7 Best Online Store Platforms for Small Businesses in 2025

In 2025, there is going to be a significant growth rate in the ecommerce industry, with global online sales projected to exceed $7.5 trillion.

Within the ecosystem, small businesses have a lucrative opportunity to establish their online shop platforms.

Other factors like lower startup costs, broader market reach, and automation capabilities enable launching an online store with enhanced accessibility.

Bringing the platform to the market can only be made possible by partnering with the right platform provider, as they offer secure payment gateways, user-friendly interfaces, SEO tools, mobile responsiveness, and integrations with marketing and analytics tools.

Choosing the best platform to start an online store ensures that small businesses can effectively scale up as the business expands.

Industry reports claim that online store platforms experience 30-40% higher revenue growth by choosing the right platform provider based on business requirements compared to those struggling with outdated or limited solutions.

What is the best online store platform?

The best choice is subjective. While numerous platforms exist in the market, each offering distinct advantages and features, the ideal solution ultimately depends on the specific requirements of individual businesses.

Though a definitive answer may not apply universally, this industry’s immense potential can yield the best results in terms of profitability.

This guide will explore the 7 best online store platforms for small businesses in 2025 to assist you in making an informed decision for your business by familiarizing you with the necessary knowledge to make the right choice by investing in the best online store platform.

Whether you’re seeking to launch a new platform or switch platforms, this blog will help you find the best online store platform.

Key Takeaways

• The tools provided by the platforms enable small businesses to build storefronts, process payments, scale operations, manage marketing and inventory to compete in the marketplace, and reach their target audience.

• Small businesses can reduce overhead costs, access global markets, and increase sales and profitability through automation, analytics, and marketing tools by establishing their own online store.

• The best online store platforms for small businesses prioritize ease of use, mobile optimization, secure payment processing, and scalability to enhance user experience, build trust, and support growth.

• When choosing the best online store platform for small businesses, prioritize ease of use, customization, security, and cost alignment to ensure smooth operations, scalability, and long-term success.

• Avoid choosing a platform based solely on price, underestimating integration needs, overlooking scalability, and ignoring user experience to ensure long-term business success and growth.

Online Store Platform Comparison

The market is crowded with many platform providers, and choosing the best one for your small business requires careful consideration by conducting an online store platform comparison.

Online Store Platforms	SPECIALIZATION	SUITABILITY	TIME TO MARKET
Webnexs	All-In-One Multi-Vendor Solution	Scalable and Multi-Vendor Marketplace Solution	< 1 week
Wcart	Simple and Intuitive Ecommerce	Easy-to-Use and User-Friendly	1 – 2 Days
Shopify	Scalable and Versatile	Rapid Growth and Multi-Channel Integrations	1 – 2 Weeks
Bigcommerce	Advanced Multi-Channel Selling	Advanced and High-Volume Scalability	2 – 3 Weeks

Explore each in-depth and get a holistic perspective for your decision-making.

7 Best Online Store Platforms for Small Businesses

“To lead the industry, you must begin with knowing the industry leaders.”

1. Webnexs
2. Wcart
3. Shopify
4. BigCommerce
5. Squarespace
6. Wix
7. Weebly

This marks your first step in becoming a thriving ecommerce player!

1. Webnexs: The Complete E-commerce Solution for Small Businesses

“Streamlines operations enhances growth potential, and offers custom features to meet the unique requirements of an online shop platform.“

Specialization: All-in-one ecommerce solution

An innovative software company that offers white-label ecommerce platforms for businesses, specializing in customizable solutions and integrations.

It provides a comprehensive online shop platform that is designed to satisfy the diverse requirements of small businesses. Webnexs can cater to businesses with scalability and flexibility needs by offering end-to-end solutions, including website building, product management, and multi-vendor marketplace functionality.

A holistic platform solution is delivered with its seamless integration with payment gateways, highly customizable design options, and robust security features.

Benefits

• Scalability and Customizability: As the platform grows, it can be easily scaled to meet evolving needs to stay in line with market demands. Additionally, its customizability helps align the online store with its brand.
• Enhanced Security: Small businesses can focus only on operating and expanding their business online, without worrying about security breaches or technical limitations, as robust measures are implemented to ensure secure functionality.
• SEO-Friendly Tools: Their platform is designed to be search engine optimized. It ensures that small businesses are equipped to compete in search rankings by optimizing URL structure, meta tags, and images.

