Whether you are looking to move away from Shopify or have a reason why you don’t want to use it, there are some really great alternatives for UK businesses, with many of them being based right here in blighty.
And we have tested all of the major offerings that are available and have listed what we think are the best alternatives to Shopify for UK Businesses, so let’s get started!
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ShopWired topped our list by offering a great set of features, good theme customisation and UK-based support.
If dropshipping is your thing, then no other UK-Based platform offers as many integrations as EKM.
Ecwid is best for WordPress sites due to the plugin having good integration and a fully hosted checkout.
1. ShopWired
Best Shopify Alternative for UK Businesses
ShopWired is one of the UK’s best ecommerce platforms and a great alternative to Shopify as it offers a range of features, is very easy to use, has a good website builder and it is all backed-up by a highly-rated UK-based support team.
Out of the box, ShopWired comes with a good selection of built-in features and over 70 apps that add a range of different features and integrations to your store including:
Many of these Apps are free to use, with the most expensive costing £10/m but all of the apps are included with the Premium Package.
When it comes to design, ShopWired has a selection of 20, free-to-use mobile responsive themes that are very well designed and now include a live customiser, which allows for more control over design.
But as with all ecommerce platforms, ShopWired isn’t perfect but neither is Shopify, with the biggest being that some apps need to be coded into your site and it would be nice if support was available 7 days a week but we only found a few minor things that we didn’t like with ShopWired and overall were very impressed with what the platform offers.
ShopWired Pricing
| Pro | Advanced | Premium | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Price | £34.95 | £69.95 | £129.95 |
| Number of Products | 750 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Turnover Limit | £75,000 | £200,000 | £500,000 |
| Transaction Fee | None | None | None |
| Admin Accounts | 2 | 5 | 15 |
ShopWired are very competitively priced when compared to both their UK and North American counterparts, especially as their turnover limits are much more generous and they charge no additional transaction fees.
They also offer custom packages for larger businesses (turnover of more than £500,000) and these start from £249.95/m.
As you can see from the table above, ShopWired doesn’t charge any additional transaction fees, so you will only pay the payment gateway fees and talking of payment gateways, ShopWired offer over 40 to choose from including PayPal, Stripe, Revolut, Apple Pay and Google Pay.
ShopWired Pros and Cons
Who Is ShopWired Best For?
ShopWired is in our opinion the best UK alternative to Shopify due to being a feature-rich, easy-to-use UK-based platform that is backed up by excellent support.
They are a great option for businesses of all sizes due to the range of plans they offer and the scalability of the platform.
If you are moving from Shopify, they also offer a migration tool and packages to help you move your site over.
2. EKM
Best for UK Only Dropshipping
One of the reasons why people opt for Shopify is because they want to start a dropshipping business but Shopify isn’t the best for UK dropshippers and that where EKM comes in as it offers a range of integrations with UK-based dropshipping suppliers to help you build your business and remove some of the headaches of traditional dropshipping from the far-east.
But EKM (formerly known as EKMPowershop) is for more than just dropshippers as it is the largest UK-based ecommerce platform and they have helped over 80,000 businesses start selling online since they were established in 2002.
With a range of features to help you start selling online, EKM is a popular choice for businesses of all sizes, ranging from new online stores to those turning over millions of pounds are year.
Some of these features are available out of the box and others can be added by a simple one-click install, giving you the flexibility to configure your store exactly how you want it and below is a summary of the features that EKM offer:
EKM also comes with highly rated customer support (as seen on Trustpilot) and the unique EKM’s Evolution Mode, which looks to improve your website by having a team of ecommerce specialists such as digital marketers and designers look at your site to see what improvements can be made and this is included with every package.
One area that is being improved within EKM is theme customisation, with the introduction of a new live customizer that offers much more in terms of user control and a selection of new themes to complement this.
The main drawbacks of the EKM platform are the admin dashboard as it doesn’t offer the most optimum workflow and can be a little frustrating to use at times and the transaction fees, which we cover more below.
EKM Pricing
| Lite | Basic | Standard | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Price | £19.99 | £34.99 | £69.99 |
| Number of Products | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Turnover Limit | £15,000 | £50,000 | £150,000 |
| Transaction Fee | 2% | 2% | 1% |
| Admin Accounts | 1 | 1 | 5 |
EKM are reasonably priced on a monthly basis but one things we aren’t a fan of is the transaction fee but this only applies if you are using online payment gateways other than EKMPay (their in-house payment gateway) and PayPal.
They also offer a larger Advanced plan, which costs £209.99/m and an enterprise-level Pro plan, which is for businesses with turnovers in excess of £1 million and offers some custom features and more dedicated support and this costs £599.99/m.
EKM Pros and Cons
Who Is EKM Best For?
EKM is the best option if you are looking to just dropship to the UK and partner with UK-based suppliers due to the integrations that they offer with Avasam, Syncee and Two Fifteen.
