10 Ecommerce solutions to kick-start your business in 2025

Ecommerce solutions are designed to help you start, maintain and grow your online business. It’s important to do your research, so we’ve laid out some of the options, to help you pick the solution that works for you.

Running a thriving ecommerce site isn’t all about selling products. You’ll also need to make sure you’ve got the best possible setup for sending and receiving money. It should be easy, cheap and fast - and online providers like Wise are here to help.

Pay people abroad and receive money with low and transparent fees. Find out more.

Get started with Wise Business🚀

Ecommerce sites: Which one to choose?

Let’s get your new business up and running. We’ve put together a list of 10 ecommerce software solutions and platforms for small businesses - complete with some essential facts and stats you need to know.

For full pricing and details of available features visit the provider's websites. The availability of some features will depend on registration country.

Shopify

A popular cloud-based ecommerce solution powering millions of online shops worldwide¹, Shopify is specially designed for small and medium businesses. This means that it’s super easy to use, so you can create and customise your online shop and start selling right away.

Shopify lets you sell online and in person, with multi-channel integration and global payment solutions. It offers a choice of plans, including:

• Basic (for solo entrepreneurs) - from £19/month
• Grow (for small teams) - from £49/month
• Advanced (for scaling businesses) - from £259/month
• Plus (for more complex businesses and high-volume merchants) - from $2,300 USD/month.

Features on the Basic plan include:¹

• Online store
• One-click checkout
• Unlimited products and services
• Collaborator accounts (i.e. for third party designers and developers)
• Templates and themes
• Multiple sales channels
• 10 inventory locations
• Dropshipping with Shopify Collective
• Analytics reports
• 24/7 support
• Unlimited web hosting, a custom domain and a free SSL certificate
• Shopify POS Lite for in-person selling
• Unlimited contacts, Shopify Email and customer segmentation
• Discount codes and gift cards.

You’ll unlock more features, along with lower per-transaction prices, with upgraded plans.

Unfortunately though, it currently has a Trustpilot score of just 1.3 out of 5, from over 3,300 reviews.²

Wix

While known as a user-friendly website builder, the US-based company Wix also offers a full featured ecommerce platform. It offers over 900 free, fully customisable website templates, allowing you to quickly and easily create a standout storefront.³

It’s affordable too, with plans starting from just £9 a month. This makes it ideal for brand new businesses looking for an easy start up ecommerce platform. The full range of Wix plans includes:³

• Light - £9/month
• Core - £16/month
• Business - £25/month
• Business Elite - £119/month

Wix has its own dropshipping platform and print on demand services, and lets you sell physical, digital or subscription-model products. You can sell online, via marketplaces, internationally and in person using the Wix Retail POS or Wix Mobile POS. You can manage it all online and on the Wix app.

Other key Wix features and products include:

• CRM system
• Full range of payment solutions
• Website analytics
• Email marketing
• SEO tools
• AI website builder tool.

Not all features are available on all plans, however - so you may need to upgrade to access some of the tools or services you need.

Wix currently has a 4.3 out of 5 score on Trustpilot, from over 24,250 reviews.⁴

Squarespace

Like Wix, Squarespace is a website builder that also offers a wide range of ecommerce services - making it a good pick if you’re just starting to sell online. It offers a huge range of eye-catching modern designs for websites, along with user-friendly tools and an AI website builder to help you create your storefront.

Through Squarespace ecommerce tools, you can sell products and services online, as well as digital content, memberships and subscriptions. Get a free custom domain,⁵ and handle payments, shipping and fulfilment all in one place.
Connect your accounting and other business tools (including delivery partners) to your Squarespace account, and promote your business with email campaigns, social media tools and built-in SEO.

Squarespace offers a choice of plans:⁵

• Basic - £12/month
• Core - £17/month
• Plus - £29/month
• Advanced - £79/month

You’ll pay per transaction to accept payments, with lower processing costs on the Plus and Advanced plans.⁵

Unfortunately though, Squarespace currently has a Trustpilot rating of just 1.2 out of 5 based on over 1,400 reviews.⁶

PrestaShop

PrestaShop is an open-source ecommerce solution offering a free basic plan. While it’s technically possible to run a functional site on the free plan, you are likely to need many of the add-on features – which are only available as part of paid plans or as chargeable add-ons. This includes hosting, installation, customer support, store backup and some ecommerce tools.

