After months of testing, we have chosen the safest, quickest and simplest to use solutions for you to craft a robust dropshipping store in minutes. You'll be able to start selling within a few hours – with no programming or web development experience necessary. Best of luck!
How Do We Rank These Ecommerce Platforms?
Finally, before we wrap up, here’s our ranking of the best ecommerce platforms for dropshipping:
- Shopify: It’s a feature-rich eCommerce platform with great ease of use and scalability, as well as plenty of dropshipping integrations
- Wix: Best for ease of use. Its design freedom is also pretty good, and its higher plans have built-in dropshipping functionality. Wix also has a good range of apps and native selling tools available.
- Sellfy: Useful for dropshipping merchants that want to sell merchandise to their existing community and don’t need a full-fledged online store.
- BigCommerce: Best dropshipping solution for larger global businesses that operate in multiple currencies and want to use powerful marketing features.
What Are the Best Ecommerce Platforms for Dropshipping?
Shopify
Where ecommerce platforms are concerned, there's no name as frequently talked about as “Shopify.” There are plenty of reasons why the platform enjoys such a sterling reputation and is one of the best eCommerce platforms for dropshipping.
In a nutshell, Shopify provides a complete kit of online selling, eCommerce store management, and marketing tools right out of the box to make eCommerce store creation straightforward. In addition, Shopify comes with a POS app, abandoned cart recovery functionality, an intuitive dashboard, powerful analytics, and you can list unlimited products – to name a few of its many features!
Once you've signed up for your free trial/price plan, to hit the ground running, you:
- Chose your preferred option from a selection of templates,
- Customize it to suit your brand
- Finetune how to display your products and product variants. In addition,
It's also worth noting that with Shopify, you can sell any product nearly anywhere. Shopify supports multiple sales channels, including Facebook, Amazon, Pinterest, eBay, and more. In addition, you can add buy buttons to other websites, blogs, or social media.
The platform also supports an array of payment gateways. However, if you want to use anything other than Shopify's native payment processor (Shopify Payments), you’ll incur a 2% transaction fee.
Shopify also boasts one of the most comprehensive app directories of any eCommerce platform. As a result, new tools frequently make it their priority to integrate with Shopify from the get-go. So, with that in mind, it's unsurprising that its dropshipping integrations are plentiful, including heavy hitters such as Spocket, Printful, DSers, PODpartner, Printify, AutoDS, CJDropshipping, and more.
There are several Shopify pricing plans, but the good news is that even the Standard plan (starting at $29 a month with monthly billing) comes packed full of fantastic selling features and includes everything you need to launch and run a functional dropshipping business. Chances are you’ll only need to upgrade once your business scales, and you need more in-depth reporting and a greater number of staff accounts and inventory locations.
Read our full Shopify review here.
Wix
Many newbie online sellers turn to drop shipping because of its ease. So, if you’re looking for the best ecommerce platform for dropshipping in terms of user-friendliness, Wix is a top contender.
For starters, Wix provides over 800 themes, which can then be customized using its intuitive drag-and-drop editor. In addition, everything inside the editor is tutorialized. So, when you hover over a button inside Wix’s editor, it immediately describes what it does. Overall, Wix has done an excellent job of ensuring every aspect of its editor is as quick, fun, and accessible to use as possible.
Wix also offers a solid range of eCommerce features. For instance, it allows you to sell unlimited products and subscriptions. It also comes with abandoned cart recovery, supports multiple currencies, automatically calculates sales tax (with the Avalara integration), and facilitates omnichannel sales strategies on online marketplaces and social channels. Some of its higher plans also come with dropshipping by Modalyst built in, allowing you to add up to 250 products on the Business Unlimted plan or unlimited products on the higher-tier Business VIP plan.
However, its dropshipping integrations aren’t as generous as Shopify’s, but they’re still very decent. For example, you can integrate with Printify, Spocket, 365Dropship, and Printful. In total, Wix has 36 apps listed under dropshipping that you download from Wix's App Market.
