Creating a pleasing and user-friendly storefront is the goal of any e-commerce business owner looking to expand their sales and engage new customers. A popular platform for creating an accessible website is Wix. This robust, code-free website builder has numerous business features to create a blog, online store, or any other digital platform imaginable.
With over 200 million users as of 2021, Wix is one of the most notable site builders – and selling on Wix is an excellent option if you’re looking to showcase your e-commerce products without complicated coding requirements. But is Wix good for e-commerce, can you sell your products on Wix, and is Wix preferable to other online marketplaces? Read more for our comprehensive Wix e-commerce review!
What is Wix E-Commerce?
Wix E-commerce is a code-free site builder with several business tools that allow users to create sites ranging from amateur blogs to enterprise-grade e-commerce sites. Commonly used by small business owners, Wix offers built-in features for e-commerce sites and is a leader in web design for individuals without much experience developing a website.
Wix is equipped with numerous web design options, including:
- Artificial intelligence
- Templates
- Wix Editor
- Wix Video Maker
- Wix Studio
- Wix Photo Studio
- Wix Marketplace
- Velo by Wix
What are Wix’s Retail Features?
If you’re looking to bring your retail operations to the digital realm but don’t have much experience creating a website, Wix is an excellent option. The site builder comes with numerous retail features to create an online store that helps convert visitors into customers.
Let’s explore some of Wix’s core retail features that make it a suitable choice for your e-commerce website.
Product Management Features
So, can you sell products on Wix? The short answer is yes – but to make the most of Wix, you’ll need to understand its many product management features. Some essential product management features available through Wix for your retail store include:
- Catalog management, which allows users to add a maximum of 50,000 products to their store and helps customers shop efficiently with filtering options.
- Product variants, which allow you to sell different versions of the same product based on factors like size, color, and more. Each variant can be managed differently and have different prices.
- Inventory management solutions that help you track product quantities automatically. This feature also allows you to assign specific products as “in stock” or “out of stock” to reflect accurate inventory levels.
- Digital product sales, which is essential if your store sells digital products instead of physical ones. This feature enables you to sell products like e-books, music, images, and more – and you can even bundle files together to sell them in a .zip format.
Shipping and Fulfillment Features
Wix enables a simple shipping and fulfillment process – something critical to ensuring customer satisfaction and the legitimacy of your store. Wix e-commerce has solutions to help you determine shipping rules and prices based on a product’s weight, the shipping destination, and other factors influencing shipping costs.
Wix allows you to offer customers free shipping or flat-rate fees to meet your store’s unique needs. Customers have access to faster shipping options at higher prices to ensure each customer is satisfied with their shipping experience. And if you aren’t keen on creating your own shipping labels, Wix allows you to print personalized labels for all your retail needs.
Wix’s e-commerce features can integrate with major shipping companies, including UPS, USPS, and FedEx. Wix also allows you to link your products to a dropshipping company to accommodate your business model and has robust tracking features to ensure customers have constant access to their product’s location before it reaches its destination. These features include automating shipping updates and single or multiple tracking numbers connected to an order.
Analytics Features
Assessing your online store and sales history is paramount to your company’s success and sustainability. Wix offers several analytics features to track your progress and make adjustments as necessary to better serve customers.
Wix offers sales analytics, including detailed reports on your sales over a specified period. These analytics also include breakdowns based on different sales criteria and factors, like coupons, promotions, billing locations, shipping methods, and more.
The site builder provides inventory reports to help you manage your inventory more effectively, making it possible to assess your stock levels, determine what items are selling faster, and analyze products selling slowly – ensuring you make the most of your available inventory.
Beyond these analytics, Wix provides essential customer insights and behavioral reports to help you understand customer shopping behaviors and patterns. These behavioral reports include details about the following:
- Page visits
- Traffic sources
- Button clicks
- Top searches
- Submissions by form
- Clicks-to-contact over time
- Order conversion over time
- Searches over time
- Searches with no results
- Button clicks over time
- Form submissions over time
Booking Management Features
Customers often require guidance during their shopping journey. Wix allows customers to easily access your support services and book 1-on-1 customer appointments for individuals needing more assistance before purchasing.
Beyond 1-on-1 appointments, Wix also allows booking unique classes, workshops, group calls, and more to give your customers the best user experience possible.
Mobile Site Features
Wix provides several features to enhance your site’s mobile capabilities to ensure a seamless user experience. You can use the Wix Owner app on your mobile device to manage your Wix store, track site analytics, engage with customers through live chat, handle bookings and payments, and more – giving you the resources you need to connect with customers from any device.
Additionally, Wix allows you to add mobile-optimized elements to your website, including a back-to-top button, a quick action bar, and more, ensuring the mobile experience is as effortless as the desktop one.
Marketing Features
Sustaining your e-commerce store is impossible without comprehensive marketing efforts, and Wix allows e-commerce business owners to take advantage of several marketing features to maximize digital success.
