According to a recent survey, 95% of purchases will be made online by 2040.
However, starting an online business can be fraught with difficulties and complexity. The most concerning issue is deciding on an eCommerce platform for conducting online business. When it comes to creating an online business, two alternatives stand out above the rest: Shopify vs WooCommerce.
In simple words, WooCommerce vs Shopify are two of the most common and easy-to-use eCommerce platforms available today. Apparently, no platform is ever flawless. The majority of the time, they include a variety of fantastic features as well as a set of limitations.
What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce, which was launched in 2011, has rapidly grown in popularity in the eCommerce market and is currently the most popular eCommerce platform, with over 3.8 million users. However, most crucially, it enables you to manage your online store using WordPress, the world’s most popular CMS.
WooCommerce is a plugin built for WordPress. Since you can easily develop eCommerce on WooCommerce when you’re already acquainted with WordPress, it presently has the biggest market share.
What is Shopify?
Shopify, unlike WooCommerce, is not an open-source platform, but it does provide a variety of features that meet a wide range of demands. In 2004, Snowdevil, an online business, launched Shopify. In 2007, it evolved into an eCommerce platform. According to the company’s announcement, over 1.7 million websites use Shopify now.
Shopify is not free, and there is no one-time price; instead, you pay a monthly subscription plus a commission on each transaction. Shopify is currently popular among users. It is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that allows non-technical users to rapidly join up and launch a business on Shopify. It is very useful for newcomers with little or no technical skills.
Shopify vs WooCommerce: Detailed Comparision
- Designs and Themes
Regarding themes, we all know how significant they are in attracting customers. Customers’ first impressions are extremely important. Let’s compare the best WooCommerce vs Shopify themes.
WooCommerce Themes
WooCommerce includes hundreds of styles and templates that can be easily designed to be mobile-friendly. This platform is designed to run with nearly every template on the market, which implies you could use almost any website template with WooCommerce. Some of the best WooComemrce theme for online store are Woostify, Astra, etc.
Nevertheless, because each theme has its own distinct user experience (UX) to master, it may take longer to guarantee that the layout of your website is straightforward and simple to grasp.
Shopify Themes
Shopify now offers 73 template possibilities, 9 of which are free.
Furthermore, each Shopify theme offers unique variations. As a result, you will receive more than 100 alternative designs. Shopify themes are designed by a group of expert website designers and are often sleek and clean while still being feature-rich and mobile-friendly. Moreover, you can also switch Shopify themes in an easy way.
Regarding design and themes, WooCommerce has a significant advantage over Shopify. Shopify offers some fantastic themes, but they are limited to what is available in the Shopify Theme Store. Therefore, WooCommerce is undeniably the winner.
- Costs
Cost is frequently the most significant aspect for eCommerce website owners. You must assess the cost of starting up while also considering the variable costs for contributing services and software.
Cost of WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin. However, you will have to purchase additional services, including domain name registration, SSL certification, and one of the numerous WordPress hosting accounts.
The prices for these services can differ slightly. Hosting costs between $6 and $13 per month. A domain name can cost as much as $15 per year on average. SSL certificates can range in price from free to $100 per year.
Shopify, on the contrary, being a hosted platform, provides the complete package for your online store. Shopify offers a three-day trial period for free, after which consumers must pay a monthly subscription price. The basic plan is $29 per month, the next level costs $79 per month, and the top-tier package costs $299 per month. All of these packages include SSL and web hosting.
It costs an extra $14 per year to have your own domain name without the brand name (i.e., Shopify) in your URL.
The set fee structure of Shopify, on the other hand, makes tracking spending easier than the dynamic pricing structure of WooCommerce.
- Ease of Use
Most people who start an online business are neither web designers nor creators. Even customers who are knowledgeable about the fundamentals prefer a platform that is simple to set up and administer.
Let’s see the usability of Shopify vs WooCommerce :
WooCommerce Ease of Use
Since WooCommerce is not a hosted platform, you should handle several tasks such as installation, management of updates, backups, and ensuring the security of your business.
WooCommerce installation is complicated since you should first install WordPress. To install WordPress, follow these instructions:
- Get a WordPress domain name.