Features

• Customizable Storefronts: Adapt the online store’s visual appeal to reflect brand elements with an intuitive drag-and-drop builder.
• Product Management: Facilitates the integration of products by adding, categorizing, and managing them, including inventory tracking.
• Mobile Optimization: The platform is designed to work well across all devices, making it fully responsive for a seamless experience.

Time-to-market: < 1 week

Suitability: For small businesses needing scalability, customization, rapid development, and robust support.

2. Wcart: A Focused Ecommerce Platform for Small Businesses

“Drives growth by offering specialized tools, simplified management, and better scalability with minimal complexity on an online shop platform.“

Specialization: Simple and intuitive ecommerce

SaaS-based ecommerce platform with various tools and integrations for building online stores, focusing on flexibility and scalability.

Wcart is a straightforward platform for small businesses aiming for a simple setup process. Its highly user-friendly interface requires only minimal effort to enable the platform’s functionality.
By focusing on delivering essential features, it positions itself as a no-frills platform solution.

With simplicity, Wcart can deliver a platform that has an easier operational flow and high scalability for the future.

Benefits

• Easy-to-Use: Prior technical expertise is not required to build the online store. Small businesses can handle the intuitive interface, making the building process easy.
• Pre-Built Themes: A range of pre-built and mobile-optimized themes are provided to help businesses launch their online store quickly.
• Customization Options: The platform can be modified to reflect the brand elements and integrate others, such as logos, colors, product categories, and additional pages.

Features

• Payment Gateways: It integrates well with payment processors like Stripe, PayPal, and others to ensure smooth transactions.
• SEO Optimization: Built-in SEO tools come with the platform to improve search rankings and increase visibility to drive more traffic.
• Mobile-Friendly Design: Mobile optimization is prioritized to ensure that the online store performs well across a range of devices.

Time-to-market: 1 – 2 Days

Suitability: For small businesses seeking to work with a simple solution while ensuring quality at every stage of the process.

3. Shopify: Leading Ecommerce Platform for Scalability

“Seamless scalability to accommodate growth with advanced features and reliable infrastructure on an online shop platform.“

Specialization: Scalable and versatile growth platform

A leading ecommerce platform provider known for its extensive app ecosystem that enables businesses to create, manage, and scale online stores with ease.

Shopify is a renowned online store solution provider globally, catering to businesses of all sizes and providing professional websites. It offers a wide range of customizable templates, integrated payment processing, and other features that enhance functionality. It has become a preferred option for platforms seeking to grow quickly.

Over the years, it has achieved global dominance in the ecommerce space and has driven innovative solutions to empower businesses.

Benefits

• Global Reach: It supports multiple languages, payment methods, and currencies to help businesses expand across borders.
• App Ecosystem: It allows businesses to integrate third-party tools and services to optimize the online shop’s performance.
• Powerful Marketing Tools: It comes with built-in marketing features such as social media integration, email marketing, and referral programs.

Features

• Unlimited Products: The number of products that can be listed for sale by various vendors is unlimited, along with unlimited bandwidth.
• Secure Payments: The platform is compatible with a variety of payment gateways that come with built-in fraud protection.
• Mobile Optimized: Their templates are fully responsive to deliver a smooth experience on mobile devices.

Time-to-market: 1 – 2 weeks

Suitability: For businesses requiring rapid growth with scalable features and multi-channel integration.

4. BigCommerce – Advanced Ecommerce for Growth

“Enables effortless growth while requiring less concern about performance issues or high transaction fees, driving the online shop platform toward betterment.”

Specialization: Advanced multi-channel selling

A cloud-based ecommerce platform that caters to large-scale and enterprise-level businesses
by providing advanced tools to grow and manage online sales.

It can incorporate a wide range of features, offering capabilities that go beyond basic functionalities. It supports high-volume stores with its advanced tools, multi-channel selling, detailed analytics, and seamless integrations with leading payment gateways.

Its robustness in scalability and flexibility is designed to help businesses improve operational efficiency and reach a global audience.