But they are also a viable option if you hold your own stock due to the features they offer and it is an all-in-one platform and having the Evolution team helping you optimize your site is also a bonus.
3. Ecwid
Best Ecommerce Option for WordPress Sites
Ecwid is one of the most versatile ecommerce platforms on the market today. This is because it can be used to build stand-alone ecommerce website or it can be used as a fully hosted shopping cart for popular website builders such as WordPress and Wix.
This means it can be a great choice for bloggers who want to add ecommerce to their site but it also allows users to sell via additional sales channels including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Google Shopping and manage them all from one dashboard.
But Ecwid also offers a host of additional features to help you start selling, however, you choose to use the platform and below is a quick summary of these but some features are on available on the business and unlimited plans.
Ecwid’s feature set makes it a very good option for small to medium-sized businesses, especially if they already have a website and want to add a simple and easy-to-use shopping cart to their site and Ecwid is very easy to use.
Ecwid Pricing
| Venture | Business | Unlimited | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Price | £25 | £45 | £105 |
| Number of Products | 100 | 2,500 | Unlimited |
| Turnover Limit | None | None | None |
| Transaction Fee | None | None | None |
| Admin Accounts | 1 | 2 | Unlimited |
It is also important to mention that Ecwid also offers a completely free package, in place of a free trial and this allows you to sell up to 10 products but it is limited on the features but it is a great way to test whether or not Ecwid is suitable or not for your business.
Ecwid also doesn’t have turnover limits or transaction fees, which makes the pricing very straightforward and they offer a selection of over 30 payment gateways, including PayPal, Stripe and Square.
Ecwid Pros and Cons
Who Is Ecwid Best For?
Ecwid is the best option for businesses looking to use WordPress as the base for their online store as the integration is excellent, it works with every theme and most importantly adds a fully hosted, secure checkout.
As with Shopify, it also works well if you have an international audience.
4. Square Online Store
Best Shopify Alternative with POS
Shopify is one of the few ecommerce platforms that also includes a point-of-sale but when combined with the costs of an online store, it can be expensive.
This is where Square could be an option for smaller ecommerce businesses that also have physical premises or conduct and face-to-face transactions as Square now offer both.
When it comes to the website builder, it is quite as feature-rich as Shopify’s offering but it is still very capable and offers a good selection, including:
The variety of product types is one of the great selling points of the Square Online Store as most platforms don’t include options for memberships or subscriptions with their packages.
There are also some good design options when creating an online store with Square, which makes creating a simple, good-looking website very easy to do and overall the dashboard is very easy to use but they do lack some bulk editors, which might not be ideal for businesses who have a large product inventory.
Square Pricing
| Free | Plus | Premium | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Price | £0 | £20 | £64 |
| Number of Products | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Turnover Limit | None | None | None |
| Transaction Fee | None | None | None |
Square is very reasonably priced and the free package is very appealing but you can’t use your own domain name and the front end of your site includes Square branding but it is great for testing out Square.
But one of the main drawbacks of the Square Online Store is the lack of payment gateway options as even the Premium Package only includes Square, PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay and while this might be fine for smaller businesses, it may be limiting for larger ones.
But as you are using Square to process your online payments, you do get a very competitive rate, which starts at 1.4% + 25p transaction fee.
Square Pros and Cons
Who Is Square Best For?
Square is a great option for businesses that sell online and face-to-face and want to manage all of their sales through one single, easy to use interface.
While the online store might not be ideal for businesses with a large product inventory, it works well for smaller stores, which are the target market of Square’s offering.
5. Create.net
Best for Micro Ecommerce Businesses
Create.net is a UK-based, fully hosted website builder that also allows users to sell products via their website and they are a great alternative to the likes of Wix and Squarespace for small businesses that want a small and easy to use ecommerce platform.
In terms of features, they can’t quite compete with some of the bigger, fully-fledged ecommerce platforms in this list but they still offer plenty of tools to help small to medium-sized businesses start selling online, including:
For smaller stores, these are more than enough to create an online presence for your business but where Create impresses is not only the easy to use dashboard but the very good drag-and-drop customizer, that offers many different content blocks and layout options to help you create a very good looking website.
All Create.net users get their own dedicated account manager, who can be contacted directly via live chat/email (depending on time) within the admin dashboard.
Create.net Prices
| Professional | Business | Tailored | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Price | £19.99 | £39.99 | £79.99+ |
| Number of Products | 250 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Turnover Limit | None | None | None |
| Transaction Fee | None | None | None |
| Admin Accounts | 1 | 3 | Custom |
Create.net do also have a £9.99/m plan but this doesn’t include any ecommerce tools, which is why it hasn’t been included in the table above.
The overall pricing of Create.net is very competitive but if you want access to all of the ecommerce features, you will need to be on the Business Package.
In terms of payment gateways, Create.net offers a good selection of options for UK-based businesses including Create Payments, PayPal, Stripe, Sagepay and Worldpay.