Like Shopify, Wix has its own app market with hundreds of free and paid widgets and apps. As such, you won’t struggle to add functionality to your Wix website as your business grows.
But, one downside is that Wix limits storage and access to various features behind various paywalls, perhaps more severely than some of its competitors. I.e., you’ll need to spend more money to access a broader range of eCommerce features. Also, overall, its online selling tools aren’t quite as advanced as Shopify. For instance, Wix doesn’t support as many payment gateways, and unlike Shopify, you’ll need an app to generate revenue reports and access visitor analytics. However, what Wix lacks in sophisticated sales tools certainly makes up for in user experience!
BigCommerce
Do you dream of launching an international business using an eCommerce platform with every possible sales feature at your disposal? If so, BigCommerce could be your best eCommerce platform for drop shipping. Its features are immensely extensive, outdoing even Shopify in some regards.
While this solution comes with a steeper learning curve, you’ll have access to the following:
- Plenty of built-in marketing tools, such as a one-click Google Shopping integration, customer segmentation to enable more targetted marketing efforts, and large-scale omnichannel selling across social media
- 24/7 support
- A range of apps to choose from
- Multiple currencies
- As many staff accounts as you want
- A built-in blog
- An advanced abandoned cart tool
…and much more.
Unlike Shopify, BigCommerce doesn’t charge extra transaction fees for using any of the payment processors it supports. However, while BigCommerce doesn’t impose transaction fees, it limits how much yearly revenue you can generate on each plan. Once you hit this threshold, you’re forced to upgrade, which means growing businesses have no choice but to eventually spend more.
It’s also worth noting that compared to Wix and Shopify, you can’t customize quite as many aspects of your homepage. For instance, with BigCommerce, you can’t add native content blocks for signup forms or blog post segments. You should also be prepared to pay for a premium theme, many of which are expensive. While BigCommerce currently has 12 free themes, the rest are paid-for, starting at $150 upwards.
BigCommerce has a good selection of dropshipping integrations in its app store, though they’re a little hidden. Not all options come up under the “Drop Ship” category. Instead, it would be best to search for apps using the term “Dropship.” With this little trick, however, you’ll find apps like Spocket, Printful, Spreadr, Sunrise, Wholesale 2B, and Ali-Express Dropshipping.
Squarespace
If web design is your focus, this is where Squarespace really shines. Out of all the best eCommerce platforms for dropshipping, Squarespace works wonders for highlighting the visual appeal of your products and designs.
Squarespace has more than 100 beautiful themes meticulously created by web design professionals. These templates excel at displaying full-width images in high resolution. Squarespace also comes with a range of handy image-editing features. For example, the platform can automatically resize images to suit your viewer’s screen size. You can also apply filters, crops, contrast, and other edits to each photo you upload. This makes it easy to ensure all your dropshipping product images look cohesive!
However, unlike the previous platforms discussed in this list, Squarespace doesn’t have an extensive app store. Instead, it endeavors to provide all the features you might need in-built. This includes a suite of marketing features, a blog, an eCommerce toolkit, SEO features, and even a video maker. It also comes with in-built email marketing. All plans start with a free trial of Squarespace’s email campaign panel. This allows you to send up to three campaigns a month. After that, there’s the Starter plan for $5 a month (billed annually).
That said, Squarespace’s options are somewhat limited where dropshipping is concerned. For example, it integrates with Printful and Spocket. Still, from what we can tell, there are only five native dropshipping and POD integrations.
Square Online
Square Online is the best option for not breaking the bank. In fact, with Square Online, you only have to pay for payment processing, which ranges from 1.75% to 2.9% on each sale you make. But bear in mind that depending on your dropshipping product's base price and shipping costs, you may find these transaction fees eat too far into your profits. So, do some calculations first to determine whether Square Online is a cost-effective choice for your dropshipping business.
