Building an e-commerce business is a rewarding experience. You take an idea and add to that idea layer by layer until you have a functional and profitable business. That’s the basic model behind any e-commerce store, and you don’t need to be a whizz at coding to get an e-commerce store up and running.
The internet has changed the way we do work – There are more remote working positions than at any point in history. E-commerce is a booming industry, and with more people staying at home, we can expect a marked increase in online shopping during the months ahead.
Building an e-Commerce store is easier than you think, and you could be selling products online by the end of the day if you put in the time developing your own eCommerce website.
Visit Shopify Visit WooCommerce
Contents
- 1 Comparing WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – What’s the Difference?
- 2 How Do I Choose Between Starting with WooCommerce or Shopify?
- 3 WooCommerce Vs. Shopify: Pros and Cons
- 4 WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – What are the Key Differences?
- 5 Shopify Vs. WordPress Comparison Categories
- 6 WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – Ease-of-Use
- 7 WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – Design
- 8 WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – Domain and URLs
- 9 WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – Features and E-Commerce Tools
- 10 WooCommerce Vs. Shopify– Payment Solutions and Fees
- 11 WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – Attracting Customers
- 12 WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – Merchant Support and Helplines
- 13 WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – Pricing Models
- 14 WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – The Final Verdict
- 15 The Verdict
- 16 WooCommerce Vs. Shopify: FAQs
- 16.1 Which platform has the best options for scaling with my business?
- 16.2 Which platform has a better app store?
- 16.3 Can I run both options?
- 16.4 Are there free trials of the platforms available?
- 16.5 Do I need to pay for hosting with these platforms?
- 16.6 Which Platform Suits Newbies with Small Budgets?
- 16.7 Which Is the Better Choice for Scaling My Business?
Comparing WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – What’s the Difference?
If building an online business selling goods online sounds intriguing, then you need to start looking at the different eCommerce platforms available.
There are two types of e-commerce platforms available. Standalone websites and web-builders, these are the two options you have for starting your e-commerce business.
When it comes to the best standalone platform – WordPress is by far the gold standard.
However, WordPress is not a dedicated e-commerce platform. It started life as a blogging content management solution and has later evolved it’s capabilities to cover eCommerce.
To turn your WordPress site into an e-commerce machine, you’ll need to install a plug-in. WooCommerce comes from the same development team that gives you WordPress. It’s a free plug-in that provides your WordPress site with full eCommerce functionality.
Shopify is a different platform altogether. Also known as a “Web-builder,” these types of platforms offer you a purpose-built e-commerce store. The only function of a Shopify store is to sell products or services. You don’t use a Shopify store to start a blog or other type of site, as it’s not the right platform for that.
Think of Shopify as a “business-in-a-box,” with everything you need to start your first e-commerce website.
WordPress is free to download and install. However, there are many costs associated with developing the site. Domains and hosting, templates, and payment processor plug-ins, these functions all cost you money with WooCommerce. All these expenses can add up to thousands of dollars if you aren’t careful with managing the design components of your site.
With Shopify, you pay a monthly fee on a subscription plan to Shopify. Shopify gives you everything you need to start your e-commerce business without the need to upgrade the platform. Sure, there are upgrades and addons available, but it’s not necessary to use them to begin selling online.
How Do I Choose Between Starting with WooCommerce or Shopify?
Choosing between Shopify or WooCommerce can be a tough decision.
If you’re a newcomer to e-commerce, and you want to try your hand at selling products online, then Shopify is your best option. Shopify gives you everything you need to start selling, and you can have your store ready to start taking orders in as little as 24-hours after signing up for the platform.
However, if you’re an existing business owner, wondering how to take your store online, you might need a more comprehensive solution.
WordPress and the WooCommerce app allow you to list thousands of individual products, classifying them in different categories. You also get handy tools like a custom blog. While Shopify has a blog module included, its nothing like the same feature on WordPress.
You need to choose your platform based on your needs and goals. Shopify and WordPress both scale well with your business. With Shopify, you need to do is upgrade your subscription, and with WordPress, there are plug-ins to help you manage your growth.
