ShopWired

What it is

ShopWired is a hosted ecommerce platform for building and running an online store without writing code. Its pages are written for UK merchants, from micro and small businesses to larger retailers, and the site is operated by Platform 21 Ltd in Sutton Coldfield, with a copyright line that runs from 2012 to 2026. You pick a responsive theme, brand it, load a catalog and sell. The company says ShopWired is "built, managed and supported from the UK" and calls it the fastest growing ecommerce platform in the UK, which is its own claim. The practical pitch is a monthly plan with hosting included and no transaction fee on orders paid through external gateways.

What you build and how

The product builds one kind of thing, an online store, and the home page frames the work in 3 verbs: build, launch and grow. The starting point is a theme. The company says its responsive themes let you change colors and add images and text so the store looks right on any device, and that no coding or software installation is required. Theme customization tools are how you brand the store, and the plans carry "£0 theme charges," so themes are not sold separately.

Everything runs from a single account. The site says you can manage your product catalog, customers, orders and promotions "in just a few clicks." The features page lists what sits inside that account.

On the selling side there is abandoned basket recovery, which lets customers pick up their baskets "just how they left them." Delivery is configurable through shipping zones and rates, with free shipping apps for more specific rules, and the plans include Royal Mail Click & Drop. Promotions include discounts and voucher codes, with formats such as "3 for 2," plus reward points that customers earn on purchases and redeem as a cash discount off future orders. Gift cards can be bought by customers for friends and family. Product reviews can be collected on your own website, and you can preview and edit them before they go live.

B2B selling is built in. Trade accounts let visitors apply for a trade account, get discounted pricing and see categories and products visible only to trade customers, and the home page mentions bulk discounts, trade pricing and minimum and maximum order quantities.

For search visibility, you set your own title tag, meta description and URL for every page, create information pages and a blog, and edit your robots.txt file. A sitemap.xml file is generated automatically every 24 hours and includes every published page. The features page says every store is covered by 256 bit encryption, and each plan includes a free SSL certificate.

Selling beyond the store goes through multichannel integrations. The site lists selling through eBay, Facebook and Instagram, and the home page says the eBay connection lets you create listings from ShopWired, import products, sync inventory and manage orders. On payments, the pricing page lists 35+ UK payment gateway integrations (the site menu says up to 40), and ShopWired Payments as its own option.

Apps extend the core. The app store page says ShopWired provides "hundreds of apps and integrations" and that a "Works with ShopWired" label identifies over 300 third-party platforms that integrate directly. Each listing carries a label that says what it is. A partner app is built by a third party on the ShopWired API and approved for the store. A ShopWired integration is built by ShopWired itself. A Works with ShopWired entry is a third-party platform the company has verified as compatible. Native to ShopWired marks functionality that is part of the platform, such as soft add to basket. Named examples include Avasam for sourcing and fulfilling products from verified suppliers, Printify, Printful and Gelato for print-on-demand, Shipmondo for exporting orders for courier dispatch and label printing, and Testimonial for collecting customer testimonials. The Marketing and conversions category alone lists 173 apps. Accounting apps connect to QuickBooks, Sage Online, Xero, Kashflow or Clearbooks, and the pricing page says Zapier connects a ShopWired account "with over 3,000 other apps." For in-person sales, the company points to a connection with the Vend POS system that syncs products, stock and orders.

There is an API with documentation linked from the site, along with a section for website designers and an affiliates and partners page. Team access comes through user accounts, and the pricing page says you control which features each user account can reach.

Moving from another platform is covered directly. The company's migration guidance says a migration system can copy customer account data across automatically, that customers keep their information but need a new password, and that a notice on the login page lets them create one. It also says there is no reason to lose search engine rankings when migrating.

What the site states

The pricing page lists 3 plans, each tied to an annual turnover limit:

• Essentials, £34.95 a month, or £31.46 a month billed annually, for turnover up to £50,000 a year. Extra user accounts and the accounting apps are £5 a month each, and trade accounts £10 a month.
• Advanced, £79.95 a month, or £71.96 billed annually, for turnover up to £200,000 a year, with user accounts, accounting apps and trade accounts free of charge, plus advanced reports and Zapier.
• Premium, £149.95 a month, or £134.96 billed annually, for turnover up to £500,000 a year, adding third-party support, priority support and all apps free of charge.

ShopWired Enterprise is £299.95 a month with unlimited turnover and a dedicated team of support engineers. Each plan shows unlimited products. Paying for 2 or 3 years upfront lowers the monthly rate further, and the page says you can save up to 30% with annual pricing. The FAQ explains the turnover rule: it counts payments received through your website, checks the last 365 days each day, and automatically upgrades you to the next package when you pass your limit.

ShopWired takes no transaction fee on orders through external gateways, while ShopWired Payments charges processing fees on UK consumer cards from 1.9% +20p on Essentials and from 1.5% +20p on Advanced. The trial is 14 days free, with no card details needed, only your name and email address. VAT is not charged on package prices to users outside the United Kingdom.

Hosting is included in every package at no additional cost. The pricing page is equally direct about what is not included: there is no email hosting, so you need a service such as Gmail, and no domain registration, so the domain has to be registered with a company such as GoDaddy or Names.co.uk.

On support, the company says its support is rated 4.8/5.0 on TrustPilot and that its team is UK based. The site offers help guides, a Book a Call option and a contact page. The company also says its enterprise solution is used by UK brands such as Superdrug and Wowcher.

Who it suits and who it does not

ShopWired fits a UK small business that wants a conventional online shop with the selling tools built in. A merchant running promotions, voucher codes and reward points, selling trade accounts to business buyers, or listing on eBay will find those in the platform rather than in add-ons. Merchants who want print-on-demand or dropship suppliers have named integrations to start from, and agencies get an API and a section for website designers.

There are limits. You manage your own domain and email. Plans step up with turnover, so a growing shop should budget for automatic upgrades as sales pass each limit. And prices, gateways and VAT rules are set out in pounds for UK businesses, so a merchant selling mainly elsewhere will find less written for them.