Ecwid Reviews

The Shopping Cart That Helps You Sell Smart

Regardless of whether you’ve already built your website or are just thinking about starting an online store business, our Ecwid review shows that this software has everything to help you start selling in under an hour. The platform features a simple website builder tool that creates websites instantly. After that, users can tweak them to their preferences. The Instant Site builder is free, optimized for mobile devices, and has built-in ecommerce functionalities.

The online store capabilities Ecwid brings to the table are quite exhaustive. We’ve highlighted the platform’s strongest areas and those that could use some improvement.

Ecwid Ecommerce Review

Ecwid is, above all, an easy-to-use ecommerce solution. It has a To-Do list for first-time account holders, with time estimates for each step that takes users through the store setup. The vendor claims that users should be able to launch their ecommerce business in less than half an hour. User reviews, however, indicate that setting up an Ecwid store takes about an hour or two. Nevertheless, the option to start selling in such a short timeframe is impressive — be it 30 or 120 minutes.

Sales Channels

According to Ecwid customer review sites, one of the best things about the platform is that it supports multichannel sales through website builders, social media sites, and popular marketplaces. The shopping cart integrates with nearly any platform you can think of, including Facebook Shop, WordPress, Weebly, Amazon, Instagram Shopping, and Squarespace, among others.

Ecwid further supports store management on the go with mobile apps for iOS and Android devices. On top of it all, you can get your selling app with ShopApp, which is an excellent way to boost customer loyalty.

Product Management

The research for our Ecwid online store review showed that selling physical products with this software is free for up to 10 products. Selling digital files requires a paid plan. The online shopping cart increases the number of products you can sell in your online store to 100, 2,500, and up to an unlimited number of products based on the pricing plan you opt for.

The platform offers unlimited storage and bandwidth, which is cool but pretty common among the top ecommerce platforms. The not-so-common option is a large digital product file size. As Ecwid reviews highlight, the platform allows users to sell digital products of up to 25GB. An Ecwid vs Shopify comparison shows how generous the former is — with Shopify, the limit stands at 5GB.

Users also appreciate the option to add unlimited product variants. In contrast, Shopify reviews indicate that one of the platform’s weaknesses is the limit of only three variants per product. Other product management options include adding product titles and descriptions with the easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor.

The platform doesn’t limit the number of images you can add to a single product. If the images are too large, Ecwid automatically compresses them.

Users can import products, add categories, select a page layout, and adjust thumbnail size and aspect ratio. Store customers meanwhile have the option to create an account on your site, which helps provide an excellent user experience.

The research for our Ecwid review shows that very few ecommerce platforms provide the multilingual store functionality of this software. Ecwid has professionally translated store interfaces in 50 languages.

Shipping, Payments, & Taxes

Ecwid supports integrations with a vast number of shipping carriers. USPS, UPS, and FedEx automatically calculate shipping rates, which is one of the simplest ways to handle costs. Users can also set a flat rate or factor in product weight or order amount and go with custom rates.

Payment options are extensive, too. Ecwid offers various ways to help users get paid. Ecwid customer reviews confirm that the platform has done an excellent job with both online and offline payments. PayPal and Stripe are among the supported gateways, while manual payments include COD, bank transfers, and checks.

The platform further supports various Point-of-Sale systems, including Square, Vend, and Clover. Another convenient option is a custom payment method, i.e., one that’s not on Ecwid’s list of payment options. Users can add it using the shopping cart’s API.

Unlike Shopify that charges translation fees of up to 2%, unless you use Shopify Payments, Ecwid doesn’t impose any transaction fees on users.

The research for our Ecwid review further showed that the platform helps set up different tax zones and assign each an individual rate. Apart from manual tax settings, users can speed up this process with automated taxes. For automating tax reporting, the platform suggests using HotJar, which is available in the Ecwid App Market.

Marketing Tools

Ecwid does a lot to help users promote their store. The shopping cart software allows them to send automated emails to customers based on different triggers, such as abandoned carts, customer inactivity, etc. Ecwid reviews, however, mention that email marketing tools are not available with the free plan, only with the paid packages.

