| Wix standout features | |
| Support |
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| Uptime | 9.99% uptime guarantee |
| Best for | Larger businesses or companies looking to scale quickly |
| Strengths |
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| Weaknesses |
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| Promotion | 14-day free trial for Premium plans |
What Are the Pros and Cons of Wix?
Wix has grown to be an authority in the e-commerce space, largely due to its content-rich site store templates and end-to-end e-commerce tools located conveniently in its easy to use interface.
Businesses of any size can enjoy the variety of benefits that Wix provides. But it is especially appreciated by SMBs that may not have the separate infrastructure in place at the time of site launch – allowing them to maximize their benefit from Wix’s full suite of online tools.
Pros of Wix
- Tailored plans: I appreciated how well Wix caters to its target audience, offering e-commerce-specific site packages and membership options to ensure you’re paying for exactly what you need.
- Ease of use: Every element of Wix, from the site e-commerce manager to the editing suite, is simple to use. You won’t find this level of accessibility and convenience with other online tools.
- Rich design templates: This area of inclusion is notoriously hit or miss with other sites and services. Wix goes above and beyond to offer 500+ content-rich and engaging templates, designed with SEO best practices in mind.
- Easy-to-use site editor: E-commerce store owners can easily update their site’s appearance or offers, taking advantage of the user-friendly editing suite for unlimited changes and updates.
- Robust customer support: Wix offers excellent support options, including 24/7 customer accessibility via phone, email, or community assistance with hundreds of support pages and informational resources to reference as you launch and manage your shop.
Cons of Wix
- Lack of available apps and integrations: Compared to other tools across the web, Wix offers significantly fewer opportunities for integration and plug-in use, especially compared to more robust options such as WordPress. Wix does, however, have a limited library of apps and partnerships that business owners can benefit from. We hope to see this expand to be even more comprehensive and beneficial for business owners.
- Lack of migration support for previously established shops: If previously established elsewhere, your site cannot be transferred or migrated in any way. You’ll have to manually update the Wix template of choice with new information and content – which can be unnecessarily time-consuming.
- Mandatory price threshold for most benefits: What attracts many small business owners to Wix is how accessible it is – offering plans varying from no cost to over $70 depending on what features you need. Generally, common benefits such as customizable domains and branding removal options are not available to those on the free plan, which can be problematic for business owners who want to lead with a branding-forward approach.
Store design
Wix’s theme and template editor is one of the most user-friendly I’ve experienced, allowing e-commerce store owners to create a customized guest experience on both desktop and mobile. This has gotten immediate attention and traction with shop owners, as SEO demands are focusing more on the mobile shop experience.
Much of the interface uses modular, click-and-drag solutions, so it was easy to set up a site in just a few clicks. The templates available are very content- and image-rich, comparable to what you’d see with Shopify or other more advanced e-commerce tools.
There are hundreds of themes to choose from, all of which offer sleek, no-code functionality that will save you time and outside cost spent on developers. An additional benefit is that every page of every template comes with its own SEO recommendations and native suggestion tool, keeping you in alignment with Google’s best practices as you assemble your shop.
Abandoned cart recovery support
The abandoned cart recovery available on every Wix store plan is a staple feature for e-commerce. I was able to turn it on with a single click from the Automations tab in the dashboard. This is far more user-friendly than other competing tools and can save you hours spent building out a custom automation utility.
If you want to opt for a more personalized approach, you can easily edit and assemble customizable emails, or send multiple reminders.
This resource is especially important, as according to Klaviyo’s analysis of more than nine million abandoned cart emails, the average recovery rate ranges from 3% to 5% depending on average order values. People want that personal touch, and business owners can make that even easier with Wix’s user-friendly automation management system.
Comprehensive product upload and display process
Wix offers one of the most comprehensive product display options in the e-commerce space, giving business owners space and endless options to highlight the best perks of every product. You can do this manually or en masse through the upload process.
I could easily update the CSV template spreadsheet to upload product details automatically to the website, saving considerable time and effort and finishing the process in just a few clicks. The best part? You can use this same CSV template to do any bulk edits to the item itself or its related description, saving you even more time as your shop evolves.
Native SEO tools
Wix features native SEO tools such as the Wix SEO Wiz to help improve your site’s SEO holistically, taking both on-page and off-page elements into account. This tool is ideal for e-commerce business owners who have little to no experience optimizing, but still want to rank, as Wix presents each task in small, easy-to-follow steps with ample instructions.
