Known as the best website builders on the market, Wix vs Weebly both provide their users with an effortless site-building experience. However, when it comes to running an eCommerce site, are Wix and Weebly still able to clear the way for store owners? In this article, LitExtension – #1 Shopping Cart Migration Expert will address your concern by providing further details on:
- An overview of Wix vs Weebly eCommerce
- The detailed comparisons of Wix and Weebly features
- The most suitable platform to build your eCommerce site
Let’s get into it!
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Wix vs Weebly: An Overview
What is Wix?
Founded in 2006 by three young talented Israeli developers, Wix quickly gained the title of the leader in website creation as well as millions of users worldwide. According to BuiltWith, Wix has over 8 million websites from 190 countries by September 2022.
In general, Wix is a drag-and-drop website builder that allows creators and developers to build a website and connect with their customers without any technical knowledge. There are also bunches of features that help website owners to automate the workflow easily.
With the release of a new version called Wix eCommerce on June 30, 2020, this platform has gained a large number of users from the online retailer field and declared war on eCommerce giants such as Shopify, WooCommerce… Many exciting features were included, ranging from improving shopping and payment experiences to enhancing business and finance management.
Hey, you! Don’t forget that LitExtension has an inclusive resource of Wix eCommerce review so you can get all critical insights about this platform. If you’re interested in this platform design, wait no more, check out the list of stunning Wix templates for all website purposes.
What is Weebly?
Also built upon the idea to minimize the process of creating a personal website in 2006, Weebly has over 12 years of successful development before being acquired by Square in 2018. As of now, Weebly is known to be one of the fastest-growing platforms in the world with over 1.000.000 live websites.
Weebly makes it easier for even first-time users to create and manage an online eCommerce store. With a simple getting-start process (which will be discussed later in this article) and step-by-step guides, everyone can start their own site and communicate with customers from all over the world.
You may want to discover Weebly in a more ultimate way by paying attention to Weebly eCommerce review. With all that in mind, you can get the most out of this platform.
Both Wix vs Weebly are professional website builders that provide an easy website-creating experience. In the following paragraphs, we will learn how they differ from each other through various features such as pricing, design flexibility, eCommerce features as well as other marketing functions and support.
Wix vs Weebly: Pros & Cons
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Wix vs Weebly: All Features Comparison
#1. Pricing
When it comes to choosing a suitable platform to build up the eCommerce store of your dream, price questionnaires are always the first to rise. How much does it cost to create an online store on Wix or Weebly? Which platform offers the most reasonable pricing plans that work well with your needs? Let’s find out below.
Wix pricing plans
Wix currently offers three different Business and eCommerce pricing plans that go with certain types of business (Business Basic, Business Unlimited, and Business VIP) and range from $27 to $59 on a monthly basis. Besides that, there are also other pricing plans for personal websites (Combo, Unlimited, Pro, VIP) and enterprise.
One thing that distinguishes Wix different from other website builders is that its free plan allows you to actually use Wix for free indefinitely. It’s quite basic, with noticeable ad-supported, only 500MB for both storage & bandwidth, and a Wix address. However, you are still able to try out the bulk of Wix features at no charge before deciding which pricing plan works best for your needs and wants.
Additionally, you can also make use of the Wix freemium to try out Wix’s premium features. It is actually you canceling one of the premium plans within 14 days and receiving a full refund with no questions asked.
Each of the above Wix pricing plans comes with special eCommerce features such as unlimited products, abandoned cart recovery, and social channels selling ability. However, things will be much easier if you opt for the Business Unlimited plan up.
Store owners will then be able to accept multi-currencies, advanced shipping as well as drop-shipping. Other features such as automated sales tax, marketplace selling, and product reviews by KudoBuzz will also come in handy. If you want to go big with Business VIP, you will be accessible to the loyalty program by Smile.io. This program allows your customers to earn and redeem points for rewards, thereby aiding in transforming your one-time shoppers into loyal customers.
1.2. Weebly pricing plans
Weebly offers a free plan that allows you to own a 500MB storage capacity site, with a branding name domain (example.weebly.com) and a Square logo at the bottom of your page. However, as you cannot sell any product with this plan, you should go straight ahead to paid Weebly eCommerce pricing plans, including Pro, Performance, and Premium.
Among many hosted eCommerce solutions, Weebly might be the most reasonable platform, with prices ranging from only $12 per month (if paid annually) or $16 month-to-month. Needless to say, lower prices come with fewer features.
