Hi all.
I’m Matt Walsh from Style Factory, the go-to site for ecommerce advice and reviews.
In this Ecwid review, I’m going to spell out the key pros and cons of an ecommerce
tool that aims to let you turn any website into an online store.
But before I get into the good things and bad things about Ecwid, let’s take a quick
look at how it actually works.
Ecwid gives you a code snippet — or ‘widget’ — that you place on other sites.
In fact, this is where the platform gets its name: it’s short for ‘Ecommerce Widget.’
Your online store’s products and catalogs are displayed wherever you’ve added this
widget, and this lets you turn any online presence into an online store.
Recently Ecwid added some new functionality, called ‘Instant Sites’, that also lets
you create a standalone store using the platform.
However, by comparison to the sort of standalone online stores you can create with dedicated
store builders like BigCommerce and Shopify, Ecwid Instant Sites are very basic.
The platform’s key strengths lie in its ability to let you add sophisticated selling
tools to existing websites.
With Ecwid’s background out of the way, let’s take a look at how good it is for
building an online store with.
I’m going to walk you through the 5 key reasons to use Ecwid — and the five reasons
to avoid it.
Let’s start with the good stuff about Ecwid.
One — there’s a fully functional free plan available for Ecwid.
Lots of online store builders give you access to a free trial — but Ecwid gives you indefinite
access to a free plan.
And it’s actually very functional too, allowing you to sell up to 10 products on your existing
website, or build a simple one-page standalone store.
Check out the video description for a link to the free Ecwid plan.
Two — Ecwid is easy to use and implement.
It’s very easy to create an online store with Ecwid.
Its interface is well-thought out and using it doesn’t involve much of a learning curve.
It’s also easy to implement Ecwid on your website — you simply grab a few lines of
code from Ecwid, add them to your site, and all your products and catalogs are immediately
displayed on it.
So if you have an existing website that you’re happy with, but want to start selling with,
Ecwid is potentially a very good choice for you.
Three — it gives you a comprehensive range of selling tools.
Ecwid ticks all the key boxes when it comes to selling tools.
Its ecommerce features include automatic tax calculation, abandoned cart recovery, point
of sale selling, multi-currency pricing, and real-time carrier shipping.
In short, Ecwid gives you all the main tools you’ll need to create a truly professional
online store.
Four — it’s good for selling in multiple languages.
You are more likely to make international sales if you present your storefront in your
store visitors’ own language, and Ecwid makes it easy to do this.
Its built-in multilingual features let you translate your site easily into over 50 different
languages, giving you a much better chance of generating conversions abroad.
Five — Ecwid’s Instant Site feature gives you a quick and cheap way to build a standalone
store.
Ecwid’s ‘Instant Site’ feature is great for building a really simple online store,
really quickly.
It gives you access to a wide range of attractive templates that are easy to populate with business
content, and add your products to.
And this ‘Instant Site’ feature is available across all Ecwid plans, meaning you can use
the feature very cheaply — or even for free.
So those were the 5 key reasons we think Ecwid is worthy of serious consideration as your
ecommerce solution.
But what could it do better?
I’ll come to that in just a moment, but before I do, make sure you like this video,
subscribe to our channel and hit the notifications bell.
This gives you easier access to all our ecommerce reviews and tips.
Now, let’s take a look at the 5 key reasons not to use Ecwid.
One — the SEO features could be better.
Although Ecwid does a lot right when it comes to SEO, there are areas where improvements
could be made.
Worth a particular mention on this front is the fact that you can’t edit product URLs
— you’re stuck with whatever Ecwid generates.
And creating URL redirects isn’t possible either.
Two — the multi-currency pricing doesn’t display local currencies at checkout.
Although Ecwid lets you use a currency converter app to display your products’ prices in
local currencies, when your store visitors go to check out, they’ll see your store’s
default currency again, not their own.
This is a bit confusing and can negatively affect conversion rates.
Three — you can’t use product variants on all plans.
On its free and entry level plans, Ecwid doesn’t let you present your products in different
variations — size, color, shape and so on.
Competing ecommerce solutions don’t tend to place this restriction on product variants,
so it’s a thumbs down for Ecwid here.
Four — a limited number of apps and integrations is available for Ecwid.
If you want to integrate Ecwid with lots of other tools, or extend its functionality,
you may be a bit disappointed — its apps and integrations store is lightly stocked.
Other ecommerce platforms, especially Shopify, tend to offer their merchants a much wider
range of integrations with third-party services, as well as apps that add more features to
their stores.
Five — the Instant Site feature is not yet a substitute for a professional, standalone
store.
While Ecwid’s Instant Site feature is definitely useful in some contexts, it’s no substitute
for the sort of standalone store that you can build with BigCommerce or Shopify.
It only lets you create one page on your site, and significantly, it doesn’t come with
professional blogging tools.
Since blogging is usually a key part of attracting traffic to a website, this omission puts sites
built with the feature at a disadvantage.
So there you go — 5 key reasons to choose Ecwid as your online store builder, and 5
key reasons to think twice about it.
We hope you’ve found this video review helpful, but if you’d like to learn more about Ecwid,
you’ll find a full, in-depth review of the platform on the Style Factory website.
There’s a link to this below, along with a link to a free Ecwid trial.
Before you go, please remember to subscribe to our channel and click the notifications
bell.
This will give you easier access to all the Style Factory ecommerce content.
And finally, if you have any questions about Ecwid, just pop them in the comments section
below.
We read them all and will do our best to help.