WooCommerce vs. Shopify: Which is the Better Choice for Your E-commerce Business

Thursday, June 30th, 2022

E-commerce has become an increasingly popular way to sell goods and services.

However, with the variety of platforms available, it can be difficult to choose which one best suits your needs.  For example, WooCommerce is known for its robust plugin library while Shopify is praised for its easy setup process.

Which platform you should use depends on what type of business owner you are and what features you need most in an e-commerce platform. For instance, if ease of use is important then Shopify might be a better choice but if customization is essential then WooCommerce may be more suitable for your needs. The decision will ultimately depend on your personal preferences so take some time to consider all the options before making up your mind!

1. What is WooCommerce and Shopify
2. How to use WooCommerce and Shopify
3. Why choose WooCommerce over Shopify
4. Advantages of using WooCommerce and Shopify
5. Disadvantages of using WooCommerce and Shopify

 

What is WooCommerce and Shopify

WooCommerce is an open-source ecommerce platform designed for small to medium sized businesses. It’s free to use and comes with many features for running your business, such as blogs, product variations, coupon codes, order tracking, reporting tools, mobile commerce capabilities and more.

Shopify is a hosted ecommerce platform that offers pre-designed templates that are easy to customize. They also have photo editing software for mockups and site design assets.  It’s a great choice for small businesses that want to launch their online store quickly.

 

How to use WooCommerce and Shopify

WooCommerce is easy to set up and offers plenty of features out of the box, but their plugin library takes it to the next level. It comes with over 13,000 free and paid plugins so you can create almost any kind of e-commerce site imaginable.

Shopify is much simpler to use and has a user-friendly interface for your online store. You can create your own design or choose one of their templates to get started quickly.

 

Why choose WooCommerce over Shopify

While Shopify may be easier to use, WooCommerce offers more flexibility for your online shop. It has great flexibility and is supported by a robust plugin library, which means you can customize it however you like to meet your unique business needs. It also comes with many useful features out of the box, such as coupons, order tracking tools, scheduled emails and more.

 

Advantages of using WooCommerce

• WooCommerce has a ton of great benefits, such as:
• Free to use
• Has a robust plugin library that gives you more flexibility for using different features
• Includes many useful features out of the box
• SEO flexibility, highly customizable, can sell digital and physical goods, plenty of useful features out of the box and a robust plugin library.

 

Advantages of Shopify

• Easy to set up
• Includes plenty of features out of the box such as SEO and marketing to increase your organic search traffic without the headache
• Great for beginners (if you don’t mind using pre-designed templates)
• Multiple plans include mobile commerce capabilities

The decision ultimately depends on your unique business needs. So take some time to think about what’s most important for your eCommerce store then choose the platform that fits your requirements.

 

Disadvantages of using WooCommerce

Unfortunately, it’s not without its downsides. For example, WooCommerce isn’t always easy to install and there are some technical requirements that you may have trouble with. It also has a steep learning curve if you’re new to e-commerce platforms and it can be complicated for developers because there isn’t a clear standard for building plugins and themes.

Technical requirements not suitable for beginners, steep learning curve, not user friendly for non-developers, complicated to customize if you’re not familiar with HTML/CSS and limited pre-designed templates.

 

Disadvantages of Shopify

Shopify’s basic plan starts at $29 per month for unlimited products, five payment gateways and no monthly transaction fees. The only caveat: you’re limited to selling up to three hundred SKUs and 10GB of storage space and your store is hosted on Shopify’s own servers. Given that Shopify also charges $15 to $20 per month in extra costs for things like Google AdWords or Facebook Ads this quickly becomes a hefty chunk of change if you’re just starting out your business.

In this article, we’ve covered the pros and cons of both WooCommerce vs. Shopify as a platform for your e-commerce store. We hope that these insights have been helpful in making your decision about which is best suited to meet your needs.

Filed under: Tips & Tricks

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