Compare the top 5 eCommerce platforms in the UK: 2025

This one’s for the side-hustlers, the brick-and-mortar store owners, and the entrepreneurs with big ambitions.

If you’re ready to take your business beyond your postcode by selling online, your first step is to decide which eCommerce platform to use. This is the foundation of everything you do when selling online. Choosing the right platform now will reward you time and time again in the future. The wrong decision can compound just as quickly, so you really want to get this right.

That’s why we’ve written this guide – to take some of the guesswork out and replace it with facts and insights. We can’t tell you specifically which platform to use, but we can give you as much information as possible to guide your decision-making process.

Let’s get into it.

What is an eCommerce platform?

When we talk about an eCommerce platform, we mean the software you use to make sales, track your inventory, and host your online shop.

The leading light of any eCommerce platform will be your website and its shop functionality. Most platforms also include features like inventory management, checkout and payments, marketing tools, and integration with apps and services (e.g. shipping and accounting software).

There are a lot of different parts that go into selling online, which is another reason why companies tend to bundle them together in one platform. It’s easier for you and them.

What UK businesses should look for in an eCommerce platform

There are more variations of businesses that sell online than anyone can imagine, but, despite the variety, there are still some needs that the majority have in common.

Of course, each business will require specific and unique features from their eCommerce platform, but the essentials are essential for a reason.

User-friendly interface and easy setup

A user-friendly platform benefits all parties.

As the business owner, you’ll have a platform that’s easy to navigate, organise, and update.

For your customers, they’ll have an intuitive and reliable online shopping experience.

It’s easy to underestimate just how important ease-of-use is. You’ll be spending hours using your platform, so you don’t want to spend that time frustrated. Plus, online shoppers don’t need a lot of motivation to look elsewhere. If your website is clunky or hard to navigate, they won’t hang around.

Mobile responsiveness and fast load times

Mobile sales account for 60% of total UK eCommerce revenue. If the majority of your sales will come from people using mobile phones, you really want to make sure your website delivers for them.

Loading times can be the difference between a sale and an abandoned cart. Research by Portent found that eCommerce websites with a load time of one second have a 2.5x higher  conversion rate than sites that load in five seconds.

It’s 2025 – people are used to videos lasting a few seconds before swiping to something more interesting. Attention is at a premium and any kind of delay is a material risk to your sales.

Local currency and tax support

If you want to sell to customers in other countries, you’ll have a lot more luck if you can charge them in their local currency.

Think of the times you’ve gone to buy a product and the prices are only in USD or EUR. There’s a touch of friction there, a pause that's enough to stop many people from buying.

Tracking your income across multiple currencies, as well as the associated VAT owed, isn’t the easiest task. Integration with your accounting system will be hugely helpful and if your eCommerce platform can account for your tax obligations in different countries – that’s even better.

Shipping integrations with UK couriers

Shipping is one of the hardest steps in the eCommerce sequence – partly because it’s out of your hands.

Unless you’re selling digital products, you’ll need to ship your products in one way or another. That can include local collections, but you’re likely to be selling to people across the country (and world), so that isn’t always a viable option.

Payment gateways supported in the UK

Some eCommerce platforms have their own payment gateway built-in (like Shopify), but almost all of them let you use third-party payment gateways on your site.

A really brief explanation of payment gateways is that they’re the mechanism you use to securely take and process payments from customers. If a physical shop has a payment terminal or point of sale system, your online shop has a payment gateway.

When choosing a payment gateway, you’ll want to consider:

• Transaction fees

• Currencies supported

• Payment methods supported (e.g. Apple Pay)

• Recurring billing or subscription management

Choosing your own gateway is a great way to improve your margins and unlock further benefits (e.g. lower FX rates or spend management tools).

We’ve written a longer guide to payment gateways, if you want to learn more.

Scalability for future growth

eCommerce businesses can scale in multiple directions. More of the same product, more product lines, higher values, greater volumes, more locations, new continents.

The possibilities are limitless, so don’t choose a platform that limits you.

Moving to a new platform can cost a lot of time and money – it’s not something you want to do if you can avoid it.

SEO and marketing tools built in

Every business with a website is playing the search engine optimisation (SEO) game – whether you know it or not.

You might know it already, but SEO is about getting your website to appear higher up in the list of search engine results. The higher you are, the more likely you are to get people clicking through to your website. It’s one of the digital marketing channels you can use to get more customers, along with areas like Facebook and Google Ads.

Great eCommerce platforms will either:

• Have in-built tools and features that help you with marketing

• Make it incredibly easy for you to do your own marketing efforts

Customer support

Just as we mentioned when discussing user-friendly platforms, great customer support will benefit you and your customers.

If you run into any issues, you want a quick and clear solution. If your customers have questions or problems, they want exactly the same.

In 2025, it feels like we’re in the age of AI. The ability to train and add AI chatbots to your website will make any eCommerce platform attractive, along with more traditional FAQs, support guides, and contact sequences.

Seven top eCommerce platforms in the UK for 2025

eCommerce is a competitive market. You’ve got plenty of options to choose from and the seven listed below aren’t only ones worth considering.

Still, we’ve chosen these platforms for a reason. These are some of the most popular, successful, and useful options available to UK retailers in 2025.

Shopify

One of the biggest and best-known eCommerce platforms on the market, Shopify claims to have processed $1 trillion in sales for its users.

Pricing: From £19/month.

