The two viral e-commerce platforms, WooCommerce, and Shopify are the gladiators of e-commerce and are equally powerful. Still, they offer distinct choices if you are interested in online selling. The crux of the matter is that which is apt for you depends on your situation.
Shopify powers more than 600,000 businesses, whereas WooCommerce asserts to be the web’s most popular eCommerce platform“.
In this article, we will help you decide whether Shopify or WooCommerce is ideal for you and the factors that influence your choice. The showdown between WooCommerce vs. Shopify takes into account their:
- Functionality and convenience of usage
- Ecommerce elements
- Security
- Cost
- Pros and Cons
Plus more!
If you are looking for an all-inclusive package, Shopify is best for you. Using its apps and well-organized features, you can create and publish your online store entirely through Shopify. WooCommerce can be your choice if a website already exists. A WordPress plugin, WooCommerce, changes your portal into an online store.
Two Distinct Core Approaches Of WooCommerce And Shopify Vis-a-Vis Creating And Handling Your Store:
1. WooCommerce is a self-hosted platform, which means that the files of your stores are located on your server, and you have the scope to alter everything on your eCommerce store as necessary. This lends you a degree of control that hosted platforms cannot offer.
If you require additional features, you can enable them by using plugins and extensions, building them yourself, or hiring the services of others to create them for you. In a self-hosted platform, your hosting provider assists with server issues. Regarding themes and extensions, the developers’ job is to answer support queries about their products.
As self-hosted platforms can be installed anywhere, you have greater scope to pick your favorite hosting service. Not confined to a centralized service indicates that you can shift your store if you surpass your hosting provider or explore a profitable deal elsewhere. Such a platform powers 30% of online stores, is perfect for WordPress users and can power eCommerce stores of every size.
2. Shopify is a hosted e-commerce platform that hosts and handles the software and offers flexibility, but you are limited to making only those changes that Shopify permits. Hosted platforms offer a comprehensive e-commerce solution consisting of housing, technical assistance, and a shopping cart feature. Instead of a fixed rate, you receive hosting and approach a technical team that resolves all issues concerning you. HHosted platforms reduce technical obstacles regarding access, provide excellent support, and offer customization. (by way of themes and plugins.
Among the most preferred e-commerce platforms, Shopify powers complete online outlets and extends essential shopping cart functions for sites using different platforms like WordPress.
Let us scan through a more specific comparison between these two leading eCommerce platforms:
Functionality And Ease Of Use
WooCommerce Functionality
An ideal single platform to operate e-commerce plus affiliate websites under a single roof. WooCommerce provides terrific themes and designs with plenty of features to sell and marketing automation integrations.
WooCommerce provides a friendly installation system, though not as intuitive as Shopify. It requires you to interchange between multiple systems before setting up and operating your store basically; you begin with domain setup, next take up WordPress installation, then activate the WooCommerce plugin, and finally customize the fundamentals.
You obtain inbuilt SEO tools and site search, consumers can sell unlimited digital and physical products, obtain reviews and ratings, product images that can be zoomed, and upselling plus cross-selling features. All of these are in-built and there is no requirement for an extra payment. After that, your budget can experience the pinch of single-click upsells, importing or exporting your items using a CSV file, and memberships. However, these are basic eCommerce features but you need to pay for essential things.
Shopify Functionality
Shopify utilizes a streamlined framework that completes the entire pipeline from beginning to culminating by taking minimal steps. It provides an abandoned cart email with no fancy installation for which you require a plugin in WooCommerce.
You can import or export your items, view ratings and reviews, perform real-time shipping, zoom product images – everything out of the box. But you need to pay for things too. Single click upsells, cross/upselling, product search, and additional SEO tools. You make payments if you like to award reward points or obtain subscriptions. If you decide to take your marketing efforts to the next level with personalized products, you must spend money on that.
Ease of Use
WooCommerce is an open-source self-hosted platform with no turnkey options. You have to configure hosting, connect the SSL certificate, name the domain, set up WordPress and fine-tune the setting, set up WooCommerce and every plugin you require, and install the theme. Everything can involve an entire weekend of tasks. If you are a newbie to WordPress, you may invest more time. AA setup wizard exists but would not offer insight into how to tweak PHP when there is an error on line 101. There is no chance of installing WordPress and various apps for you in such a situation. You require knowledge of basics before making anything and plenty of trial and error.
On the other hand, Shopify ensures a better grip on the system as you access it. A regular user can enter the dashboard and grasp the next step. Moreover, setting up your online store can take some hours.
About customer support, WooCommerce can land you in a “circle jerk” of support. Shopify has better customer support, as it is only a call or a chat away from fixing it.