The Professional plan ($12 monthly) will wipe off the Square branding logo and ads, as well as allow you to publish the site on a custom domain name. When you spend about twice as much on the Performance plan ($26 monthly), you are able to collect payment via Paypal, send abandoned cart emails as well as add gifting options. The most expensive plan Premium ($72 monthly) charges the lowest processing rate and calculates the shipping rate in real-time.
If you want to learn more about Weebly prices as well as find out the most worthwhile plans for your store, this Weebly pricing is for you.
The verdict
When comparing Wix vs Weebly in terms of pricing, it’s easy to tell that Weebly comes at more attractive prices. However, if we go further into the price details and features included, many might opt for Wix to take advantage of its nice designs and full control over the site.
#2. Ease of use
Wix vs Weebly are user-friendly website builders that allow store owners to create an eCommerce site in just a few minutes. There is no need for hosting, domain, or specialized technical expertise. All you need to do is create an account with your email, pick a suitable template, then move your mouse around to build the website of your dream.
When choosing between Wix vs Weebly to start an eCommerce store, most users look for an effortless store management experience. Let’s see how easy it could be to run an online business on these two platforms.
Wix ease of use
Wix is the platform that gives out the most flexible site-building experience. It’s basically a pure drag-and-drop site builder that allows you to drop everything anywhere you desire. To someone that is new to website design, Wix can be a bit complex and overwhelming at first. However, you can get used to it quickly with smart tips along the way, or utilize Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) or Wix Editor.
Wix ADI offers the fastest and easiest way to create a professional website on Wix. You will answer a series of questions about your online business, then Wix ADI will build a unique site based on the given answers. Browse ADI assistance and learn to adjust the site to your taste, or click on this video for more intuitive instructions.
Meanwhile, Wix Editor is the perfect choice for those who want full control over how the sites look. Pick a theme that suits your need, then start the editing game by drag-and-drop whatever (from the left menu) to wherever you want. There is no restriction on adding different types of content to your page or finetuning them to your liking. If you have a good eye for design and know exactly what you want with your eCommerce site, the sky is your limit!
It’s worth noting that the changes you made on the desktop version won’t be automatically synced with the mobile one. This is the only flaw of Wix as you have to repeat every change twice. Nevertheless, it means that you can choose to highlight specific content on different versions of your website.
Let’s sign up with Wix and click on the thorough video below to know how to create a Wix store in a more intuitive way.
Weebly ease of use
As mentioned above, Weebly eCommerce was made for non-technical store owners and offered an easy-peasy getting-started process. You only need to register a Weebly account and fill in some basic information about your online business before getting into the site-editing process. There is also a 7-step guideline with detailed explanations to make sure you make it through the process.
Weebly eCommerce creates more structured websites, but you have less freedom when customizing your online store. You cannot drag and drop things to your heart’s desire. In return, the changes you made with the theme will be applicable to both desktop and mobile versions. You can rest assured knowing that your site looks good and is indistinguishable on any device.
Additionally, Weebly’s interface is really straightforward and allows everyone to catch up easily. Everything is shown clearly on the dashboard, and you can take charge of every website section in the blink of an eye.
The verdict
Wix has a convincing victory over Weebly eCommerce in this round. It not only offers an easy site-building experience but also enhances the customization ability to the next level by allowing you to drag and drop everywhere you like.
#3. Design and template
Websites made by Wix vs Weebly both have professional looks. Above that, they do not give out the feeling that they are made by website builders, or at least in the way that ‘normal website builders’ do.
Wix templates and designs
Wix outnumbers every website builder in terms of template selection. At the moment, Wix provides a wide range of over 800 designer-made templates. These templates are well-categorized and cover all niches of business, from online stores (fashion, jewelry, home accessories…) to creative fields (photography, architecture…) and personal blogs. No matter what products or services you are going to sell, you will surely find a perfect and suitable template for your store.
Already In Love With Wix?
If you are intending to migrate Weebly to Wix, LitExtension offers a great migration service that helps you transfer your data from the current eCommerce platform to a new one accurately, painlessly with utmost security.
All Wix templates are appealing to the eyes and mobile-friendly. Each design includes all necessary elements, such as buttons, image headers, and text boxes so that your website appears to be built by a professional designer. All you need to do is pick a design of your taste, then complete your store after a few clicks with the help of Wix Editor or Wix Editor X.
However, there is one thing you should take into account when choosing a template for your Wix online store. The changes you made with the current template won’t be synced automatically to the new one, which means that you have to build everything from scratch once again. Hence, make sure that you’ve browsed through Wix’s wide selection and picked the design that you like the most.
Weebly templates and designs
With only 50 themes available (15 out of which are exclusively made for online stores), Weebly falls a bit behind in this race. Although the design does not have a professional appearance like Wix’s, it does give out a decent contemporary feel and quite a wide range of layouts.
Weebly themes also include the features you need, from buttons to boxes. Aside from that, all themes are mobile-optimized and easy to switch between. You won’t have to rebuild your website in case you want to switch to a new theme.
As previously stated, Weebly does provide an easy drag-and-drop website builder, but it is not flexible enough. You can only customize within predefined areas, and there can’t be any pixel movement like Wix. Image resizing and color adjustment are also restricted to a rather small number of options.
The verdict
Wix deserves a strong win in this round. It does not only offer a wide range of beautifully-designed templates selection but also a full customization ability. Don’t wait any more and create a Wix website to try out all customization opportunities.
#4. Ecommerce features
Running an online store is never an easy task, and that’s when eCommerce features come in handy. Let’s see what Wix vs Weebly has to offer in this case!
Wix eCommerce features
Product & inventory management
Wix makes it easier to sell both physical and digital products on your online store. It’s also simple to add product variants or manage your inventory by connecting the inventory tools to your Wix store via open APIs.
The flexibility of Wix makes it excels at visual product presentation. It’s simple to add images with a zoom effect or videos to visualize the products. Recently, Wix even allows you to upload a list of products to save time using Wix CSV template files. It helps you to keep your store up and running while migrating from other platforms to Wix.
Payment gateways
When selling on Wix, you are able to collect payments through Paypal and credit cards (Stripe, Wirecard) or even accumulate it offline (in cash or money transfer). There’s also a payment gateway called Wix Payments that provides a more seamless checkout process. It widens the payment methods of the platform (to Apple Pay, Pix, Boleto, Pay Now by Klarna, etc.), accepts one-time or recurring payments, and allows easy connection with Wix POS.
Similar to any other payment provider, Wix Payments applies small charges to every fee processed to your account. It may vary depending on which payment method you use, or where you locate. For example, credit card payments will be charged 1.9% of the amount plus 0.3 EUR if you are based in EU countries, while those from Canada have to bear the fee of 2.9% plus 0.3 CAD.
Shipping methods
Wix provides many shipping options once you finish setting your regions. You can either charge flat rates for all purchases, calculate shipping fees by weight/price/product or offer free shipping as a selling point for customers. It’s also possible to provide local delivery and pickup or additional shipping charges (for example, priority shipping).
Store statistics
From the Wix Dashboard, you can customize the store report to focus on the most important information, such as revenue breakdowns, customer behavior, conversion rate, and so on… It also allows you to track the best products, in consideration of that, you might have proper sales campaigns to increase sales volume.
Besides, you’ll be able to learn more about your customers (such as order history, purchasing habits, and contact information…) when utilizing the Customer Types feature.
Need some selling ideas with Wix? Find out more via the Selling on Wix article!
Weebly eCommerce features
Inventory management
Weebly provides the most basic tools to manage a handful of products easily. One of the most useful features is scarcity creation, which allows you to show how many items are available and whether it is on sale or out of stock. There are also many options to import or export via CSV files, update order status or categorize products.
Payment gateways
Like its opponent, Weebly also provides payment collecting via Stripe and Paypal, which covers most payment requirements for customers all over the world. The fee applied to these providers is 2.9% for each purchase, plus a $0.3 surcharge per transaction.
As Weebly partners with Square for eCommerce, you are also able to accept payment both online and in person with Square. Weebly also charges 2.9% plus $0.3 per transaction for each purchase, but offline payment is only available for customers from the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
Shipping methods
You have complete control over which shipping options are presented to your customers, as well as the prices. The shipping rates can be a flat cost or calculated based on the customer’s location and the product’s weight/price/number of boxes. You can even set up real-time shipping with Square to avoid under or overcharging for shipping in special regions.
Store statistics
With the Insight section from Weebly Dashboard, you can easily track how your store performs quickly and easily. It’s simple to find out how many people visit your store, which pages they visit, or what search terms they use to find your site after a few clicks.
Weebly even allows you to integrate Google Analytics for a deeper understanding of customer behavior in your online store.
The verdict
It’s hard to tell which platform wins this race between Wix vs Weebly because they both provide sufficient eCommerce support as website builders. Some people would prefer Wix thanks to its full customization capability, while others pick Weebly as their go-to option because of its ease to set up an eCommerce store.
#5. SEO & Marketing features
Building a website is only the first step in starting an online business. What is more important is to make it stand out from the rest and drive traffic to your site. Fortunately, both Wix vs Weebly have excellent SEO & marketing features that aid your site in ranking higher on Google SERPs (search engine results pages).
Wix SEO & Marketing Features
Wix SEO Features
Running a Wix eCommerce store means that you are able to get a fast-loading and mobile-optimized website. The XML site map will be generated automatically and you are able to bulk-set 301 redirects. You can also add meta descriptions and keywords that you want to rank for in the page SEO settings section.
Wix has an amazing SEO wizard in the setup tabs – the SEO Plan. This feature helps Wix to generate a special SEO plan for your website with suggestions on how to rank higher on Google. All you need to do is answer a few questions about your business and SEO needs.
Wix marketing features
You can promote your online store on Facebook and Instagram, the two biggest social media platforms with over 4.35 billion users. It’s simple to connect your store to Facebook & Instagram ads and manage them easily from your dashboard. If you are unfamiliar with advertising on these platforms, Wix AI has come to save your day! All you need to do is configure the ads on your dashboard, then Wix AI will handle everything else, from customer targeting to A/B testing.
Wix also grants its users with high-quality email services. With the newsletter, blog, live chat interaction… you are able to attract a huge amount of repeat traffic from loyal customers. There’s also an intuitive email editor and a wide range of beautifully-designed email templates that allow you to edit to your heart’s desire.
Weebly SEO & Marketing Features
Weebly SEO features
Meanwhile, it would be a bit difficult to optimize your online store with Weebly, though it provides quite enough guides and tools.
Firstly, your site could be less structured as Weebly only allows you to set your headings to Heading 2. Although this issue can be solved with the help of a third-party app in Weebly’s app store, it’s more likely you will mess up the whole format if you don’t have too much technical expertise. Additionally, there are certain pages that come with a mandatory string that cannot be changed, which makes it difficult to add rich snippets to your pages.
With that being said, store owners are still able to utilize the Weebly functions to prevent your store from being buried deep down on Google SERPs. You can customize the URLs, Title tags, meta descriptions, and alt text for all images. Weebly also provides the 301 redirects feature and compresses large images for faster loading speed.
Weebly marketing features
When it comes to marketing features, no one can deny that Weebly did a fairly good job! Store owners are able to build a beautiful blog easily with the help of a wide variety of templates and drive more traffic to their stores.
Weebly also features Weebly Promote, a powerful email marketing tool. It provides all you may need, from professional layouts and templates to a smart email list-building tool and accurate email stats.
The verdict
The crown goes to Wix for its amazing SEO and marketing features. Wix not only offers you great tools to rank higher on SERPs but also a fairly wide list of choices to promote your stores to potential customers worldwide.
#6. App & Integrations
To build a great eCommerce store on Wix vs Weebly, we need great tools to assist. Let’s see how these two platforms compare in app & integrations offered.
Wix
To tell the truth, apps and integrations are not a strength of Wix. As of now, there are about 300 popular web apps on Wix App Market, divided into 6 main categories: marketing, online selling, services, media & content, design, and communication. They also categorize the apps for specific intents, such as lead collecting or traffic analyzing.
You can find some free useful apps for your needs, and premium apps are around $5-$30 for your consideration. It’s worth noting that most Wix apps are developed by themselves, which guarantees a smooth run on-site.
Weebly
The Weebly App Center features a fairly wide range of about 400 apps & integrations, both by themselves (only 13) and by reputed third-party. They are perfectly divided into 5 main categories: eCommerce, communication, marketing, social and site features, and even subcategories for easy search. There are 56 free apps that you can make use of, and other premium ones range from $10 to $30 on a monthly basis. Both of them are easy to use and help you save a lot of coding time.
The verdict
To some users, Weebly is the winner in this round, thanks to its wide variety of apps and integrations. Some continue to choose Wix for their own-developed apps, and the difference in number does not matter as long as they can find a match that meets their requirements.
Want to migrate to Weebly?
If you are intending to migrate to Weebly, LitExtension offers a great migration service that helps you transfer your data from the current eCommerce platform to a new one accurately and seamlessly with utmost security.
#7. Support
Customer service is always an important factor when it comes to considering the best eCommerce platform to build your online store. Let’s see how fast and dedicated Wix vs Weebly is when you need their help.
Wix customer support
Fortunately, Wix offers excellent support to its users. Besides the Help Center that features the most popular FAQs and Wix Learn with an extensive knowledge base for business, Wix has a big community (Wix Blog, Wix Encylopedia) and email/ social media support that could be of assistance to your needs quickly.
They commit to a 24/7 support standard, but you could get a faster response if signing up for the Business VIP pricing plan. With $59/month, your concerns or phone calls will be prioritized in every situation.
Weebly customer support
Weebly users are not left out in this case, as Weebly provides quite a decent support service. Just access the Weebly Support Center by clicking on the “Support” button on top of your homepage and you will get everything you need, from how to set up your store to steps to run it smoothly.
These instructions are detailed to your needs. They are also well-divided into various sections, such as eCommerce, Website Building, and Your Account, with up to 100 articles each. You can also access Square Sell Community to connect with Weebly users worldwide or get official assistance via social media channels.
The verdict
Both Wix vs Weebly offer excellent customer support. You can rest assured knowing that there’s someone to get your back and respond to your concerns quickly.
#8. Security & Back-up options
When finding a suitable platform to build your eCommerce store, security, and backup options are always high up on users’ list of concerns. No one wants to invest time and money in a website that can be shut down anytime by hackers. Between Wix vs Weebly, which is better at securing your data?
Wix
Wix comes with a ton of built-in features that ensure your website is safe and secure, including SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates, PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliance, and so on.
Every Wix site comes with HTTPS, and there features a designated log-in area for every customer. All payment details are encrypted and Wix even offers a secure pre-saved card details ability. There’s also an option to double the payment authentication, applied only for online payments. It perfectly aids in reducing the success of fraudulent payment attempts.
It’s likely that you might lose everything you built on your website under unwanted circumstances. Fortunately, Wix allows you to manually back up your data, in case you don’t want to rely on its automatic backup that happens every 7 days.
Weebly
In general, Weebly is quite safe and secured with SSL certificates, PCI compliance, as well as DDoS (Distributed denial-of-service) mitigation.
The fact that SSL certificates are included in all pricing plans couldn’t be better! It ensures a safe browsing experience for your customers and that all data exchange between you and your clients is encrypted. Thanks to PCI compliance and DDoS mitigation, your customers’ credit card information is still safe and secure, even under advanced cyber attacks.
When using a free website builder like Weebly, it’s likely that your data vanishes under unwanted circumstances. Hence, it’s important to back up your data for later usage by following the steps below:
- To back up your order’s data: From the admin panel, go to Store > Order > Export Orders, choose the time frame and file type, then click on Export.
- To back up your product’s data, go to Items > Item Library. After that, click on the icon (…) on the top right and choose Export Items.
After a few simple steps, your current data will be exported to CSV. files and sent directly to your email address.
The verdict
As hosted eCommerce platforms, both Wix vs Weebly wipe out the security tasks from your plates and allows you to back up your data. It’s rather difficult to pick a winner for this race. If you prefer the automatic backup feature of Wix, it deserves one more vote.
Wix vs Weebly: Which Should You Go For?
After reading the intensive comparison of these two platforms, you have probably already come up with a decision on choosing between Wix vs Weebly to build your dream eCommerce store. In case you have yet to decide between them, let’s test out their features by utilizing the free trials. Any 10-minute practice can give you more approachable!
Wix vs Weebly: Which Should You Choose? There will never be an all-around answer to this question as it differs depending on many factors. It might be due to your budget for the online store, the product you are going to sell, or your business size.
In general, Wix will go along with creative people who have an eye for design and target a specific audience. It is also suitable for those who prioritize online presence and want full control over their site’s design yet lacks technical expertise. However, Wix might be not right for you if you have a long list of products to offer. If that is the case, you should check out some Wix alternatives or discover some best eCommerce platforms right now.
Weebly will be a perfect choice if you want to keep everything simple (website designing, blog editing…) and flexible at a reasonable price. If you want to change how your website looks frequently, Weebly is more suitable than Wix.
Wix vs Weebly: FAQs
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Final Words
Both Wix vs Weebly are amazing website builders that help millions of store owners to create an online eCommerce site without deep technical knowledge. Wix is a widely known website builder for the flexibility of designing the store. Meanwhile, Weebly comes at reasonable prices with a bunch of fairly amazing features.
It’s our pleasure to have you keeping up at this length! We do hope that this head-to-head comparison between Wix vs Weebly has brought you sufficient details on both platforms. Hopefully, it somehow helped you figure out an optimal choice to build your dream eCommerce store.
Should you have further questions or concerns regarding Wix or Weebly, or you need any support to migrate your store to any platform, don’t hesitate to contact us. Or, you can visit LitExtension Blog for more insights and join our community to connect with other eCommerce fellows!