- Email and Content: Wix E-commerce allows you to create effective email marketing campaigns and blogs. The platform also includes an email editor tool that can automate your email campaigns to connect with customers during special events and offers real-time analytics to assess the success of your email marketing efforts.
- Promotions: Beyond its email marketing features, Wix’s e-commerce platform allows you to create discounts and coupons for customers to promote your products and intrigue new customers. Wix also includes features to streamline social media marketing and integrations, allowing you to create social posts that encourage more traffic to your e-commerce site.
- SEO: Wix sites also provide tools for search engine optimization, allowing you to customize URL structures and perform AI-driven optimization of meta tags, that contribute to your search engine rankings.
Wix Payment Options
E-commerce customers expect solutions to ensure safe payments and protect their information. Customers also anticipate that your site will offer several ways to pay and accept different banks and providers to allow all customers to purchase products and services without limitations.
Wix has numerous payment options to meet these requirements and streamline your digital payment success. These options are easy to set up and guarantee secure online payments, safeguarding customer information. It eliminates needing a third-party payment gateway and includes a dashboard for all customer payouts, refunds, and chargebacks.
The payment options customers have access to when purchasing products from your Wix store include:
- Credit and debit card payments from all major credit card companies
- Apple Pay
- Affirm
- Afterpay
- Google Pay
- iDEAL
- BNPL
- Pay Now (by Klarna)
Is Wix Worth It? The Pros of Wix
While Wix has many excellent features to help you run a successful e-commerce business, you might still wonder: can Wix handle e-commerce? Here are the pros of Wix to consider before you start selling on Wix.
User-Friendly Interface
A user-friendly interface that promotes a pleasant user experience is important for e-commerce business owners and customers alike. One of the biggest advantages of choosing Wix for your e-commerce business is that the platform has an intuitive design and includes easily customizable features that don’t require coding knowledge.
Wix has mobile-responsive templates to take the design portion off your shoulders and ensure customers are impressed with your storefront appearance. Wix also offers an artificial design intelligence tool to help build your site, harnessing the power of AI.
Helpful Customer Support
Customer support is essential when designing a website, but unfortunately, not all site builders offer comprehensive customer support to help during the development process. Luckily, Wix doesn’t suffer from this issue – the platform provides robust support features to help you navigate your e-commerce journey and overcome obstacles that might make site creation challenging.
No matter whether you select a paid or free option, all Wix plans include access to the site’s customer support team. Wix can significantly reduce the time you would otherwise spend troubleshooting issues independently.
Plenty of Customization Options
Another advantage of selling on Wix is that the site builder has plenty of customization options to tailor your e-commerce site to your liking. While you build your Wix site based on a provided template, you’ll still have numerous options to customize your site and align it with your store’s branding.
Customizable elements of Wix stores include your text, layouts, and images, and for features that aren’t available with your chosen template, you can use the Wix App Market to find new features to add to your site. These features include chatbots, SEO, image galleries, booking capabilities, submission forms, and more – ensuring your store has everything customers need for a satisfying experience.
Read More: 20 Best Wix Apps
The Cons of Using Wix
Despite the obvious perks, Wix also has a few considerations that you need to be aware of before choosing to invest in it. Here are the 3 key ones:
Certain Features Require a Paid Plan
Many people consider Wix because it’s an affordable option compared to other e-commerce site builders. While this is somewhat true, Wix’s free plan is restricted to specific features, meaning you won’t be able to take advantage of many essential components of a successful e-commerce site without paying.
Accessing Wix’s tracking and analytics features requires a paid plan, so if you opt for the free option, you won’t be able to measure your site’s success and make critical adjustments to boost sales – which can do serious harm to your business.
No Template Switching
Though Wix templates are appealing and customizable, they have some limitations – most notably, Wix doesn’t allow template switching once you’ve chosen your site’s structure.
Once your website goes live, you’re stuck with the template you selected, which isn’t ideal for site owners who want to focus on rebranding in the future. To redesign your site using Wix, you’ll have to take your site down and start again, a massive hassle that not all e-commerce site owners are prepared for.
Wix Branding and Advertisements
Using Wix’s free option means you have to have Wix branding front and center on your website. Not only will Wix be included in your domain name – the top of your e-commerce site will state that your site was created with Wix, which can be an eyesore for some store owners.
Wix advertisements throughout your e-commerce site can distract customers from your products and services, especially because site design significantly impacts how customers view your brand. If you only want to use the free version of Wix, your site design won’t reach its maximum potential.
Read More: Top 11 E-commerce Platforms to Consider
Enhance Your Wix E-Commerce Store
While Wix is limited in some aspects, it’s still an excellent option for building an e-commerce site, especially if you don’t have much experience with site building or coding. From product management to payment options and more, Wix includes the core features of a successful e-commerce store.
You can also use various solutions for Wix to maximize e-commerce success and make the most of your Wix store. These solutions can enhance your Wix store to eliminate the limitations you might otherwise encounter using Wix – allowing you to achieve the e-commerce success you’ve been hoping for.