Benefits

• Comprehensive Features: An array of advanced features, such as multi-channel selling, product reviews, and detailed analytics, is provided.
• SEO Tools: Search engine visibility can be improved with built-in SEO features such as optimized URLs and metadata.
• Security: Compliance with PCI DSS is ensured for hosting, and robust security protocols are implemented to maintain the confidentiality of business data.

Features

• Multi-Channel Integration: Other channels can be integrated for selling across multiple touchpoints, such as Amazon, eBay, and social media platforms.
• Abandoned Cart Recovery: Automated recovery emails can be set up to recover abandoned carts and boost conversions.
• Payment Flexibility: A wide range of secure and convenient payment gateways is provided, including PayPal, Square, and Apple Pay.

Time-to-market: 2 – 3 weeks

Suitability: For businesses requiring high-volume capacity, advanced features, and multi-channel or B2B/B2C integration.

5. Squarespace: A Simple Platform for Elegant Stores

“Build visually appealing online stores with elegant designs and intuitive customization options to create unique and professional websites.”

Specialization: Design-focused and user-friendly platform for creatives

A website builder known for its elegant designs and professionally designed templates, making it user-friendly without requiring advanced technical skills.

It provides an easy setup procedure by enabling a drag-and-drop builder to simplify the process. Additionally, it offers built-in marketing tools, mobile optimization, and secure payment processing. By focusing on these aspects, their online shop platforms serve niche requirements and enable businesses to thrive in the online marketplace.

It has consistently ranked highly in reviews and has become a go-to choice for creatives, earning several design accolades.

Benefits

• Beautiful Templates: By prioritizing aesthetics and simplicity, Squarespace excels in delivering sleek, modern, and responsive design templates.
• Drag-and-Drop Builder: Facilitates easy customization of the platform without prior coding knowledge, widening the scope for building the platform.
• Integrated Tools: Built-in tools for email marketing, social media integration, and product management are provided for efficient management.

Features

• Unlimited Products: The number of products that can be listed is unlimited, with features like inventory tracking and discount codes.
• Mobile-Responsive Designs: A fully responsive website is offered to deliver an optimal viewing experience.
• Secure Transactions: SSL certificates encrypt communication to ensure secure transactions between parties.

Time-to-market: < 1 week

Suitability: For businesses prioritizing a design-driven store that is sleek, with minimal setup and a focus on visual appeal.

6. Wix: Flexibility with Customizable Design

“High level of design flexibility allows users to build personalized websites reflecting brand identity and individual style, requiring no technical expertise.”

Specialization: Customizable and user-friendly solution

A popular cloud-based website builder that caters to both personal projects and complex business ventures by offering a variety of design and template options.

An excellent choice for small and medium-sized businesses looking to create a unique online store, it provides a wide range of design options, a drag-and-drop interface, and extensive customization features. It has become a go-to platform for establishing an online presence efficiently.

A highly flexible pricing model allows businesses to choose from a variety of plans that suit their requirements, making it a versatile choice.

Benefits

• Ease of Use: The drag-and-drop builder enables even beginners to create a professional-looking store.
• Design Flexibility: A vast selection of design templates and customization options allows users to create a unique platform.
• App Market: Enhances the platform’s capabilities with third-party applications and integrations.

Features

• Variety of Payment Methods: Compatible with popular and secure payment gateways such as Wix Payments, PayPal, and Stripe.
• SEO Tools: SEO-friendly features such as meta tags, alt text, and optimized URLs improve search engine visibility.
• Analytics: Built-in analytics allow users to track store performance and gain insights into key metrics for data-driven decisions.

Time-to-market: < 1 week

Suitability: Ideal for businesses seeking full control over customization and flexibility with easy-to-use ecommerce features.

7. Weebly: Cheapest Online Store Platform

Specialization: Simple and streamlined platform

A website builder, acquired by Block Inc., that provides tools for creating websites and online stores for small businesses. It is an easy-to-use and cost-effective platform.

Weebly focuses on delivering online shop platforms that require minimal effort to set up.  This is achieved through a drag-and-drop interface and pre-designed templates. Store management is simplified by prioritizing usability and efficiency, ensuring businesses can operate smoothly without technical complexities.