Users can further offer coupons, discounts, and launch BOGO promotions. Ecwid can also help generate more traffic through Google Shopping Ads and Facebook Ads.

Third-party marketing apps are not to be overlooked either, with the App Market currently featuring 33 marketing-related apps, both free and paid.

Ecwid Dropshipping

Ecwid doesn’t have native dropshipping capabilities but makes up for that with third-party apps that specialize in dropshipping. The dropshipping section features two apps — Printful and Wholesale2b. Ecwid shopping cart reviews indicate that users would appreciate a more comprehensive selection of apps from this category. After comparing Ecwid vs Wix, for instance, we discovered that the latter has a more generous offer in this regard.

SEO Options

Ecwid does a good job at search engine optimization. The platform allows users to edit meta titles, descriptions, and automatically generates metadata. The ecommerce solution further offers clean URLs.

During the research for this Ecwid ecommerce review, we looked at some Ecwid store examples to check their URL structure. Ecwid URLs can be optimized to contain relevant keywords, and are followed by the p and c letters to mark a product or category. The numbers that follow indicate product and category IDs.

The free plan doesn’t allow users to manage their store’s SEO settings or have their site map generated automatically. For that, they need to switch to a premium plan. Finally, traffic analysis is available via Kliken Stats, Google Analytics, and other tools.

Ecwid Support

Available support channels include live chat, phone, and email support. Our Ecwid online store review can meanwhile verify that the knowledge base is excellent, offering frictionless self-service support.

Based on the selected plan, users have different communication channels at their disposal. Free plan users cannot contact Ecwid’s support through live chat or request a callback. Requesting support through live chat is available to all paying users, whereas callback services are reserved for Business and Unlimited account holders.

Ecwid reviews show that users are not overly happy that the priority support comes only with the platform’s top-tier plan.

All customer support channels are open Monday to Friday. The live chat support is available 24/7, while the phone support team works from 2 PM to 10 PM PDT. There’s also the pre-sales chat option available from 9 AM to 9 PM PDT.

The support team is knowledgeable, but slightly faster response times for non-paying users could significantly improve the overall customer service quality.

Ecwid Pricing

Ecwid shopping cart reviews only emphasize how rarely ecommerce platforms offer a free plan. This shopping cart solution is one of the few ones that allow users to launch an online store for free. Still, some limitations apply, such as having only 10 products in the store or the lack of multichannel sales options, giving users an incentive to subscribe to one of the paid plans.

The Venture plan differs from the free plan in that it extends sales channels from an online store only to mobile POS, Instagram, and Facebook. This plan also unlocks the option to sell digital products, while the product limit jumps to 100. Other features include live chat support, integration with the Ecwid marketplace apps, automated tax calculations, Ecwid mobile app, SEO tools, and coupons. The monthly plan costs $15/month, while a yearly subscription lowers the price to $12.50/month.

The Business plan allows users to have up to 2,500 products. Our Ecwid review shows that this plan further supports Amazon, eBay, and Etsy sales, and includes the Abandoned Cart Emails feature. Business plan users get to create product filters, variations, two staff accounts, and orders. They also get two hours of free customization. The pricing of this package is $29.17/month when paid annually, and $35/month otherwise.

The Unlimited plan supports an unlimited number of products. Apart from everything in the Business plan, Unlimited offers a custom mobile app and 12 hours of free customization. Ecwid customer reviews argue that, at $99/month, the pricing is a little steep but offers excellent value for money. The annual subscription meanwhile translates into $82.50/month. 

Our Verdict

Ecwid is an excellent platform for SMBs, offering various integrations that further expand its functionalities. A rich selection of marketing tools and plenty of online store customizations are another two areas in which Ecwid excels. The customer experience is truly outstanding thanks to client accounts and the swift checkout process that doesn’t require users to create an account to finish their purchase.

The solution might not be the perfect fit for large organizations and, although there’s a free plan, Ecwid reviews often cite its lack of basics such as SEO settings and access to Ecwid’s mobile app. Adding blogs to Instant Sites would be nice, too. Nevertheless, Ecwid enjoys great popularity due to multichannel selling, its instant website maker, and multilingual online stores.