Although there are several e-commerce platforms available, very few of them have the features that can help your business in a true sense. Among them, Shopify is one of the biggest platforms with more than 400,000 stores and $34 Billion worth of sales. WooCommerce is another significant contributor in this industry. With over 24,896,061 downloads, more than 28% online stores are powered by WooCommerce.
Among Shopify and Woocommerce, it’s difficult to say which one would be the best solution for you. So, we thought to point out the advantages and disadvantages of these two platforms to help you understand the differences and choose wisely.
Shopify
Shopify is the largest platform for online marketers. It has both premium and free themes. Another cool thing is that all of their themes are mobile friendly.
Features& Benefits:
- More than 100 free and premium themes with 1500+ plugins.
- Social media integration system for boosting your business through social
- More than 70 payment gateways.
- POS (point of sale) system to sell products from your physical
- Mobile phone compatibility.
- Option to create discount coupons and codes to accelerate your promotions and sales.
- 24/7 support via live chat, tutorials, phone, email, and forums.
Disadvantages:
- Monthly fees for every little thing.
- Less customizable.
- Service Lock-in.
The worst thing is that Shopify has its own template language named Liquid, so you’ll need a developer who is expert at that particular language. However, they have a marketplace where thousands of Shopify developers are ready to work for you at a reasonable price.
Shopify is for you if you are:
- New to e-commerce.
- Want to sell the product at trade shows or physical store.
- Don’t want to worry about software and hosting upgrades.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce allows you to sell services and products from a WordPress site. It is a free WordPress plugin that has additional features available as paid extensions.
Features& Benefits:
- More than 30 official designs and 1000s of WordPress themes.
- 1000s of extensions to integrate with the plugin.
- With digital and physical products, you can also sell affiliated
- Five Pre-installed payment gateways.
- Numerous options for discount codes and coupons.
- Open source, that’s why completely customizable.
Disadvantages:
- Runs only with WordPress
- You’ll need an expert Woocommerce developer.
- No domain and hosting support. You need to buy them separately from a hosting provider.
- Maintenance and security are on your own.
- Limited storage.
WooCommerce is for you if you are:
- An owner of WordPress website or planning to do so.
- Want to access verities of extensions and designs.
- Require custom functionalities and features.
- Want to be a tech savvy.
- Want full control over the store.
Comparison:
| Shopify | WooCommerce | |
| What is it? | Complete e-commerce Solution | WordPress Plugin |
| Hosting | Included | Not Included |
| SSL certificate | Free | $100+/Month |
| Language support | Native support | Plugin |
| File storage | Unlimited | Limited |
| Themes | 100 + | Thousands of WordPress theme |
| Support | 24/7 | Ticket/forum |
| Software | $29-$299 per month | Free |
| Hosting | $5-100/Month | |
| Sub-domain | N/A | |
| Top Level Domain | $9/Year | $9+/Year |
Shopify and WooCommerce have distinct sets of features and differences. It is quite obvious that Shopify is suitable for newbies, for expert and experienced marketers, WooCommerce is a perfect solution. But rookies can still handle WooCommerce and Experts can utilize Shopify to the greatest extent. Therefore, it is entirely on you what to choose, but if you look at the features and suitability, it’s not a rocket science.
