Best eCommerce Platform for Artists

Artists have a lot of options when it comes to eCommerce platforms. With so many choices, finding the right one can be difficult. One of the most important decisions for an artist is choosing what platform to use as their online storefront. The choice between platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, WordPress, and all the other eCommerce platforms out there can be a difficult one; each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

This is even more important since eCommerce has gone mainstream in the past few years. It is no longer just for business owners with large budgets, but also for small businesses and individuals looking to sell their products online. Artists are not exempt from this trend either- many artists find that they can generate more revenue by selling their art online than at local fairs or boutiques.

Artists typically need something with a robust product catalog that integrates seamlessly with their website. Choosing an eCommerce platform can be difficult, however, so we have created a guide to help you make the best decision possible when choosing your eCommerce platform. We are going to review some top products recommended by other artists and show you how these products work together to create killer websites.

Bottom Line Up Front:

All in all, I highly recommend using WordPress or Shopify as your eCommerce platform because they offer more flexible options and multiple designs, products, and payment options. They also have great SEO tools which will help your site, and products, rank much better online.

What Is An eCommerce Platform?

An eCommerce platform is a software application that enables businesses to sell products and services online. eCommerce platforms typically provide the shopping cart functionality, product catalogs, payment processing, order tracking, and other features needed to run an online store.

For artists, it is important to find a platform that has a robust product catalog. This will allow you to list all of your products in one place and make it easy for customers to find what they are looking for.

How Do eCommerce Platforms Work?

Most eCommerce platforms work in a similar way. The business sign-up for an account and then adds products to their product catalog. When a customer orders something, the eCommerce platform will take care of processing the payment and handling shipping logistics. It is important that your chosen website has good customer service so you can resolve any issues with customers quickly!

This means that artists need a website that integrates seamlessly with their eCommerce platform. The website and the shopping cart should be able to communicate in real-time. This is why it is important for websites to have good product catalogs so you can list your products on them as well!

What Are the Different Types of eCommerce Platforms?

So, what are the main types of eCommerce platforms? There are three types: hosted, self-hosted, and hybrid.

Hosted

This type of eCommerce platform is one that is run by a third party. This means that the business does not need to worry about setting up or maintaining its own website. The third-party will take care of all of that for them.

Self-hosted

This type of eCommerce platform is one that a business will set up independently. It allows the company to control their own website and store, but it also means they need to worry about maintenance and hardware/software updates.

Hybrid

A hybrid eCommerce platform is one that operates on both hosted technology as well as self-hosted technology. This type of platform gives businesses the best of both worlds, as they can have a lot of control over their website while still having the benefits of a hosted platform.

There are also different types of eCommerce platforms based on the features they offer. These include:

SaaS (software-as-a-service)

This type of eCommerce platform is a cloud-based solution that offers businesses a wide range of features. These platforms are typically easy to use and set up, making them good for small businesses or first-time entrepreneurs.

PaaS (platform-as-a-service)

This type of eCommerce platform is similar to SaaS, but they are able to offer more advanced capabilities. This is due to the fact that PaaS platforms typically have larger databases and faster servers.

On-premises platforms

These eCommerce platforms are those that businesses install on their own hardware. This type of platform is great for larger companies as they can have total control over the security, performance, and stability of their system.

What Should You Look for in an eCommerce Platform for Artists?

Now let’s take a look at the things you should keep an eye out for when it comes to choosing an eCommerce platform for artists. Artists need a website that is easy to navigate and has a good layout so customers can find what they are looking for quickly.

It’s also important to make sure your site looks professional, as this will instill customer confidence in it! You should look for an eCommerce platform that has a good product catalog. This will allow you to list all of your products in one place and make it easy for customers to find what they are looking for.

It’s also important that the eCommerce platform you choose has a good customer service system so you can resolve any issues with customers quickly!

Here are some more of the most important things to look at in an eCommerce platform for artists:

Does it fit your needs?

What are your requirements with an eCommerce platform? For example, it is important to see if the eCommerce platform can integrate with your website or different selling channels. Also, does it support that type of artist that you are? For example, an artist that wants to sell prints might need something different than an artist who sells clothing.

Does the eCommerce platform integrate with your website?

Some of the most popular platforms offer plugins or applications for developers, which allow them to seamlessly integrate their websites and shopping carts together. This makes it easy for customers to purchase products directly on your site.

What are the features of the eCommerce platform?

Is this what you need for your business? For example, some platforms offer things like inventory management, taxes, and shipping options which might be important to artists. Or maybe they have a good marketing system that will help drive traffic to your product page! Make sure to look at all of the features that are available.

