Shopify vs Woocommerce

digitalengage blog April 5, 2023 0 Comments

Do you intend to open an online store? Not sure if WooCommerce or Shopify is best for you? The two leading eCommerce platforms in the world are Shopify and WooCommerce, each with advantages and disadvantages. In this blog, we will make a Shopify vs. Woocommerce comparison so that you can choose between the two.

Your success as a business owner depends on selecting the ideal eCommerce platform for your needs. We’ll provide you with a thorough comparison of Shopify and WooCommerce in this blog post. The objective is to contrast their benefits and drawbacks to assist you in selecting the ideal solution for your eCommerce company.

What is Shopify?

You can easily create an online store, collect payments, and manage your inventory from a single platform with Shopify, an all-in-one eCommerce solution. With Shopify, you can order an eCommerce site without dealing with technical issues, such as web hosting, security, caching, etc. Before you choosing Shopify to build your eCommerce Store, you need to consider every single factor to make sure you make the right decision. Those factors can be Pros and Cons, Statistics, Design Ease, etc.

What is a WooCommerce Store?

Open-source eCommerce plugin for WordPress called WooCommerce. This lets you employ the most powerful content management system (CMS) to operate an online business. WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform, yet many people are unaware that WordPress is the most popular website builder on the planet, powering 43% of all websites (yes, even more, popular than Shopify). WooCommerce is open-source, so you can quickly add custom extensions and modify any business element. Your needs and degree of skill are the only factors that should be considered while deciding between the two platforms.

What to Consider (Shopify VS Woocommerce)

While opening an internet store, there are a few things that you must never forget. You can choose the most appropriate platform for your needs using these essential criteria.

Budget – The starting price for a fully operational online store.
Usefulness – It ought to be simple to use, especially for beginners.
Payment Options should enable various payment options (e.g., PayPal, Stripe, and other merchant processors).
Amount of third-party services and solutions you can integrate to expand your eCommerce business.
Scalability – The platform must be able to grow with your company.

These are the bare minimum requirements that every proprietor of an online store should consider. But you could also want to consider other alternatives, such as shipping, inventory control, invoicing, taxes, dropshipping, etc., depending on your needs.

Costs: Shopify

Expense is frequently the most crucial factor for proprietors of eCommerce websites. You must assess the startup costs while considering the varying costs for additional services and software. Creating an online store using Shopify is quite simple. You can upgrade to the Shopify plan for $79 or the Advanced Shopify plan for $299 monthly from their entry-level plan, which costs $29. Each of these subscriptions includes a web server and an SSL certificate. It will consist of a subdomain with a Shopify logo. You’ll need to buy your domain name individually if you wish to use it.

A new online store can be launched using the tools included in the Shopify basic plan. Unlimited items, two user accounts, unrestricted file storage, and more are all available. But Shopify Plus offers much more features to build your eCommerce store. You will need additional third-party tools and add-ons not included in this pricing to advance your Shopify store. These expenses will mount as your firm expands, and before long, you’ll be paying far more than the basic plan. Another element that affects your expenditures is payments. Shopify has its own Shopify Payments service, with a base price of 2.9% + 30 cents for each transaction. You will be charged a fee of 2.0% for all transactions if you use third-party payment gateways or your merchant account.

Costs: WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a WordPress.org plugin for online stores (self-hosted WordPress). It is offered as a free plugin and is open-source. To launch a WooCommerce store, you’ll need a domain name, an SSL certificate, and a WordPress hosting account. Usually, a domain name costs $14.99, an SSL Certificate is $69.99, and the monthly cost of web hosting is about $7.99. This is not inexpensive, especially if you are just getting started. Several hosting providers now provide specific WooCommerce hosting plans, significantly lowering the cost.

Usability: Shopify

Shopify is a completely hosted platform, so you won’t need to manage or update any software. Also, you don’t have to worry about performance, backups, security, or compatibility problems. You can select a design from various free Shopify themes as soon as you join up.

Next, they help you add products after guiding you through customization. Shopify has a user-friendly drag-and-drop user interface. Within Shopify, maintaining your product pages, sales, and inventory is simple. This driven, flawless, and optimized user experience has the drawback of limiting your control. You cannot use Shopify’s provided design and development tools or add-ons from their marketplace.

Usability: WooCommerce

Unlike Shopify, WooCommerce is not a hosted platform. This calls for the installation of the WooCommerce plugin, management of updates, preservation of backups, and assurance of the safety of your website. Many free and premium plugins can automate most of these chores for you.

WooCommerce offers tremendous customization flexibility. The entire platform is entirely under your control. The web host you choose to power your WordPress site is critical in its speed and performance. With more than 59,000 WordPress plugins, you can add every functionality conceivable to your website. But there isn’t a drag-and-drop design builder included. Using a WordPress page builder, such as Beaver Builder or SeedProd, will increase your costs.

Payment Methods: Shopify

Customers can utilize a variety of payment methods on Shopify when checking out. Shopify has multiple payment plans like Shopify Plus and Shopify Lite. With all the well-known third-party payment channels, Shopify offers a payment system called Shopify Payments (powered by Stripe). The issue is that every transaction done through a third-party payment gateway on Shopify carries an additional 2% cost. This is in addition to the transaction fees the payment gateway levies. You can lower the price by paying $299 monthly for the Advanced Shopify plan at 0.5 percent.

Payment Methods: WooCommerce

WooCommerce, by default, accepts payments through Stripe and PayPal. They also have a Stripe-powered WooCommerce Payments solution. All other well-known payment service providers are also supported. Installing payment connectors for Authorize.net, Amazon Pay, Square, Alipay, and numerous other services is possible. WooCommerce even supports several regional and less well-known payment services for payment gateways. As there are no entrance requirements, any payment provider can develop WooCommerce add-ons and offer support.

Conclusion

So the question remains. In Woocommerce vs. Shopify, which eCommerce platform prevails? Comparing Shopify and WooCommerce, Shopify lacks the broader library of extensions that gives it more versatility. It is built on WordPress and can function as a blog and a company website. Works with every email service provider, including Constant Contact, Mailchimp, and others.

You can quickly improve your website with an SEO plugin like All in One SEO or Yoast SEO. With the free word press theme store, you also receive more WooCommerce themes. Most significantly, using tools to increase conversions and cart recovery is simple. On WooCommerce, you must purchase your domain name with a third party as a subdomain is omitted. An SSL certificate is possible, which helps keep your website secure on both WooCommerce and Shopify. Digital Engage provides guidance and comparison on different eCommerce platforms like Square Online, Squarespace, Wix, Magento, and Shopify Plus.