Following its acquisition, Weebly has expanded its feature set, benefiting businesses with enhanced tools and integrations. This partnership has strengthened Weebly’s position as one of the most popular website builders for small businesses. The seamless integration with Square’s tools has further increased its appeal as a reliable and efficient platform.

Benefits

• Affordable Pricing Plans: Offers a cost-effective solution with essential features, making it ideal for businesses that need an easy-to-use platform for building online stores.
• Ease of Use: Enables businesses to create and launch professional online stores without requiring technical or coding skills.
• Built-In Marketing Tools: Integrated SEO and marketing features help improve search engine rankings and drive traffic with minimal effort.

Features

• Mobile Optimization: Provides a fully responsive experience, ensuring seamless functionality across all devices.
• Secure Checkout: Built-in SSL encryption ensures a safe and reliable checkout process, supporting multiple payment gateways.
• Unlimited Storage: Allows businesses to list unlimited products and scale effortlessly without requiring additional operations.

Time-to-market: ≤ 1 week

Suitability: Best suited for small businesses looking for an affordable, easy-to-use platform with essential ecommerce functionalities.

How Do Online Store Platforms Empower Small Businesses?

These platforms are software solutions designed to enable businesses to create, manage, and operate ecommerce websites.

Small businesses take advantage of these online shop platforms to reach their target audience by offering user-friendly tools for building storefronts, processing payments, handling marketing, and managing inventory.

Furthermore, with the scalability and integration capabilities of the platform, operations can be streamlined, the reach can be expanded, and they become equipped to compete in the marketplace.

As a result, small businesses can gain a 5-20% increase in profit margins.

Why Should Small Businesses Consider Building An Online Store Platform?

Online stores can process up to 25 sales in the time it takes to complete one sale in a brick-and-mortar store.

With the increasing cost of overheads of brick-and-mortar stores and the competition from established chains of large-scale enterprises, small businesses face major challenges in competing and gaining a significant portion of the market share. The best online store platform for small businesses can help overcome these obstacles by offering cost-effective solutions.

They claim to have restricted growth and limited potential for increased revenue. That said, an alternative option to explore would be the online shop platform. It can eliminate some of these disadvantages and create a new scope for growth as a new opportunity.

Firstly, it opens up access to newer markets by eliminating geographical barriers to connecting to a global audience, increasing sales opportunities by 30-50%. The automation features provided by the platform reduce overhead costs by 15-25%.

Additionally, the analytics tools enable data-driven decisions, which improve customer engagement by 25-40% and conversion rates by 10-30%. The platform’s built-in marketing tools drive more traffic by 20-40%, increasing sales by 15-25%. On the whole, these lead to higher profit margins of 10-20%.

Ultimately, small businesses are provided with an opportunity to gain visibility and profitability by competing effectively.

Factors to Consider When Choosing the Best Online Store Platform for Small Businesses

The importance of considering the factors before committing to a platform provider lies in the fact that there is a lock-up of financial and business information with the vendor, which poses potential risks to rely on a third-party, but these can be mitigated by choosing the right criteria to evaluate the providers in the market. There are many criteria, but the primary and essential ones are listed below.

Ease of Use

Small businesses may struggle to set up their platform if user-friendliness is missing. This can lead to a delay in the time-to-market of the store, increased reliance on technical support teams and their interference, and difficulty in managing inventory, orders, and customer interactions. These can eventually hinder business efficiency. Choosing the best online store platform for a small business can potentially avoid these challenges.

77% of small business owners choose a platform based on how easy it is to use. This can increase the profitability of your platform by 20-30% through faster onboarding, reduced training costs, and improved operational efficiency.

Customization & Scalability

The absence of customization and scalability can cause major limitations in fully developing the platform to match branding elements, customer preferences, and functionalities. Without this feature, the platform would not be future-ready to accommodate the evolving needs of the business. If this feature is not integrated, platform switching would be the only option, which leads to costly migrations and disruptions to existing smooth operations.

A lack of this feature can result in 40-50% higher costs for platforms. On the flip side, if your platform comes with customization and scalability it can result in 20-40% higher profitability.

Security & Payment Options

The platform is vulnerable to data breaches, fraudulent transactions, and other security vulnerabilities. A lack in the security features would further expose them to threats and attacks. Choosing the best platform to start an online store with robust security measures is crucial, as weak security systems can lead to a tarnished reputation that affects both long-term growth and the current customer base.