That said, this eCommerce platform comes with a wide range of nice-looking themes. You can also grab more sophisticated paid themes on ThemeForest. Additionally, Square Online’s features are pretty easy to use overall. There’s a solid selection, including basic inventory management features, hosting, and seamless integration with other Square products. You can also sell on Facebook and Instagram.
However, you have to upgrade to a paid plan to unlock more advanced features like abandoned cart recovery, advanced reporting, and product reviews. These features only become available on its Performance plan at $29 per month.
Unfortunately, the sophistication of Square Online’s features is generally reflected in its affordability. It has severe limitations, like being unable to adjust shipping rates. Its customer service is frequently criticized, and its customization options are limited. For instance, you can play with basic elements like logos, fonts, and shapes. However, it doesn’t give you the same degree of layout flexibility and access to content blocks that the likes of Shopify have.
So don’t expect to get very creative with your web design with Square Online.
Square Online also only started to offer dropshipping functionality relatively recently (as of 2021) and subsequently only has a few integrations: Printful and Spocket. While these are good options, some merchants might want a greater selection of dropshipping apps to choose from.
Sellfy
Few of the eCommerce platforms mentioned above were created with dropshipping as their primary focus. However, Sellfy, on the other hand, did exactly that. It’s an eCommerce tool designed for creators that want to sell branded print-on-demand (POD) merchandise to their existing audience. This makes it ideal for webcomics, YouTube creators, twitch streamers, influencers, podcasters, etc.
Sellfy’s product catalog includes mugs, tote bags, phone cases, canvases, and apparel. However, it spreads itself a little thin, being both an eCommerce platform and a print on Demand service in one. As such, its catalog isn’t anywhere near as extensive as other POD platforms like Printify. It also doesn’t offer much in terms of web design, as the templates are all quite basic, and you can’t customize much more than your color scheme, fonts, and brand logo.
It also comes with an entirely free plan that allows you to list up to ten items. In contrast, paid plans come with unlimited products and subscriptions. f you lock yourself into a two-year contract, Sellfy’s fees are pretty affordable at $19 per month. It’s also worth mentioning that You can sell via your Sellfy website or add a buy button to another blog or site. Lastly, you can also benefit from basic email marketing.
Overall, Sellfy is certainly too limiting for general eCommerce stores looking to scale this business. However, in our search for the best eCommerce platforms for dropshipping, it deserves a spot for its intuitiveness and in-built POD. This platform is a good pick for those with simple needs who just want to sell a few items on the side of their current operations.
We’ve taken a closer look at Selffy in our review here.
Ecwid
Ecwid is a headless ecommerce solution that won’t be for everyone. To those unaware, a headless ecommerce platform comes with all the code and features you need to sell, manage and organize products. However, it isn’t attached to a hosted website solution. Instead, you can run code snippets on your existing website or blog to insert Ecwid’s shopping cart features wherever you need them.
Handily, this means you can also sell via Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, and eBay. But the downside is that you don’t get access to default storefront templates, and customization options for Ecwid’s cart inserts are pretty limited. For instance, you can tweak the product layout arrangement and item alignment. Still, unless you have CSS coding smarts, that’s about it. As such, Ecwid comes with more of a learning curve if you want to make the most of it.
Notable features include:
- Managing social media ads.
- Creating tax invoices.
- Offering discount codes and gift cards, and more – all from the convenience of your Ecwid dashboard.
You can also access Ecwid’s app store from this same dashboard, where you’ll find various plugins to extend Ecwid’s base functionality.
However, if you need a full-fledged eCommerce store, Ecwid likely isn’t the option for you. Other options like Squarespace or Shopify have more to offer and come with a fully hosted website that can be customized more freely. Most eCommerce platforms also have more comprehensive SEO features. For example, Ecwid doesn’t allow you to edit product URLs which isn’t great if you’re looking to target a particular keyword.
