Wix eCommerce, Is it a good choice?

Wix has taken the ranks of popular eCommerce sites, thanks to its excellent marketing and SEO-friendly platform. They are masters in providing both free and paid website templates for every niche. Also, their drag-and-drop website editor makes it a champ for non-coders and busy users. Do you know what’s the best part? Their packages are very affordable. But is it a pay-peanuts-get monkeys-thing? Definitely, not.

Wix is one of the largest website builders on the web right now next to WordPress. But aside from its usual content-based tools, the Wix eCommerce templates allow online stores to thrive in their platform.

In this post, we will see if Wix is a good choice for all niches and what features should users expect from this site builder.

Wix PROS and CONS

PROS

-Unbeatable blogging and SEO tools

-Manageable learning curve

-A reasonable number of integrations and easy-to-use editor

-Very affordable monthly price

-Good templates but worth configuring to look better

CONS

-No live chat support available for users

-Some of the themes aren’t mobile responsible

-Limited payment gateways

Start Your 14-day Free Wix eCommerce Trial

Key features

Wix was founded in 2006 and has been a popular choice among website builders up to now. It’s also backed by large companies including Benchmark Capital, Insight Venture Partners, and Mangrove Capital Partners among others.

With its versatility and appealing functionality, there’s no doubt that online store builders consider Wix as a convenient choice. Here are some of its notable features:

Drag-and-drop feature. Wix has a very intuitive dashboard complete with marketing and SEO add-ons. Unlike Shopify that focuses mainly on eCommerce, Wix has plugins outside marketing which is a big plus.

Modern templates. If there’s one thing Wix excels on, it would be the website templates they offer. If you want advanced customization, you can use the API-opening Wix Code. However, some can be a bit 2010-ish which is workable with a little designing.

Automatic site back-up. This is similar to Apple’s time machine system which creates a backup of your site that you can restore anytime. You will have peace of mind that your store won’t vanish on the web.

Excellent SEO. If you want a site that ranks and converts well, Wix has tons of SEO tools for you. There’s the SEO Wiz for starters and other self-help materials that you can exploit.

Hosted platform. Unlike some of its competitors, Wix is fully hosted and there’s no need to work on buying and setting up separate hosting accounts.

The best Wix templates & editing

Over the years, Wix has polished and dusted some of its outdated features. It includes the backend design section where you can easily toy around many tools to change the appearance of your Wix store.

You can also choose from Wix’s hundreds of templates and designs. With this, you can pick one that truly matches the identity of your product and brand. There are free and premium ones. If you’re building a store, I suggest that you purchase a premium theme since some of the free ones are a bit dull.

However, there’s one caveat with Wix templates. Once you’ve chosen and used a certain theme, there’s no way you can switch to another if you change your mind. The only option is to start from scratch by building another site and getting rid of the old one. It’s a big hassle, especially if you’re still discovering the look that will suit your taste.

Nevertheless, the drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to alter the appearance of the theme if you want to stick to it. Right now, there’s an integrated HTML embed code. Not too fancy for hardcore coders, but definitely worth it for those who want to skip the hassle of technical setup.

Product inventory and management

If you want to enjoy the eCommerce tools of Wix, you need to avail at least the eCommerce package at $16.50 per month (see Wix eCommerce fees below).

Once you purchased the plan, you can punch unlimited products on your online store, both digital and physical items. Users can also sort and filter your products for added functionality.

If you’re selling digital products, it would be effortless with Wix. As for physical goods like clothes, perfume, electronics, and so on, there are enough tools to manage it from selling to delivery.

For physical products, Wix has the tracking information feature that will be tagged to your choice of courier service, say USPS, FedEx, UPS, and more. If you are based in the U.S., you can use the Point of Sale Functionality courtesy of Square.

Are you always on the go? Wix comes with a mobile app where you can oversee your store anywhere and anytime.

Still, I have some gripes with Wix when it comes to selling and payments. There’s no abandoned cart auto recovery and it doesn’t support dropshipping. Also, the platform is still working on enabling the bulk product import feature.

Payment gateways & shipping fees

Like most of its competitors, Wix supports a myriad of payment processing gateways. Some of these include PayPal, Square, WebMoney, Authorize.net, and more. You can also accept offline payments like bank transfers, checks, wire transfer, and cash.

Take note that the availability of some of the payment gateways will vary per country. You can find a full list of Wix’s payment gateways here: https://support.wix.com/en/article/available-payment-providers-3848246

When it comes to shipping fees, it came as a surprise that Wix also has tax and shipping fee calculation tools. If your store is based in the U.S. or Brazil, you can integrate a tool that gives customers real-time shipping rates.

Wix also allows users to set tax and shipping rates per region. This is necessary if you want to use VAT MOSS or VAT Mini One Stop Shop for your customers located in Europe.

Marketing and SEO

Wix is a champ when it comes to search engine optimization. It has the Blog Elements section where you can easily integrate a blog on your store for added visibility. Wix also has the social media integration feature that you can use to add comment sections and widgets wherever you wish on your store. It can be a hotbar link to social media, Twitter feed, and so on.

For your products, you can make use of the Wix Pro Gallery to boost the quality of your photos and to add video content to your site. You can also add alt texts, meta descriptions, 301 redirects, page URLs, and more.

Aside from this, you’ll also have full-access to Wix Forums which is a membership-based social community where visitors will have special privileges.

How about marketing? Wix may not be as grand as Shopify when it comes to marketing but the platform has its own tools to brag. Using the ShoutOut tool, you can send emails and newsletters to your customers. ShoutOut is free for up to 5,000 emails. Anything beyond that will require you to pay a certain fee

Customer support

Wix’s support can only go as far as phone and email correspondence. There’s no live chat, but it doesn’t mean your queries won’t be answered. You can pay extra to enjoy a VIP support line where the response is faster. For those who opted out of the extra fee, Wix doesn’t commit to any timeline as to how fast concerns can be answered.

When you submit an email ticket, you can get answers the next day. Still, this isn’t guaranteed. You can refer to their self-help materials in the Help Centre for urgent concerns. If that’s not enough, you can use the toll-free number where you can contact Wix customer support. However, this can be a bit difficult, especially if the store is managed only by a delegated supervisor and not the owner itself.

eCommerce security features

Since Wix is already hosted, their professionals are the one tasked to ensure that your online store is secured and loading fast. There’s no need to dip your fingers on unappealing codes and technical troubleshooting. All the caching, compliance, certifications, and payment security is processed by Wix.

Still, you should know that every platform has its own limitations. If you source a third-party software that’s not tested for Wix, you’re liable for any issues that may arise. Nevertheless, you can contact Wix for whatever support they can give.

Start Your 14-day Free Wix eCommerce Trial

Wix pricing tables

If you’re looking for an affordable platform where you can start building your store right away, Wix is perfect. By looking at the price tables below, there’s no excuse not to have an online store for your products.

PACKAGE	COMBO $8.50/mo.	UNLIMITED $12.50/mo	eCOMMERCE $16.50/mo.	VIP $24.50/mo.
Storage limit	3 GB	10 GB	20 GB	20 GB
Bandwidth	2 GB	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Online Store	No	No	Yes	Yes
Priority response	No	No	No	Yes

Although the pricing is pretty affordable, you get what you pay for. All of the packages have storage limits. If you’re planning to put up an online store through Wix, you might as well avail the VIP package.

Remember, too, that eCommerce tools are only available on the eCOMMERCE and VIP packages.