Best for: Dropshippers, fast-movers, and small businesses.

One pro: Huge number of tools, features, and products to help you optimise and succeed.

One con: Sites can easily become bloated or inefficient, if using too many apps.

Integrates with Airwallex? Yes.

WooCommerce

According to StoreLeads, WooCommerce is the number one eCommerce platform in the world. It integrates with Wordpress websites, which make up 43.6% of the internet.

Pricing: 

Best for: Businesses with websites built on Wordpress.

One pro: Incredibly flexible, modular app marketplace.

One con: Requires a higher level of technical understanding (Wordpress, self-hosting, updates) than many others.

Integrates with Airwallex? Yes.

Wix

Wix is a popular drag-and-drop website builder, making it highly accessible and customisable. Users can use their eCommerce platform to build out an online store.

Pricing: From £16/month.

Best for: Beginners and small-scale, local businesses.

One pro: Flexible and intuitive website building.

One con: Not originally built for eCommerce, so some features can feel a little awkward.

Integrates with Airwallex? Via third-party integrator.

Squarespace

Squarespace is another popular drag-and-drop builder, offering lots of customisation and creativity for its users. It provides everything required to create and run an eCommerce site.

Pricing: From £17/month.

Best for: Creatives and digital businesses and streamlined catalogues.

One pro: Creative flexibility and well-designed templates as standard.

One con: Not eCommerce-specific, so some features are either missing or lacking.

Integrates with Airwallex? Via third-party integrator.

Adobe Commerce (previously Magento)

Pitched as highly customisable and composable, Adobe Commerce is an API-first eCommerce platform that looks to deliver unique and fast online stores. Magento Open Source still exists, which is free and open-source.

Pricing: On enquiry

Best for: Large businesses or those already using the Adobe platform.

One pro: Can scale with you and handle a large volume of sales.

One con: Potentially expensive and can be clunky or unintuitive.

Integrates with Airwallex? Yes.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce gives you the tools and integrations you need to build your store to whatever specification you desire. Low-/no-code and headless builds available.

Pricing: From $29/month.

Best for: Businesses in need of a flexible and simple-to-maintain platform.

One pro: Lowest transaction fees out of the seven platforms in this article (and highly competitive in general).

One con: Strict pricing structure (e.g. once you pass $50k in twelve-month sales volume, you’ll jump from their $29/month plan to their $79/month plan).

Integrates with Airwallex? Yes.

Square

Square started as a payments facilitator, with point-of-sale and other payment acceptance products. Now, they’ve expanded into all things commerce, including a website builder.

Pricing: From £0/month.

Best for: Businesses with a physical presence that can make use of Square’s full product range.

One pro: Great integrations and interactions with Square’s hardware and software.

One con: Primarily a payments business, rather than an eCommerce/website platform.

Integrates with Airwallex? N/A

Comparing the top 7 eCommerce platforms side-by-side

eCommerce platforms come with so many features and specifics that we could create an entire website dedicated to comparing them. We won’t put you (or ourselves!) through that.

Instead, we’ve focused on the most important features and factors and compared them in the simple table you can see below.

All figures are correct as of Q2 2025. Data gathered through desk research.

The different types of eCommerce platforms explained

If you’ve done even a little research before now, you will have encountered some eCom buzzwords. It’s all a bit baffling, unless you’re a developer.

We’ve tried to simplify these categories and group the platforms we’ve already mentioned accordingly.

Honestly, for most businesses, a hosted eCommerce platform will do everything you need for the least amount of stress, time, and effort on your part.

Big businesses benefit most from headless platforms, but, if you’re just starting out, these are overkill and won’t be a good use of your resources.

How to choose the right platform for your UK business

A bootstrapped solopreneur, an SME, and a multinational retailer are going to have very different needs from an eCommerce platform. That’s why there’s no objective ‘right’ choice of platform, it’s too subjective.

To make a good subjective choice, you have to be clear on what you need. When comparing platforms, ask yourself some of the following questions:

• Can the platform scale easily and affordably as your business grows?

• Does this platform offer anything specific that suits my industry?

• What’s it going to cost me – monthly, per transaction, and as the business scales?

• How customisable is the platform?

• Will I be able to sell to other countries and in other currencies?

• What integrations are available (e.g. accounting software or bank accounts)

Ultimately, the right platform will be right for you today, tomorrow, and for a long time into the future. It needs to grow and scale with you and, ideally, provide a real value-add beyond just facilitating sales.

Accept payments and simplify cross-border transactions with Airwallex for eCommerce

eCommerce platforms do a lot of things reasonably well. Airwallex does payments brilliantly – at home and abroad.

Purely from a cost perspective, using Airwallex means you’ll keep between 10p and 65p more on a £20 sale compared with the platform fees shown in this article. Healthier margins are just the start. You’ll see the biggest benefits come into play when you start doing business internationally.

Our multi-currency business accounts let you send, receive, and hold funds in dozens of currencies. You can take local payments like you’re there in person, no matter where you are in the world. You’ll also get incredibly competitive FX rates, global payouts, and global spend management.

Integrating Airwallex into your eCommerce site is easy – See how easy it can be to integrate Airwallex with your eCommerce platform.

Disclaimer: We updated this article in Q2 2025. The information was based on our own online research and we were not able to manually test each tool or provider. The information is provided for educational purposes only and a reader should consider the specific requirements of their business when evaluating providers. If you would like to request an update, feel free to contact us at [email protected].