Create.net Pros and Cons
Who Is Create.net Best For?
Create.net is a great option for micro and boutique ecommerce businesses that want a platform that allows them to build a beautiful online store that is easy to use and offers them the features they need to sell online.
If you want to learn more about Create.net, then check out our Full Review.
6. Bluepark
Bluepark is one of the longest established UK-based ecommerce platforms, having first launched back in 2004 and the platform has become a favourite amongst the UK’s online business community.
Unlike most of the other platforms mentioned in this list, Bluepark doesn’t offer a customisable set of features in the form of apps, instead, all features are built into the platform and you just choose the ones that you want to use but they do offer a good selection of features, including:
Along with a very good selection of built-in features, Bluepark also offers highly rated UK-based support and a good selection of themes, partnered up with a good theme customizer to help you build a good-looking site.
But Bluepark isn’t the easiest platform to use as they offer many options in many areas, which may be daunting for anyone new to building ecommerce websites and the admin dashboard isn’t the most intuitive to use, instead, Bluepark would be a better option for experienced owners who have a good grasp of the technical side of building and managing an online store.
Bluepark Pricing
| Retail | Business | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Price | £24.99 | £39.99 | £59.99 |
| Number of Products | 500 | 2,000 | Unlimited |
| Turnover Limit | None | None | None |
| Transaction Fee | None | None | None |
| Admin Accounts | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Bluepark is very reasonably priced but there is a but and that is you need to buy an SSL certificate on top of the subscription fee and these can only be purchased directly from Bluepark at £69.99 for 1 year and £119.99 for 2 years. It also has quite limited storage allowances of 500mb, 1gb and 2gb respectively.
In terms of payment gateways, Bluepark offers a good selection for UK-based businesses, including PayPal, Stripe, Klarna and Worldpay and they don’t charge any additional transaction fees.
Bluepark Pros and Cons
Who Is Bluepark Best For?
Bluepark is a great option for businesses who want a lot of control and customisation options for their online store and have a good level of technical knowledge but don’t want the hassle of a self-hosted ecommerce website.
If you want to learn more about Bluepark, then check out our Full Review.
What to Consider When Choosing a Shopify Alternative
Choosing the right ecommerce platform for your business can be daunting, so here are some things you should consider before making a choice:
1. Hosted or Self-Hosted
Ecommerce platforms basically fall into 1 of 2 categories and they are Hosted or Self-hosted and there are some pretty big differences between the two:
Hosted
Self-Hosted
This is just a brief summary but for most people new to ecommerce, we think hosted platforms are going to be the best option for most online stores as the start-up and day to day running is much easier and it is for this reason why no self-hosted options appear in this list.
2. Support
Support is an important thing to consider when choosing an ecommerce platform as you may run into issues when setting up or running your store and you want to know that there is someone you can contact who will be able to help.
With support, you also want to consider the contact times for the support teams, where they are based and how easy they are to contact.
3. Features
This one can be quite challenging when just getting started as you don’t know exactly what features you are going to need (this becomes more evident as your business grows) but some things you want to consider:
- Inventory Management – how easy is it to create and manage your inventory? can you sell different types of products (physical, digital etc)
- Order Management – how easy is it to manage your orders
- Marketing Tools – what can you manage directly from the dashboard? can you easily integrate with other marketing tools (Google or Facebook ads etc)
- Payment Gateways – can you offer a variety of different payment options for your customers?
- Shipping Methods – does the platform offers different shipping options and/or integrations with third-party shipping companies
This is just a basic list but you want to try and create a list of features you need in order to be able to find the platform that will best suit your business.
4. Theme Customisation and Design
You want your site to look good as it can help to sell your business to potential customers and you want your ecommerce platform to not only have a nice selection of themes but also good customisation, so that you can tailor your site to your business.
Customisation should also be easy to do and there should be options for design elements, such as:
- Page Layout
- Site Colours
- Font Style and Size
- Header and Footer Options
The more you are able to yourself and the easier it is, the less reliance you will have either on platform support or developers.
5. Price
Price is an important factor when choosing a Shopify alternative but you don’t want it to be the driving force for why you choose one platform over another.
Instead, it is best to pick the platform that best works for you and your business, even if the cost is slightly higher as it will be better paying a few pounds extra a month and choose the platform that you like using the most but also offers all of the features and support you need.
Conclusion
Whatever your reason for not wanting to go with Shopify, we hope that this list has given you some options to consider for your ecommerce website and we are fortunate in the UK to have some very good options available to us.
Editors Choice: ShopWired
Out of all the platforms we have tried, ShopWired is the one that truly goes head-to-head with Shopify in pretty much every area.
And we think they are a great option for businesses of all sizes due to the features they offer, the website builder, the performance of the platform and the highly-rated UK-based support team.
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Hi, I'm Paul, the Owner and Founder of EcommerceGold.
I ran my own Ecommerce Business for over 7 years and now help others start their own online retail empires!