Having an effective artist eCommerce shop is as good as an incredible artwork. And if you are unsure of how effective an eCommerce artist shop should look, here are a couple of pointers and why they have to be in place.
It must encourage navigation: Naturally, your reason for putting your wonderful piece of creativity isn’t just for compliments but for sales, right? An effective website must make it easy for the artwork to be purchased after a few clicks.
It must look professional and mobile-friendly too.
Minimal but appreciable aesthetics: Even when you are displaying arts for sale, your website doesn’t have to be all crowded with all colors of the rainbow or various text. Simple and easy is what grabs the attention of every prospect and having an effective website/eCommerce makes the work easy. So, here is 12 eCommerce stores artist like you are using and you can also step up your artist game.
1. Shopify
Making Shopify the first in the list is obvious for artists that have lots of artistic products to sell and for anyone that crave an easy and smooth selling process too. Shopify seems to make the headlines for the most used platform because of the wonderful shopping experience they provide customers/prospects.
• Amazing customer support. It is one of the platforms that provide 24/7 customer support, meaning you can easily make changes when necessary.
• East to navigate pages. The pages here are highly professional and easy to navigate through. With simple short clicks, your products are sorted into carts and ready to be delivered.
• Payment plans. Shopify is reputed to be one of the most expensive, thanks to their amazing services. But to take advantage of their juicy offers, you can subscribe for a $29.99 monthly plan.
• Downsides. Along with giving little trial period, Shopify imposes transaction fees on users when they use other payment gateways
2. Wix
Wix seems to have good news for anyone unfamiliar with the web process.
• Ease of setup. Thanks to its drag and drop editor, you can simply drag your creation and post them on the pages and the website editor handles all of that.
• User-friendly. In addition to the web editor, you also have over 500 templates to choose from and you can create your website from the scratch.
• SEO Support. It has this added feature, so you can count on relevant traffic
• Fully hosted. The stores come with its hosting, so you are spared that
• Payment plan. Wix is undoubtedly one of the cheapest website builders starting with as little as $5 per month and an alternative of $25 monthly plan for more sophisticated features.
• Downsides. However, it has little difficulty in template switching once one has been chosen. Its loading process may be slower than other websites.
3. Squarespace
Squarespace is another website builder that allows ease of use and creation.
• Accessibility and navigation. It comes with website editors and drag and drop options which makes designing super easy even when you are building from the scratch. Web visitors can easily skim through the products and shop with ease.
• Ease of use. You can also count on responsive features here such as the prices getting displayed beneath the products making it easy to purchase
• Beautiful templates. Squarespace comes with an array of templates, giving you numerous options to create a stunning artist eCommerce store.
• No free plan. It doesn’t have a free plan but gives 14 days’ free trial to enable you to choose the plan that suits your budget.
• Payment plan. Generally, a $12 monthly plan is advised for starters.
• Downsides. Apart from the non-free plan, the drag and drop feature is given regulated control over your website and cannot be personal as other website builders.
4. BigCartel
Here is another big and promising platform for selling art pieces online, especially when you are looking for an alternative to Shopify. It offers simple and easy-to-use features for beginners and safe when you are not investing so much.
• Availability of themes. With BigCartel, you can lay your hands on 16 neat and professional-looking themes. themes that will give your art pieces the boost they need for selling.
• User-friendly themes. These themes are also mobile-friendly, so you can trust that your web visitors will have access to your pages/products even on transit.
• Fair rates. BigCartel offers a $10 monthly rate and displays over 25 art pieces for sale with an option to upgrade to its higher plans if needed. Additionally, you can start with their free but limited plan that allows only 5 products.
• So, a major take here, is that BigCartel is safe for people with a sizeable budget who are simply testing the waters.
5. BigCommerce
Coming out big with all the big offerings to help art contents sell, BigCommerce is reputed to be friendliest for users without technical ideas.
• User-friendly. You don’t need to worry about operating an online shop as well as your site’s security, as they are all covered with BigCommerce.
• SEO Compliant. In here, your products are guaranteed the necessary visibility for sales.
• Multi-channel offers. You have the chance of selling your product in several online stores like eBay, Amazon, BigCommerce sites, Facebook, and Pinterest.
• It comes fully hosted. You don’t need to worry about hosting subscription here because it comes hosted.
• Payment plan. They have a beginner/standard plan of $29.95 which gives you access to unlimited data storage, bandwidth, product, accepts credit cards, and PayPal with transaction charges.
• Flipside. When your annual revenue increases beyond $50.00, the system automatically upgrades you to the monthly plus plan of $79.95. This also opens your access to other juicy features like non-transaction charges, advanced customer segmentation, incredible payment options, among others.
6. Weebly
Users of this website argue positively about its affordability for budget concerns.
• SEO driven. It comes with SEO functions that enhance the visibility of your website and ranks it on search engines for relevant buyer and prospects.
• User-friendly. even if you are a beginner at online store selling, the features here allow your ease of use.
• Free themes. They also offer free themes which are good for low budget sellers/artists.
• Ease of navigation. The site is built to aid navigation to allow your web visitors easy access and perusal over the pages.
• Payment plan. For starters, Weebly has a $6 monthly plan but with limited features as well as a $12 professional monthly plan. With the later plan, you can count on a variety of features like no advert popping up to distract your visitors.
• Downsides. The designs may not come off excellent as those in other platforms especially the free themes, which is why upgrading to the paid plan is better.
7. GoDaddy
For anyone looking for an easy/buildable website, here is the best option to take. Tech stuff is not all that fun considering the number of days you may spend building one. But with GoDaddy, you can count your luck already.
• Ease of use. It is very easy to use; you can get online as soon as you wish.
• Ease of navigation. Your web visitors, don’t get daunted when they stray into your site as the icons to lead are readily placed.
• Payment plan. Unlike other website builders, GoDaddy doesn’t give free plans but it gives a one-month free trial to enable you to scrutinize and choose the plan that suits your taste and budget. They have a basic plan of $10 monthly, a $15 standard monthly plan that comes with SEO features among other offerings.
• Customer support. With GoDaddy, you can count on 24/7 customer support for hassle-free online services.
• Downsides. Because your website is made for you, you wouldn’t have the chance to design it for the suiting of your art pieces. And the site may simply come off too bland and regular lacking the necessary aesthetics.
8. Duda
Agreed, not all artists may be versed with artistic inspiration, that is where Duda comes in handy with the solutions.
• User-friendly. Duda is revered as one of the website builders to help out with creatives, seen in its numerous stunning templates, built-in apps, and widgets. With this, you will never run out of ideas to infuse into your work while preparing them for the big sale. These templates are quite easy to use and very flexible too.
• Similarly, these incredible themes and apps are to help in keeping your site fresh and interesting to every visitor.
• Ease of navigation. The pages are designed to aid navigation, with this, your visitor doesn’t get confused or leaves in a hurry.
• Payment plans. Duda offers a 14-day free plan for everyone after which you can upgrade to its various payment plans. The pay plans include a $14 monthly plan and a $74 monthly plan.
• Downsides. Comparatively, Duda’s offers are slightly pricy than others and it doesn’t promise so many SEO provisions like others.
9. Strikingly
If you are looking for a platform that tends to your editing and entire work, then you can go with Strikingly.
• Ease of use. In little to no time, you can get online when using strikingly. Additionally, it comes with a built-in blogging site to keep the site fresh and the users engaged.
• Customer support. With strikingly, you can count on the site builders’ help and support.
• Payment plan. Like most platforms, strikingly has a free plan especially if this is your first time at blogging but with features limited to contact page, blogging, and social feed. For access to limitless features, you can upgrade to its $8 monthly plan and reap features like domain name and more professional touches on your website.
• Downsides. However, it lacks some flexibility with its design, since you do not have so much control over the editing process, it may come off purely regular and plain. It may not also be a good fit for any artist thinking to grow his/her website in the future due to poor scalability here.
10. WordPress
Here is one of the platforms you are likely to hear about and it comes in handy with a lot of benefits.
• Rich customization. You have lots of customized offerings here and this is a huge benefit to artists and anyone seeking creative touches on their products.
• Ease of navigation. Web visitors can easily move around your page and make necessary transactions with ease. Templates are readily available as well as other widgets to enhance the aesthetics of your page.
• Payment plan. WordPress is known as one of the affordable platforms for beginner artists as it has a free plan with a few features though. Similarly, it also has the $4 monthly plan which is billed yearly. This offer comes with a custom domain and gives you access to 24/7 customer support
• Unlike other platforms, WordPress requires some tech knowledge to smoothly operate it. This is surely discouraging to non-tech artists.
11. Volusion
Another platform builder that guarantees huge ease of usage for artists is none else than Volusion.
• Ease of use. Similar to Wix and other platforms, Volusion offers the drag and drop feature where you can easily import your content. With over 11 customized and highly responsive themes to aid your creativity.
• Track records/analytics. If you desire to keep a tab on the visitations your website receives, here is a platform to trust. Volusion provides data reporting and analytic tools to help you keep track of the traffic generated on your site
• Monitor sales and conversion. With these tools, you can also keep track of the sales activities of your sites.
• Payment plan. To get the best of all these features a monthly plan of $24 is advised and you have the chance of selling across several platforms as well.
• SEO offerings may be slightly low as compared with other web building.
12. 3dcart
Lastly, here is another cheaper option to help your art creations sell uninterrupted without additional transaction charges.
• Ease of use. The platform appears to be one of the most preferred for starters especially when you do not have so many art pieces yet to sell.
• Real-time shipping offerings. What seems to be one of its greatest strengths is its shipping rates along with a monthly track plan. With this, you can keep tabs on your activities and transactions. They also offer zero transaction charges on their monthly plans. It also has more than 100 payment gateway which allows various payment options for users.
• Payment plan. On 3rdcart, you can have your products displayed with a cheap plan as low as $19 monthly and a $29 monthly plan as well.
• Downsides. It is true that 3rdcart charges nothing for transaction fees, bear in mind that changes may apply when dealing with the numerous payment gateways.
For every artist who desires to commercialize his/her creation, finding an effective online store(s) is finally an achievable feat with the platforms discussed above. From here, you can find the various features and advantages each platform has over the other. And with this, you can have an effective website that runs side by side or over your competitors and have your artistic creations make all the sales you wish.
