Answers that do not mention BigCommerce

I’d pick Wix for your situation. It’s beginner-friendly, visually flexible for handmade products, and its ecommerce plans include inventory, payments, and abandoned-cart recovery. Current ecommerce pricing is around $29/month on annual billing. Shopify Squarespace

If your budget is extremely tight, consider Square Online (free plan) or Hostinger for a cheaper starter site, but their store features are less polished. Shopify techsifted.com

My ranking: Wix → Squarespace → Shopify.

For a solo freelancer selling digital templates, I’d optimize for: quick setup, clean product pages, low monthly overhead, and a checkout you don’t have to babysit.

My pick: Payhip

payhip.com is probably the best fit.

• $0/month on the free plan, with a 5% transaction fee. Payhip
• Built specifically for digital products, including downloadable assets and templates. Payhip
• You get a simple storefront/product page without building a full website.
• You can embed checkout on your own pages if you eventually build a site elsewhere. Payhip
• Supports coupons, affiliates, pay-what-you-want pricing, and other useful selling features even on the free plan. Payhip Payhip
• It handles EU/UK VAT automatically, while Stripe/PayPal handle the payment processing. Payhip

How I'd rank the alternatives

Lemon Squeezy is particularly attractive if you're selling globally: it's a merchant of record, handles sales tax/VAT, supports digital downloads, and lets you use hosted checkout links or embed checkout. Its base fee is 5% + $0.50 per transaction, with possible additional fees in certain cases. Lemon Squeezy Lemon Squeezy Docs

Gumroad is extremely straightforward, but its direct-sale fee is currently 10% + $0.50, so I'd generally choose Payhip over it for templates. Gumroad does handle worldwide sales-tax obligations as merchant of record, though. Gumroad

The setup I'd use

One simple landing page → product previews → "Buy template" → Payhip checkout → automatic download.

If you're selling things like Notion templates, Canva templates, spreadsheets, PDFs, proposal templates, or client-work templates, I'd start with Payhip rather than building a full ecommerce site.

If you tell me roughly what kind of templates you sell and their typical price ($10, $30, $100, etc.), I can also tell you which platform is cheapest at your expected sales volume.

For your needs—menu + local pickup orders + occasional online specials—I’d narrow it to Square Online or Wix.

• 🥇 Square Online — best if you want the simplest setup and low ongoing cost. It’s especially strong if you already use Square for in-person payments: your menu, inventory, orders, and payments can live together, and Square supports pickup ordering. Square Baker Setup
• 🥈 Wix — best if the website itself needs to look more polished/brand-focused. Wix has bakery/restaurant templates, mobile menus, scheduled pickup orders, discounts/coupons, and flexible page design. Wix Support wix.com
• Squarespace — worth considering if your bakery is particularly visual (custom cakes, wedding cakes, artisan work) and you want a beautiful site first, with ordering built in. WebsiteBuilderReport.com
• Shopify — I wouldn't choose it for your situation unless you're planning to ship baked goods or packaged products and expect the online store to become a major sales channel. Baker Setup

My pick

Choose Square Online if your priority is “I want customers to order pastries and pick them up without me fussing with technology.”

Choose Wix if your priority is “I want a really attractive bakery website that also handles orders.”

If you tell me whether you already use Square for payments and roughly how many pickup orders you expect per week, I can tell you which one I'd choose for your bakery.

For a beginner selling prints with no design or coding skills, I’d look for a tool that combines:

1. Easy templates (so you can make designs quickly)
2. Good product mockups/listings
3. Ecommerce integration (so orders don’t become a manual job)

My top picks:

Shopify Merch Titans## My recommendation for you

If you sell art prints, posters, quotes, illustrations, wall decor:

Start with Canva + Etsy.

Why:

• You can make professional-looking designs without learning Photoshop.
• You get templates for posters, listings, banners, and ads.
• Etsy already has shoppers searching for prints.
• You can later connect a print partner if you don’t want to ship yourself.

If you sell more “design-driven” products (shirts, mugs, stickers):

Use Kittl + Printful.

