WooCommerce Versus Shopify: How to Select the Best E-Commerce Platform For You?
Commencing an online store has never been tranquil. Few feature-rich E-Commerce platforms are available, each platform with their own set of strengths and weaknesses. However, the two most famous platforms are Shopify and WooCommerce. The decision about choosing an E-Commerce platform from one of them entirely depends on your individual requirements.
Both platforms provide eye-catching design, product variants, distinct shipping rates, payment gateways, Search Engine Optimization and marketing features. Moreover, they offer different extensions as well as numerous add-ons to further range and expand your online store.
In this post, we will take a look at Shopify versus WooCommerce, contrast their features, and assist you in determining which one is the best E-Commerce platform selection for your online store at the start.
Try these on for size:
COMPARE | SHOPIFY | WOOCOMMERCE |
CLIENT SATISFACTION |
99% |
97% |
SCORE |
9.8 |
9.3 |
PRICING METHOD |
Monthly |
Quote-Based |
OVERVIEW |
Winner of 2016 Best E-Commerce Software Award. A platform with several features that allows you to develop and operate online stores as well as to sell numerous products.
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A powerful E-Commerce tool built to convert any WordPress site into an exquisite online store.
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COST |
$9 |
By Quote |
KINDS OF CLIENTS
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Freelancers plus all three i.e. Small, Medium and Large Enterprises
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Small and Medium Enterprises only |
AVAILABLE FEATURES | · All shopping cart features
· Several professional and astounding themes · Platform for full blogging · Mobile Shopify · Brand and modifying of your online store · Use your own domain · SSL certificates (free) · Get carrier shipping rates automatically · Acceptance of credit cards · 60+ payment gateways · Flexibility in shipping rates · Automatic tax · Manifold languages · Customer profile and accounts · Order fulfillment · Templates for Email · Money back · Marketing and SEO tools · Web hosting · Analytics · 24 by 7 support
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· Up-to-date and clean interface
· Enhanced experience for online store holders · WordPress Integration for Content · Already-installed payment gateways · Total check and balance of the checkout procedure · Default Currency · Geo-location Support · Automatic Tax · Decrease Page Loading · Manage Products · Product Kinds · Variables Products · Inventory Management · Shipping Controls · Calculator for Cart · Shipping Destinations are Flexible · Shipping Charges · Limited Sales · Several Shipping Techniques · Calculate Custom Taxes · Choose Customer Address · Tax rate description · SEO · Easy Coupons System · Discount Coupons codes · Products Review · Owner Confirmation · Reports · Dashboard Available · Analyze Products as well Orders · CRM or Store Management · Great Support and Hosting
|
SUPPORTED OS |
Shopify supports Windows, Android, iPhone/iPad, Mac and Web-based.
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Woo commerce only supports iPhone/iPad and Web-based. |
PROMINENT CUSTOMERS |
Los Angeles Lakers, Wikipedia, Citizen, Johnny Cupcakes and Tesla.
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PagePink Pro4Mance, FilterGrade |
LANGUAGES |
United States, Canada, United Kingdom and India. |
United States, Canada, China, Germany, India, United Kingdom and Japan.
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SUPPORT TYPES |
Ticket, Live-Support and Ticket. |
Ticket only. |
EMAIL
|
– |
support@woothemes.com |
PLANS AVAILABILITY |
Shopify offers 4 deals. Plus you can avail 14 days free trial. 1. Shopify Lite – $9 per month 2. Basic Shopify Plan – $29 per month 3. Shopify Plan – $79 per month 4. Advanced Shopify Plan – $299 per month
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Woo Commerce is a free shopping cart plugin. If you would like to get more than basics, it provides priced license upgrades, extensions, and updates.
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INTEGRATIONS |
Shopify supports following business systems and applications:
· MailChimp · QuickBooks · Fulfillrite · itDuzzit · Zapier · KISSmetrics · Chargify
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Some of Woo Commerce popular integrations comprises:
· Zapier · Taxamo · Xero · FreshBooks · ShipStation · Stamps.com · WordPress · Jigoshop · WordPress · TradeGecko · Veeqo · Mad Mini · Help Scout · Ambassador · UserVoice · Stripe · PayPal · Amazon Payments · FedEx · USPS · UPS
|
WooCommerce Versus Shopify: An Overview
Using both the platforms WooCommerce and Shopify is very relaxed, even for a complete starter.
Both platforms have a spontaneous user interface for simple tasks like producing a website’s basic pages (contact details, privacy policies, etc.), listing several products, checking or completing an order, and further things. These setup processes are relatively stress-free.
Both platforms have thorough documentation and a big user data-base that means finding solutions to potential issues, which might rise is fairly painless in both.
WooCommerce versus Shopify: Which is the best platform for you?