- Register for a hosting account.
- WordPress should be installed.
- Locate and set up a WordPress theme.
We actually recommend you select a reputable WordPress hosting service that will handle the entire setup process for you, including hosting, domain registration, and WordPress installation because those tasks do require some level of web-related knowledge.
Shopify Ease of Use
The significant benefit of Shopify is that it includes an online store, therefore practically everything is intuitive. Setting up and running stores on Shopify is a breeze thanks to its user-friendly interface.
To get started with Shopify, you need to follow these steps:
- Browse Shopify.com.
- Create an account.
- Simply follow these simple setup instructions.
- Begin selling.
Shopify is designed for all types of business owners, including those with little or no technical knowledge.
Although the WooCommerce-assisted setup wizard is useful, Shopify’s onboarding process and ease of use are far superior.
SEO
If you desire your webpage to be noticed on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs), you must plan for search engine optimization (SEO).
WooCommerce SEO
SEO is absolutely WooCommerce’s benefit because it is based on a dedicated blogging platform. Utilizing the WordPress editor, WooCommerce users can customize product pages by modifying the body content, basic URL redirections, meta descriptions, alt tags, and other page elements.
At the same time, WooCommerce offers a number of SEO plugins to assist you in improving your store, with Yoast SEO being the most well-known.
Shopify SEO
When it comes to SEO, Shopify, on the other hand, has certain limits. In actuality, Shopify users do not have complete control over their URLs. This is owing to Shopify’s rigid URL structure, which forbids you from modifying some components of your store’s URLs. Furthermore, it is hard to create sub-categories on this site.
However, Shopify offers all of the essential capabilities required for eCommerce SEO, and they are generally relatively straightforward to utilize. SEO software for Shopify is also well-known for being easy to set up and use.
While Shopify has some limitations, you can rest assured that it still offers many crucial SEO functions. WooCommerce has more SEO benefits than Shopify because it uses the WordPress editor.
Security
When it concerns starting an online marketplace, security is essential. All businesses require security, both for themselves and for their consumers.
In fact, when choosing a hosted eCommerce solution over an open-source platform, there are fewer things to worry about in terms of security and data protection.
WooCommerce Security
Technically, WooCommerce does not incorporate any security features with the plugin. Because it is built on WordPress, you are responsible for the majority of the security.
In more detail, you will be responsible for obtaining your own SSL certificate, configuring your site security plugins, two-factor authentication, PCI compliance, and other site security measures on your own.
Shopify Security
Shopify will take care of all security precautions. A free SSL certificate that encrypts all data transferred between you and your customers is included with this platform.
In addition, a Level 1 PCI-certified server, which is necessary to take credit and debit card data, hosts the Shopify platform.
Considering both eCommerce platforms, Shopify Vs WooCommerce – it is an easy victory for Shopify here because Shopify is a hosted platform, which means security is taken care of for you via SSL certificate and PCI-DSS compliance.
Support
Customer service is one of the most crucial factors to consider, especially when running a website. Because you will undoubtedly require it at some point during your e-commerce journey.
WooCommerce Support
WooCommerce, like many open-source eCommerce platforms, does not offer live chat, phone, or email.
WooCommerce, on the other hand, provides a wealth of resources for sellers who wish to take control of their own support approach. This platform offers assistance in the form of WooCommerce Docs and a FAQ section where you may get answers to practically any frequent question.
Shopify Support
Shopify, on the other hand, is well-known for its great customer service, which is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, via phone, email, and live chat. Shopify provides rich documentation, how-to manuals, a knowledge base, video lessons, and forums for clients who wish to fix things for themselves.
Nevertheless, Shopify does not assist with any third-party applications or layouts that you use.
However, Shopify won the award for best customer service owing to the convenience of contacting Shopify Support staff.
Plugins and Apps
No matter how strong an e-commerce system is, you’ll always need to install some plugins to improve your store. Email marketing software, lead creation tools, analytics tools, and so on. Fortunately, both Shopify and WooCommerce provide a vast catalog of plugins and interfaces with numerous third-party services.