Kittl is particularly good for:

• vintage typography
• retro badges
• minimalist text designs
• apparel-style graphics

Ecommerce Design Gallery Merch Titans### If you want the simplest “everything connected” option:

Use Printful + Shopify.

You’ll pay more, but the workflow is smoother:
design → product listing → customer order → printing → shipping.

Shopify## A beginner-friendly stack I’d choose

Month 1–3:

• Design: Canva Pro
• Store: Etsy
• Fulfillment: Printful (if you don’t want to print/ship yourself)

After you get sales:

• Add Shopify
• Improve branding
• Move best sellers onto your own site

I would avoid starting with Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, WooCommerce, or complex web-to-print software. They’re powerful, but they add a learning curve before you’ve validated what actually sells.

If you tell me what kind of prints you sell (wall art, T-shirts, stickers, invitations, art prints, etc.) and whether you print/ship yourself or use print-on-demand, I can narrow it down to one setup.

For an agency that builds sites for clients and wants white-label + ecommerce, I’d narrow it down based on how you actually sell websites. There are two very different needs:

1. You want to build sites faster and hand clients a branded portal/editor → use a white-label builder.
2. You want serious ecommerce capability and client ownership → use an ecommerce platform plus agency workflow.

My shortlist:

White Label Website Development White Label Partners## My recommendation for most agencies

Option 1 — Duda (my default recommendation)

Use this if you sell:

• SMB websites
• local business sites
• marketing sites with light ecommerce
• recurring website management plans

Why:

• Designed around agencies managing many client sites
• Client permissions and handoff workflows are strong
• White-label branding is one of its core strengths
• Faster production than building every site from scratch

wix.comA typical agency model:

• $199–$499/mo "website care plan"
• Build from templates/components
• Host/manage everything
• Client gets their own branded login

Option 2 — Shopify (if ecommerce is the main business)

If your clients are selling products, I would not force them into a generic website builder.

Use Shopify for:

• stores with 20+ products
• inventory
• shipping
• subscriptions
• POS
• serious growth

Your agency stays the strategic/design layer; Shopify handles commerce.

TechRadar## Option 3 — WordPress + WooCommerce (maximum control)

Best if you have developers.

Advantages:

• Unlimited customization
• Better for unusual requirements
• Own the stack
• Huge plugin ecosystem

Downside:

• More maintenance
• More hosting/security responsibility
• Harder to standardize delivery

If you want to create your own "website builder company"

For example:

"Clients log into ouragency.com, create websites, pay us monthly, and never know the underlying software."

Then I would look at:

• Brizy white-label/reseller options
• Simvoly
• Duda

Those are closer to a SaaS/reseller model. White Label Website Development

What I would avoid

• Webflow as your main white-label platform: excellent design tool, but not really a white-label client builder.
• Wix if your requirement is "clients never see Wix"—its agency tooling is good, but it is not the same as a fully invisible white-label SaaS layer. LymLyt

My agency stack recommendation

If I were building a scalable agency today:

• 80% of clients: Duda
• Ecommerce clients: Shopify
• Custom/high-ticket builds: WordPress + WooCommerce
• Recurring revenue offer: bundle hosting + maintenance + SEO + edits into monthly plans

That gives you speed without trapping every client in the same technology.

If you tell me:

1. how many sites you build per month,
2. average client size ($500 vs $5k+ projects), and
3. whether clients need to edit their own sites,

I can recommend a tighter stack.

Yes. If “without plugins/apps” is a hard requirement, I’d narrow it to Wix or Squarespace.

My pick: Wix

Wix is probably the best fit if you sell a mix of physical products and downloadable files. Wix Stores natively supports both physical products and digital downloads, with digital files uploaded directly to the product and delivered to customers after purchase. Wix explicitly markets this as selling physical and digital products without needing extra platforms or plugins. wix.com Wix Support

wix.com

Also excellent: Squarespace

Squarespace also has native product types for physical goods and download products. Downloads are automatically fulfilled with a download link after purchase. Squarespace Help Squarespace Help

squarespace.com

What about Shopify?