Choosing the right platform for you is a personal choice, but make sure you do it with a full understanding of what you want to achieve with your e-commerce efforts online. In this review, we’ll unpack the offerings from WooCommerce and Shopify. We’ll give you the information you need to choose the platform that’s right for you.
WooCommerce Vs. Shopify: Pros and Cons
What are the benefits and drawbacks of using each of these platforms? Let’s look at the pros and cons of using Shopify and WooCommerce.
What are the Pros of Using Shopify?
There are several reasons why we recommend using Shopify as your preferred e-commerce app.
- Hosted platform with full functionality – With Shopify, you don’t need a domain name or hosting. By paying your subscription fee, you get everything you need to start your business from scratch.
- Word-class merchant support – Shopify has a dedicated merchant support line, providing you with assistance 24-hours a day. Shopify understands that every moment of downtime costs you money, and they are quick to recommend fixes or direct you to useful resource archives.
- Multi-channel sales integration – Shopify integrates with all of your social media accounts and web stores for easy selling across multiple platforms.
What are the Cons of Using Shopify?
- Coding necessary for extensive upgrades – Shopify works well straight out of the box. However, if you want to boost the performance of your store, you’re going to need to tweak things using the customizable apps from the Shopify Store. Some of the apps might require you to know the coding language, Liquid – which it the code that forms the backbone of most Shopify apps.
What are the Pros of Using WooCommerce?
- Limitless customization – With WooCommerce, you get an open-source platform, which is free for use. There are so many customizable options for your WordPress site that you’ll find it challenging not to overdo things. WooCommerce provides you with excellent functionality, and there are plenty of customizable plug-ins, such as Yoast SEO, that can enhance the performance of your WordPress site.
- Stylish WooThemes – WordPress has more than 1,000-free templates and thousands more paid options. Finding an elegant and unique theme for your e-commerce store won’t be challenging, and the design options you have on hand are endless.
- Powerful SEO – WooCommerce comes with compatibility for powerful SEO plug-ins that build the visibility of your store in the eyes of the search engines.
What are the Cons of Using WooCommerce?
- Lack of customer support – WordPress and the WooCommerce app don’t have much in the way of a support team to help you work through problems you’re experiencing on the platform. In most cases, you’ll need to hire a developer to fix any issues you encounter with the platform. There’s no customer helpline or live chat to assist you with your problems.
- Expensive Plug-ins – Plug-ins can cost serious amounts of cash, and the subscription fees can add up quickly, increasing the operating costs of your business.
- More Technical Knowledge – If you want to run WordPress, then you’ll need to understand code, or you need to have a budget to hire a developer. There’s plenty that you can do yourself on this platform, but the technical stuff is going to be tricky for a newcomer.
WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – What are the Key Differences?
Choosing the right platform for your e-commerce needs depends on what you want out of your website and what you intend to do with it in the future. For instance, you might be testing some ideas selling a few products in a niche market. That idea might work, or it might fall to the wayside if you lose interest.
In this case, Shopify presents the ideal platform, and you can change things up if your products don’t sell or you want to target another niche. Shopify is a self-hosted platform, and there aren’t any fees for using the free design tools and e-commerce features on the platform.
However, with WooCommerce, you rely on plug-ins to help you create the e-commerce functionality, and you need hosting to run your domain. The costs add up, especially for beginners that are looking to keep costs low while starting.
With WooCommerce, you have a greater depth of use in the platform, and there’s nothing you can’t achieve with the right plug-ins. However, some people don’t need all that functionality, and if all you need is an e-commerce platform to sell a few products, Shopify is all you need.
If you have some coding experience, and this isn’t going to be your first e-commerce venture, then WordPress and WooCommerce might be the better option for your store. WooCommerce also suits more prominent websites where you want to host a blog and plenty of other pages for your site, with dozens of listings and descriptions.
Shopify also scales with your business, growing with your store as you expand. However, the customizations on WooCommerce are endless, where Shopify might have some performance limitations on large websites.
Shopify Vs. WordPress Comparison Categories
- Category 1: Ease of Use
- Category 2: Design
- Category 3: Domains and URLs
- Category 4: E-commerce Features and Tools
- Category 5: Payment Solutions and Fees
- Category 6: Attracting Customers
- Category 7: Merchant Support and Helplines
- Category 8: Pricing Model
WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – Ease-of-Use
Everyone that starts with e-commerce wants a user-friendly platform that is easy to navigate. Your dashboard and backend make a massive difference in your learning curve. Shopify shines in this department, providing you with a “business-in-a-box” that offers easy setup.
All you need to do is pay your monthly subscription fee, and you get access to a full-service e-commerce solution that can get you selling online in less than 24-hours. With Shopify, you get a fully hosted and secured platform, with no need to worry about updates or upgrades – Shopify does everything for you.
Shopify is the ideal platform for a newcomer to e-commerce, as you don’t need to understand code, and there’s plenty you can do to upgrade your store using free apps in the Shopify App Store.
WooCommerce is the total opposite of the Shopify experience. You need a domain and hosting before you even think about launching your WooCommerce store. The chances are you’ll also need the assistance of someone to code a decent chunk of your site and install the themes and other plug-ins required to get your store operational.
Therefore, unless you have a budget, or you’re moving your physical retail business online, leave the WooCommerce solution and go with Shopify.
Ease-of-use Winner: Shopify
Shopify is bar far the more user-friendly platform, and it’s easy for newcomers to get a store up and ready for orders in as short a time as possible. Shopify is a complete solution, and you don’t need to go to the hassle of hiring a professional to handle coding tasks as you do with WooCommerce.
WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – Design
Your e-commerce store needs to look good if you want to attract business. How many times have you navigated away from a landing page because you didn’t like the look for the design template? Consumers don’t understand how websites work, and they equate an excellent visual presentation with a professional offering.
Therefore, you need to ensure you go with a platform that offers you the best design customization, and a practical template selection that’s adequate to support your business needs.
With WordPress and WooCommerce, you get a complete design solution that allows you to create any website design you want. There are thousands of WordPress templates available for your e-commerce store. Many of them are free, and some of them cost money. However, the free versions often have plenty of functionality, especially if you’re not building a big website.
However, when it comes to the design, you’ll be paying more than you do with Shopify. Included in your Shopify monthly fee, are ten free design templates, and 50 or 60 paid versions that offer you all the same functionality of a WordPress site.
Best Design Winner: WooCommerce
WooCommerce has the largest selection of customizations available for your WordPress WooCommerce store. However, you might need some coding experience to get your site ready for launch.
Shopify offers a competitive design experience, and you don’t need to know any coding language to ensure you set your shop up for a successful launch.
WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – Domain and URLs
Your URL plays a significant role in building your online brand identity. If you have a custom domain with a name related to your brand or company, you’ll earn consumer trust. Unrelated URLs that don’t offer any similarity in the branding of the e-commerce store or business look like a shady, fly-by-night site looking to scam people out of their money.
Fortunately, with both Shopify and WordPress, you have the opportunity of using a custom domain with a custom URL for your e-commerce store. However, Shopify goes one better and provide you with an area and hosting to cut down on your costs during the launch phase of your business.
Best platform for domains and URLs – Winner: Shopify
Shopify’s addition of providing hosted domains for your store on their platform makes it easy for newcomers to e-commerce to get over the barriers to entry. When you have fewer costs and more support, there’s less holding you back from starting an online business.
WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – Features and E-Commerce Tools
When assessing your e-commerce platform, the performance, tools, and features of the platform matter most. Your e-commerce solution needs to provide you with a suite of services that make it easy for you to do business online.
Shopify is an excellent example of an e-commerce platform that makes it super easy for you to start your online store. Shopify provides you with everything you need to build, stock, and market your online store.
With Shopify, there’s no need to learn code. You can use the intuitive web-builder platform to create a web store without the need to understand technical development skills. With Shopify, you get a professional-looking store, with a short build time, and all the marketing tools you need to succeed.
However, WooCommerce is different. This platform has far more features compared to Shopify. However, many of them aren’t necessary for a straightforward e-commerce store selling a handful of products.