Does it have a good shopping cart?

A shopping cart is what allows customers to buy products on your site, so make sure you choose an eCommerce platform with one! Some platforms offer different types of carts like multi-vendor or simple ones for artists who aren’t selling many items yet. Also, check to see how customizable the shopping cart is so you can make it match your website’s look and feel.

How big is your audience?

The size of your audience is important because it will determine the type of platform you need. For example, if you have a small audience then you might want to use a SaaS platform as they are typically designed for businesses with lower traffic levels. However, if you have a large following then an on-premises platform would be better to handle the increased traffic.

Is customer service important to you?

Customer service is an important part of running a business and should be one of your top priorities when choosing an eCommerce platform. Make sure to ask questions like: What kind of customer service do they offer? Is it available 24/7? How long does it usually take for them to respond to a ticket? Do they have a knowledge base or forum where you can find answers to your questions?

Does it support photography?

If you are an artist who sells photography then it’s important to find an eCommerce platform that supports and displays photos well. This will make your product look better on the site and give customers a better idea of what they are buying.

Templates and themes

One of the best things about eCommerce platforms is that they come with a variety of templates and themes to choose from. This will help you to find one that matches your website’s look and feel, making it easier for customers to navigate between the two.

Are there any restrictions?

Some platforms have restrictions on which countries you can sell your products in. Make sure to check their website for a full list of countries they support before you sign up so that you don’t have any issues later on!

Your technical knowledge

Another thing to consider is your technical knowledge. Some platforms are more difficult to use than others, so if you’re not very tech-savvy then you might want to choose one that is easier to navigate.

Design features

Do you need any special design features? For example, does the platform support drop-shipping? This is when products are shipped directly from the supplier to the customer, which can save you time and money.

SEO structure

Next, make sure to check out the platform’s SEO structure. The way you optimize your website for search engines determines how well it will rank on Google and other sites. For example, platforms like Shopify have built-in SEO features which are easier to customize compared to others that require plugins or code changes in order to get your site ready for search engines.

Product variants

If you want to sell products with variations, like different colors or sizes, then make sure the eCommerce platform you choose supports this. Not all platforms do, so it’s important to check before you sign up.

Price

Lastly, price is always an important factor to consider. Make sure to ask the platform about any setup fees, monthly fees, or transaction fees they might have. Also, find out if there are any discounts available for signing up for a longer-term contract. Plus, some platforms require you to pay for a subscription, while others charge based on the number of products you sell. Make sure you know what the costs are before you make a decision.

Our Top eCommerce Platform Recommendations

Squarespace

One of the leading website builders, Squarespace is widely popular among artists like photographers, videographers, painters, and graphic designers. You can personalize almost every part of the website pages using the simple drag and drop components. The mobile editor lets you customize the website for mobile devices and provide a smooth user experience across all devices.

Squarespace lets you deliver an excellent customer experience as the sites are highly responsive and optimized for mobile devices. It also helps in optimizing pages to rank higher on search results by adding meta tags, keywords, etc. As artists, we want our site to be attractive and engaging. Squarespace understands this well and helps in growing your business by offering everything you need.

Some of the most impressive features include website templates to showcase your creative artworks beautifully. It also offers gallery pages with various layouts like Stacked, slideshow, Grid, or slider layout options. You can even use the powerful pop-up and bars builder to create promotional announcements.

Overall, Squarespace is an excellent eCommerce platform for artists who want to deliver a delightful customer experience and sell their creative artworks in an attractive way.

Pros

• Very easy to use UI
• Wide range of beautiful and contemporary templates
• Integrates nicely with third-party tools
• You can use the logo design app to design a logo

Cons

• No multi-currency selling
• POS only available in the US
• Phone support isn’t available

Shopify

Next up is Shopify. It’s safe to say that most artists have heard of Shopify or have even used it. It’s a powerful eCommerce platform that lets you create stunning online stores in minutes, without any coding knowledge. It offers 24/7 support and tools to help grow your business from anywhere with an internet connection.

Shopify provides complete control over the look and feel of the website as well as detailed insights into how customers are interacting with your store. You can use Shopify to sell products of any type, including digital downloads, physical products, and even services.

You can use Shopify to promote your business on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram, as well as marketplaces like Etsy. It also includes the app store, which has all of the necessary tools and applications to develop apps for it.

Shopify also comes with a wide range of features like automatic tax calculation, shipping labels, discount codes, and more that make it easier to run your business. Plus, it’s compatible with a number of third-party apps that let you run your store the way you want.