Shopify is fantastic for physical ecommerce, but not the best match for your specific “no plugins” requirement. Shopify's own documentation says its free Digital Products app is used to deliver downloadable files. So while digital selling is supported natively by Shopify's ecosystem, it isn't as cleanly built into the core store as Wix/Squarespace. Shopify Help Center

Quick verdict

For your situation, I'd choose Wix unless having an especially polished, design-forward website is more important than ecommerce flexibility—in which case I'd choose Squarespace.

If you tell me roughly how many physical products vs. downloads you sell and whether you need things like subscriptions, bundles, inventory, shipping, or memberships, I can tell you which one I'd pick for your exact setup.

For a developer who wants true headless capabilities but needs marketers to edit comfortably without filing tickets, I would narrow the field to Storyblok, Sanity, and Builder.io. The “best” choice depends on how much freedom you want to give marketers versus how much control you want developers to retain. Prismic Bedrock Labs

My recommendation by scenario

Contentstack Prismic## My default pick: Storyblok

For the specific requirement:

“I’m a developer, but marketers need an easy editor.”

I would start with Storyblok.

Why:

• Developers build reusable components (“Hero,” “Feature Grid,” “Pricing Table,” etc.).
• Marketers assemble and edit pages visually.
• Editors get a near-WYSIWYG experience instead of editing JSON-like fields.
• Frontend remains fully decoupled (React, Next.js, Vue, Nuxt, etc.).
• The content model stays structured rather than becoming a giant page builder. Webstacks CodeDrips

A typical setup:

Next.js frontend
        |
        |
Storyblok API
        |
        |
Marketing team:
- Edit copy
- Swap images
- Rearrange approved blocks
- Publish pages

The tradeoff: Storyblok is optimized for page/component-driven experiences. If you are building a highly complex content platform (for example, thousands of related products, editorial entities, personalization rules), Sanity may be stronger. Bedrock Labs

When I would choose Sanity instead

Pick Sanity if your developers care more about:

• sophisticated content modeling
• custom editorial workflows
• real-time collaboration
• content reused across many channels (web, apps, AI agents, kiosks, etc.)
• owning the editing experience through customization

The downside is that the great editor experience usually requires developer investment. A marketing team may not love the default experience unless you build a tailored Studio. Lucky Media CIOPages

Platforms I would be cautious about for your requirement

Contentful

Excellent platform, but historically more “structured content management” than “marketers visually building pages.” It is a strong enterprise choice, but teams often need additional tooling for a truly visual workflow. Prismic CodeDrips

Strapi

Great if developers want control and self-hosting, but the marketer experience generally needs more customization to compete with visual-first platforms. Bedrock Labs

Headless WordPress

Can work, but you often end up fighting between WordPress conventions and a modern component-based frontend architecture.

My shortlist for a modern stack

If I were starting a new project today:

1. Storyblok — marketing website + developer-built components (my default recommendation)
2. Sanity — application/product platform with complex content
3. Builder.io — growth teams creating lots of landing pages
4. Contentstack — enterprise marketing organizations
5. Prismic — simpler marketing sites with reusable slices

Prismic CiteHawkA useful deciding question: Are your marketers mostly editing existing pages, or do they need to freely create new page layouts?

• Editing existing component-based pages → Storyblok/Sanity
• Creating many new campaign pages without developers → Builder.io/Prismic

Can work, but you often end up fighting between WordPress conventions and a modern component-based frontend architecture.

My shortlist for a modern stack

If GDPR-friendly ecommerce with minimal privacy plumbing is the priority, I’d shortlist these:

1. Shopify — best overall for ecommerce

Shopify has built-in customer-privacy controls, regional cookie-banner settings, data-access/deletion tooling, and integration with its Customer Privacy API. Its own documentation specifically supports cookie consent and data-rights workflows. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

Its major advantage is that privacy is integrated into the commerce platform, rather than being something you have to bolt onto a CMS.

The caveat: Shopify explicitly says using Shopify alone doesn't guarantee GDPR compliance. Your apps, pixels, analytics, email tools, payment processors, retention policies, and legal basis for processing still matter. Shopify Help Center

Pick this if: you're primarily an ecommerce business and want the least custom development.