WooCommerce is a dedicated plug-in for WordPress that’s capable of handling the largest website builds. They even have a plug-in for Shopify – that should show you the level of options you have with this platform.
Still, if you’re not transferring your retail business online, and you’re a newcomer to the e-commerce market, we recommend you go with Shopify. Shopify has an excellent primary offering, and the App Store has a wealth of free apps you can use to tweak the design and functionality of your web store.
Best Features and E-commerce tools – Winner: WooCommerce
We must give the verdict to WooCommerce on this one. While we like the user-friendly operation of using apps on the Shopify platform to spruce up your web store, there’s nothing like the level of variety on offer with WooCommerce.
WooCommerce Vs. Shopify– Payment Solutions and Fees
Accepting money from your customers is an integral part of doing business. Both Shopify and WooCommerce offer a host of payment options with different payment processing companies and services.
You have the option of selecting over 100 payment partners to help you process transactions on either platform. For Shopify and WordPress, the payment processors are either standalone features or integrations included with apps or plug-ins.
The primary payment processors used in e-commerce are the following.
- PayPal
- Credit and Debit Cards
- Amazon Pay
- Stripe
- Square
- Apple Pay
There are different transaction fees, depending on the payment gateway you utilize. If you’re using the Shopify platform for your webstore, then it’s important to note that Shopify charges you a 2% transaction fee for any third-party payment processor.
However, if you choose to route your payments through its onboard payment processor, “Shopify Payments,” then Shopify is willing to waive the transaction fees, saving you a bundle of your costs of doing business.
You can also reduce third-party processing fees by upgrading to a higher Shopify plan. As you migrate from the basic to the advanced, and the custom plans, you get further discounts on transaction fees, due to the volume you’re bringing to the platform.
If you think that paying that premium is a bit harsh for third=party processing, then you might not like the fact that it can cost over $70 to integrate a new payment processor on your WooCommerce site.
Security
Security is a necessity for any website handling sensitive payment data for its customers. Your customers want to know they are having a secure and safe shopping experience when they visit your e-commerce store.
Shopify provides you with SSL certificates for your webstore because you’re piggybacking off the Shopify platform. However, if you run a private domain, you’ll need to ensure you have the SSL installed on your domain.
WooCommerce is a self-hosted option, so the site doesn’t come with an SSL security certificate built-into the site. You’ll need to speak to a developer to secure this certificate when they start the build of your e-commerce store.
The benefits of using an SSL certificate on your webstore include the following.
- Security and safety when processing and handling all your customer’s payment data
- Google likes SSL certificates on sites, improving the searchability and ranking of your store online
- The SSL provides your customers with the confidence they are shopping at a secure location online
PCI-DSS Compliance
This compliance ensures that your e-commerce site has the set up to handle credit and debit card payments. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) is a must-have plug-in for your WordPress WooCommerce store, but it comes built into your Shopify e-commerce storefront.
If you’re running a WooCommerce site, then you’ll need a coder to help you set up the certification and ensure you’re compliant with all online payment regulations.
Best payment solutions and fees – Winner: Shopify
WooCommerce may not charge transaction fees, but here’s plenty of coding work involved in setting up your site for payment compliance. You might need to hire a coder, and there’s also the need to pay for processor plug-ins that can cost $70 or more each.
With Shopify, you get a complete payment solution and a payment gateway where you don’t have to pay any transaction fees. If you want other payment portals, then all of them are available for your store, but you’ll need to pay a transaction fee.
WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – Attracting Customers
After considering the setup and backend of your store, it’s time to look at the features that will bring customers to your site. Both Shopify and WordPress WooCommerce require you to market your store online if you want to increase traffic to your product offerings.
Your SEO strategy plays a significant role in bringing new customers to your store. SEO helps your store rank in Google and the other search engines, making your listing visible to shoppers.
Both WooCommerce and Shopify offer excellent SEO strategies. WooCommerce gives you total control over every aspect of SEO for your store. However, Shopify also provides an excellent onboard SEO package that’s useful in marketing your store online and improving your ranking in search results.