18% of customers abandon their carts due to concerns about security. In contrast, if you secure your platform, it can reduce cart abandonment by 30-40%, lower the risk of data breaches by up to 50%, and increase sales by 15-20%.

Cost & Pricing

Consider the detailed breakdown of the cost and align the budget with the cost breakdown. Analyze the business requirements before committing to a platform provider. There should be a match between the requirements and the expenditure to ensure financial constraints are avoided, the ability to scale is not limited, profitability is not affected, and establishing and maintaining long-term sustainability is not threatened.

Around 40% to 60% of new ecommerce players are likely to lose money due to misaligned budgets. Ensuring proper alignment prevents overpaying, which can save costs by 20-30%, positively impacting profitability with a 15-25% increase.

Read More: Ecommerce Development Guide: 7 Stages to Success

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Selecting the Best Online Store Platform

Choosing Based on Price Alone

While budget sets the bracket for selecting a platform provider, focusing solely on price can limit your perspective, ignoring other significant factors and essential features crucial for the functionality of the platform. If the cheapest online store platform is chosen, the limitations might not be visible at the surface level, but in the long run, they will resurface in various ways, highlighting the need for newer integrations.

48% of businesses report that choosing a platform based on pricing alone hinders their ability to provide a seamless customer experience while prioritizing value over cost will ensure that it doesn’t result in unexpected migration or additional costs in the future.

Underestimating Integration Needs

The importance of integrations lies in operating a store that is devoid of inefficiencies, errors, and manual workflows. This results in delayed processes, wastage of resources, and increased complexity. Proper integrations streamline operations and can enhance customer experience to ensure data consistency across all business aspects.

85% of businesses report improved operational efficiency after integrations. The benefits further multiply by yielding higher order accuracy up to 95%, leading to 15-25% revenue growth and improved profit margins by 10-20% for your platform.

Overlooking Scalability

Businesses evolve, and their needs change over time. To accommodate such changes, a future-proofed platform is essential. Scalability is the answer to this, but while integrating this, it is critical to ensure that the platform can be scaled without compromising performance and causing disruptions to existing operations.

61% of businesses experience website downtime or slow loading times during peak traffic periods without scalability. But if you consider not making this mistake then your platform is 2.4 times more likely to experience revenue growth of 20% or more.

Ignoring User Experience

When users browse your store, intuitiveness is a key component that determines their dwell time. Complex navigability can frustrate the user, increasing bounce rates. As a result, conversion rates will stagnate, and missed sales opportunities will increase. Your audience will include tech-savvy customers as well as new technology users. Catering to all levels of knowledge is key to reaching a larger audience. The best platform to start an online store is the one that considers UI & UX as its primary focus.

88% of online shoppers are less likely to return to a site after a bad user experience. On the other hand, if your website is user-friendly then you can experience minimal bounce rates, an increase in average session duration, sales, and customer loyalty.

Developing the Best Online Shop Platform with Webnexs

You are not just building a website, you are building a business.
You are not just looking for a platform, you are planting for success.
You are not just looking for a provider, you are merging with another business.

Website. Platform. And Provider.

Each of these represents a deeper meaning that goes beyond surface-level perception. The success of your online store hinges on the partnership of two key businesses. This underscores the importance of establishing your business strategically and choosing the best platform to start an online store to translate your vision into reality.

At Webnexs, we take a considerate approach to handling our clients by equipping you to navigate both opportunities and challenges with confidence, while you focus on your core business operations. We can instill this hope into you as we are adept at creating not just practical solutions but ones that are reliable as well.

Our team will work closely with you to understand your requirements and incorporate them into the platform. This unified, flexible approach will quickly adapt the platform to reflect your needs, enabling a faster time-to-market scenario.

Wrapping up

Statistical numbers prove this to be an optimistic opportunity. The potential of the industry is enormous. When the pawns are moved strategically, a successful online store can be established. But remember to avoid common mistakes to ensure consistency in reaping the benefits of strategically devised business plans.

While your platform provider is primarily responsible for the success or failure of your online store, it ultimately traces back to your choice of the best online store platform for small businesses.