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Reviewed
Reviewed
Updated: May 22, 2024, 1:57pm
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Ecwid by Lightspeed allows users to quickly set up an online shop on an existing website. Read Forbes Advisor’s full Ecwid review to see if it’s right for you.
Summary:
Ecwid offers a free option, although it is limited to ten products. Its premium plans come with more features such as a store management app and selling through social media. The higher the plan tier, the more products your store can have. With its Unlimited plan, you can also build a custom iOS and Android shopping app. If you already have a website on a platform like WordPress, Wix, Tumblr or Weebly, you can seamlessly add Ecwid so your site has e-commerce capabilities. Customize your store with unique themes and use apps to expand the functionality of your shop.
Featured Partners
1
Wix
$17 per month
Yes
Yes
1
Wix
On Wix’s Website
2
Web.com
$1.95 per month
Yes
Customizable templates, easy grag-and-drop technology, SSL certificate
2
Web.com
On Web.com’s Website
3
Squarespace
$23 per month
Yes
Yes
3
Squarespace
On Squarespace’s Website
Ecwid is one of our top picks for best e-commerce platforms because of its no additional transaction fees, free plan and drag-and-drop dashboard. While it does provide a stand-alone site option, it’s best used as a widget on an existing site. That’s where Ecwid gets its name—it’s a portmanteau for e-commerce widget.
There are four plan tiers:
If your business is a nonprofit, Ecwid offers six months of the Venture plan for free. Each of the paid plans provides a discount when you pay annually. The Business and Unlimited annual plans also get you free customization; Ecwid developers will spend two hours customizing your shop if you have the Business plan, and 12 hours when you have the Unlimited plan.
All paid plans allow multichannel selling and inventory management across each of those channels. This means if you make a sale on one channel, inventory automatically adjusts across each channel.
Ecwid integrates with existing sites using HTML and gives you access to over 70 themes. Examples of existing sites include a WordPress blog, Wix, Squarespace, Weebly and Blogger. And, with a paid plan you get a mobile point-of-sale (POS) system so you can make sales at craft fairs, farmers markets and even brick-and-mortar stores.
Access the App Market for apps, tools and extensions to expand the functionality of your store. There are hundreds of both paid and free apps focused on marketing, store design, drop shipping, catalog and order management, accounting, shipping, analytics and reporting and customer support and rewards.
While you can use Ecwid as a stand-alone site, it only gives you one page to use. If you’re just selling one product, that might work for you. If you have multiple products, you’re better off using Ecwid on an existing website.
Additionally, Ecwid does not offer any refunds if you decide the service isn’t for you. It doesn’t specify whether or not you receive a prorated refund if you pay annually, only that no refunds are allowed.
While Ecwid does offer a free plan, it isn’t nearly as robust as Shift4Shop’s free plan. However, you must use Shift4Shop’s payment processor to use its free option. Shopify doesn’t offer a free plan at all, although it does have a credit card-free 14-day trial to test out the platform.
Another big difference between each platform is transaction fees. Shopify charges these fees if you don’t use Shopify Payments, whereas Ecwid and Shift4Shop have no transaction fees.
If you want a top-rated e-commerce widget to add to an existing website, Ecwid is a great choice. Its Venture plan is perfect for businesses in their first year in particular because it allows up to 100 products and selling through both Facebook and Instagram. Even if you get the free plan, you have no transaction fees and can have up to ten products.
Related: WooCommerce Vs. Ecwid
Yes, Ecwid makes it easy to sell wholesale items. The best way to do this is to use bulk pricing, so tiered pricing is based on the number of units your customer purchases.
No, there are no contracts. Month-to-month options are available and you can cancel at any time.
No, there is no free trial. However, it does offer a free plan. You can start with the free plan, and if you need more features, upgrade to the next tier at $21 per month (billed annually).
Most of the top e-commerce platforms, such as Ecwid, have some sort of functionality that lends itself well to business-to-business (B2B) selling. However, larger companies may want to look into enterprise-level platforms if they sell to other businesses in large monthly volumes.
An e-commerce platform gives you the tools to design an attractive-looking page or series of pages for customers to visit and learn more about you but that website has to be hosted somewhere, which is what an e-commerce website host does. Websites are hosted on platforms that can support the traffic being sent to them.
Digital Marketing & Design by Yellow Falcon