Ecommerce website builders
Choose the shop you’ll trade from
Open shelves still bare
Plain write-ups of the platforms people build online stores on — what each one is built for, what it charges once you are actually trading, and where it gets in the way. Reasoning on the page, no scores in the window.
The parade
Six units, still being fitted out
Nothing is published yet — this site is new and there is not a single article behind these windows. What follows is the ground being taken: the subjects each unit will trade in. The numbers are addresses along the parade, not an order of merit.
No. 01
The builders, side by side
Shopify, BigCommerce, Squarespace, Wix and the rest — what each one is actually built for.
No. 02
Hosted or self-hosted
Renting a storefront against fitting out your own, and what each choice asks of you later.
No. 03
What a store costs to keep open
Plan price, transaction cut, apps and themes — the headline figure is rarely the bill.
No. 04
Themes and how far they bend
Where the templates stop and the custom work starts on each platform.
No. 05
Payments, shipping and tax
The parts of a store that decide whether a basket turns into an order.
No. 06
Moving a shop across the street
Migrating products, URLs and customers off one builder and onto another.
Step 01
Browse
Start from the shop you are opening — the catalogue, the volume, the countries — not the brand on the sign.
Step 02
Choose
Every builder is worse at something. The write-ups lead with which something, and who that hurts.
Step 03
Check out
Add up the plan, the transaction cut, the apps and the theme before committing a catalogue to one platform.
When the first write-ups go up, each unit opens and its window fills with what is behind it. Until then the shutters are down.
Window notices
What is written on the door
Worth reading before there is anything to buy, because it is what every write-up on this street will be held to.
Notice A
No scores in the window
No ratings, no star counts, no tier boards. Where something is placed ahead of something else, it is placed there in words, with the reasoning on the page.
Notice B
Hands-on is claimed only when it happened
No described methodology standing in for work nobody did. Where a judgement comes from documentation, pricing pages or a vendor changelog, the write-up says so.
Notice C
Affiliate links are disclosed
Some links here earn a commission. That never decides the order things appear in, and it is stated on every page it applies to.