5 Best Ecommerce platforms for selling your work

If you're a designer or illustrator wanting to earn more money from your work, setting up a store to sell your own prints or clothing is a straightforward job. And if you're a web designer, being able to build e-commerce websites on trusted platforms is a great way to bring in extra clients.

There are loads of eCommerce platforms to choose from, and most of them offer free trials; to save you time, here are six of the best.

1. Shopify

It's hard to go wrong with Shopify. Almost certainly the biggest name in e-commerce platforms, it's been around since 2006 and promises that anyone, regardless of technical and design ability, can use it to easily set up a beautiful responsive store in minutes.

Getting up and running is thoroughly straightforward; if you don't feel the need to design your own shop then there's a huge range of templates to choose from, and Shopify has its own CMS with which to manage your store, as well as mobile apps so you can run things when you're out and about.

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2. Volusion

Designed as an all-in-one ecommerce solution that gives you all the features you need to create, manage and expend your store, Volusion's keen for you to test the waters with a free 14-day trial with no credit card required.

As with most other ecommerce platforms, it provides you with a set of fully customisable themes to play with, as well as an intuitive content editor. It offers hefty SEO tools as well as the ability to sell through Facebook, eBay and Amazon, and enables you to boost sales through gift cards, discounts and deals of the day.

Volusion supports most payment methods, from credit cards through to Amazon Pay, PayPal, money orders and even good old-fashioned cash, and it provides a PCI-certified secure checkout as well as a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Prices start at $29 per month.

3. Bigcommerce

If you want to expand your market then Bigcommerce features some really useful tools for increasing your reach. It's recently updated to include integration with Amazon and Instagram, making it easy to either list your products on Amazon or sell directly through Instagram shopping posts and stories.

Setting up your own store with Bigcommerce is nice and easy and it also has its own CMS that enables you to run an entire site, not just a store, on its platform. Its small business-friendly Essentials service starts at $29.95 per month, and you can test it all out with a free 15-day trial.

4. 3dcart

Need a little extra from your ecommerce platform? If so, 3dcart has some cool features that are well worth exploring. On top of all the usual online store options that you'd expect, there are also neat modules that enable you to offer a gift-wrapping service, run a loyalty programme and allow recurring orders; all useful features if you want to go the extra mile for customer service.

3dcart provides a good free selection of customisable responsive templates to work with; you can build your own store from scratch if you prefer, and 3dcart can help you set things up so that everything's at the highest possible standard. Pricing starts at $19 per month for a startup store, and there's a 15-day free trial available.

5. CoreCommerce

The trouble with the various pricing tiers available on most ecommerce platforms is that you'll find that some useful features are locked down to the more expensive plans. Not so with CoreCommerce; almost everything you get in its top-level Enterprise plan is available in some shape or form in its $19-per-month Personal plan.

There's a setup wizard to help you get your products online and take care of taxes, shipping and payments, plus a mobile-friendly admin system and loads of integration options for third-party ecommerce tools. There are also over 70 payment gateways with a PCI Level 1-compliant checkout, and secure hosting via Rackspace with a 99.9% uptime guarantee.