Shopify is one of the best e-commerce platforms. If you are planning on launching your digital store, then Shopify might probably be your first choice.
But Shopify is not free. Though it offers a lot of commendable features, all of it comes at some cost. You will have to get a subscription to start your Shopify store.
Though Shopify is popular, it does not mean it is the only option available. Fortunately, there are various free Shopify alternatives available on the internet that offer similar features to that of Shopify.
If you are looking for alternatives to Shopify, then you will have to consider various things like customizations available, whether it can be integrated into custom sites, on-page SEO, etc. To make it easier for you, here is a list of the best free Shopify alternatives that are good enough to get you started.
Best Free Shopify Alternatives
Selecting a good Shopify alternative is important for your store. Given below is the list of best free alternatives to Shopify:
1. WooCommerce
We are starting our list with WooCommerce, which is probably one of the biggest e-commerce platforms after Shopify.
WooCommerce is a free platform, unlike Shopify where you will have to pay the subscription fee. However, WooCommerce is not a hosted solution, so you will have to pay for the hosting fees and domain fees.
WooCommerce is basically a plugin for WordPress which you can integrate into your site. This way, you will have complete control over how you design your store which was a little difficult with Shopify. WooCommerce has quite similar features to that of Shopify, but its functionality can be extended by installing more plugins on WordPress.
What’s best with WooCommerce? You can easily manage the inventory of your store from one place. WooCommerce is also great in terms of scalability. Not only this but when compared to Shopify, WooCommerce is far better in terms of on-page SEO practices available.
It has WooPayments which allows you to access payments without any hassle. Plus, no coding is required for customizing your store. With easy drag and drop, you can build your store from scratch.
2. Adobe Commerce
Adobe Commerce, which was previously known as Magento, is another Shopify free alternative. However, unlike Shopify and WooCommerce, Magento Open Source is complex. Though it offers a lot of customization options and flexibility, you need to know the coding for that.
You can use extensions on Magento to enhance the functionality. But that’s not all, you can even create your extensions and use them on your store. Magento open source is a great platform with various product management tools available. With this platform hosting your store, you can customize the products, set product attributes, group the products, and even manage the inventory easily.
Magento is also great for SEO. There are various on-page SEO features on Magento that you can use to optimize your store to rank at the top of the search engines. There are also marketing tools like loyalty programs, newsletters, email marketing, etc., which all can help you grow your store online.
Magento Open Source is scalable, so if you plan on growing your store to a wider audience then that shouldn’t be a problem at all. Though it is free and great for starting and growing your store, you need to know coding to get started, or else it will bring in extra cost to hire a developer and build the store for you.
3. BigCartel
BigCartel is a freemium Shopify alternative. There’s a free plan available for BigCartel, but you will have to upgrade to the paid plan when you grow your store. The free plan of BigCartel only suffices when starting your new store, i.e., when you have 5 product listings or less than that.
With BigCartel, you can easily sell your products online as well as in person. You can set up flexible payment options, i.e., through cards, PayPal, and other payment options. Not only this, but you can set up an auto sales tax.
If you already have a store on Shopify, Squarespace, or Etsy, then you can import all your products from the store to BigCartel. This will make it easier for you to get all the products without having the hassle of creating them all yourself.
BigCartel gives you a real-time sales dashboard. You can track the performance of your store in real time with this. Do note that, with the free version of the platform you will be limited to 5 product listings and 1 image per product. Well, that’s less if your store has already reached a certain level.
4. Ecwid
Starting your online store is just a few clicks away with Ecwid. This is a free Shopify alternative with quite similar features. When using Ecwid, you won’t find yourself limited with features. Ecwid makes it much easier for anyone, even without prior experience, to launch an online store, and manage and fulfill all the orders.
Ecwid allows you to make your online store, and if you already have a website then you can connect your store to any website in seconds. You can also integrate your store to other marketplaces like Walmart, eBay, and Amazon and start selling your product. Moreover, you can integrate your Ecwid store to PoS, if you have one in your physical store.
Ecwid stores can integrate with social media platforms like Pinterest and Snapchat. This gives you the added advantage of directly advertising your products on social media platforms. There are a lot more tools to promote your product on the Ecwid store. For instance, you can set up Google and Facebook ads. Not only this, but you can set up automated abandoned cart mail; your customers will get mail when they abandon the cart without buying anything.
Managing your store is quite simple. You can download the Android or iOS app on your phone and manage your store on the go. Everything in the store is automated, from shipping to payment, so this saves you a lot of hassle.
5. Wix
Wix is another platform to build online stores. Wix allows you to create your website with simple drag and drop, and scale your business online. You need not start your online journey from scratch, there are various templates available for free on Wix that you can use to build your store. You can either use drag and drop to build your store or use coding to build custom functions on your store.
With Wix, you can make your e-commerce store sell your products or even sell services with automated scheduling. With Wix, all of your services get automatically scheduled when your customers order them. Moreover, the schedules get automatically synced to the calendar so that your team has access to it. You can even set up memberships and subscriptions with Wix.
Wix allows you to sell services, physical products, digital products, and even drop-shipping. You can sell on your store or the marketplace. If you have retail POS then you can integrate your Wix store to it and sell in-person.
Wix also takes care of your SEO needs. When building an online store, SEO is a major factor that troubles many users and this is what Wix can help you with. You can easily implement on-page SEO strategies on your store and grow your store.
6. Square Online
Another free alternative we have on this list is Square Online. Though it is a free platform, you will be charged a transaction fee so that’s one thing that you must consider when choosing Square Online.
With Square Online, you can set up your online store and build brand value. Creating a store that syncs your business everywhere gets quite easier. When you build an online store or integrate it with your retail POS, Square Online syncs your store in an instant.
Square Online gives you a lot of options when you are building your online store. You can personalize your store as per your liking. Shipping and payments are also not a hassle with Square Online. Your customers automatically get the option to get delivery or go for in-store pickup.
Talking about payments, this platform offers flexible payment options. Your store can accept payments from wallets like Google Pay, Apple Pay, Square Pay, etc. There are also built-in SEO tools for better ranking. You can also set up loyalty programs so that your customers market your store. Apart from that, you can set up coupons and promo codes for upcoming sales and events.
7. Shift4Shop
The last Shopify alternative on this list is Shift4Shop. Before going ahead and discussing the features, there’s one con that you must know; though this platform is free, there will be higher fees when you customers for non-Shift4 payments.
Shift4Shop is a powerful website builder where you can build your store. You can use templates to style up your store or even design with HTML and CSS; this gives you more flexibility on the design part of your store. Even with the free version, Shift4Shop can migrate your store for free. If you have your store on any other platform, then you can import it to Shift4Shop for free.
Managing payments is also easy on Shift4Shop. There are 2 payment options that you can set up, i.e., Shift4 and PayPal. Both of them are easy to set up on your blog and give your customers the flexibility to choose either of them when shopping in your store. What’s more? You can get a free SSL certificate for your store. Not only this, but there are free as well as premium themes that you can choose.
Conclusion
Shopify is a great platform when it comes to building your online store. But its cost can add up to your monthly expenses; this may disturb your monthly budget if you are just starting your online store. To avoid it, you can choose free alternatives to Shopify.
Shopify is a complete e-commerce platform in itself, and choosing its alternatives with similar features and that too for free can be difficult. To avoid the hassle of doing all the research and finding the best option other than Shopify, we have compiled a list of the best free Shopify alternatives which offer somewhat similar features.