The major difference between these two is in the setup procedure. WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, which means you require a WordPress site with paid hosting, install the WooCommerce plugin, and then setup your online store. Nevertheless, if you already have a WordPress site, setting up WooCommerce is a tranquil procedure.
Shopify, conversely, is a self-hosted platform and that means you do not need to worry about a web hosting, installing a separate CMS, and then adding Shopify.
Don’t worry, if you have no technical skills or if you are beginning from scratch, Shopify is most likely the easier selection. Above all, Shopify comprises integrated blogging capabilities meaning you won’t lose out just because you have not gone through the WordPress route.
With that being said, let’s take a deeper look at each of these E-Commerce software platforms and see what features they offer. So you can select the best E-Commerce software for your new online business.
WooCommerce: A Closer Look
As mentioned earlier, WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin. The plugin functions on the freemium that basically means the core-plugin is free of cost, with numerous add-ons accessible that could add additional features to your online store. Some of those add-ons are free, while some are paid.
WooCommerce provides the following core features:
- Diverse payment gateways including PayPal, BACS, as well as Cash on Delivery.
- Free or flat rate shipping and tax settings comprising altered tax classes as well as local tax rates.
- Reports contain incoming sales, reviews, levels of the inventory and over-all store performance.
- Integrated user reviews, discount choices, usage boundaries.
- The capability to cross-promote and upsell the products.
- Product variants and the capability to sell both downloadable as well as the physical goods.
Setting up the Store:
If you are used to with WordPress, then to install and set up WooCommerce should be very stress-free for you. Though, even if you are a beginner, the procedure is quite straightforward. Learn how to install a WooCommerce theme, setting up, and modify it.
Design Choices
The designers behind WooCommerce, WooThemes, know the significance of designing related to E-Commerce. For that reason, they deliver WordPress themes that have been adjusted for WordPress. However, the beauty of WooCommerce is that it could be integrated easily into any WordPress theme and the theme selection is definitely rich for the WooCommerce compatibility.
WooCommerce themes available in Envato Market are optimized precisely for the plugin itself and deliver abundant of useful features like as: zoom in option, integration with MailChimp, attention-grabbing sliders, valiant imagery, responsive designs, and general excellent aesthetics. The famous Porto WooCommerce theme exhibits these design features:
Since WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, there are instant SEO advantages to ponder. WordPress is mainly a content creation platform and it is popular for its SEO competences. When you join WooCommerce with it, you can freely edit body content and include Meta information that increases your likelihoods of coming in higher search engine rankings. Above all, WordPress manages blogging in a logical and well-organized manner with its classifications and archives.
How WooCommerce Aids You in Selling
WooCommerce delivers the simplest features for free in its core plugin. They are flawlessly fine to get you began with. However, if you would like to make best of your store’s potential, you would unavoidably end up looking for WooCommerce extensions.
The add-on store provides abundant of interesting selections that let you scale up, like selling on Facebook, integrating your online store with MailChimp, record sales in QuickBooks automatically, producing recurring subscriptions, etc. These add-ons collections are available from free to add-ons extending in price from $29 to $200.
Support
WooCommerce delivers entire documentation and has a lively community of users and developers whose focus is to make it better and spread WooCommerce by designing themes as well as add-ons for it. Due to that assistance is easy to find and likelihoods are there might be a solution already for any issue you may come across along the way.
Browse through some of the supportive WooCommerce add-ons:
Though WooCommerce is a free platform, there are charges linked with it. As mentioned earlier, you would require a WordPress site, which means you have to buy your own domain name and setting up a hosting plan afore anything else. The cost would differ depending on your hosting plan and the add-ons you select to advance your store.
Shopify: A Closer Look
Shopify is a self-hosted platform that means your online store could be ready in a few minutes as there is no need of installing an extra software. Unlike WooCommerce, there is no free package, however, the charges are still reasonable. Similar to WooCommerce, Shopify offers numerous themes and add-ons that give you additional features for your online store.
The Core Features entail:
- Abundance of professional themes offered by Shopify.
- Responsive and tab/mobile-friendly designs.
- You can use your own domain name.
- Functional website builder to modify the appearance of your store.
- Full blogging platform.
- Thorough reports and website analytics.
- Integrate with social media as well as with email marketing.
- Product diversity, reviews, discounts, coupons etc.
Setting Up the Store:
Setting up the online store on Shopify is as peaceful as signing up for your desired package, picking the appropriate theme, and then adding the products you offer. Learn further about how to set up Shopify:
Design Preferences
Shopify provides a nifty collection of themes, they are not as feature-rich as themes of the third-party are. Shopify theme collection provides free and paid themes starting from $100 to $180. If your requirement is of more features or if your industry is not incorporated, Envato Market has an extraordinary collection of reasonable, popular Shopify themes.
