Shopify or WooCommerce: Which one should I choose?

Zubair Hussain Khan November 23, 2020

8 min read

In the E-commerce marketing world, Shopify and WooCommerce e-commerce platforms are popularly known among online merchants.

If you're planning to set up your e-commerce store and are confused which platform you should choose, this post will help you choose the best e-commerce store.

Should you choose Shopify or WooCommerce for your online business?

Well, it depends upon the characteristics that your online store requires. You should have a perfect plan of action so you can easily make the right choice.

However, you need to keep some key factors in your mind before you make any decision.

Scalability

Convenience

Payment Techniques

Integrations

Now let's dig in to find about both of these e-commerce platforms in detail.

What is Shopify?

Shopify is an optimal e-commerce solution intended to fulfill all the basic requirements of any business at the initial stage. It replaces all the sturdy tasks of handling technical and complex elements needed to run an online store.

You get a handful of nifty tools that helps in managing and using an e-commerce store.

It's pretty easy to install and set up Shopify. Shopify is an excellent solution if you're looking for a complete bundle for an e-commerce store. The incredible applications and features get you all set to take any desirable action swiftly.

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is an e-commerce platform that provides numerous customization options that give you total freedom to build and design your e-commerce store just how you like. It's a perfect platform to choose for an existing website.

Moreover, you also get full-fledged freedom in WooCommerce.

Now let's get into depth to find out which is a better e-commerce platform. Shopify or WooCommerce?

Shopify vs WooCommerce: Which is the best eCommerce platform?

Design

There are numerous sleek, modern, and stylish themes available in Shopify.

It has around 54 store templates.

You can take advantage of more advanced features with premium themes. However, to do this sturdy task, you should have excellent knowledge of a 'liquid' language to make significant updates or hire someone skilled in this particular field.

You still can play around with the colors and style of the themes. ThemeForest offers around 600 Shopify themes. All of the themes available on Themeforest are highly mobile responsive, polished, and clean.

On the other end of the spectrum, WooCommerce facilitates you with the flexibility feature. There are thousands of unique and incredible WooCommerce themes available. To avail those advanced features, you have to purchase premium themes, which are quite expensive.

The other option is to hire a developer to get a custom theme to build your WooCommerce store.

In the Themeforest directory, you get over 600 themes. Moreover, users with the help of Elementor, can build and design their e-commerce store so that it easily stands out among its competitors.

Features

Shopify endows you with powerful features to construct an astounding online store. Whether you want to sell products on your website or open a private company on the website, it will never let you down.

It owns some optimal e-commerce store building tools that eCommerce merchants can efficiently utilize to build a striking online presence.

Some popular features include,

Discount Codes

Various Payment Methods

Blog & Website

Cart Recovery Abandoned

Add Unlimited Products

Compared to Shopify, WooCommerce provides specific optimal features to construct a staggering online store. It's an open-source e-commerce platform where experts make generous contributions. You get custom plugins and modules which you can add to your online store to improve its functionality.

However, to build an e-commerce store on WooCommerce, you need to invest time and a significant amount of cash to construct your online store.

Some popular features include,

Built on Blogging Website

Easy Customization

Embedding Products

One-Click Refund

Ease of Use

Shopify is one of the most straightforward solutions available to build an e-commerce store.

When you start setting up an online store until the end when you've started selling, it guides you properly.

It is an optimal option for beginners who don't know about building an e-commerce store. It looks after many technical elements such as hosting server, domain name, security, etc. You don't have to be concerned about management, backups, installation, or security vulnerabilities.

Without knowing programming or coding, users can still easily access Shopify.

Since WooCommerce is not a self-hosted platform, it means you need to look after a lot of things yourself.

For beginners, it can be a bit confusing. You need to choose a web hosting service provider that can assist you with auto-installation, domain name, SSL certificate, etc.

You need to have specific skills and knowledge to handle the technical stuff in WooCommerce.

Pricing

Shopify has set pricing plans, which makes it easy for users to track their expenditures. The pricing plan ranges from $29 to 299$ monthly. As you upgrade your plan, you can get hold of various advanced features.

However, WooCommerce is more flexible when it comes to pricing. It's an open-source e-commerce platform free to install but for a few things including, a hosting server, domain name, and SSL certificate.

Hosting price ranges from $35 to $50 monthly.

SSL Certificate price ranges from $0 to $200 annually.

Domain price ranges from $10 to $20 annually.

Extension fees range from $0 to $100 monthly.

To just let you know, all those above additional charges are already included in Shopify plans.

Security

When it comes to Shopify, security won't be a big concern for you. It is a hosted platform; therefore, Shopify takes the responsibility to look after security vulnerabilities and protect your store from malware practitioners.

Shopify comes in with a built-in SSL certificate, which protects your customers' confidential information stored on your e-commerce store.

On the other hand, WooCommerce is an e-commerce store based on WordPress, an open-source CMS platform. There are many chances of security issues; therefore, merchants need to look after this aspect themselves or hire a hosting provider to look after the store for them.

Payment Gateways

When you're selling something online, you need to add payment gateways for your customers to pay. Both Shopify and WooCommerce give more than 100 payment gateways choices.

Merchants can either use the built-in options available or add others through integrations.

The most popular ones are,

Debit and Credit Cards

PayPal

Stripe

Square

Apple Play

Different payment gateways charge different transaction charges.

Shopify charges 2% per transaction if you're using any third-party payment gateway. If you want to reduce this extra cost, upgrade to an advanced Shopify plan. Another way to cut-off these additional charges is to use Shopify Payments.

Unlike Shopify, WooCommerce doesn't charge any additional transaction fees if you're using any third-party payment gateway.

However, bank charges and payment provider charges are applicable.