If you want to grow your retail business, you’ll need to create an online store.
There are lots of software tools that can help you with this – but choosing the right one isn’t easy.
Ecwid is an awesome ecommerce solution with lots of useful features.
However, it’s not suited for every business.
If you want to know whether Ecwid is the right solution for your business, you’ve come to the right place.
In this article, we’ll take a close look at Ecwid’s major features and find out if it fits your business needs.
Let’s dive right in.
Ecwid Pricing
Ecwid comes with a Free Plan and three paid plans:
Pricing for monthly plans (excl. 19% VAT, per month):
- Free
- Venture – 15€
- Business – 35€
- Unlimited – 99€
Pricing for annual plans (excl. 19% VAT, per month):
- Free
- Venture – 12,50€
- Business – 29,17€
- Unlimited – 82,50€
You can sign up for the Free Plan and list up to 10 products in your online store. Ecwid also doesn’t charge you any fees per sale with the Free Plan.
However, if you want to connect your own domain and sell via social media, you’ll have to go for a paid plan.
The Venture Plan comes with lots of basic features. You can sell via social media, connect your own domain, and list up to 100 products. You can also use marketing features. The big pro is that the Venture Plan is only 15€ per month.
If you’re serious about ecommerce, I highly recommend the Business Plan. It’s only 35€ per month and you’ll have all the features at your disposal to build and run a successful online store.
With the Unlimited Plan for 95€ per month, you’ll even get your own Shopping App for iOS and Android.
Ecwid Review: Summary
| Ease of Use | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(5/5) | Ecwid’s user dashboard is well structured and you’ll quickly find your way around. They also provide several guides and videos to help you build an awesome online store with Ecwid. |
| Templates | ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4/5) | Ecwid’s templates are modern and easy to customize. However, you should keep in mind that you can’t build a site around your online store. There’s only one feature called “Instant Sites” which we’ll discuss later. |
| SEO | ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4/5) | When it comes to SEO in relation to ecommerce platforms, the ability to configure on-page SEO elements is important. With Ecwid, you can configure your title tag and meta-description. However, you can’t manually edit the URL of a product page. |
| Blogging | – | There’s no blogging tool with Ecwid. You can only create an online store, but you can’t build an entire website and publish blog posts. If you’re looking for an All-in-One solution, check out Squarespace. |
| Analytics | – | There’s no inbuilt analytics tool. You can connect Google Analytics to analyze your website stats. I don’t think that this is a huge drawback since Google Analytics is still the best solution in my opinion. |
| Integrations | ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4/5) | Ecwid offers hundreds of apps to extend the functionality of your website. Competitors like Shopify or BigCommerce have more integrations – however, the integrations Ecwid provides are totally enough. |
| Article Management | ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4/5) | Ecwid allows you to track your inventory and set up email alerts when you run out of stock. |
| Product Variants | ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4/5) | You can set up product variants with up to two dimensions. For example, different sizes and colors. |
| Cart Functionality | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5) | Your customers can add multiple products to the cart and you’re also able to send abandoned cart emails. |
| User Ratings | ✓ | Customers can leave their feedback. |
| Payment Options | ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4/5) | Although competitors like Shopify or BigCommerce offer more payment options, Ecwid still provides 70+ payment processors, which is totally fine. |
| Sell Digital Products and Services | ✓ | Sell digital products and services through your online store. |
| Languages | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5) | Ecwid automatically translates your online store into up to 50 languages without the need to create multiple sites. |
| Confirmation Emails | ✓ | You can customize all confirmation emails. |
| Import/Export | ✓ | You can import and export product data in .csv format. |
| Coupon Codes | ✓ | Set up coupon codes for your customers. |
| Customer Login | ✓ | Your customers are able to create a user account and log into your online store. |
| Shipping Charges | ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆(4/5) | Several ways to calculate shipping charges. The best way is to use a direct integration to a shipping service provider like UPS, FedEx, USPS, and many more. They also offer a solution to print shipping labels and save up to 50% on shipping costs. |
| Dropshipping | ✓ | Dropshipping is totally fine with Ecwid. You can use third-party apps like Wholesale2B or Printful for dropshipping. |
| Taxes | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5) | Ecwid uses the IP address of a user to find out its location and automatically displays the relevant tax rate. |
| Customer Service | ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆(4/5) | Ecwid offers chat support and phone support. While you can use the chat support with all paid plans, you’re only able to use the phone support with the Business and Unlimited Plan. |
Ecwid Main Features
Point of Sale
Ecwid provides a Point of Sale functionality to sync all your transactions in one place. No matter if you sell a product through your online store, Instagram, or in your local store – everything stays in sync.
The easiest way to use this Point of Sale functionality is to use PayPal Here. All you need is a chip and swipe reader or a chip and tap reader.
The chip and swipe reader costs $59.99, while the chip and tap reader is $79,99.
Keep in mind that you can only use PayPal Here if your business is based in the US or the UK. You can accept credit card payments abroad, but your business must be based in the US or the UK.
If you’re based outside the US or UK, you can use Ecwid with Vend, Clover, NCR Silver, and Square. These payment processors offer a wider range of hardware and physical retail locations.
Since COVID-19, Ecwid’s Point of Sale functionality is available with all plans.
