Setting up your own e-commerce store is the need of the hour, whether you’re a small business or a big brand. While it is turning simpler than ever to start selling online with the advent of technology, picking the right e-commerce platform for your business has become a struggle.
After all, how can you choose between two of the world’s best e-commerce platforms: WooCommerce and Shopify? Both are widely popular for starting an online business. They pack in unique characteristics, benefits, and offerings. Besides, you will find many expert WooCommerce developers and Shopify website developers in India. The result? Choosing between these two platforms becomes all the more challenging.
We heard you!
In this blog, we will compare Shopify and WooCommerce in detail based on factors like features, cost, usability and much more. That way, you will know what each platform has on offer & choose the best-fit option for your online store.
But before we do that, here’s an overview of WooCommerce & Shopify.
What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce has been built for WordPress. An open-source e-commerce platform, it enables anyone who wants to create and run their store online. It is a free e-commerce plugin designed for WordPress users.
Since it is open-source in nature, you can personalize any element of your e-commerce website with WooCommerce. Moreover, there are hundreds of themes and extensions to add to your store for a streamlined process. From listing and showcasing products to accepting digital payments to seamlessly managing back-end operations, the platform offers it all.
What is Shopify?
Shopify is a comprehensive e-commerce solution that empowers you to build your own online store despite having zero skills in the technical domains of website hosting, web design & development, security, and maintenance. Think of Shopify as a platform that allows you to list and sell your products online, accept secure online payments, as well as manage your inventory operations.
It is a third-party e-commerce platform that you can easily incorporate into your website and social media channels to reach your e-commerce business goals.
WooCommerce or Shopify: Which One is the Right Fit for Your Business?
Now let’s begin our in-depth comparison based on the following key factors:
#1 Design & Customization
Every e-commerce business is different. And it should also reflect in your online store. How? Simple; analyze if the platform you choose to build your virtual store offers seamless design and customization capabilities.
WooCommerce:
WooCommerce offers more than 1000 themes to give your e-commerce website an attractive look and feel. Besides, you would find 1200+ WooCommerce theme templates on third-party marketplaces, like ThemeForest, for a stylish web presence. Such templates are available for free or paid versions.
There is no limitation with WooCommerce in terms of customization, given its open-source nature. You can tweak the templates and functions the way you require. The quality control, however, is not always up to the mark.
Shopify:
The quantity of themes at Shopify is lesser when compared to WooCommerce. The platform also lacks advanced personalization options. That said, you can still seamlessly make edits to your HTML or CSS files. Moreover, Shopify themes offer excellence when it comes to quality standards. The premium themes are expensive (with some available for hundreds of dollars even), but they are sleek and highly functional.
| Our Pick: Go for WooCommerce for more choices & customization. |
#2 Ease of Use
You don’t have to spend months learning web design or e-commerce web development to start and run your digital store. All you need is a simple to use platform.
WooCommerce:
With WooCommerce, you’d need to manage multiple technical aspects of a website on your own – from updates to backups and security. Installation of the WooCommerce plugin is also necessary. There are free and paid plugins, however, to automate these tasks.
While there are thousands of free themes available with customization features, the lack of a drag-and-drop builder makes the learning curve steeper.
Shopify:
Shopify is a completely hosted eCommerce platform. That means you do NOT have to download, install, update, or manage the software. Just sign up on Shopify, pick a theme, start designing through its drag-and-drop builder, follow the customization steps, and add products.
What about the security, backups, or performance issues? It is all taken care of by Shopify.
| Our Pick: Choose Shopify for its ease of use. |
#3 Cost
Cost is one of the most crucial factors which often drives your final decision between Shopify and WooCommerce. The cost here includes the pricing plans offered by each platform + the consideration for the future costs of add-ons and plugins.
WooCommerce:
WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin for WordPress. But you would need to spend on hosting, domain name, SSL certificate, security, and any additional paid plug-ins or add-ons. Depending on your choices and selection, these costs can run into hundreds or even thousands of dollars. That turns it into a costly option for someone just starting out.
Fortunately, many hosting providers, such as Bluehost, have started offering dedicated WooCommerce plans with perks like discounted hosting, free domain name and SSL certificate. This can get you started for around $3 a month.
Another plus point of WooCommerce is that it doesn’t charge you a fee on every transaction.
Shopify:
Shopify offers several pricing plans. Its Basic plan costs $29 per month, while its Starter plan costs you as low as $5 per month. The Shopify, Advanced and Shopify Plus plans cost $79, $299 and $2000, respectively, per month. While these plans include an SSL certificate and web hosting, you will need to pay extra if you want a custom domain.
It’s worth noting that additional plug-ins may stretch your budget. Moreover, Shopify charges a fee on every transaction (pricing varies with different plans), which may also increase your overall cost.
| Our Pick: WooCommerce takes the cake for its affordable offerings. |
#4 Payment Methods
The best Shopify and WooCommerce Development company in India recommends providing your customers with multiple payment methods when they shop from your online store. It not only offers the flexibility of choice but also elevates the customer experience.
WooCommerce:
WooCommerce supports a majority of leading payment gateways, such as PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.Net and Square. It also offers integrations with regional payment gateways to make things smoother for small, local businesses.
The downside is that you may have to buy an extension for some of these gateways for a smoother payment process. A big plus is that WooCommerce doesn’t charge any fee for using third-party tools for payments. So, the only transaction fees you’ll pay is the one charged by your bank or the payment platforms.
You can also opt for the platform’s very own gateway, called WooCommerce Payments, which charges a transaction fee on credit card payments.