Payment Alternatives And Fees
Considering the payment options, both WooCommerce offers over 100 payment gateways, either in-built or incorporated through integrations. The primary ones include:
- Stripe
- PayPal
- Apple Pay
- Credit and debit cards
Shopify, for instance, charges 2% for every transaction if you utilize a gateway involving a third party. However, you can lessen it by upgrading to an advanced Shopify plan. You can avoid the transaction fee altogether by applying Shopify Payments – their option.
A great advantage offered by WooCommerce is its non-charging of transaction fees. However, bank charges and charges by a payment provider do apply. If you are selling or merchandising a considerable volume of items, WooCommerce would be a sensible option. Moreover, it is also apt for the seller who prefers to select their merchant account.
Not to mention that incorporating new payment providers under WooCommerce can price up to above $70 such as Authorize.net. However, Shopify may integrate such options in your Shopify plan as usual. WooCommerce wins the payment options and fees element because of that. It does not charge fees for the transaction. Only if you use Shopify Payments will you be charged a surplus, which makes WooCommerce a winner in this regard.
Pricing
On the pricing front, Shopify offers set pricing, whereas WooCommerce has greater flexibility. The prices of Shopify vary from $29 – $299/month. In addition, you explore more advanced functions, such as professional reports, when you upgrade. WooCommerce is free but involves additional costs such as hosting, security, and a domain name.
The complex aspect is that there is no simple way to choose a winner, as both have diverse pricing models. However, Shopify has more exact pricing as you see what you pay.
WooCommerce vs. Shopify – Security
Here, Shopify qualifies as an easy winner because it is a hosted platform indicating that it takes care of your security. Shopify contains an SSL certificate and is also PCI-DSS friendly. With WooCommerce, you may require to source SSL and configure yourself the PCI-DSS compliance. You would also prefer configuring plugins for site security, two-factor authentication, and other things to safeguard your website.
WooCommerce vs. Shopify: Pros & Cons
When we compare WooCommerce vs. Shopify, it gets evident that both have their positives and negatives. So lLet’s find out about them and assign them to each platform.
Shopify: Pros
- Fair pricing, and you know precisely the amount to be paid every month
- You can access thousands of apps to grow your eCommerce store
- Plentiful and amazing themes
- Shopify handles everything from hosting, security, and technical maintenance of operating a store and is a scalable platform as it can manage any growth experienced by your store.
- You can launch your store within a few minutes
- Dropshipping becomes easy with Shopify
- You can link Shopify to different marketplaces and social networks, such as Facebook or Amazon, to sell your product directly and access a limitless audience
- You receive quality customer support 24/7
- With Shopify apps, you can add various features to your store. By grouping products into best Shopify bundles app you can offer discounts and added value to entice customers to buy more from your store.
Shopify: Cons
- You cannot control your site with Shopify
- Other platforms offer you better customization compared to Shopify
- You are trapped in the cycle of a monthly payment that only gets higher
WooCommerce: Pros
- Limitless customization because it is an open-source platform with an available code, and you
can build a store with a real personality. - WordPress possesses an extensive online community.
- WooCommerce is easy to install on WordPress.
- Endless plugins and themes, as anyone can create and sell them on the website. Moreover, WordPress themes are compatible with WooCommerce stores offering you unlimited designs.
- The WooCommerce plugin requires no charges.
- Access to the blogging infrastructure of WordPress and the ability to edit the metadata of your online store indicates the capacity of WooCommerce to allow you to harness the SEO and manage Google rankings.
WooCommerce Cons
- WooCommerce is more expensive because of themes, plugins, and hosting.
- You are caught up in a situation where you must handle everything from security and maintenance to backups and hosting.
- WordPress contains a slight learning curve.
- Lacks customer support
Reasons To Choose WooCommerce Over Shopify
If you prefer to make the best out of your two-pronged strategy of affiliate marketing and online selling of products, then WooCommerce is a great option. Besides, suppose you want a more significant scope with design. In that case, adjust to tinkering, and your marketing strategy is to push traffic via content for search engines, then choosing WooCommerce is a viable option.
Reasons To Choose Shopify Over WooCommerce
If you are a beginner to eCommerce or want to avoid technical details, choose Shopify. If you are dropshipping or interested in testing and analyzing things, picking Shopify is the way out.
Conclusion
Selecting one eCommerce platform over the other depends on your requirements. However, by gaining some insight into the type of business that thrives on WooCommerce and Shopify, respectively, you can pick the one that works best for your online store based on their cost-effectiveness, exercising complete control and scalability.