You can choose from over 100 free and premium themes to create an attractive website for showcasing your creative artworks beautifully. The visual editor lets you customize websites without any coding knowledge, while the powerful options panel helps in uploading custom CSS or JavaScript to the theme.

The ease of use and functionality that Shopify provides is what makes it one of the most popular e-commerce platforms. Shopify’s mobile app, in particular, allows you to effortlessly manage your digital galleries while also tracking your company’s growth.

Overall, Shopify is an excellent choice for artists who want to sell their creative artworks in a beautiful way and manage everything related to the eCommerce business from one place.

Pros

• Very easy to use
• Attractive, fully responsive templates
• Multi-currency selling is possible
• Comes with their own email marketing tool

Cons

• Only 3 product options available for lots of product variants
• Adding custom fields is complicated

Wix

Wix is another go-to eCommerce platform for artists. It’s a drag-and-drop website builder that helps you create beautiful websites without any coding knowledge. It offers a wide range of templates – over 100, in fact – for different types of businesses, including artists. It’s possible to construct your online business with these ready-made templates for categories like music, literary arts, and visual arts. You can use Wix to create an online store and start selling your products in minutes.

Like Shopify, Wix also provides complete control over the look and feel of the website, which is ideal for artists. It also offers detailed insights into how customers are interacting with your store and helps in growing the business through marketing automation.

Wix lets you manage orders, track inventory, create reports on revenue generated by your products or services, etc., all from one place. You can even sync up product details across platforms to ensure consistency.

Wix offers the option to add up to five users for sharing access, which is great if you want your team involved in various aspects of running the business. Similar to Shopify’s app store, Wix allows developers and third-party designers to create apps that can be used with it (for eCommerce).

If you want to market high-quality digital photos and videos, Wix Pro Gallery is a free add-on that allows you to do so in an innovative way. This feature offers digital art security as a result of which you can ensure that no one downloads your photographs without paying.

You can use Wix to create an online store for free, but there are some paid features too. For example, in order to add your custom domain, you’ll need to select one of its premium plans, which comes with a free domain for a year. Wix is a fantastic place for photographers, videographers, and graphic designers to develop an outstanding online store to sell their work.

Pros

• Very affordable
• Includes a range of photos you can use on your site
• Includes phone support
• Free domain for one year is included

Cons

• Making your site responsive is tricky
• You can’t export digital products

WordPress

Like Shopify, I’d be very surprised if there’s a single artist out there that isn’t familiar with WordPress. It’s one of the most popular website builders and content management systems in the world. WordPress is used by over 30% of all websites on the internet, including some very high-profile ones like The Guardian, Forbes, and TechCrunch.

WordPress is also an eCommerce platform that lets you create a professional online store to sell your creative artworks. It offers free themes that integrate with WooCommerce and Shopify that are specifically built to help you sell your work in the most attractive way possible.

WordPress, a web host, and a theme can all be set up in less than an hour. You may also begin uploading your items online right away. A number of free eCommerce templates and plugins, as well as paid options, are available. It has a wide range of themes for artists with lots of customizations, page layouts, widgets, and eCommerce extensions.

The platform also provides endless opportunities for customization; it’s not just about building websites and online stores – WordPress allows users with zero technical knowledge to add features like forums or community portals. Last but not the least, you can also use a WordPress website as your online store by installing an eCommerce plugin like WooCommerce.

WordPress is not only the most popular content management system but it is also one of the best platforms for digital artists to sell their creations. In fact, it’s one of the most popular eCommerce platforms for creative types since it has a fantastic content management system. You can quickly and easily include and embed your own images, text, movies, and other items.

It’s also great for SEO. WordPress websites are easily found in search engine results pages (SERPs), and the built-in features like permalinks, metadata, and titles help your website rank higher, which will ultimately result in more sales.

If there’s any artist out there who wants to turn his/her passion into a profession, WordPress is the way to go. However, one crucial point to note is that you need to have at least basic technical knowledge and awareness to build and manage a WordPress site.

Pros

• User-friendly site
• Well optimized for SEO
• Open-source and responsive
• Plenty of plugins for a range of different addons

Cons

• Updating plugins can be annoying
• Easier for hackers to gain access

BigCommerce

Next, BigCommerce is another eCommerce platform that I think is worth mentioning. It offers a lot of features and benefits for artists, including a free trial period, no setup fees, unlimited storage space, and bandwidth, as well as support for unlimited products.

In addition to this, BigCommerce also has an app store where you can find integrations for things like social media, shopping carts, email marketing providers, and business analytics.