With WooCommerce, we recommend you go with the Yoast plug-in, and with Shopify, the SEO Booster app from the app store is a good choice, and it’s free. These tools scan your store for inefficiencies and report back to you with areas you need to improve on optimizing your store’s performance.
We prefer the offering from Shopify for the simple fact that the sites load fast. If you’re using a WordPress framework for your WooCommerce store, then the chances are you’re using shared hosting for your domain.
As a result, your pages take some time to load., It’s only when you upgrade to dedicated or private hosting that your page load times speed up. Google penalizes sites that have slow loading ties. Therefore, Shopify is the better choice as it comes with faster loading times right out of the box.
If you want to streamline your WordPress site to meet the same speeds as a Shopify store, you’re going to need to hire a development team and upgrade your hosting package. Both of those tasks cost money, and the hosting will be an increase in the monthly running costs of your e-commerce business.
Therefore, if you’re starting your e-commerce journey, it’s better to use the Shopify platform to keep your costs down and increase the performance of your web store for customers and search engines.
Shopify takes care of plenty of the SEO tasks you need to succeed online, and they come as a standard option with your Shopify plan. Shopify will issue your pages the right tags and prevent duplicate content for appearing on the radar of Google search bots.
With Shopify, you can add basic SEO tactics to your stores, such as optimized product descriptions and titles.
Best platform for attracting customers – Winner: Shopify
Shopify wins this category. Its list of powerful onboard SEO tools included in the subscription fee is a bargain. With Shopify, you can build your store and start marketing your products all in the same day.
WordPress WooCommerce is another example of how WordPress requires money from you to get anything done with your website. However, the SEO plug-ins available for WooCommerce are powerful if you can afford the subscription fees.
WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – Merchant Support and Helplines
When comparing the merchant services and support on offer between Shopify and WooCommerce, it’s not much of a contest. WooCommerce is a plug-in developed by the same team that Built WordPress. Therefore, it’s surprising to see that there’s no dedicated support for this plug-in.
As a result of the lack of support, if you need some assistance with troubleshooting, the best option you have is submitting an email ticket to the support team. That’s not an acceptable solution when you’re a business owner that needs to make sales today. Everyday support leaves you hanging costs you money.
It’s for this reason that we strongly recommend you sign up with Shopify, especially if you’re a newcomer to e-commerce. Shopify runs a dedicated support team that handles queries over multiple channels.
You can get in touch with representatives on the live chat, and they’ll either offer you a solution right there. If they can’t sort you out on the spot, then they’ll recommend an online resource to assist you with handling your issue.
The difference between the two support offerings is night and day. As we mentioned earlier, Shopify is a dedicated e-commerce solution. Therefore, they understand the urgency on your side when something goes wrong. The Shopify team aims to correct your problem and have you back online and ready to sell in as little time as possible.
WooCommerce does have some support offering, but there’s no live chat, and the email support is slow. If you’re a newbie, the assistance and support from the Shopify team are a no-brainer in helping you make your decision on the best platform for your e-commerce company.
Best platform for merchant support and helplines – Winner: Shopify
Customer and merchant support is an essential part of e-commerce. When things go wrong, you need a team that can help you get back out there selling as soon as possible. Shopify steals this section of the review, and WooCommerce can’t hold a candle to the level of the offering from Shopify.
As mentioned, Shopify is a purpose-built e-commerce platform, and it shows in the amount of support they have on offer for merchants.
WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – Pricing Models
Pricing is a critical factor when building your e-commerce business. If you have a huge budget, and you don’t mind paying $3,000 to $5,000 for your WordPress website, then the price is not a concern. However, if you’re a newcomer to the industry, and you want to keep your expenses low while you test the waters, Shopify is your best option.
Shopify offers you a free plan where you can use the platform, free of charge, for 90-days. The CEO of Shopify recently announced that it understands more Americans are stuck at home due to lockdowns from COVID-19 sweeping across America.
The additional trial period, extended from 14-days, gives anyone that wants to try selling online a real chance at making a success of their efforts.
The Shopify offering gives you a “business-in-a-box,” for a monthly subscription fee.
Monthly Shopify Pricing Plans are available are the following price points.
- Shopify Basic $29.00
- Shopify Plan $79.00
- Shopify Advanced $299.00
Paying upfront for two years with Shopify Advanced makes you some serious savings. If you choose to pay in advance, you could save $1,435.20 off your subscription during the two-year term.
Shopify is an excellent value for money, and it’s your best low-cost option for starting a professional-quality web store.
WordPress is a free platform, and it offers you plenty of versatility. However, it’s not the best choice for newbies, and the costs of your plug-in subscriptions can escalate to unsustainable levels quickly. Coding and development costs also come into play, and you could end up spending a lot more than you budgeted on for your site. Always get an estimate from your developer before you approve any work.
Best pricing plans – Winner: Shopify
When it comes to pricing plans, Shopify is the best deal for anyone that’s cost-conscious about building an e-commerce store. WordPress is a free program, but you pay for the design components, SEO, and other plug-ins for your store that drive your business.
When it comes to value for money, Shopify has the best offering. You can choose to migrate through the subscription plans as your business grows and you need to accommodate the expansion in your orders.
WooCommerce is still a great platform, but you can expect to pay through your teeth for any addon you take for your site.
WooCommerce Vs. Shopify – The Final Verdict
When comparing these platforms head-to-head, it’s senseless to compare the performance of the products to determine the best overall winner of the review. It’s more about finding the right solution to meet your e-commerce needs.
If you’re stuck at home, and you can’t get to your business, maybe its time to get your company online and start your digital transformation. It’s clear that retail is moving online, and the sooner you decide to get going with your digital strategy, the better.
Established retail businesses can think about hiring a development team to build out a WooCommerce platform for their business. In some cases, you might spend $3,000 to $5,000 to bring your business online. The costs depend on the depth of your inventory, and the scale of your offering.
WordPress and WooCommerce are the ideal choices for building complex sites that you can turn into niche authorities, dominating your market.
Shopify suits individuals that wan to try to enter the world of selling online. E-commerce is probably a new idea to you, and you’re thinking about testing the market. Shopify offers you a platform where you can launch a free 90-day trial and see if e-commerce is something that you think you can do.
If you don’t catch on, or you find something else, then Shopify’s offering is virtually risk-free, and you won’t lose anything but the time you spent trying to get the platform to work.
Choose the platform that’s right for you and your e-commerce goals. Let’s review each of our categories. Diving into the offering will give you a refresher on what to look for in your e-commerce platform.
Ease-of-Use
- Verdict: Shopify
- Shopify has a quick and easy setup, with everything you need to start your web store. There’s no need for complicated coding, and there are plenty of free themes and apps to help you boost the look and performance of your e-commerce store.
Platform Design
- Winner: WordPress
- When it comes to selecting the best design themes and customizations for your e-commerce store, WooCommerce is the better option. Backed by the WordPress platform, you have access to over 1,000-free templates, with thousands of paid options varying between $120 to $260.
Domains and URLs
- Winner: Shopify
- Both WooCommerce and Shopify allow for the use of custom domains. However, Shopify offers a hosted package, where the newcomer to e-commerce doesn’t have to worry about the costs involved with hosting and buying a domain.
E-Commerce Features and Tools
- Winner: WooCommerce
- There are endless customizations available for WooCommerce through the WordPress organization. There is so much functionality to add to your site, and they even have a Shopify plug-in for your store, allowing you to integrate the platforms for optimal performance.
- Shopify has plenty of functionality out of the box, and the app store has loads of useful apps to enhance the performance of your e-commerce store. However, it lacks the same versatility as WooCommerce.
Payment Solutions and Fees
- Winner: Shopify
- WordPress and Shopify work with all major payment processors. However, Shopify owns the “Shopify Payments” gateway, where they offer no transaction fees to merchants that choose to use this platform. As a result, you can save money on the operating costs of your e-commerce business.
Attracting Customers
- Winner: WooCommerce
- The customizable options for SEO tools available through WooCommerce are the best in the game. However, some SEO tools and plug-ins might have steep one-off costs or monthly subscriptions. If you’re starting on a small budget, then be careful about adding plug-ins to your WooCommerce store.
