Top 7 Best eCommerce Platforms for Small Businesses in the United Kingdom

Despite the Covid Pandemic's digital acceleration, one in four startups still don't have a website.

According to Statista, 90% of new e-commerce businesses fail within the first two months, mostly because of poor marketing efforts and inadequate search engine optimization.

Additionally, you need to establish a market for your goods or services, manage your cash flow, compete with industry titans, and provide excellent customer service.

This information is not meant to scare you away from starting your own business, but rather to help you understand the importance of selecting the right eCommerce platform from eCommerce web development experts.

We will now discuss the best e-commerce platforms in the UK at the moment, look at their pros and cons, and list their pricing (because let's face it - cost matters!).

Let's take a look.

Shopify

There is no doubt that Shopify is the best eCommerce platform for small businesses. With their site builder, you can sell both online and in person, as well as through social commerce, third-party marketplaces, and drop shippers.

You don't need to know any code to design your store with Shopify - you can choose from over 100 free or paid themes.

Shopify provides a suite of business tools designed to help you with all areas of your company, not just small business eCommerce.

From Shop Pay's affordable online transaction fees and Shopify POS' in-person sales to Shopify Fulfilment's ability to help ship out orders and competitive shipping rates from USPS, UPS, DHL Express, and other carriers - you've got it covered!

Plus, have no fear about increasing prices due to increased traffic and sales - the platform offers unlimited bandwidth and online storage.

Pricing

You can test Shopify's sales tools and build your entire online store for 14 days for free. If you're satisfied with Shopify, you can upgrade to one of these plans:

What users say:

A solid 4.4/5 star rating on G2 reviews tells you how happy your users are. Hey, you can't please everyone.

But there were some concerning negative reviews too.

Being one among the forerunners in eCommerce Shopify's security features are not up to the mark.

Now let's take a look at another E-commerce giant.

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Wix

You can create a unique online shop that's perfectly tailored to your brand with over 70 different eCommerce templates, each of which can be customised to your heart's content.

Once your website is live, you can't change the template, so choose your template carefully.

In addition, you can edit text and add products within the storefront, so you're never editing blindly. You can update your website while you're on the go through the Wix mobile app.

Despite not being an eCommerce-specific platform like BigCommerce and Shopify, Wix offers all the sales functions you could ever need thanks to its App Market.

You will be able to increase sales and grow your customer base with multiple payment options, secure checkout, and abandoned cart recovery.

Out of all the eCommerce platforms we tested, it has the best SEO features.

As part of Wix's SEO offering, users can access Semrush's industry-leading SEO keyword data directly from the Wix dashboard thanks to its exclusive partnership with SEO giant Semrush.

The Wix users will be able to improve their website visibility for search terms relevant to their businesses, and increase valuable web traffic by moving up those all-important search rankings.

We found that Wix improved in a few key areas - particularly its sales capabilities - in our latest research. As a result of our research, its sales features score rose from a solid 4 out of 5 to an excellent 4.5 out of 5, placing it right behind the eCommerce platform Shopify.

In addition, Wix increased its ease of use score from just 3.6 out of 5 to an impressive 4 out of 5, making it even easier to create a fantastic online store with Wix.

Pricing

Also worth mentioning is Wix's incredible value for money, at just £27 per month for its VIP plan, compared to a whopping £65 per month for Shopify's equivalent.

What users say:

The site is flexible, and it's fairly easy to learn to make a website with Wix. It's challenging, however, since Wix offers more than just a simple website builder.

Getting a grip on all the features, settings, and integrations available is going to take some time, but with some effort and time, even someone without coding knowledge can create a beautiful page.

Adobe Commerce

Magento (now Adobe Commerce) is an ideal choice for growing eCommerce businesses. Its open-source design includes comprehensive security features like SSL certificate integration and PCI compliance - to protect customers' sensitive information.

Additionally, you can easily integrate with a variety of third-party services, including payment processors and shippers. It also has powerful marketing capabilities including tracking, analytics, reporting, and integration with checkout, shipping, and payments.

Plus, its CMS is extremely versatile and optimised for search engine visibility.

Pricing

The most interesting thing we found on adobe was the option for you to add custom pricing. According to your business needs you can choose the features you want before you get an actual pricing.

So for small businesses with minimal requirements Adobe can be a great option.

What users say:

A 4.1/5 star review in G2 is not a bad score to get. But Adobe's inability to adopt innovations at a higher pace is backfiring hard. The learning curve it needs also poses a problem for businesses that want to get things done quickly.

Despite some negatives Magneto or Adobe e-commerce is still among the top eCommerce platforms for small businesses owing a big thanks to the personalization freedom it offers.

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Square

You can manage your online and offline orders with one dashboard, so you don't have to jump between apps, search for customer details on random spreadsheets, or enter things manually.

That's what put Square on the map.