Wix also offers individual toggle capabilities for product SEO settings, helping you to determine what’s working for your site and what isn’t. It also provides assistance and targeted suggestions around topics such as site accessibility, index support, and enhancing your structured data markup – helping your site to make the best impression possible on Google’s crawlers.
It’s also easy to pair Wix with Google Search Console and Google Analytics. Together, I got an in-depth view of my site’s performance and the keywords that are generating traffic.
Site templates
Wix offers a variety of competitive, user-friendly, and aesthetically pleasing site template options to help to engage your clients in a fresh new way. These templates are easy to try, as the interface allows you to shift seamlessly between designs until you find your new look. I input my shop type and other key details into Wix’s generation program and unlocked hundreds of new templates to try – helping me to land on my layout of choice.
The convenience and the quality of the templates available are unmatched by any other site or service that I’ve seen. The fact that Wix has been able to sort these templates into different categories such as sites best for business, e-commerce, art, and more was especially helpful and saved me time spent in the site creation process.
The templates are also designed to be incredibly mobile-responsive, giving you a firm foundation to begin building your e-shop for mobile users. This is a great perk, as about 72.9% of the e-commerce market share has migrated to mobile users and shoppers.
Inventory management support
Our Wix ecommerce platform review shows that it is one of the most versatile e-commerce tools on the market, offering business owners two separate ways to manage and promote their inventory. As you reload your site’s inventory, you can simply insert the count available into the tracker in your Store Products tab.
The company offers the additional step of tracking by SKU and tracking the total weight available, ideal for businesses that sell smaller commodity items. From this point, the site tracks manually for you, calculating the remainder based on the purchase rate.
Looking for a quick way to add your SKUs? The Wix Owner’s app has barcode scanning options to help you to save even more time.
As with most of Wix’s inclusions, you can toggle this on or off at any time, or choose custom messages for your clients to see regarding specific products, such as out-of-stock indicators, or many in-stock indicators.
Email marketing
Email marketing is one of the best ways to effectively reach and engage your target audiences – Wix makes it especially easy to do with the native email marketing editor that ranges from $10 to $24.50 per month.
The tool is one of their add-ons, considerably easier to use than other competing services such as Klaviyo and Keap, offering a sleek modular builder and endless ways to customize. It also features a library of hundreds of rich email templates if you need a little help getting started.
Beyond creating emails, you can take it a step further with easy-to-use automation. This can be especially helpful in testing or optimization phases, helping you to identify the right time to send any correspondence out.
I found one of the best and most inclusive parts of the email campaign creator is the included analytics panel. It’s comprehensive enough that you won’t have to pay an outside service provider and offers advanced insights and suggestions for improvement.
Reporting and analytics
Wix offers intuitive reporting to keep you up to date on the latest shop trends and news. Reports are sorted into convenient categories for easy access, including:
- Sales
- Bookings
- Traffic
- Behavior
- People
- Accounting
- Blog
- Stores
- Events
- Marketing & SEO
- App Members
- Videos
- Restaurants
- Music
- Subscriptions
Reports are tabulated with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance in mind, allowing you to get the most accurate and compliant data at any given time. As a Business Premium member, you can easily create custom reports, showing you the exact information that you want to see in your business.
Beyond the raw data, Wix also uses tools to give you tailored improvement recommendations, helping you to more effectively refine and optimize your site.
App marketplace
The Wix App Marketplace has over 300 business tools and web apps designed to help you to scale and achieve. Most of the apps housed in the Wix App Marketplace are completely free, and easily integrate with your site. If you have a Premium membership, you’ll be able to access both the free and premium versions, unlocking access to new perks and benefits.
If you use a variety of different marketplace apps and services, you can easily manage them via the Manage Apps option in your Dashboard. Wix makes it especially convenient to optimize your e-commerce business tech toolkit.
Some of the most widely used and appreciated apps in the Marketplace include:
- Quickbooks
- Mailmunch
- Visitor Analytics
- LogoMaker
- Countdown Timer
- Popitin
Wix manages any security and compliance issues that users run into, handing cases off to a specialty incident response team to help with resolution and restoration. Machine learning assists these specialists to pinpoint the exact moment of compromise, allowing your team to access a restored backup or additional advanced support to resolve the threat.
All users will be able to enjoy protection via AES-256, which is the strongest commercially-available form of encryption. This is great for instilling buyer confidence in those purchases, especially as an SMB.
