payment options for people inside the US, non-US merchants might find it difficult to receive payments from their customers.

Shopify offers Shop Pay which lets merchants get payments quickly in their accounts. Apart from that, there are other options such as PayPal, Stripe, Amazon Pay, Meta Pay, and Apple Pay. It even lets you accept payments in cryptocurrency.

GoDaddy offers GoDaddy Payments, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal.

Conclusion: Shopify is the best when it comes to eCommerce offerings.

Go to the top

Squarespace vs Shopify vs GoDaddy: Pricing

No matter how feature-rich a platform is, its usage is limited by pricing. If you cannot afford a platform, there’s no point in discussing its practicality. Let’s discuss the pricing plans of the three top platforms.

Squarespace Pricing

Squarespace offers four plans – Personal for $16/mo, Business for $23/mo, Commerce Basic for $27/mo, and Commerce Advanced for $49/mo.

As a merchant, you’ll need to go for Business or above plans as they come with eCommerce integration. And if you want to sell subscriptions, you’ll need the Commerce Advanced plan.

Shopify Pricing

Shopify is geared towards online merchants so there are no plans without eCommerce capabilities.

There are three main pricing plans: Basic for $39/mo, Shopify for $105/mo, and Advanced for $399/mo.

As you can see, Shopify prices are much higher than those of Squarespace. If you’re a first time online merchant who has just started selling and doesn’t want to invest too much, Shopify might come across as an expensive option.

Apart from these plans, Shopify also offers some other options.

There’s a Starter plan for $5/mo. This lets you sell your products through social media pages. The Retail plan comes with advanced staff and loyalty features and costs $89/mo.

If you’re into enterprise retail, there are commerce components for you. And Shopify Plus begins at $2,000/mo for high volume business.

GoDaddy Pricing

GoDaddy website builder offers three packages: Basic for $9.99/mo, Premium for $14.99/mo, and Commerce for $20.99/mo.

As a merchant, you’ll need to use the Commerce plan because the first two plans don’t come with eCommerce capabilities. You’ll get a free professional email with all these plans.

Comparing Squarespace, Shopify, and GoDaddy Prices

If you’re a small merchant and choose Squarespace, you can get started for $23/mo.

If you select Shopify, you’ll need to put in $39/mo. And for GoDaddy, you’ll need $20.99/mo.

This is probably the reason why many online merchants select other services over Shopify, even though it’s feature-rich.

Conclusion: GoDaddy is the most economical option here. Then comes Squarespace. And the most expensive is Shopify.

Go to the top

Squarespace vs Shopify vs GoDaddy: Visual Appeal

Now that we’ve compared eCommerce features and pricing, the next thing a merchant looks for is the visual appeal of their store.

Squarespace offers 165 templates, and 40 of them are for online stores. As a retail merchant, you get to choose from only 40 templates.

All their templates are crisp and attractive. When it comes to visual appeal, Squarespace knows how to rule. If you’re a small merchant, you’ll like what Squarespace has to offer.

Shopify currently offers 173 templates, most of which are paid. Since Shopify is all about online stores, all these themes are for online stores only. All these themes are highly functional and useful. There are themes for small stores as well as big enterprise retail chains as well.

GoDaddy is rather new in this field and has only 24 templates for online stores. This means that as a merchant, your design choices are rather limited. The templates they offer look good but are pretty basic and for small store owners.

Conclusion: Shopify offers the biggest variety of templates for online merchants, followed by Squarespace.

Go to the top

Squarespace vs Shopify vs GoDaddy: Marketing Options

Once your store is ready, how do you market it and how does your eCommerce provider help you with it? Let’s analyze our three platforms here.

Squarespace offers SEO tools so that your website ranks high on search engines. When you create a website, it is also optimized for mobile so it gets priority in the Google algorithm. It also offers a clean HTML markup that is easily indexed by search engines.

Squarespace lets you have social media sales channels and email marketing options. It also offers gift cards. Plus, Squarespace lets you integrate with third party tools that can offer other marketing features.

Shopify offers all the features mentioned above, plus more. There are Shopify native apps and most of them are free. For example, there is Shopify Email for email marketing, Shopify Inbox for business chat, and Shopify Flow for automation of tasks, etc.

Apart from the native apps, there are also many third party apps in the Shopify app store that you can install for marketing.

GoDaddy offers SEO tools and lets you connect to social media. It also lets you sell on marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, and Etsy. For now, GoDaddy marketing options are rather limited.

Conclusion: Shopify offers the best online store marketing methods.

Go to the top

Final Words

After testing all three websites and their features, it’s easy to see that Shopify offers the best options for online merchants. From design and functionality to sales and marketing, it’s clear why Shopify is the one name that crosses the minds of all online merchants.

So why do they settle for other platforms? The answer lies in pricing.

While Shopify offers amazing features, it comes with a heavier price tag. And this is the reason many small merchants opt to work with other providers.

Shopify has amazing pricing plans for small and big retail merchants but it might not fit everyone’s pockets. If you’re a first time merchant trying to make your store online, you might want to try other options that are available at more affordable rates.

And if you have an already established business and aren’t highly restricted by budget, Shopify will be the best choice for you.

So which one is it going to be? Comment and let me know.

Further reading 📚

Shopify vs Squarespace vs Wix (2023): The Battle of The Website Builders

Shopify vs Squarespace vs BigCommerce 2024 – Which is Best?

BigCommerce vs Shopify (2023): The Ultimate Comparison

The post Squarespace vs Shopify vs GoDaddy: The Ecommerce Showdown for 2024 appeared first on Ecommerce Platforms.

Original Source: https://tympanus.net/codrops/2023/12/15/frontend-rewind-2023-day-15/

Day 15 of our special calendar awaits with more frontend links from 2023.