Shopify Vs WooCommerce: Which is the Best E-commerce Website Builder?

Shopify Vs WooCommerce: Which is the Best E-commerce Website Builder?

Is Shopify best for your eCommerce business or WooCommerce? The debate on Shopify vs WooCommerce is often seen on multiple stages. Both are top eCommerce platforms in the world having their pros and cons.

For any online store choosing the right eCommerce platform that suits your business is critical for its success and growth. As every business has different goals to achieve, not every eCommerce platform can be beneficial for your business.

Here is our guide comparing Shopify vs WooCommerce to help you make the right decision for your eCommerce store. Before we start in deep comparison let’s have a brief intro of both eCommerce platforms with VirtueNetz.

Shopify

Shopify

Shopify has everything you need to make an online store, from payment acceptance methods to managing inventory. Everything from this single eCommerce platform is easy to use and manageable. Shopify offers much more scalability and future security to your business rather than WooCommerce full control.

WooCommerce

Shopify Vs WooCommerce

WooCommerce allows you to run an online store through a powerful content management system (CMS), a plugin built for WordPress. It is more open-source which lets you customize your store as you want

Whenever you start an online store, there are some important factors that you need to keep in mind which will ultimately help you in deciding the right eCommerce Platform such as:

  1. Budget
  2. Ease of use
  3. Payment Methods
  4. Integrations
  5. Scalability

Shopify vs WooCommerce: Important Factors to Consider

Shopify vs WooCommerce: Important Factors to Consider

Let’s break down these factors and find out which platform is best for your business needs

Shopify vs WooCommerce- Cost:

While starting an online store you need to budget the cost of the starting business as well as the cost of add-on services.

  1. Shopify has an easy plan to start your online store with $29/month, you can upgrade with $79 or get an Advanced Shopify plan for $299/month.
  2. All the Shopify plans include a domain name, SSL certificate, and web hosting. You can add unlimited products as well as file storage and many more features.
  3. WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce plugin for WordPress.org available freely.
  4. With WooCommerce you will need a domain name, SSL Certificate, and a WordPress hosting account to start your online store. Where a domain name might cost you $14.99, an SSL Certificate will cost $69.99, and web hosting costs $7.99 per month.

WooCommerce has several free themes and add-ons which makes it better than Shopify when you compare the cost of both platforms.

Shopify vs WooCommerce- Ease of Use:

An easy to use online platform is the priority of every user, where they do not feel the need to be an expert in web development.

  1. Shopify with an easy sign up let you select a design for your website through a variety of extensions and themes.
  2. Shopify is fully hosted, so you do not need to install, manage or update any software and do not have to add extra security, performance, backups, and compatibility.
  3. Shopify gives easy customization process to add products thus letting you handle everything on your own.
  4. WooCommerce does not come with a fully hosted system, therefore, you need to install, manage, update, secure and add backups. Where many free plugins are available to automate these tasks.
  5. WooCommerce gives plenty of customization features, where you can add more than 55,000+ WordPress plugins to increase the functionality of your website.

WooCommerce has a guided setup wizard which is helpful but is not easy to use as of Shopify.

Shopify vs WooCommerce- Payment Methods:

With so many payment methods available it is necessary to choose the best that is not only suitable for you but also available to your customers. Thus, choosing a platform that gives you multiple payment options is important.

  1. Shopify has plenty of payment options including its method called Shopify Payments as well as all other third-party payment gateways. However, it cost an extra 2% fee on every third-party transaction.
  2. Shopify Payments has no transaction fees other than flat credit card fees. The credit card rates start from 2.9% + 30¢ for its basic plan and get lower for other updated plans.
  3. WooCommerce has a default payment for PayPal and Stripe payments integration. It supports all payment methods through add-ons.
  4. Unlike Shopify, WooCommerce does not charge any extra transaction fee other than fees by your payment gateway or your bank.

    Thus, both platforms are somehow equivalent to each other when it comes to payment services.

Shopify vs WooCommerce- Integrations and Add-ons:

Third-Party tools and services have always been required no matter how much strong your e-commerce platform is, such as email marketing software, lead generation tool, analytics tools, outreach services, etc.

  1. Shopify has hundreds of apps with a powerful API and App Store for you to add every feature that your website needs
  2. Shopify has both free, paid apps and monthly subscriptions varying on add-ons and third-party services including OptinMonster and apps for SEO, product review, discounts, and many more.
  3. WooCommerce is built on top of WordPress and gives you access to more than 55,000 free WordPress plugins and many other paid plugins, which can be added for payment gateways, lead generation, SEO, performance optimization, and more.
  4. WooCommerce has a lot more integrations and add-ons available than Shopify due to low barriers.

Many third parties have their plugins integrated into your WooCommerce store thus making it a better platform than Shopify

Shopify vs WooCommerce- Scalability:

With your business growth, you need to increase resources to move ahead and deal with certain challenges. Thus, you need a platform that holds strong for your business’s future scalability and growth.

  1. Shopify has powerful control over all the technical aspects such as performance, security, and scalability of your online store.
  2. With your business growth and demand for new features, you can simply jump to more advanced Shopify plans. Shopify has a strong infrastructure to handle downtimes, backups, updates, or security of your business.
  3. With WooCommerce you will be responsible to handle updates, backups, security, and scalability of your website on your own.
  4. With increasing traffic on your store, the WooCommerce hosting plan may run out of resources thus all the changes might require from the start.

The Sum Up:

Both Shopify vs WooCommerce is powerful eCommerce platforms to start your online store. However, selecting the right one can be more beneficial to upscale your business depending on your skills and preference.

Deciding between Shopify and WooCommerce for making online stores profitable depends on a few things. Shopify is easy, dependable, and has many built-in features, which is good if you want things simple. On the other side, WooCommerce, like a tool for WordPress, lets you change and control more, which is great for flexible businesses.

Your pick should consider how skilled you are with technology, what you want to achieve with your business, how much money you have, and how much you want to control your online shop. I believe that after reading this useful blog, you’ll find it simpler to pick the right platform for your online store and business to do well!