Compared to some of the other website builders on our list, PrestaShop isn’t as easy to set up.

PrestaShop’s plans include:⁷

• Classic - free
• Hosted - from €24 EUR/month
• Enterprise - custom pricing.

With the free plan, you’ll get the following features:⁷

• Customisable classic theme
• All-in-one payment solution - PrestaShop Checkout built with PayPal
• PrestaShop Marketing, which includes automated ads on Google, Facebook and Instagram
• Marketing automation
• Shipping service
• Comprehensive analytics tools.

PrestaShop currently has a Trustpilot score of 2.2 out of 5, although this is only based on around 500 reviews.⁸

BigCartel

If you’re an artist or crafter keen to start selling online, Big Cartel could be the platform for you. It’s billed as ‘made for makers’, with a number of tools to help you tweak and customise the aesthetic of your online store.

And if you can code, Big Cartel even lets you adjust the JavaScript, HTML or CSS directly – but you don’t have to, as there are many tools available for non-coders too. It’s easy to set up and very affordable.

Plans include:⁹

• Gold - free
• Platinum - $15 USD/month
• Diamond - $30 USD/month.

The free plan gives you the basics to start selling online, although it’s very limited. You only get 5 product listings, with one image per product. However, you can accept payments, use the Big Cartel mobile app and import products from other platforms like Shopify, Squarespace and Etsy.⁹

If you want to increase the number of products and images, and access features like selling in person, offering discounts and running promos, tracking shipments and running ads, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.⁹

Big Cartel currently has a Trustpilot score of 2.7 out of 5, although this is only based on 77 customer reviews.¹⁰

ShopWired

Geared towards UK sellers, ShopWired is a great value solution, offering most of the standard features you’d expect from an ecommerce platform at a very reasonable monthly cost.

Plans include:¹¹

• Essentials - £31.46/month
• Advanced - £71.96/month
• Premium - £134.96/month
• ShopWired Enterprise - £299.95/month

Even on the cheapest plan, you’ll get a full content management system (CMS), mobile responsiveness, free SSL security, abandoned basket recovery and the chance to sell on multiple channels. Plus, 40+ payment gateway integrations.¹¹

The platform offers a wide range of professional free themes, all of which are easily customisable. And you can even expand your global reach with ShopWired, as it allows visitors to view prices in their local currencies.

You’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan though for features like unlimited user accounts, ShopWired accounting apps, advanced reporting and lower payment processing fees.¹¹

ShopWired currently has a Trustpilot score of 4.6 out of 5, although this is only based on around 580 reviews.¹²

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is one of the most popular and widely used ecommerce solutions on the web. There are more than 4.6 million online stores using it in 2025.¹³ There are a couple of reasons for its popularity – firstly, it’s built on WordPress, which a huge number of websites run on, making it quite easy to integrate. It’s also free, with plugins and extras available to purchase if you want to extend functionality, and pay-as-you-go pricing for payments. Plus, it’s designed to be user-friendly.

It’s quick and easy to get started, although you will need a little technical knowledge if you want to customise your online WooCommerce shop. And if you’re looking for an all-in-one platform, this may not be it.

Features include:

• Composable UI when building your store, offering a huge range of customisations
• Only pay for the add-ons you need and use
• Powered by WordPress
• Adaptable to nearly all business models
• Integrate your tech stack with 1,000+ extensions in the WooCommerce Marketplace
• Tailored checkout flows
• Sell globally with multi-currency support, global tax compliance and local payment methods.

WooCommerce currently has only a 1.8 score out of 5 on Trustpilot, but this is based on just over 110 reviews.¹⁴

Etsy

For some small businesses and entrepreneurs, there may not be a need to invest in a full-scale ecommerce solution. Instead, sites like Etsy present an easy, affordable solution. It’s a marketplace for handmade, unique and custom art, crafts and vintage items, so it’s the perfect place for artists and makers to sell their work.