- Shopify has a vast range of free apps to help you boost the SEO efforts and attract more traffic to your site. However, these tools and apps don’t have nearly the same level of built-in efficiency that the WooCommerce platform offers.
Merchant Support and Helplines
- Winner: Shopify
- Even though WooCommerce is a functional and useful e-commerce app for WordPress, it lacks any real customer support. If you have any problems with the plug-in, all you can do is watch archive videos on YouTube to troubleshoot issues or attempt an email support ticket.
- Shopify is very different from its merchant support services. Since Shopify is a dedicated e-commerce platform, it understands that its users need support on a 24/7 basis. Since they charge for the platform, they have a team of support techs available around the clock to take your queries.
Pricing Models
- Winner: Shopify
- WordPress is free for use, but that’s kind of a misleading statement. You’ll end up having to pay for everything you use on the site, such as templates, plug-ins, and other addons for your e-commerce platform.
- With Shopify, you align your goals with your pricing plan, and then you have instant access to the platform. Most of the apps in the Shopify App Store are free for use, but there are a few paid ones you can use once you start making money.
- Shopify’s CEO announced that the company would be supporting people during the COVID-19 pandemic, extending the Shopify free trial to a 90-day window. That gives any e-commerce hopeful a chance to establish a business and make a profit before they need to pay the platform subscription fee.
The Verdict
Choosing the right platform depends on your needs as an e-commerce entrepreneur. Shopify will be your best option if you fall into any of the following categories.
- You’re starting your first e-commerce store
- You’re looking for an alternative income stream
- You need your store ready to launch in the shortest amount of time possible
- You have limited technical knowledge of IT systems and coding
Think about starting a WooCommerce site if you meet any of the following criteria
- You’re an existing business owner transitioning your company’s offering online
- You have an extensive product offering
- You aim to create an authority site in a specific niche
- You require a standalone site
Visit Shopify Visit WooCommerce
WooCommerce Vs. Shopify: FAQs
In case, you still have a few questions regarding the differences between Shopify and WooCommerce, then check through this FAQ section.
Which platform has the best options for scaling with my business?
Both Shopify and WooCommerce are both scalable to match your business growth. However, we think that WooCommerce has a slight edge in this regard. The structured features in Shopify mean that its more challenging to keep up with rapid growth.
Which platform has a better app store?
WooCommerce has a lot more plug-ins available to you than Shopify. However, we think that Shopify has more useful apps that you can add to your store, and more of them are available for free than with WooCommerce.
Can I run both options?
Yes, you can. WordPress has a plug-in for Shopify.
Are there free trials of the platforms available?
Shopify has a free 90-day trial. WooCommerce is free for use, but the cost of the plug-ins and templates will escalate your operating costs.
Do I need to pay for hosting with these platforms?
WooCommerce works on the WordPress framework. Therefore, you’ll need a domain and hosting for your suite. However, Shopify is a self-hosted website, and newcomers won’t have to worry about the costs of a domain and hosting for their e-commerce store. However, Shopify does offer the functionality to add a custom URL to your store later down the road when you start making money.
Which Platform Suits Newbies with Small Budgets?
Newcomers to e-commerce might be hesitant about spending thousands of dollars on a WordPress site with a WooCommerce facility. If that’s the case, then starting with Shopify on the free plan for a 90-day trial is where you need to be right now.
Even if you have a decent budget, consider going with the Shopify plan or Advanced plan instead of with WooCommerce. Getting through your first e-commerce venture is an important milestone, and Shopify offers you the best chance of success.
Which Is the Better Choice for Scaling My Business?
If you’re looking for the best solution that scales with your business as you grow, then once again, we recommend Shopify. You might think that WordPress and WooCommerce offer the best opportunities for scaling. You would be right if the business involves plenty of webpages and a comprehensive offering.
However, if you’re building niche e-commerce stores, and keeping your offerings small, Shopify is the better choice.
You can migrate through your pricing plans with Shopify, upgrading your platform as your business grows. The apps in the Shopify apps store go a long way in helping you build a functional and useful e-commerce web store.
