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Posted on Sep 7, 2014

Should I use a Site Builder if I want to have an Online Store?

Should I use a Site Builder if I want to have an Online Store?

 

If you want to sell products on your website, you have a number of different options. For a start, you can create a fully-fledged online store, or you can add ecommerce functionality to an existing website. You also have to choose which platform you are going to use. There are many to choose from but this article is going to look at the whether you should use a site builder for your online store.

 

First, it is possible to build an online store with a site builder, including the iPage drag-and-drop builder. The way you implement ecommerce functionality will depend on the type and size of store you want to build. It’s like the offline world in this regard – you can sell products in a market stall, a small shop or a large outlet. It depends on your requirements.

Basic Ecommerce – The Market Stall

 

The starting point is building a website in a site builder and then adding buy-now buttons to your pages. This gives you shopping cart functionality quickly and easily, although you will not have the same level of inventory and product control.

 

An example of this option is the ShopSite OrderAnywhere feature offered by iPage.

 

An Ecommerce Plugin – The Small Shop

 

The next stage up is to install an ecommerce plugin on an existing website. This allows you to create your website in a site builder but also get the full functionality of an online store.

 

One example of this is Ecwid. To set this up all you need to do is add a few lines of code to a page on your website. You then log into your Ecwid account to manage your products and store. Whatever additions or changes you make will display on your website.

 

This is a good option for websites that want full ecommerce functionality for a small number of products. If you have a larger store, consider moving to the next step.

 

A Shopping Cart Only Site – A Large Outlet

 

The first two options allow you to build your website using any tool, including a site builder. If you have a large store with lots of products you might need a dedicated shopping cart website. This is primarily because of the increased functionality, which you are likely to want if you have a large store. This increased functionality includes things like:

 

  • Unlimited products
  • Better product search functionality
  • Integration with analytics software
  • Inventory tracking
  • Customer registration
  • Custom designs
  • Gift certificates and coupons
  • And much more

 

Building a dedicated shopping cart website doesn’t have to involve coding, even though you can’t use standard site builders. For example you could use the iPage ShopSite shopping cart products.

 

The Alternative

 

There are alternatives to the three options mentioned above. The most popular is to use WordPress to build your website and add ecommerce functionality through a plugin.

 

There are two main benefits for going down this route:

 

1. You’ll have a website that is easier to scale and expand. This is because of the popularity of WordPress and the large number of plugins that are available to add functionality. You won’t face the restrictions that you may face with a site builder or shopping cart builder.

 

2. Cost is the second benefit of using WordPress. If you have more than about 10 products you’ll probably have to pay a monthly or quarterly fee to use an ecommerce plugin for a site builder website. The same applies to a shopping cart builder website. This is not the case with WordPress, although adding ecommerce to a WordPress website is not free. You’ll have to buy a good ecommerce theme and you might need other plugins to give you all the functionality you require, but these are one-off expenses. Over the long-term this can work out cheaper.

 

The downsides of using WordPress include the steeper learning curve and the increased security vulnerabilities if you do not keep your site up-to-date. And technical support is often much more haphazard. But it remains an option, just like the other three.

 

Your options depend on how much you want to sell, how much you have to spend, and how much you want to learn about building websites. Which option will you choose?

 

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