Getting started with Etsy is simple, you just need a professional set of product photos and you can open your own online shop straight away.

You’ll pay a small listing fee per item, and a commission and payment processing fee when you sell anything.
Etsy features include:

• Etsy Seller app to manage orders and your online shop
• Promoted Listings, Etsy Ads and free social media tools
• Analytics stats to help you optimise shop performance.

💡 Read more on selling on Etsy UK

Amazon

Amazon is another direct way to start selling, without needing to build an online shop or website from scratch. This online retail giant sells literally everything, including products by other ecommerce businesses through Amazon Marketplace and Fulfilment By Amazon (FBA).

All you need is an Amazon account to register as a seller and start listing products. Before you start selling on Amazon though, make sure you take a close look at the fees and charges to make sure the numbers add up. There are also fees which apply to certain categories of products.

Once you’re all set up and the products are flying off the virtual shelves, it’s time to make sure you get paid. This is no problem if you’re selling in the UK, but you may face high currency conversion fees if you receive payments from customers in other countries. But don’t worry, help is at hand. Add your Wise Business account to your Amazon account and withdraw your earnings directly into it using the real mid-market exchange rate.

eBay

Selling on eBay is just the same as on other marketplaces like Amazon, with one key difference. You can register with a free eBay account, but there are also subscription plans ranging from £27 to £437 - these offer more free listings and other features and benefits, although you’ll need to pay extra if you exceed your limit.

eBay also charges fees to list products, and transaction fees when your item sells.

Again, it’s a smart idea to get your calculator out and make sure your profit margins can stay healthy when selling on eBay. Work out how much you could make with our eBay fee calculator.

Best ecommerce platform for small business

We can’t tell you which is the best when it comes to ecommerce platforms. It’s all about finding the right fit for your business. But there are some essentials to look out for, such as:

• Price: Choosing any new service will always come down to cost. Small businesses need a cost-effective solution that maximises profit and builds sales, without costing the earth. You need to find the right balance between the features you need and the cost of a monthly plan. It could be that spending a little bit more now results in healthy sales growth later on.
• TrustPilot rating: Review sites should always be taken with a pinch of salt. It’s very useful to know how others have got on with an ecommerce solution, but remember that their business needs may be very different to yours. Some people have unrealistic expectations, which will always result in disappointment. However, if the same issues are mentioned time and time again, this could be a cause for concern.
• Number of products: If your business grows and you want to sell more, you don’t want product restrictions holding you back. Many basic plans come with unlimited products as standard, so you don’t need to pay more if your offering grows.
• Mobile responsiveness: Over half (58%) of British consumers use their smartphones for online shopping¹³, according to research by uSwitch. You simply cannot afford to be missing out on this customer base, so always look for ecommerce solutions with mobile-responsive themes.
• SEO: SEO is all about making your website easy to discover by potential customers - If consumers can’t find it, they can’t buy your products. This is why it’s a good idea to look for ecommerce solutions with built-in SEO features, as these help to optimise your online store for Google’s search results. It isn’t always included in free plans, but you don’t necessarily want to be paying a fortune for a bolt-on.

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Ecommerce solutions are designed to help you start, maintain and grow your online business. You won’t struggle to find ecommerce solutions, as there are many of them out there. The main problem will be sifting out the best ones, and choosing the right platform for your business.

It’s important to do your research, so we’ve laid out some of the options, to help you pick the solution that works for you.

Running a thriving ecommerce site isn’t all about selling products. You’ll also need to make sure you’ve got the best possible setup for sending and receiving money. It should be easy, cheap and fast - and online providers, like Wise are here to help.

Register with Wise Business🚀

Sources used:

1. Shopify - Pricing
2. Trustpilot - Shopify
3. Wix - Plans
4. Trustpilot - Wix
5. SquareSpace - Pricing
6. Trustpilot - SquareSpace
7. PrestaShop - Offers
8. Trustpilot - PrestaShop
9. Big Cartel - Pricing
10. Trustpilot - Big Cartel
11. ShopWired - Pricing
12. Trustpilot - ShopWired
13. Store Leads - The State of WooCommerce in 2025
14. Trustpilot - WooCommerce

Sources checked on: 27-May 2025.