Revolutionize Your eCommerce Game: An Extensive List of Best Shopify Alternatives for Small Business

Searching for the best Shopify alternatives?

Shopify is a popular e-commerce platform and is widely used by many, but it does not always offer all the features for niche markets and is often too expensive for small businesses.

If you’re planning to set up a niche market selling specific products & services to a targeted audience while also maintaining the budget, look for Shopify Alternatives.

In this blog, we will compare Shopify with its alternatives and help you determine the best eCommerce platform for niche markets.

Why Is Shopify Not the Best eCommerce Platform for Niche Marketing?

Shopify offers a user-friendly interface, various payment options, and a large app store. However, it may not be the best option for niche markets due to the following reasons:

• Shopify Offers Limited Customization Options

Shopify includes hundreds of paid and free marketplace themes that you can use to design your online store. However, when it comes to setting up a niche market that requires more specialized features, Shopify has some limitations.

For instance, other popular eCommerce platforms mainly use PHP for customizing themes. Also, some platforms include in-build customization features, whereas Shopify uses its Liquid setup. Many newbie designers need to familiarize themselves with the Liquid setup, making the customization process more time-consuming and challenging. 

• Cost of Shopify Can Mount Over Time

Pricing is one element that makes Shopify a less suitable option for a niche market. 

Unlike other platforms like WooCommerce, which comes free with essential extensions, Shopify doesn’t have a lite version, and the paid plans start at $29 per month. 

Additionally, Shopify charges a transaction fee for each sale made through their platform, which can add up for niche market businesses with lower profit margins.

• Shopify Offers Fewer Product Options

Building a marketplace for a particular niche requires specific product requirements. Shopify has limited product options and may not be suitable for niche markets that require unique product variations and configurations.

• Shopify Comes With Built-In Hosting

Shopify hosts and manages the hosting itself, and that means you can’t get complete control over your hosting environment. As a hosted platform, Shopify permits you to make limited changes.

• Shopify Restricts Control Over Data

Shopify stores all customer and order data on their servers, which can limit the business owner’s control over this information and limit their ability to use it for targeted marketing.

Shopify may be a good option for mass markets, but there may be better choices for niche markets that require more specialized features, customization options, and data control. 

The Most Popular Shopify Alternatives in 2023

Now, we have looked into why Shopify is not the best eCommerce Platform for niche markets. Let’s now look deep into the features of Shopify alternatives that you consider for building your eCommerce store.

1. WooCommerce

The first tool on our list of Shopify alternatives is WooCommerce.

WooCommerce is a free eCommerce plugin for WordPress. It offers flexible customization options that allow you to create an online store that meets your needs. 

WooCommerce is designed explicitly for building online stores. Thus, its features let users easily manage products, orders, taxes, shipping, and payments.

The integration of WordPress and WooCommerce makes it easy for businesses to add an online store to their existing WordPress site or to create a new store from scratch.

WooCommerce is built on top of WordPress, which means you get direct access to a wide range of add-ons, extensions, and dedicated eCommerce themes that you can further use to enhance the functionality of your online store. 

The ability to accept multiple payment methods, product variations, and product reviews are other noteworthy features that make WooCommerce an ideal solution for small and medium-sized businesses.

Additionally, WooCommerce is compatible with many popular shipping and payment gateways, including PayPal, Stripe, and FedEx.

To summarize, WooCommerce is a good choice for niche markets that need a customizable and cost-effective solution with robust product management features. 

Check out our detailed guide on WooCommerce to learn more about this leading WordPress eCommerce tool.

Key Features of WooCommerce

• Open-source and customizable: WooCommerce is open-source and free, allowing for more customization options than Shopify’s proprietary platform.
• Integration with WordPress: WooCommerce integrates seamlessly with WordPress, providing access to an extensive library of plugins and themes.
• No transaction fees: WooCommerce doesn’t charge transaction fees, while Shopify charges a fee for transactions processed through their payment gateway.
• No monthly fees: Unlike Shopify, WooCommerce doesn’t require a monthly fee to use the platform.
• Large community support: WooCommerce has a large user community that provides support, tutorials, and additional plugins and themes.
• Scalability: WooCommerce is more scalable and can accommodate growing businesses with more advanced needs than Shopify’s limited features.
• Cost-effective: WooCommerce is more cost-effective than Shopify, as there are no monthly and lower transaction fees.
• Greater control: With WooCommerce, store owners fully controlhave full control over their store data, customer data, and website design.

Pricing of WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin. You can start a basic eCommerce store using the lite features of WooCommerce; however, for some advanced functionality, you need to go for the paid plugin options that cost you around $100-150/year.