2. Wix — easiest all-in-one option

Wix is particularly attractive for smaller privacy-first businesses. Its Privacy Center provides cookie consent, consent logs, visitor-data access/deletion tools, and controls for blocking non-essential cookies. wix.com

Wix also supports ecommerce, forms, and consent mechanisms without requiring you to assemble a large privacy stack yourself. Its documentation notes that third-party apps still need to be evaluated individually. Wix Support Center

Pick this if: you want simple setup + ecommerce + relatively painless privacy controls, rather than maximum technical control.

3. Webflow + a consent platform — best for design-led brands

Webflow is excellent for highly customized sites, but privacy isn't as turnkey. Webflow recommends using a consent-management solution for tracking consent, and its ecosystem supports third-party CMP integrations. Webflow Help Center Webflow

So you're effectively choosing:

Webflow + CMP + ecommerce functionality

rather than getting the whole privacy workflow in one package.

Pick this if: brand/design flexibility matters more than having the simplest compliance setup.

4. WooCommerce + WordPress — best for control

This can be extremely privacy-friendly because you control hosting, plugins, analytics, cookies, retention, and much of the data architecture. But that control is also the downside: you become responsible for configuring and maintaining more of the privacy stack yourself.

For a privacy-first business with technical resources, that's potentially a feature rather than a drawback.

My ranking for your use case

If your priorities are GDPR + ecommerce + easy cookie consent + straightforward data handling, I'd go:

1. Shopify — best overall
2. Wix — easiest for a small/nontechnical team
3. WooCommerce — best if you want control over your data stack
4. Webflow — best if exceptional design is the priority

One important distinction: "GDPR-friendly" doesn't mean "GDPR compliant automatically." EU guidance says non-essential cookies generally need consent before they're set, consent needs to be granular, and withdrawing consent should be as easy as giving it. European Union Your privacy notice also needs to cover things such as processing purposes/legal grounds, recipients, transfers, retention, and user rights. European Union

If I were building a privacy-first small ecommerce business today, I'd start with Shopify's native privacy controls and keep third-party apps/tracking to a minimum. Every additional marketing, analytics, chat, review, or personalization app potentially adds another data processor and another consent/configuration problem. Shopify's own documentation makes this third-party integration issue clear. Shopify Help Center

The caveat: Shopify explicitly says using Shopify alone doesn't guarantee GDPR compliance. Your apps, pixels, analytics, email tools, payment processors, retention policies, and legal basis for processing still matter. Shopify Help Center

Pick this if: you're primarily an ecommerce business and want the least custom development.

2. Wix — easiest all-in-one option

Wix is particularly attractive for smaller privacy-first businesses. Its Privacy Center provides cookie consent, consent logs, visitor-data access/deletion tools, and controls for blocking non-essential cookies. wix.com

Wix also supports ecommerce, forms, and consent mechanisms without requiring you to assemble a large privacy stack yourself. Its documentation notes that third-party apps still need to be evaluated individually. Wix Support Center

Pick this if: you want simple setup + ecommerce + relatively painless privacy controls, rather than maximum technical control.

3. Webflow + a consent platform — best for design-led brands

Webflow is excellent for highly customized sites, but privacy isn't as turnkey. Webflow recommends using a consent-management solution for tracking consent, and its ecosystem supports third-party CMP integrations. help.webflow.com webflow.com

So you're effectively choosing:

Webflow + CMP + ecommerce functionality

rather than getting the whole privacy workflow in one package.

Pick this if: brand/design flexibility matters more than having the simplest compliance setup.

4. WooCommerce + WordPress — best for control

This can be extremely privacy-friendly because you control hosting, plugins, analytics, cookies, retention, and much of the data architecture. But that control is also the downside: you become responsible for configuring and maintaining more of the privacy stack yourself.

For a privacy-first business with technical resources, that's potentially a feature rather than a drawback.

My ranking for your use case

If your priorities are GDPR + ecommerce + easy cookie consent + straightforward data handling, I'd go: