Getting your business online for the first time can be a difficult task if you have no experience in the online marketing space. You’ll often find that you receive advice telling you to use a website builder, but which one? There are so many options available to you today, do you go for Shopify, Wix, 1-grid or someone else? To help you decide we’ve compared some of the top website builders especially for you.
1. Shopify – an e-commerce giant
- There is no denying that Shopify is a powerful e-commerce platform.
- What it lack’s in capabilities it makes up for by having an endless list of plug-in’s that customers can utilize at an additional cost.
- Their platform is robust and mobile friendly, meaning you only have to build one website that will automatically look good on mobile. However, it is not necessarily tailored towards the smaller business owner looking to set up an online presence for the first time.
- Their pricing model is more premium and doesn’t allow for customers to select a pure website builder, but includes additional products which could be unnecessary when you are just starting out.
- They have a limited number of free templates, making customers pay more to get the template they want.
- In addition, their platform is very ecommerce focused, this means that customers may find it more difficult to create a balance between a website and an e-commerce store.
2. Wix – a beginner-friendly and scalable solution
- Wix has a great track record of being an affordable and easy-to-use website builder.
- Their product allows for customization and caters towards those just starting out and established businesses.
- One of the biggest con’s of Wix for new business owners is that their builder is not necessarily mobile optimized. While your website will probably look okay if you just create a desktop version their product does require you to adjust the mobile version, essentially meaning that you have to spend more time as have to edit both a desktop and mobile site than you would were you to use another platform.
- Wix also began as a website builder and only later added their e-commerce platform. This means that their e-commerce platform is not as strong as their website builder and customers will need to identify how to balance these two parts of their website.
3. 1-grid – keep it simple
- When starting out try not to get ahead of yourself and look for platforms with too many features.
- Keep in mind you will need to work with these platforms and have the capabilities to do so.
- If you have the time to learn and play around with the product, go for it. (Watch this demo, click here) If not, weigh out which platform will be suited to your project goals.
- A great place to start your first website is with a simple solution that can grow with you. The 1-grid website builder is a powerful mobile-first website builder. It is easy to use and has a good balance between the website and e-commerce platforms, giving you the best of both worlds.
- It allows for easy customisation and can be built from within the 1-grid Android and iOS app.
Below we’ve compared the different e-commerce platforms offered by these companies
| Shopify | Wix | 1-grid | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Billing | From R450 | From R290 | From R219 |
| Space | 1GB to Unlimited | 20GB to 50GB | 2GB to unlimited |
| Pages | Unlimited | Unlimited | 35 to unlimited |
| Templates | Depends on theme | Unlimited | 50 to unlimited |
| Themes | 70+ | 6 | 1 |
| Trial | 14-day | No | Money back guaranteed |
| Plugins | Flexible | Flexible | Less flexible |
| Drag-and-drop | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free stock images | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| E-commerce | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| User-friendly | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Coding | Yes | Yes | No |
| Social Widgets | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile optimized | Yes | No | Yes |