Shopify themes embrace features like newsletter integration, look-books, quick-view preferences for products, zoom-in competencies and a 360- degree view, comprehensive modification control, huge-menus, social sharing, and more. What’s further, you could select from a wide range of niches, or go for a multi-purpose theme. The Boutique Shopify theme is one of various quality designs to ponder using for your store:
Boutique is a premium Shopify theme.
SEO
Shopify has devoted servers taking care solely of Shopify stores, the page loading periods and the whole performance is a little better than that of WordPress. Shopify has integration with SEO features like image optimization, defining the title, alt, and Meta tags, and product descriptions. One more point in favor of Shopify is that SSL certification is offered in every plan, free of cost.
How Shopify Aids You in Selling
Shopify provides a lovely collection of free features, not similar to WooCommerce that requires paid add-ons. Those features comprise discount coupons, the facility to provide gift cards, a cart-recovery structure, Facebook selling, product imports through the CSV files, and much more.
Like WooCommerce, Shopify also provides different add-ons that give you further competences like cross-selling, track delivery, QuickBooks integration, and much more.
Support
Likely to WooCommerce, Shopify has a complete documentation and a very vivacious community. However, unlike WooCommerce where support mainly is from the community, Shopify has also a devoted support team available 24 by 7.
Costs
Shopify entails three pricing plans, with the lowest package of $29 and the most expensive one is $299. Moreover, they have a middle plan for $79 and a basic plan for $9 rigorously for selling on Facebook. With that being said, Shopify provides a 14-day free trial so you could test the platform afore taking a decision if it’s the right pick for you.
All of the deals embrace unlimited products and a bandwidth, fraud scrutiny, a blog, and a free SSL certificate. The domain name can be acquired directly from Shopify or you may connect your current domain name to it. Your final charges would be calculated by the amount of paid add-ons that you add to your store.
Which Platform Should You Pick?
As you see, both of the platforms have their own set of pros and cons. To help you narrowing down which is the best E-Commerce platform for your new online store. Let’s summarize them to make your conclusion a bit relaxed:
WooCommerce – Advantages
- It entails user reviews as well as ratings.
- Well organized reports that are categorized by product, date, category, coupons, discounts, etc.
- WooCommerce is a free plugin that means there is no additional cost if your requirement is a basic store and you already have a WordPress site.
WooCommerce – Disadvantages
- If you are beginning from scratch, you require to sign up for hosting after that downloading, installing, and setting up WooCommerce separately.
- If you would like an SSL certificate that proves your site is safe, you would require to buy it separately.
WooCommerce is the most logical selection for those who are already set up on the WordPress, have your hosting already, and you do not mind paying additional for an SSL security certificate. Integration with WooCommerce is as tranquil as to install any other plugin and the most basic setup of your online store can be accomplished in just five easy steps.
Keeping that in mind, WooCommerce is tranquil to use, and it lets you set up a testing environment to ensure the whole thing works before you begin accepting payments on your website. As long as you are acquainted with WordPress, it should not be an issue.
Shopify – Advantages
- Free hosting that means your online store could be up and running the moment you sign up for Shopify and commence adding your products.
- Little better SEO practices than WooCommerce, most prominent being page loading times and has a free SSL certificate.
- Comprises social media promotions and sharing that assists with both product and site promotions.
- The admin area is nice-looking, easy to use and handle, and very intuitive – even for a beginner.
Shopify – Disadvantages
Conversely, Shopify does not provide more than their 3 default product aspects whereas WooCommerce delivers unlimited product variants. The products in Shopify are well-defined by their size, color, and material.
Keeping that in mind, Shopify is an exceptional choice for those that are new to the World of E-Commerce, and those who do not have a site of their own already. It features a friendly-design and takes you through the course of setting up your online store that makes it novice-friendly, while few of the more advanced features would meet the requirements of more demanding users.
Shopify provides an easy way of getting your store online and running as rapidly as possible. To lessen the prices upfront all you have to do is to sign up for Shopify, select one of their free themes, modify the design to match with your brand, add products, and you are good to go.
In addition to that, Shopify walks you through the whole procedure and provides useful documentation. However, if that is not enough, you could always contact their support team for additional help no matter the time of day or night.
Commence With an E-Commerce Platform Today
Comparison of WooCommerce with Shopify E-Commerce platform is very close. Both are feasible choices for setting up your store in a rapid as well as in an efficient way. On top of being not difficult to use as well as feature-rich, both platforms provide ample of choices when it comes to the visual appearance of your online store. Best-selling WooCommerce and Shopify themes are appropriate for a wide range of industries, with six-month support, and are guaranteed to get your online store perceived, no matter which platform you select.