Shopify:
Shopify, too, supports multiple external payment gateways, including PayPal, Alipay and Amazon Pay. However, the platform charges an additional fee percentage on each transaction made through such third-party payment mediums. The fee ranges from 0.5% to 2% based on your Shopify plan.
If you want to skip those transaction fees, you can use Shopify’s payment gateway, called Shopify Payments, which only charges credit card fees. The fact that it is simple to set up makes it more convenient.
| Our Pick: If you’re using a third-party payment gateway or plan to use multiple of those, WooCommerce is a winner here. Otherwise, Shopify also makes for a viable choice. |
#5 Integration & Add-ons
From email marketing tools to CRM and lead generation software, you may need to use third-party solutions to keep your online store functioning optimally. That’s when hassle-free integrations for both free and paid tools come to your rescue. Let’s see how WooCommerce & Shopify fare in this aspect.
WooCommerce:
Being an open-source e-commerce platform, WooCommerce offers seamless integrations with over 59,000 free WP plug-ins, third-party tools, as well as paid add-ons. If you are a developer, then you can even customize your code for your WooCommerce store.
Shopify:
On Shopify, you have access to a range of Shopify apps listed on its store to enhance your virtual store’s functioning. These apps come at a price or for free. The catch is you can only add extensions from Shopify’s App and API store, limiting the flexibility in personalization and scaling of your virtual business.
| Our Pick: WooCommerce emerges as a clear winner here. |
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#6 Scalability
With a growing online store, you may require newer resources and tools to manage the shift in goals and processes. The good thing is both Shopify and WooCommerce are scalable platforms. Let’s find out which one can fit your needs.
WooCommerce:
For a self-hosted platform like WooCommerce, you will need to manage the updates, security, and backups of your store on your own. And as your business grows, you can upgrade to resources of your choice in line with your distinct requirements. The hosting costs will increase in this case.
Another option is to go for managed hosting providers for WordPress to ensure a smooth scaling experience.
Shopify:
Shopify takes care of all the technical aspects of your store, right from updates and security to backups and performance. Hence, upgrading to a premium plan tends to meet all your scaling needs. With its robust infrastructure, Shopify also eliminates worries about website downtime or security issues.
The overall cost would increase with a premium plan, of course. But you neither have to take the headache of managing things yourself nor hire a team of experts.
| Our Pick: Shopify offers better when it comes to scalability. |
#7 Search-Engine Friendliness
While you can invest in paid digital advertising, search engine optimization (SEO) is critical to boost and maintain organic traffic for your e-commerce business consistently.
WooCommerce:
WooCommerce is optimized for search engines by default. Besides, you can add meta titles and descriptions to your website pages easily. To make things even better, it is also possible to customize page URLs.
Apart from that, WooCommerce offers additional plug-ins to help improve your search rankings, such as Yoast SEO and All in One SEO. These add-ons evaluate your site pages and provide actionable suggestions for effective optimization, letting you steer your on-page SEO efforts.
Shopify:
Shopify allows you to create titles and descriptions for your website pages without any hassles. Moreover, its app store contains many free and paid SEO plug-ins to up your store’s SEO game.
| Our Pick: WooCommerce has powerful offerings when it comes to SEO. |
#8 Security
Since your virtual store is going to have sensitive personal and financial information, security is of prime importance. Let’s find out what these leading e-commerce development platforms offer in terms of security.
WooCommerce:
With WooCommerce, there are no built-in security measures. You have to search and add plugins that are relevant to your site’s security requirements. This may cost you time as well as money.
Shopify:
Shopify packs in built-in security features, given it is a hosted platform. The best part is Shopify also provides an SSL certificate as part of its security offerings, increasing the store’s trustworthiness and conversions.
| Our Pick: Shopify is a winner for its robust security functions. |
#9 Support
While Shopify and WooCommerce may be simple to use, you may require professional support at times to ensure smooth operations or resolve a technical, design or performance issue. Fortunately, both these platforms offer support options.
WooCommerce:
WooCommerce maintains a broad range of tutorials, documentation, and how-to guides to provide accurate guidance to its global users. There are community forums, too, where fellow users, as well as the platform’s support team, offer resolutions to issues. Recently, the platform has started offering 24/7 live chat support for its premium users.
Given the immense popularity and open-source nature of WooCommerce, it is often simpler to find help and support. Still, if you find it difficult to get around the system, you can always hire professional developers.
Shopify:
Shopify provides its users with round-the-clock customer support through phone, email, live chat, and Twitter. If you intend to solve problems on your own, there are many extensive documentation, video tutorials, forums, and guides available. It also has a directory listing Shopify experts for anyone wanting to hire a professional.
It’s important to note that you won’t get any support for third-party templates and add-ons.
| Our Pick: It’s a tie. |
Final Thoughts:
WooCommerce and Shopify are both powerful platforms for starting your online store.
WooCommerce is a cost-effective platform that gives you complete control over your e-commerce store. It is flexible, easy to use and open-source. The drawback is that you have to be hands-on in maintaining the software. The learning curve is a bit deeper but is doable.
Shopify, on the other hand, gets you started faster as there are no installations or updates to look after. The platform has a drag-and-drop environment and is simpler and scalable. The downside is its high cost with all the integration & add-on charges and transaction fees. Plus, it doesn’t provide you with full control over the components.
To sum it up, we can say that for someone who wants total control over their online store on a budget, WooCommerce is a wise choice. And for those who don’t mind an expensive yet scalable solution, Shopify makes for a good choice. It all boils down to your individual preferences, goals, and requirements.
Also Read: Developing a Business Website? Things You Should Keep Ready!