2. BigCommerce

Another Shopify alternative that you can consider using for a niche market is BigCommerce.

While Shopify is the best tool for big businesses, BigCommerce is suitable for creating mid-sized eCommerce stores.

BigCommerce includes many built-in sales features, helping you to get your online store started quickly.

As we know, Shopify charges 2% per sale additional transaction fees, BigCommerce offers more flexible options without charging any transaction fees from the merchants.

BigCommerce accommodates up to 600 variants per product, making it a beneficial tool for listing niche products.

Talking about the cost, at a glance, you’ll find Shopify and BigCommerce pricing similar. 

However, the catch is that the BigCommerce pricing model works on flat rate pricing. In contrast, Shopify relies on add-ons and paid extensions for additional features that ultimately increase costs.

Key Features of BigCommerce

• Scalability: BigCommerce provides advanced scalability options for growing businesses, offering customizable checkout and abandoned cart recovery features.
• Built-in SEO optimization: BigCommerce has built-in SEO optimization features that optimize the site content to get a better ranking in search engines.
• Compatible with multiple payment gateways: BigCommerce integrates with a wider range of payment gateways, allowing more flexibility in accepting payments.
• Optimized One-Page Checkout: BigCommerce offers options for customization of the default checkout and order confirmation page, allowing store owners to enhance the customer experience and increase sales conversions.
• Abandoned cart recovery: BigCommerce provides built-in abandoned cart recovery features to help increase sales.
• Advanced reporting: With BigCommerce’s advanced reporting features, store owners get insights into their business performance.
• No transaction fees: Unlike Shopify, BigCommerce doesn’t charge transaction fees for payments processed through its payment gateway.

Pricing of BigCommerce

BigCommerce has three pricing plans ranging from $29.95 to $299.95 per month.

3. Wix

Wix is a popular website builder that you can use as a Shopify alternative. It comes with a  drag-and-drop functionality that makes front-end editing much smoother for novice users. 

With Wix’s 800+ customizable templates, you can create any website, including a dedicated online store.

Unlike Shopify, Wix allows you to build a store for free or choose the paid plan per your requirements.

Shopify permits over 100 payment gateway, but you’ll have to pay a transaction fee-unless you use its own gateway- Shopify payments. 

On the other hand, Wix offers compatibility with all popular payment gateways and also has an in-house payment gateway called Wix Payments that doesn’t impose any transaction fee – no matter which gateway you choose.

Key Features of  Wix

• Ease of Use: Wix has a drag-and-drop website builder, making it easier for non-technical users to build and manage their online store.
• Customizable design: Wix provides a wide range of templates and design options, allowing for extraordinary creativity in-store creation.
• No transaction fees: Wix doesn’t charge transaction fees, unlike Shopify, which charges a fee for transactions processed through its payment gateway.
• Free plan: Wix offers a free plan that allows users to start with a basic online store, while Shopify’s lowest-priced plan starts at a monthly fee.
• More integrated app market: Wix has a more integrated app market that includes various tools and integrations for users.
• No limit on product listings: Unlike Shopify, Wix doesn’t limit the number of product listings on their platform.

Pricing of Wix

Wix offers three different pricing plans, ranging from $16 to $59 per month (billed annually).

4. Magento (Adobe Commerce)

Next on our list of Shopify alternatives is Magento, a simple, easy-to-use, and FREE eCommerce platform.

Magento is a self-hosted, open-source platform currently powering thousands of online stores. One of the reasons for Magneto’s popularity is its flexibility and different customization features.

Magento works flawlessly with popular payment gateways. You can integrate your preferred payment option with the help of modules. 

Further, you can choose from the library of Magento add-ons and plugins for configuring different payment options.

In addition to flexible payment gateway options, Magento offers a massive collection of paid and free themes. No matter what theme you choose, you can customize it however you like.

Magento’s inventory management system offers advanced features such as product size and color, making it an ideal choice for setting up an online store for selling niche products. 

Key Features of Magento

• Easy customization options: Magento is open-source and provides plenty of customization options to create a unique shopping experience.
• Advanced SEO optimization: Magento provides advanced SEO optimization features to improve search engine visibility.
• Integrates with multiple payment gateways: Magento integrates with a wider range of payment gateways, providing greater flexibility in accepting payments.
• B2B functionality: Magento provides advanced B2B functionality, including quote requests, purchase order management, and bulk pricing.
• Order management: Magento offers more advanced order management features, including custom order statuses, invoicing, and shipment tracking.
• No transaction fees: Unlike Shopify, Magento doesn’t charge transaction fees for payments processed through their payment gateway.
• Seamless integrations: Magento integrates many popular tools and platforms, giving store owners more options to manage their businesses.