SEO
You can edit the title tag and meta-description of your product pages manually, but you can’t manually change the URL of a product page. Ecwid takes the title of a product and then automatically generates a URL.
Another disadvantage of Ecwid in terms of SEO is AMP. AMP means Accelerated Mobile Pages – the benefit is that AMP pages load much faster on mobile devices. Google also sometimes highlights AMP pages in carousels and gives them special treatment in search results.
Compared to Shopify and BigCommerce, you can’t create AMP versions of a product page with Ecwid.
However, all in all, Ecwid is still a good solution in terms of SEO. You have to understand that Google rankings are driven by great content and backlinks, rather than technical SEO details.
Payment Processors
You can use 70+ third-party payment processors including PayPal, without any additional fees from Ecwid. The only fees you’ve to pay are the fees of the payment processor.
Payment processors include established providers like:
- Stripe
- Square
- Authorize.Net
- 2Checkout
- Payeezy
- Afterpay
- American Express
- Lots more…
It depends on your location which payment processor you can use. I highly recommend checking out this article from Ecwid.
Compared to Shopify, Ecwid offers fewer payment processors (Shopify offers more than 100). However, 70+ payment processors are still enough – there are solutions in the industry that offer far fewer payment processors than Ecwid.
Integrations
Competitors like Shopify offer more integrations (3000+). However, Ecwid also provides hundreds of apps to extend the functionality of your online store.
They don’t offer as many integrations like Shopify, but it’s definitely enough to build and run a successful online store.
And there’s also one thing that distinguishes Ecwid from all other ecommerce platforms – you can turn any website into an online store with Ecwid.
Here are some examples of the website-integrations:
- Wix
- Weebly
- WordPress
- Squarespace
- Joomla
- Tumblr
- Blogger
- Adobe Muse
However, you can install Ecwid on any website.
You can also easily integrate your Ecwid online store into all your social media profiles. If you’re going for the Ecwid annual Unlimited Plan, you’ll get your own shopping app for iOS and Android for FREE.
Dropshipping
There are two apps available you can use for dropshipping: Printful and Wholesale2B.
Wholesale2B allows you to add products from over 100+ dropshipping suppliers to your online store. Printful is a print-on-demand service you can use to sell all types of clothes with your designs on them.
Other ecommerce platforms offer more opportunities, however, Wholesale2B and Printful are two of the best solutions for dropshipping.
Ecwid Instant Sites
As already mentioned, Ecwid originally has been a product that lets you add an online store to an existing website.
Now, they also let you create Ecwid Instant Sites. An Instant Site is a customizable one-page website with an inbuilt online store. Instant Sites allow you to go online in no-time.
However, although this feature is very useful, it’s not an All-in-One solution – Ecwid still doesn’t provide any blogging tool or a website builder to build an entire online store on their platform alone.
Taxes
Ecwid uses the IP address of a user to find out its location and automatically displays the relevant tax rate. A great thing is that this also applies to digital products and services.
Furthermore, Ecwid complies with EU regulations appropriately, unlike other ecommerce platforms.
Store Translation
A big advantage of Ecwid is that the system can translate your entire online store into up to 50 languages without having to create alternative versions of your sites.
Ecwid detects the IP address of a user to find out where he/she is based and what the native language of the country is.
This is a big benefit of Ecwid since nearly no other ecommerce platform offers this feature. There are some third-party Apps for Shopify and BigCommerce – but they don’t have an inbuilt translation functionality like this.
Multi-Currency Selling
If you sell your products in the local currency of a customer, you’ll get a lot more conversions. There’s an App called “Currency Converter” within Ecwid’s App Store that costs you $4.49 per month.
With this app, you can show the product prices in the customer’s local currency automatically. The only drawback is that the original currency is shown at the final stage of the checkout process.
Shipping Cost Calculation
You can charge your customers a flat fee, calculate shipping costs by weight and dimensions, offer free shipping or use the real-time shipping cost calculation.
For real-time shipping cost calculation Ecwid has integrations with the following shipping service providers:
- UPS
- USPS
- FedEx
- Canada Post
- Royal Mail
- Brasil Correios
- MDS Collivery
- Australia Post
- EMS Russian Post
What’s great is that this real-time shipping calculation feature is available with all Ecwid plans. This is a big pro of Ecwid since other ecommerce platforms don’t offer this feature with every plan.
Support
Ecwid offers two different options to contact customer support:
- Chat Support
- Phone Support
With the Free Plan, you’re not able to contact customer support. But with all paid plans, you can contact Ecwid’s customer support via chat.
If you’re in the Business or Unlimited Plan, you can also contact Ecwid by phone. With the Unlimited Plan, you’ll have priority support. With Business and Unlimited Plan, you’re able to make use of free customization (Business Plan: 2 hours, Unlimited Plan: 12 hours).
Conclusion
Ecwid is a great ecommerce platform with lots of features. Many of Ecwid’s competitors don’t provide functionalities like automatic store translation or automatic shipping cost calculation.
Ecwid also offers a Free Plan with which you can sell your products online.
However, you can’t use Ecwid to build your entire ecommerce business with it. Ecwid doesn’t provide a blogging tool or a website builder to build an entire site around your online store.
But: If you want to sell though social media or have an existing website, Ecwid is a TOP option to consider.