The company also has several anti-fraud measures in place, and thoroughly vets any third-party apps or services available via the Wix marketplace. Store owners can also enjoy DDoS protection, SOC & SIEM level monitoring, and 24/7 documented security visibility: keeping your site safe at all hours of operation.
In case of compromise, Wix has created an internal response team to help to support your business and remove any threats that persist, minimizing the risk of costly disruptions or store issues.
This commitment to safety, concierge support, and assistance are rare to see in other e-commerce tools, many of which often require several manual backups to protect your files.
Wix has a variety of methods of outreach and is committed to connecting business owners to the right people for their needs. Currently, Wix offers:
- The Wix help center: This resource offers dozens of detailed tutorials, guiding you through every season of business development. There are also expert support phone contact options toward the end of each article, providing additional assistance when you need it most.
- Phone support options: Wix has robust phone support options, offering 24/7 assistance in English, French, Spanish, and several other languages.
- Wix live chat: This connects you with an expert via text, and can be helpful for quick questions and comments.
Functionality for accepting “other” payments via POS
With new banking options and buy now, pay later (BNPL) sites becoming available each year, this update was huge for business owners looking to be more accessible and competitive in their market. You can easily access this feature by selecting the “other” button on the payment screen.
Then you can manually record how the sale was paid for, and the proof will be provided both on your records and on the receipt.
Restricting sale for out-of-stock items via POS
This feature enhances the customer experience, more accurately reflecting what’s available at the time of purchase. You can set specific permissions by item or by staff type to make sure that the purchase experience is as optimized as possible.
Coupon accessibility for subscription services at checkout
Now, business owners can offer clients the option to use a discount coupon on select subscription services at checkout. Subscription discounts can attract new customers and improve customer retention.
Wix provides five ways to offer discount coupons to your customers to encourage brand loyalty and boost sales.
- $discount ($20 off): Offer a fixed price discount.
- % discount (20% off): Offer a discount as a percentage.
- Free shipping: Reward customers with free shipping.
- Sale price (buy t-shirts for only $12): Offer products at a specific price.
- Buy x, get y free (buy two, take one): Offer free products when making a purchase.
You can promote your special coupons via Wix Email Marketing and Wix Automations. You can set it to be valid for a limited time and a limited number of uses and you can reactivate and deactivate them accordingly.
SEO learning hub creation for more advanced SEO skills and assistance
Business owners can now enjoy advanced SEO learning resources through the SEO Learning Hub, which includes lessons on key topics such as:
- Organic traffic
- In-depth marketing guides
- Video trainings
- Webinars
Compare Wix Alternatives
Wix is one of the most popular e-commerce tools on the market, but other tools such as Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce could be a better fit for your needs. Different tools are suitable for varying seasons of business growth.
We looked closely at each company, spent time using their services, and researched each one for hours before creating this compare and contrast resource. The goal of our research is to offer objective information about every option so you can find what works best for you.
Here’s how Wix compares to other top e-commerce tools that Digital.com recommends:
Frequently Asked Questions About Wix
What is unique about Wix?
What is Wix mainly used for?
Is Wix.com trustworthy?
Wix.com is trustworthy, and it has gone to great lengths to show commitment in this area for both business owners and customers. You can enjoy around-the-clock monitoring, as well as a multi-layer approach to cybersecurity.
Certain elements include Anti-DDoS protection and multi-level encryption, continuous data analysis via machine learning, and SOC and SIEM compliant security measures in place on a 24/7 basis.
Can you purchase a domain from Wix?
What are the disadvantages of Wix?
With Wix, you have to “pay to play.” This is with good reason, as it’s one of the most comprehensive apps on the market. It can provide a barrier of entry to smaller businesses that aren’t ready to make the investment, though.
Other limitations include the lack of transfer options from site to site, as well as the single-site nature of Wix’s premium plan.
Is Wix good for small business?
Is Wix good for beginners?
How I Rated Wix
I test e-commerce providers based on the following factors:
- Value: What do you get for each plan — and does it hit that sweet spot of cost ratio to features?
- Ease of use: Is it simple to use the platform with intuitive tools, familiar interfaces, and supportive tutorials or tours?
- Features: Does the platform offer tools that support your business, including marketing integrations, plug-ins, reporting, and management? How effective are the features?
- Security: Which measures does the platform take to protect your business? Does it offer Payment card industry (PCI) compliance and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates?
- Support and improvements: How well does the platform help when you need it? And will it continue to grow with your needs?
Learn more about our review methodology.