Pricing of Magento

Magento is Free. Yet you need to pay for a domain, web hosting, and additional necessary integration costs, and the extra charges will depend on your business needs.

5. Shift4Shop

Shift4Shop is a cloud-based eCommerce platform that provides dedicated tools to create and manage online stores. 

Creating a store with Shift4Shop gets you advanced features such as customizable online store design, inventory management, order & shipping management, payment processing integration, product catalog management, integrations with third-party tools, and many more.

Shift4Shop aims to provide flexible and scalable eCommerce solutions for all types of businesses, and that makes Shift4Shop one of the best alternatives for Shopify.

Key Features of Shift4Shop

• Customization: Shift4Shop offers a more extensive range of customization options, including access to the platform’s source code, while Shopify has limited customization options.
• Features: Shift4Shop includes tons of features that make it easy to create and run your online store.
• Built-in CRM: Shift4Shop has a built-in customer relationship management system. This CRM system helps you keep track of your customer interactions without downloading and paying for an additional app or integration.
• Integrations: Shift4Shop offers easy integrations with third-party tools.

Pricing of ​​Shift4Shop

Shift4Shop has five pricing ranging from $0 to $1,999.

6. OpenCart

OpenCart is a free, open-source e-commerce platform for online stores. 

It offers customizable store design, product management, order management, and shipping management for creating and managing online stores.

Additionally, OpenCart offers mobile-responsive designs, marketing, SEO tools, and integrations with third-party tools, making it a good Shopify alternative for small businesses.

Key Features of OpenCart

• Platform: OpenCart is an open-source platform that can be downloaded and hosted on a server.
• Customization: OpenCart offers more customization options but sometimes requires technical knowledge for making advanced styling.
• Flexibility: OpenCart is designed for businesses of all sizes and offers plenty of flexible customization options to extend the platform to meet store owners’ specific design needs.

Pricing of OpenCart

OpenCart is a free eCommerce platform. You need to pay for the extensions and add-ons to add advanced functionality to your store. 

7. Weebly

Weebly is a website builder and cloud-based platform that allows you to create and manage profession-looking online stores.

It offers drag-and-drop tools and features such as customizable templates, product management, order and shipping management, payment processing integration, and marketing tools. 

Weebly is known for its ease of use and user-friendly interface, and it aims to provide a simple and accessible solution for creating and managing online stores. 

Whether you’re planning to set up an online store for personal or business needs, Weebly is a suitable tool, as it offers a range of pricing plans to meet different needs and budgets.

Key Features of Weebly

• Advanced functionality: Shopify is a more comprehensive e-commerce platform offering a wider range of features and integrations designed explicitly for online stores, while Weebly is a more general website builder that also provides e-commerce capabilities.
• Flexible design options: Weebly offers a drag-and-drop interface for designing websites with a wide range of customizable templates.
• Ease of use: Weebly is simpler and more accessible for beginners, while Shopify may require more technical expertise.
• In-built Tools: Weebly includes tools for maintaining inventory, tracking shipping, creating coupons and gift cards, and many other features to maintain your store. 

Pricing of Weebly

Weebly has different plans that range in price from free to $26 per month.

8. Big Cartel

Another good alternative to Shopify is Big Cartel, a cloud-based eCommerce solution that lets you create and manage online stores.

Some of the key features offered by Big Cartel include a customizable store design, product management, order and shipping management, payment processing integration, marketing tools, and mobile-responsive design. 

Big Cartel’s interface is known for its simplicity and ease of use. Providing simple and accessible e-commerce solutions for creatives, and small businesses makes it the ideal eCommerce platform for niche markets.

Key Features of  Big Cartel

• Easy to use features:: Big Cartel provides easy-to-use features for eCommerce stores, including real-time statistics, inventory tracking, discount codes, and shipment tracking.
• Cost-effective: Big Cartel has a more straightforward pricing structure with a flat monthly fee, regardless of the number of products sold.
• Easy customization options: Big Cartel includes easy customization options that require no prior coding knowledge.

Pricing of Big Cartel

Big Cartel offers free and paid plans ranging from $9.99/per month to $29.99/per month.

Wrapping Up!

Shopify is a well-known e-commerce platform, but there may be better fits for a niche market, as it has some drawbacks regarding customization and getting complete control over your online store. 

We have listed the best Shopify alternatives to help you choose the best tool per your eCommerce website requirements. 

Each platform has unique features and pricing plans, so it’s essential to thoroughly compare the options to determine the best fit for your specific business needs. 

The best Shopify alternative will depend on budget, product offerings, and store customization options. Take the time to evaluate your options and choose the platform to help your online store thrive.