On its free plan, you can sell up to ten products. Unfortunately, unlimited products are only available on the much more expensive Unlimted plan, starting at $99 a month when billed monthly. But the good news is that every plan comes with unlimited bandwidth and storage and a promising selection of dropshipping integrations you can find and install on Ecwid’s app market. This includes Pritnful, Wholesale2B, Spocket, Syncee, Alibaba, NextsChain, Printy6, Sup Dropshipping, and Xcatalog.
Webflow
Webflow is an ecommerce platform that prides itself on returning to good old-fashioned web-design practices without coding. It uses jargon relevant to traditional web design, so the learning curve might be steep for some. For instance, you must familiarize yourself with symbols, blending modes, padding and margins, and more.
However, Webflow’s editor offers perhaps the most design freedom out of any eCommerce platform on the market. You can design your online store using a pixel-perfect grid where you can place elements anywhere you want. You can even finetune layers and typography, edit your images, apply global styles and color schemes across your website, and much more.
Webflow’s editor is also great for agencies. Not least because it has several collaboration features. For example, different editing modes control what changes users can make and the ability to see who’s working on the same page as you. It also lets you build several sites simultaneously.
However, eCommerce is a relatively new addition to Webflow (from 2019) and, as such, feels a little limiting in places. For example, setting up a blog with Webflow is much more complicated than competitors like BigCommerce and Wix. There also isn’t native abandoned cart recovery, no POS integrations, and you can’t display products in multiple currencies.
Similarly, Webflow’s dropshipping integrations are few and far between (they have Printful, and that’s it). Lacking native dropshipping integrations means you might not be able to import products as quickly. In the worst case, you may be forced to create orders manually or create a workaround to integrate with your chosen dropshipping platform using Zapier.
Weebly
Finally, we’ll round off our best eCommerce platforms for dropshipping with Weebly. Out of this list, Weebly is the most similar to Wix. For instance, it features a wide range of easily customizable templates, which you can modify using an intuitive drag-and-drop editor.
This ease of use makes it an attractive option for beginners or those that want to get up and running quickly – which is often perfect for dropshipping merchants! In addition, Weebly integrates with popular dropshipping apps like Oberlo, Wholesale2b, InventorySource, printful, Merch38, and more.
It’s worth noting that Weebly’s parent company is Square. As such, its payment processing is handled entirely by Square, and so is its POS.
You can sell physical and digital products and accept various currencies. In addition, with Weebly’s paid plans, you can:
- List unlimited products
- Present more than one product variant
- Create coupons
- Generate shipping labels
- Sell gift cards
For marketing purposes, you can create popup notifications and generate leads with capture forms to publish on your website.
Also, like Wix, Weebly features an App Store where you’ll find plenty of useful widgets. This allows you to add features that Weebly’s native functionality lacks, like customer reviews or a blog.
Anything Else I Need to Know Before Launching My Dropshipping Store?
Dropshipping is a quick, easy, and cheap way to start your own online store. But before you start, it’s essential to consider that dropshipping is a business like any other. This means that you get out of it what you put in, and often you’ll need to spend time and money to make money.
So, to run a successful dropshipping business, you’ll need an effective marketing and selling strategy, as well as a good-looking site. You’ll also need to think carefully about your store’s niche and branding before picking the right eCommerce platform for your needs. Then, with this at the forefront of your mind, list all the features you’ll need to create a successful and engaging customer experience. Many dropshipping businesses are on the web, so what will make yours different? Then use this list to guide your purchasing decisions.
It’s also worth noting that while it’s important to pick a solution that fits your budget, consider whether you’ll be able to grow with your chosen platform. Lastly, we suggest researching which dropshipping suppliers offer the best products for your niche and selecting an eCommerce platform that supports your choice.
To help you budget ahead of time, here are a few costs to keep in mind:
- Your own domain name ($10-$20 per year)
- Premium themes (Often upwards of $100)
- Your monthly eCommerce platform subscription (On average $29 per month)
- Sample products from your chosen dropshipping suppliers
- Premium plugins and apps for SEO, marketing, customization, etc.
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