Opening an online store with Weebly is a walk in the park. Thanks to the well-structured backend, adding products and categories is self-explanatory. You can sell three different types of products:

• Products for shipping or pick-up (shoes, books, etc.)

• Digital items for download (videos, MP3s, ebooks, etc.)

• Services (consulting, travel trips, etc.)

Even though the shop is meant for small and mid-sized businesses, you can also add products by uploading a CSV Excel file, or transfer your products directly from Shopify or Etsy.

Which payment methods can I offer with Weebly ecommerce?

You have two options: credit card and PayPal. Unfortunately, there aren’t any offline payment methods like cash or bank transfer available. In practice, even a customer who opts for in-store pickup must still pay online at checkout, as there’s no way to complete the order offline.

For credit card payments you can choose between Square and Stripe. Both can handle typical cards like Visa, Mastercard, Amex and Discover. On top of that, Stripe can deal with Apple Pay & Google Pay. Since Weebly got acquired by Square, we are surprised that they don’t offer better transaction fee rates. Both will charge the vendor 2.9% + 30 Cents per transaction.

It’s also important to know that you’ll need the Performance plan in order to offer PayPal payments.

What about shipping?

We have to say that Weebly comes with quite a lot of options here:

• Free shipping

• Flat rate

• Order weight

• Order total

• Item quantity

• Real time rates

Your shipping options can be set for specific countries. Can’t provide free shipping for countries abroad? No problem! Add a new rate for the destination.

Since every provider has different rates, shipping can become quite a headache. A cool feature that is included in the Performance plan is the real-time shipping carrier integration. You can connect your UPS, USPS, FedEx and DHL account with your online shop and offer shipping rates. This can even save you some money, because they may offer lower shipping rates. Note that this feature is only available in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

How do taxes work?

If your store is in the USA, you’re lucky: Weebly can add the correct tax rates automatically. Other countries need a manual setup. You pick a country, name the tax and the rate. One problem here is that every country (apart from the USA) only supports one rate. In some cases, you might want a second option for a lower rate, but that’s not possible.

Can I sell outside of my Weebly store?

Obviously, you can sell your products through the Weebly online store, but what about other marketplaces like Amazon and eBay? Unfortunately, there’s no direct integration available currently.

Also, if you were dreaming of starting a dropshipping business, that’s not possible with Weebly. The store can’t communicate with providers like AliExpress or Amazon Fulfilment Service.

Those are more advanced features and will require you to check out Shopify or WooCommerce.

Square offers a POS option in the US, UK and Canada. You purchase a card reader, and customers who come in your brick and mortar shop can buy items there. The inventory in your Weebly store will be synced.

But this doesn’t change the fact that when customers buy something online, they have to purchase it online with a credit card. Picking it up on site and paying in person is not possible.

Marketing and Promotion

A store with the best products and offers might still fail if people don’t know about it. That’s why a good marketing strategy is key to success. In the online world, you can choose from many different options:

• SEO: get found in Google through optimizing your content

• Social media: promote your products on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

• Email-marketing: Send your latest shop entries and special promos to your customers.

• Paid ads: publish ads on Google and other platforms and pay for each click.

It’s not a problem to share links to your product pages, but a direct integration with Instagram or Facebook Stores where customers don’t have to leave the platform is not possible.

However, sending a newsletter with Weebly is fairly easy. Its own newsletter tool is called Weebly Promote. The cool thing here is that it knows your entire product inventory. With one click, you choose the article and it’s added to the newsletter. Click send and done! Easy like that.

Conclusion

So should you use Weebly for an online store? Well, it depends! When you want to start with a small online store, it’s definitely worth playing with the free version. Of course, some features like real-time shipping, coupons or item reviews require an upgrade, but you’ll get a basic idea of what the shop looks like.

Since the online store is directly integrated into the website builder, you’ll not only get a webshop but also website creator and blog. This is especially interesting when you want to build a landing page for a marketing campaign.

One thing you should keep in mind is that real-time shipping is only available for merchants in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. So if you want such a feature in your country, a solution like WooCommerce might suit better (it’s more complicated though; read our full WooCommerce review!).

Also, Weebly is not very flexible when it comes to payment. Only two options and that’s it. PayPal even requires the most expensive plan. Again, WooCommerce provides both on- and offline payments.

Overall, we think that Weebly’s ecommerce solution has a very fair price. The Professional plan, at $12 a month, offers enough to be compared to dedicated solutions like Shopify or BigCommerce. Their entry plans start at $29/month. Read more about Shopify pricing and BigCommerce pricing.