If you occasionally see a URL direct to weebly.com, don't be alarmed. (Note: I've noticed fewer Weebly URLs popping up in my recent tests.)

Square's onboarding process is stellar: it requires filling out a questionnaire about your business and its needs. From there, you can easily configure everything to match what you're looking for.

Whether you're in search of a single shopping page, a shoppable Instagram page, or a full website with a store, Square makes it manageable. Plus, the default theme will be adjusted to the business category that you specified.

Square has fewer customization options than some of the others. Instead of choosing a theme, you must make your own design using the (admittedly excellent) site builder - or you can do this yourself.

Pricing

There are three paid-for plans offered by Square, ranging from £9 to £54 (the latter is aimed at large-scale enterprises).

Square Free allows you to sell online for free and doesn't require you to pay for the platform. The platform comes with no Square ads, a custom domain, and password-protected pages.

The Square Free plan is a decent option for beginners. It allows you to sell unlimited products and syncs with Square POS and online shopping carts.

While the plan itself is free, you will pay a 1.9% transaction fee for every sale you make, which is higher than average for eCommerce platforms.

What users say:

Many users are furious by how square has changed weebly and they are not afraid to show it. Cheap but clunky is the most popular negative review on Square.

Squarespace

Squarespace is another top-rated eCommerce platform for small businesses due to its easy-to-use interface, templates, and drag-and-drop tools.

It was originally designed as a website builder, not an eCommerce platform, but has since added features to accommodate online sellers.

In addition to tight scheduling integrations and calendars, email marketing, social media integrations, and embeddable maps, Squarespace also offers recurring billing features for subscription-based businesses.

You can see the design and functionality of Apostrophe Puzzles' website have been created using the Squarespace eCommerce platform.

Pricing

Squarespace offers some fantastic value plans, starting at £16 per month for the Personal plan.

Among Squarespace's tiers, the Business plan costs £24 per month, with additional features for larger businesses.

Squarespace's eCommerce plans, however, start at £28 per month and go up to £43 per month with the Advanced plan - these eCommerce plans, in particular, offer exceptional value.

What users say:

A 4.4/5 star review in G2 reviews the Squarespace has a lot of negative comments on it lacking essential features in the lower price packages. Squarespace offers creative freedom with no-code platforms thus helping beginners and non-tech businesses build websites easily.

BigCommerce

While slightly more expensive than others, BigCommerce as an e-commerce platform offers higher level features than others, such as automatic image processing, unlimited personal accounts, unlimited bandwidth, and technical research study, and these are at a higher level with more comprehensive core functions than some of the other sites.

BigCommerce's services are available in groups, but unlike other platforms, it has revenue caps and levels.

BigCommerce excels when it comes to sales features, particularly its integration with Facebook Marketplace, but it falls short in other areas as well. This is one of the most expensive eCommerce platforms available.

If you have the budget, scaling eCommerce businesses should look no further than BigCommerce.

Pricing

BigCommerce is NOT CHEAP!

This is one of the best eCommerce platforms for small businesses in terms of ROI, but it's expensive. Squarespace commerce basic plan starts at £28 - BigCommerce basic plan starts at $39. You get where we're going with this.

What users say:

Well users say it's costly for starters!

BigCommerce is really a great platform that is fit for business from every side. Users are satisfied with the agility and speed that is protecting and growing the sales of products. Without limitations, you can control your eCommerce business in a professional way.

GoDaddy

Despite being an entry-level website builder, GoDaddy makes it easy to get started with an eCommerce site, even if you're not technically inclined.

With an accessible, helpful editor and an Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) function that saves time and makes your online store look slick and professional, researchers rated GoDaddy the second easiest eCommerce platform to use.

However, the same ADI severely limits your creative control. This isn't a problem if you just want to get up and running with a great-looking online shop, but it isn't as appealing if you're looking for something a little more unique.

In contrast to Wix and Shopify, which will give you the creative freedom to make any changes you want, ADI doesn't allow much more changes after you have created your store.

Despite being one of the cheapest eCommerce website builders, it promises real business growth (not just a pretty shop front).

For small businesses that want to get up and running as quickly and as simply as possible, GoDaddy remains a great choice.

Pricing

A free web hosting plan from GoDaddy sets it apart from its competition. Keep in mind that this plan isn't just a trial, but is free forever.

However, there are some restrictions on the free plan. For example, you have to use a subdomain on GoDaddy's domain (yoursite.godaddysites.com). However, it allows you to use GoDaddy's website builder and see what templates are available.

GoDaddy's pricing is one of the most frustrating things about it. On the surface, it seems fair, but once you sign up for a paid plan, you'll discover that it's far from transparent. Shared hosting plans come with different plans, introductory costs, and renewal rates.

What users says:

A 3.9-star rating for an eCommerce platform seems like an understatement. While some prefer to look at it like there are more viable options. But for budding businesses, GoDaddy's plans are more flexible.

The reasons for a 3.9 star include: