This review is sponsored by ShopWired. We do not allow our advertisers to influence rankings, however.
ShopWired is one of the most popular ecommerce platforms in the US, and for good reason. It’s affordable and packed full of features.
If you’re looking for the best ecommerce platform, reading ShopWired reviews like this one can help you decide if it’s right for you.
ShopWired is a global ecommerce platform providing ecommerce websites to customers throughout North America and Europe. In this review, we’ll look closely at the ShopWired platform, including pricing, features, integrations, and more.
Finding the ideal ecommerce tools to support your business is important to your success. But if you rely only on the provider’s marketing materials, you’ll have trouble figuring out the one you want to use – simply because it’s their job to make you want to buy them.
Ecommerce CEO gets affiliates, but we don’t allow them to influence our scores. We use a rating system built solely on data, which keeps everything as objective as possible.
We know how hard it is to understand the subtle differences between ecommerce platforms. And once you get established with one, if you find it won’t work for you, migrating to another solution isn’t easy, even if your ecommerce store is still relatively new.
Does ShopWired live up to its claims? Keep reading to find out.
ShopWired Overview
The ShopWired platform is well-known and highly respected in the ecommerce space. It’s a hosted platform, so you don’t need to worry about the technical aspects of maintaining your online business.
History
ShopWired was founded in 2013. It’s a UK company that powers thousands of ecommerce websites for UK businesses. It has a strong foothold in North America and now powers online stores throughout the world.
ShopWired isn’t just an ecommerce platform. They also offer additional services, including website design and market services, such as:
- Custom theme design
- Store setup services
- Pay per click advertising
- App design
Is ShopWired Right for Your Online Store?
ShopWired is great for businesses of all sizes. It works well for basic online stores and is easy to set up. For larger stores with high order volumes, ShopWired offers an enterprise service that comes with a range of additional benefits. For those in the B2B or wholesale space, ShopWired offers features for trade accounts and separate pricing and category/product environments.
Customizing your site is as easy as choosing a theme, adding images, and editing text. If you need a unique design, you can request bespoke theme services to get a completely customized theme, specifically for your website.
We recommend ShopWired for people that don’t want to get bogged down with the administrative and technical details. It is a great solution for businesses that want to focus on what they know best – while leaving the technology to experts.
Businesses Powered by ShopWired
ShopWired is growing fast in the US and becoming the most popular ecommerce solution in other countries like the UK. Thousands of companies use it (including some big name brands):
ShopWired Comparisons
ShopWired is software-as-a-service (SaaS). It’s hosted on servers provided by Amazon’s AWS infrastructure, and your monthly subscription fee includes a full hosting service so there are no additional hosting fees to pay. It’s the same way major players like BigCommerce, Wix, and Shopify provide service.
Customers install nothing on their computers, and the provider handles all maintenance and updates. That means customers don’t have to deal with the technical details, but that often prevents customers from making edits to the source code. With SaaS, you get something that’s ready to go straight out of the box. All you need to do is connect your domain name, choose your theme, and customize the site with your content.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have solutions like WooCommerce that give users complete control over the source code. You can edit it and distribute it however you need to, with public and collaborative development. If there’s a feature you need that you can’t find, you can build it yourself, or hire a developer to take care of it for you. Open source basically means you’re starting for scratch.
So which way should you go? There’s no right answer here, because what works for one business may not work well for another.
SaaS platforms are the best option for:
- People who want something easy to use
- Those who don’t require special functions or features
- Anyone who wants to set it and forget it.
- People who want some flexibility in the marketing tools, apps, etc. they use
- Startups with a limited IT budget.
Open-source platforms are better for:
- Those who need more control over development
- Users who’d rather not pay monthly fees or share profit from every sale
- Businesses that understand how important it is to own web hosting and customer data
- Those who want to choose their own hosting
- Businesses who want ultimate control over their customer experience.
With open-source, you can have your in-house development team or a third-party developer work on the features and integrations you want. With open-source modules, there’s plenty to work with that makes customization easier. You’ll only use what you need and make updates according to your schedule.
ShopWired Pricing
All plans from ShopWired offer a huge range of features at no additional cost, including:
- Responsive themes
- Mobile optimized site
- Site customization options – change colors, text, images, etc.
- Full content management system with blogging features
- Full access to HTML and CSS
- Free SSL certificate
- Abandoned cart recovery
- Conversion-optimized checkout
- Selection of payment gateways (40+)
- Easy tax settings: automatic calculation
- Shipping discounts with the option to offer free shipping
- Buy now, pay later options like Klarna, Clearpay, Laybuy, and Zip Pay.
- Offline payment options
- Inventory management
- Multiple user accounts
- SEO management features
- Reward points, offers, gift cards
- Social media integrations
- Email marketing integrations
- Digital products
- Subscriptions
- Product bundles
- Dropshipping integrations
- Print on demand integrations
- Standard US support
- Multichannels support
- Analytics and reporting
- Support for wholesale and B2B
- Back order and pre-order
- Multi-currency support
Customers who sign up for an annual plan save 20%. If you sign up for two years, you’ll save 30%. All plans come with a 14 day free trial, with no credit card required.
Pro
The Pro plan costs $29.95/month ($23.96/month when billed annually) and includes 2 admin accounts. There are no transaction fees. It supports up to 750 products.
ShopWired Connect apps are $5 per month and trade accounts are $10 per month.
The maximum annual earnings on the account are $75,000 per year.
Advanced
The Advanced plan costs $59.95/month ($47.96/month when billed annually) and includes 5 admin accounts. There are no transaction fees. It supports unlimited products.
ShopWired Connect Apps, and trade accounts are free. This plan also features advanced reports and the ability to use Zapier to connect additional third-party apps to your ShopWired Store.
The maximum annual earnings on the account are $200,000 per year.
Premium
The Premium plan costs $119.95/month ($95.96/month when billed annually) and includes 5 admin accounts. There are no transaction fees. It supports unlimited products.
ShopWired Connect Apps, and trade accounts are free. This plan also features advanced reports and the ability to use Zapier to connect additional third-party apps to your ShopWired Store.
All of ShopWired’s collection of apps are also provided free on this plan . It also includes priority support.
The maximum annual earnings on the account are $500,000 per year.
Enterprise Packages
Excel
For large enterprises, plans start at $199.95/month, and you’ll get all premium features, along with premium support, enterprise performance, and a strategic account manager.
This plan supports up to $1 million in sales per year.
Elite
For $299.95/month, you’ll get everything in the Excel plan, plus:
- Monthly account and conversion review
- Advanced report builder
- EV SSL certificate
This plan supports up to $2.5 million in sales per year.
Platinum
For $499.95/month, you get everything in the Elite plan, plus:
- Weekly account and conversion review
- Marketing account manager
- Exclusive payment partner rates
- Continuous store evolution
- Advanced access to new features
ShopWired Features
One thing that sets ShopWired apart from the competition is the number of features built in to all plans.
ShopWired Features and Plans
Marketing and SEO Tools
ShopWired has a lot of marketing features you can easily add with free apps, including:
- Gift Cards/Vouchers
- Discount Codes
- Reward Points
- Google Feed
- Abandoned Cart Recovery
ShopWired includes a blog, which is a great way to share more information with your audience. It’ also helpful for SEO.
ShopWired includes many SEO features to make it easier to rank in the search engines, including:
- SEO-Friendly URLs you can edit
- Custom metadata: edit page title and description
- Automatically generated sitemap
B2B Features
Many ecommerce store builders focus on B2C, but ShopWired stands out with its B2B features. These include:
- Trade accounts: Users can apply for trade accounts for automatic or manual approval. Trade accounts allow for different pricing, trade only products/categories, and restriction to offline payment methods, such as checks or bank transfer.
- Credit accounts: Lets customers checkout and charge their account
- Bulk discounts: Offer customers a discount when ordering items in bulk
- Quote system: Customers can request quotes, which are then sent to their email with a link for payment
Ecommerce Features
There are a ton of ecommerce tools available for free on each plan. Many of these are apps in the marketplace. These include:
- Multi-Currency: Make selling internationally easy by displaying prices in Euros or USD with the click of a button.
- Product Extras: Upsell related products from the shopping cart.
- Product Reviews app: Allow customers to leave reviews on your products
- Multi Buy Offers: Create product quantity discounts (Buy more and save!)
- Shipping management: ShopWired makes it easy to ship orders with ShipStation or Royal Mail Click & Drop. Set rates based on post code and create delivery exceptions as needed.
Sales Tax Calculations
- Tax codes: Users can add tax codes for each of their products
- Tax overrides: Users can add product and shipping tax overrides
- Sales Tax holidays: Users can create sales tax holidays
- Integrations: Users can connect their ShopWired account to their TaxJar or Avalara accounts and transactions are automatically exported
Performance
When it comes to performance, ShopWired is one of the best. It’s among the fastest platforms of all we’ve tested. Load speeds are fast on desktop, but there’s plenty of room for improvement on the mobile side.
| Platform | Performance | Load Time | Mobile Speed | Desktop Speed | Avg SEO Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify | 3.9 | 1.3 | 63 | 75 | 11717 |
| Sellfy | 3.1 | 1.4 | 46.8 | 72 | 134 |
| Zyro | 3.3 | 2.1 | 51 | 89 | 128 |
| Nexcess StoreBuilder | 4.0 | 1.93 | 53 | 72 | 58,645 |
| ShopWired | 4.3 | 1.38 | 56 | 80 | 717 |
| Pixpa | 2.3 | 1.6 | 22.66 | 65.5 | 72 |
| Freewebstore | 3.5 | 1.89 | 53 | 79 | 927 |
| Ecwid | 3.5 | 5.0 | 50 | 82 | 15,517 |
| Square Online | 2.8 | 2.03 | 1.0 | 3.0 | 65,317 |
| BigCommerce | 4.5 | 2.2 | 63 | 80 | 33626 |
| Woocommerce | 3.1 | 3.4 | 42 | 52 | 72968 |
| Shift4Shop | 3.0 | 2.8 | 50 | 58 | 9703 |
| Volusion | 2.9 | 3.5 | 48 | 56 | 15779 |
| Adobe Commerce | 2.8 | 4.8 | 39 | 43 | 19408 |
| Prestashop | 2.9 | 4.62 | 50 | 52 | 33851 |
| SquareSpace | 3.5 | 3.5 | 42 | 63 | 5678 |
| Wix | 3.9 | 3.2 | 69 | 81 | 543 |
| Weebly | 2.6 | 3 | 49 | 59 | 186 |
Load Time
On average, the ShopWired sites we tested loaded in 1.38 seconds. It falls within Google’s recommendation that your site should load in two seconds or fewer.
Desktop Site Speed
ShopWired is among the top ranked for desktop speed. With a score of 80, it ties with BigCommerce, and falls short only to Zyro and Wix.
Since there are still plenty of people who rely on desktop devices to shop online, lightening fast speed matters.
Mobile Site Speed
Mobile speed is an area where ShopWired needs some improvement. However, the same can be said for many of the platforms we’ve reviewed.
At a score of 56, ShopWired ranks 4th overall, just behind Wix, Shopify, and BigCommerce.
Average SEO Traffic
When we conduct our ecommerce platform research, we use ranking data from Ahrefs to determine how much traffic the sites in our sample get from the search engines. The more SEO-friendly the platform is and the more features ti includes, the better because it’s easier to get traffic.
ShopWired is in the middle for average SEO traffic. At 717, it’s nowhere near as impressive as WooCommerce, BigCommerce, or PrestaShop. But, it is still miles above the lower-ranking platforms like Zyro, Sellfy, and Weebly.
Considering how fast the platform is, it would be ideal if users had a stellar SEO experience here.
Apps and Integrations
ShopWired has a variety of apps and integrations available, known as extensions, available to help you add more features to your website. You can use it to add things like:
- Google Shopping
- eBay
- Mailchimp
- Back in Stock notifications
- And more.
ShopWired Integrations and Plans
Selling Online with ShopWired
ShopWired offers great features in all of their plans. Every plan includes the same features – the difference lies in the number of products you can host and sell and your annual turnover (how much you sell).
You’ll get everything you need to be successful with your ecommerce business, including marketing and SEO features, dropshipping integrations, print on demand, and more.
You’ll be able to sell digital and physical products. You won’t pay a transaction fee on top of payment processing fees from your payment gateway.
You’ll have access to a small app marketplace to help you add more features to your website, but compared to other builders like Shopify, you’ll find it lacking in options.
Because it’s a web-based platform, you can access it from any internet-connected device, without a dedicated mobile app.
Themes and Designs
ShopWired has a good selection of free themes to choose from. There are 20 free, mobile responsive themes available at the time of this writing. If you want something that’s completely custom for your website, ShopWired offers bespoke design service starting at $3,495. They use a professional design team to create an exclusive design for your website.
| Platform | Design & Themes | Visual Design | Mobile UX | Cost Of Premium Themes | # of Free Themes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify | 4.0 | 5.0 | 97 | $140 | 9 |
| Sellfy | 5.0 | 5 | 93 | $0 | 5 |
| Zyro | 5.0 | 5.0 | 92 | $0 | 50+ |
| Nexcess StoreBuilder | 4.3 | 3.0 | 94 | $20-$100 | 4 |
| ShopWired | 4.3 | 5 | 93 | $3495+ | 20 |
| Pixpa | 4.3 | 5 | 94 | 0 | 131 |
| Freewebstore | 4.3 | 5 | 92 | 0 | 100+ |
| Ecwid | 4.3 | 5.0 | 93 | $60 | 1 |
| Square Online | 3.7 | 5.0 | 92 | $0 | 1 |
| BigCommerce | 3.8 | 5.0 | 94 | $150 | 12 |
| Woocommerce | 4.3 | 3.0 | 97 | $39 | 1000+ |
| Shift4Shop | 4.3 | 4.0 | 95 | $200+ | 50+ |
| Volusion | 3.7 | 4 | 92 | $180 | 18 |
| Adobe Commerce | 3.7 | 5.0 | 5 | $300+ | 1 |
| Prestashop | 3.2 | 4 | 94 | $29+ | 0 |
| SquareSpace | 4.3 | 5.0 | 5 | 100.00% | 14 |
| Wix | 4.7 | 5.0 | 92 | 0 | 72 |
| Weebly | 4.3 | 5 | 97 | $45 | 15 |
You can preview each theme and make customizations to it, though there are some limitations. It’s possible to change the colors, the images, and the text snippets that appear on your site’s homepage. You have control over the list of links.
You cannot change the layout itself, as this is controlled by the theme. It’s worth mentioning that the amount of customization you can do varies from one theme to the next.
Ease of Use
ShopWired is fairly easy to use and includes many apps for free. You can sign up and start using it right away, with no restrictions. All you need is an email address. You’ll need to choose a plan and add a payment method to continue using it after your free trial is finished.
| Platform | Ease of Use | Phone Support | 24/7 Support | Chat Support | Community Rating | # of Apps/ Plugins |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify | 4.9 | Yes | Yes | Yes | 5 | 5,000 |
| Sellfy | 3.5 | No | Yes | No | 4 | 4 |
| Zyro | 3.7 | No | Yes | Yes | 4.7 | 30 |
| Nexcess StoreBuilder | 4.5 | Yes | Yes | Yes | 3.6 | 50,000+ |
| ShopWired | 4.5 | No | No | Yes | 4.9 | 72 |
| Pixpa | 3.7 | Yes | No | Yes | 4.7 | 103 |
| Freewebstore | 3.4 | No | No | Yes | None | 25+ |
| Ecwid | 3.6 | 5.0 | 1.0 | 5.0 | 4.7 | 100+ |
| Square Online | 4.0 | 5.0 | 1.0 | 5.0 | 4.2 | 25+ |
| BigCommerce | 4.8 | Yes | Yes | Yes | 4.0 | 1000 |
| Woocommerce | 3.3 | No | No | Yes | 4.0 | 250+ |
| Shift4Shop | 4.3 | Yes | Yes | Yes | 3.0 | ~250 |
| Volusion | 4.1 | Yes | Yes | Yes | 2 | ~20 |
| Adobe Commerce | 2.2 | No | No | No | 4 | 3000+ |
| Prestashop | 2.9 | Yes | No | No | 3 | 3000+ |
| SquareSpace | 3.8 | No | Yes | Yes | 3.0 | 10+ |
| Wix | 4.2 | Yes | Yes | No | 4.5 | 700 |
| Weebly | 3.6 | Yes | No | Yes | 2 | ~350 |
You don’t need to be a coding wizard to use the platform. Most of the additional features are available with a one-click app installation. Others, however, must be coded on your website. There’s plenty of documentation available to help you, but if you need help, you can pay a one-time fee to have someone from the ShopWired team take care of it for you.
Customer Support
Shopwired support includes email support, live chat, phone, and a helpful knowledge base. Live chat service is available Monday through from 8:00am to 5:00pm (EST).
Alternatives
If, as you’re reading, you’re not sure ShopWired is the best option for your business, look at these other website building platforms you can use.
Shopify
As one of the most popular ecommerce platforms, Shopify is a natural alternative to ShopWired. ShopWired pricing is similar and includes a better feature set for the money on the basic plan. Shopify has a much bigger app marketplace, but ShopWired won’t nickel and dime you with add-ons.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a great choice for B2C businesses with larger inventories. ShopWired and BigCommerce are ranking closely to one another in terms of desktop speed, with ShopWired beating load time by nearly a full second. ShopWired beats BigCommerce in terms of value, but overall, either could be a viable solution for your company.
Wix
ShopWired and Wix are similar platforms, and you’ll see that in their similar scores. Both work well for small stores, print-on-demand, and boutiques. While Wix has a slightly better desktop and mobile speed rating, ShopWired beats them for overall load time and SEO traffic.
Ratings and Reviews
If your company currently uses ShopWired or has used it before, we’d love it if you’d take a few moments to leave a review. Ecommerce CEO aims to provide unbiased reviews, and we cannot do it without readers like you.
If you’re thinking about using this platform for your ecommerce website, then reading ShopWired reviews should be part of your research. We hope our review and the data we’ve compiled helps you decide.
Is the ShopWired Ecommerce Platform Worth It?
A successful ecommerce business is more than the platform you choose. ShopWired makes a great Shopify alternative wherever your business is located. It works well in the US and has an inbuilt system for automatic sales tax calculations powered by TaxJar. If you’re dealing with customers in the UK, it has great features for VAT and other local integrations. However, with the number of US-based platforms, American business owners may find other options they like better.
It’s a fact that no matter how great a store builder is, it won’t fit the needs of every customer. The right one for your business depends on various factors such as your technical expertise, how involved you want to be in the technical details, your business model, and your budget.