BigCommerce offers a lot of capabilities that are beneficial for artists who want to sell their creative items online: in-demand themes with customizable options; one-page checkouts and mobile responsive designs; built-in SEO tools like meta tags and XML sitemaps; plus social sharing buttons and the ability to track how your products are performing on social media.

In addition, you may sell your digital items on various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest to increase exposure and enhance your brand value. And One of the most significant advantages of selling your art on BigCommerce is that it has a connection with Alibaba. This means you may connect with hundreds or thousands of other artists on the platform and lay a solid foundation for expanding your digital items to the next higher level.

BigCommerce is a great platform for artists who want to start an online store and take their business to the next level. It offers a wide range of features, it’s easy to use, and there’s no limit to what you can sell. Plus, with its app store, you can find integrations for all of the important aspects of your online store.

Overall, BigCommerce is the ideal platform for entrepreneurs looking to start a store, sell their products and offer additional distribution channels.

Pros

• Easy to sell in multiple currencies
• No transaction fees
• Easy to use – drag and drop builder and easy to create custom fields
• Great SEO features

Cons

• Free themes are quite limited
• The number of fonts available is quite limited
• Limits are placed on annual online sales – if you exceed them, you’ll have to upgrade

Weebly

Last but not least, Weebly is another great eCommerce platform for artists. It’s easy to use, has a wide range of features, and is perfect for entrepreneurs who are just starting out.

Weebly offers users a free plan as well as paid plans with more features. The free plan includes unlimited products, storage space, and bandwidth; however, it does not include a custom domain name or SSL certificate.

Weebly also offers a wide range of features, including the ability to create an online store, add unlimited products, track inventory, set up shipping rates, and manage orders. Plus, it has built-in SEO features that will help your website rank higher in SERPs.

It is, in fact, well-known for its exceptional SEO services. The platform allows your items to flourish because it extends your abilities and makes them accessible to a large number of people.

In addition, Weebly offers a wide range of integrations, including social media platforms, shopping carts, and email marketing providers. It also works with the most popular payment processors, such as PayPal and VISA. In addition, it supports prominent payment gateways like Stripe, Square, and Paypal Express.

Weebly is an excellent platform for artists who want to start an online store without spending a lot of money. It’s easy to use, has a variety of features, and includes everything you need to get started. Plus, with its integrations, you can connect your store to all of the important platforms for selling your products.

Pros

• Lots of flexibility with the site design
• Site speed is very good
• Easy to use editor

Cons

• Photo editing features aren’t great
• Blogging tools are limited

What Criteria Did We Use to Come up with These Suggestions?

To come up with this list of the best eCommerce platforms for artists, we considered the following factors:

• Ease of use/flexibility
• SEO features
• Themes and design options
• Integrated payment processing
• Partnerships with other platforms or marketplaces

First, we looked at how easy it is to use the platform. We made sure that the platforms we suggested are easy to use, even for artists who don’t have a lot of technical experience. Second, we looked at the SEO features that each platform offers. We made sure that the platforms offer good SEO options so that artists can make their products more visible online.

Third, we considered the design and theme options available for each platform. We looked for platforms that offer a wide variety of themes and design options, so artists can create a website that reflects their unique brand and artistic style.

Fourth, we considered the integrated payment processing options available for each platform. We looked for platforms that offer a wide variety of payment processing options, so artists can choose the option that works best for them.

Finally, we looked at the partnerships that each platform has with other platforms or marketplaces. We looked for platforms that have partnerships with other major platforms and marketplaces, so artists can reach a larger audience.

We also had a look at customer reviews from different sources and considered the price as an important factor.

FAQs

Conclusion

So, there you have it! These, in our opinion, are all the best eCommerce platforms for artists.

eCommerce platforms are a great way to sell your artwork online. They offer a wide range of features, they’re all easy to use, and they have great SEO options. Additionally, many of them integrate well with other platforms and marketplaces. We suggest WordPress or Shopify as our top choices because they offer more flexible options and multiple payment processing options.

Overall, our favorite platforms for eCommerce are WordPress and Shopify because they offer more flexible options when it comes to design, plenty of great SEO features, and multiple payment options. WordPress offers a wide variety of themes and options that you can customize according to your artistic style and brand identity. It also has one of the most active communities, so you’ll never be alone! And Shopify, though a little pricier, integrates well with many other platforms and marketplaces.

Nonetheless, all of these platforms offer a wide range of features, are easy to use, and have no limit to what you can sell.  So, what are you waiting for? All that’s left to do is select the platform that’s right for you and start selling your art today!