WooCommerce Plugins
WooCommerce’s customers may access WordPress’s massive plugin collection, which has approximately 58,000 free and commercial plugins covering all of your logistical, technological, and marketing needs, as a plugin executing on WordPress. WordPress header plugins are one of the most useful extensions for capturing your customers’ attention. WooCommerce also has 592 extensions that are specifically developed for eCommerce.
Shopify Apps
Shopify includes 5899 applications and plugins built by in-house teams as well as third-party designers. The vast majority of apps in its marketplace are classified as inventory management, orders and delivery, sales and conversion, and so on. All of these extensions assist you in easily monitoring your eStore as well as driving more customers and sales.
WooCommerce wins because it has many more plugins than Shopify. In addition, unlike Shopify’s monthly fees, a significant number of WooCommerce’s premium extensions charge a one-time fee.
Dropshipping
Dropshipping is a technique of order fulfillment that does not necessitate retailers to keep products in stock. Rather, it fills orders by purchasing things from vendors and distributing them straight to clients. Both Shopify vs WooCommerce possess their own dropshipping’s features.
WooCommerce Dropshipping
WooCommerce is an excellent solution for dropshipping businesses. Drop shippers utilize WooCommerce to pay for extensions that assist in rapidly importing products, fulfilling orders from your webpage, and more. This platform enables you to sort through hundreds of possibilities to find exactly what you’re looking for.
Shopify Dropshipping
Shopify already has integration apps for a variety of well-known dropshipping markets. Shopify also offers integration tools for prominent dropshipping merchants like as AliExpress, Oberlo, Printify, and others. Nevertheless, each of these item marketplaces has its own membership fees, delivery charges, and other fees that you should be aware of when creating your dropshipping website with Shopify.
We’d suggest WooCommerce if you’re searching for a shipping solution that is specially designed for your business. In this area, WooCommerce is the winner.
Scalability
Scalability is vital because as your eCommerce business expands, you will have a greater number of orders to complete, and if your eCommerce platform is still not up to the task, your business may fail.
WooCommerce Scalability
The scalability of WooCommerce is dependent on the hosting company on which your store is hosted. This means that your WooCommerce shop is only as effective as your hosting.
A competent WooCommerce hosting provider, such as Cloudways, guarantees that you get all the tools you need to help your business expand. It also ensures that you have sufficient scalability choices to scale your resources as required.
Shopify Scalability
You never have to be concerned about performance, security, or scalability because Shopify takes care of the technical aspects of your store.
Larger stores, more orders, and more customers can all be handled with ease by the architecture on which Shopify is constructed. Scaling is also simple because you may simply move to a larger plan as your organization expands.
In this scalability evaluation of Shopify vs. WooCommerce, WooCommerce comes out on top. WooCommerce owners now have more flexibility to scale their shops without being constrained by fixed pricing plans. On Shopify, your development possibilities are limited to what the platform offers.
Shopify vs WooCommerce: Which One Should You Utilize?
Shopify vs WooCommerce? Which platform is the most suitable for you? That completely depends on your purposes and demands.
The best choice is Shopify when you’re new to eCommerce or do not want to deal with technical details. Additionally, if you would like to test things out and try a few products, register for a free 3-day Shopify trial right away to see how it functions.
Shopify is the perfect idea because it is an all-in-one solution for your e-commerce site, getting you back up and running and having a ton of wonderful features and applications.
WooCommerce, on the other hand, is the way to go if you want a platform with useful SEO features. Consider WooCommerce if you want more assistance with your design, don’t mind customizing it, or if your primary marketing goal is to drive people through content for search engines.
Additionally, if you already have a WordPress website and don’t mind having greater control over your store, WooCommerce would be for you.
Conclusion
I hope you’ve decided by this point which eCommerce platform is best for you. The rivalry between Shopify vs WooCommerce is not new. However, in general, they are both effective and appropriate for assisting you in the establishment of an eCommerce store.
Selecting the right platform for your internet business is a difficult task. As a result, before reaching your final decision, we propose that you look at our in-depth WooCommerce research as well as our exhaustive Shopify assessment.
