Shopify Vs. WooCommerce – Which Is the Better Platform for You?

Are you considering launching your e-commerce store but unsure whether you must choose Shopify or WooCommerce?

 

 

 

Everyone struggles to choose between these two platforms when starting their first e-commerce store.

 

 

Stealth Agents can help you streamline the operation by hiring a Shopify virtual assistant, ensuring your business excels in connecting with and retaining customers.

 

 

 

Grab a spot now, and will talk about your preference and pricing options!

 

Overview: Shopify vs WooCommerce

Before digging into each platform, we will discuss what makes these two e-commerce platforms stand out.

Shopify

Shopify is a hosted platform that makes it easy for the user to create an e-commerce store, accept payments, and manage an account from this platform.

 

 

The user does not need to worry about web hosting, caching, or other technical aspects. However, the user is limited to making the pre-defined changes that this platform allows.

WooCommerce

On the other hand, WooCommerce is an e-commerce plugin that is built for WordPress.

 

 

With WooCommerce, you can leverage the powerful CMS (content management system) to run your e-commerce store or hire an e-commerce virtual assistant.

 

 

It is an open-source platform that allows users to customize everything and build custom extensions. 

Choosing between Shopify or WooCommerce depends on your skillset and your business needs.

Shopify vs. WooCommerce

In this Shopify vs. Woocommerce guide, it becomes clear that both e-commerce platforms have pros and cons. Let’s get into these attributes that each platform offers. 

Shopify

Pros:

• Its pricing is fair, and users know how much they must pay monthly.
• You can access plenty of apps that help you extend your store.
• It offers a variety of beautiful themes.
• It handles the hosting, caching, security, etc.  
• You can launch your store in a couple of minutes. 
• Dropshipping is simple and easy with this platform.
• It offers the best support for your eCommerce business.

Cons:

• With Spotify, you don’t have as much control over your eCommerce website. 
• Customization can be done better with other eCommerce platforms. 
• It offers monthly payments that are going to get higher.

WooCommerce

Pros:

• Provides complete control and customization.
• It is a WordPress plugin with a massive community that powers 40% of all websites. 
• It offers plentiful plugins and themes. Anyone can make and sell them on the web.
• It is easy to configure on WordPress.
• The best thing about WooCommerce is that it is available free of cost.

Cons:

• WooCommerce can be expensive due to the hosting, plugins, and themes.
• It is an eCommerce plugin of WordPress that may have a learning curve.
• You must manage everything independently, including security, maintenance, hosting, and backups.

Ease of Use

Most people who start their online store are not web developers or designers. So, a user who knows the basic concepts needs a user-friendly platform. Let’s explore how these two platforms stack up in ease of use.

Shopify

Shopify is a hosted platform, which means users don’t need to install and manage any software. Moreover, the user will not have any backups, performance, compatibility, or security issues.

When you sign up for Shopify, you can choose your website’s design.

After you purchase the website design, ask your virtual graphic designer and web developer to customize every aspect of your website and add more plugins. The website has a built-in drag-and-drop interface.

You can easily manage your sales, products, and inventory with Shopify. However, it gives you a polished, highly optimized, and guided user experience, which limits your control.

It gives you development, design tools, and other add-ons and only allows you all these features to develop your website. However, it is not bad at all because it offers an array of themes and extensions that are enough to get started and build your e-commerce store online. 

WooCommerce

Like Shopify, WooCommerce is not a hosted platform, so you need to install this WordPress plugin, keep backups, secure your site, and manage updates. It offers a wide range of paid and free plugins that help to automate tasks. This platform provides excellent flexibility, so you can customize it however you want. And you have full control of the platform, unlike Shopify. You can add any functionality you imagine using over 55,000+ pordPress to your website. plugins

Unlike Shopify, it doesn’t offer an intuitive drag-and-drop design builder. However, you can use Beaver Builder, a WordPress page builder, but it adds to your overall cost.

But the major downside of its flexibility is that it has a learning curve and requires more concrete management for your website. The user must also sign up for a merchant account or similar services like Stripe or PayPal.

 The WooCommerce setup wizard can be helpful for users, but Shopify is a definite winner in terms of ease of use and user-friendliness.

What payment methods does each platform offer

Both Shopify and WooCommerce offer a wide range of payment gateways. However, using an external payment gateway requires an additional cost. This can be a great consideration because Shopify charges a 2% fee.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce offers many payment gateways because of its large plugin community and open-source nature. It supports all the famous gateways, including PayPal, Authorize.Net, Stripe, and Square. Beyond support for big payment players, you can also access plenty of niche payment gateways such as Postgiro and Przelewy24, Sweden, and the Polish payment gateway. You can say that WooCommerce not only supports big payment gateways but regional gateways as well.

Shopify

Shopify has its native payment gateway, which needs no configuration. However, Shopify also supports third-party payment gateways, including PayPal, Authorize.Net, and Stripe. Moreover, it has a long list of local payment gateways. However, you need to pay extra costs for using a third-party or external payment gateway. 

How much does each platform cost

For the e-commerce site owner, the most important consideration is cost. So, when you start, pay attention to the variable cost for software ad add-on services. Each platform has variable costs, so it is hard to say which platform is the best.

WooCommerce

You can’t pin down the exact cost of the WooCommerce store as there are too many edge cases and scenarios. You need to pay fixed costs for hosting, your domain, and whatever you pay for an external payment gateway. You may also pay for premium plugins and a premium theme.

However, one upside is that you will only pay once to purchase WordPress plugins, while Shopify apps require monthly payments.

Shopify

The core pricing of Shopify is easy to plan for, but some factors can increase the costs.

Premium themes

Its themes come with a one-off cost.

Apps

You can find free apps, but many need extra monthly payments.

Moreover, you need to pay more if you use external payment gateways.

WooCommerce vs. Shopify: Which one should you choose

Here, we are not sure which one you should choose. There is no single right answer to this question. It means you can’t make a single recommendation. That’s why we will discuss the reasons for using both platforms here.

Reasons to use WooCommerce over Shopify

When choosing WooCommerce over Shopify, the most significant reasons are control and flexibility.

If you want to sell your products with minor variations, you may not need that flexibility. However, you must know the best places to sell your products that go beyond simple—either the checkout process, variation, or pricing structure. Its flexibility is appreciable.

Shopify also bans some products. As a hosted platform, you are subject to the decision-making team’s whims.

That’s why some manufacturers get banned over there. The other reason to use WooCommerce over Shopify is that you like using WordPress and its plugin ecosystem. You might go with WooCommerce due to all these reasons.

Reasons to use Shopify over WooCommerce

Shopify can be a good choice for those who want to launch an e-commerce store in a beginner-friendly way. If you have no plan to sell products with plenty of variations, the Shopify ecosystem supports you. Moreover, if you don’t have much time to maintain your store or don’t want to think about technical aspects, you might choose the simplicity of Spotify.

Takeaways

So what do you think? Every e-commerce platform comes with merits for specific situations. If you like flexibility and ownership, WooCommerce is your choice. If you value simplicity, then Shopify is your best bet. Now, it depends on you whether you choose WooCommerce or Shopify.