Shopify or WooCommerce? Which is best for you Business?
With the number of people setting up their own online stores at an all time high, more methods of selling your good online are becoming available. There are many platforms to sell via a third party website such as Amazon, eBay and Depop but many are looking to sell independently with their own online store. With this in mind, most of these sellers go to platforms to set up are either WooCommerce or Shopify as they are ready available and easy to use for both seller and buyer. In this post we will be looking at the pros and cons for both platforms and seeing which one is suitable for your potential online store.
To make things simple and without getting in to too much detail straight away we will dive straight in to the pros and cons of both WooCommerce and Shopify to give you a basic idea of which one is ideal for your business.
WooCommerce
Pros
Full control, WooCommerce allows complete customisation of your online store in both design and functionality.
Complete WordPress compatibility, WordPress with both designer and user friendly aspects is the go to platform for WooCommerce with a massive online community.
Plugins and contemporary themes, again with full control and customisation there are endless themes for WooComerce stores almost all compatible with WordPress so you are very likely to find the right design theme for your online store.
Free! Yes that’s right the WooCommerce plugin is free, so getting started isn’t at any expense to your business.
Most Popular, the WooCommerce method of building an online store is most popular amongst designers so finding a Web Designer that knows WooCommerce inside out will prove very easy.
Cons
Learning WordPress, if you decide not to pay a designer to create your online store using WooCommerce it can prove quite difficult with many learning curves, so although user friendly it does take some getting used to for the untrained eye.
Costs, depending on how much customisation you want and how many features you want within your online store, themes and plugins etc can mount up and prove costly. Again depending on simple or complex you want your online store.
Management, Although WooCommerce is user friendly it more or less has to be in order for the user/selling to keep up with such things as security, backs and hosting.
Shopify
Pros
Fairly Priced, although it does cost to start up on Shopify you can’t really argue with the their prices and as far as payment goes you know exactly when and where your money is going.
Links, a big part of getting your online store out there is marketing and Shopify is perfect for that as it links to hundreds of apps to extend your online stores reach.
Themes, even though it doesn’t offer as many themes and designs a s WooCommerce, the themes it does offer are very well layout and designed.
Management, Shopify covers everything, yes everything from security to hosting all inclusive of the price. This is a Big deal when managing your online store, a lot less things to worry about.
Quick, it only takes a few minutes to set your store up and start selling.
Support, again Shopify take care of everything but if you do have any problems with your online store their customer support is second to none.
Dropshipping, if your online store involves Dropshipping Shopify is fully compatible and very simple to use making your selling experience even easier.
Cons
Customisation, Shopify doesn’t offer much flexibility when it comes to the control and customisation of your online store, one of the downfalls of having the platform do it for you.
Personal Touch, again this comes down to customisation but a lot of other platforms allow you to make your online store look more unique and less generic.
Costs, Although the pricing is reasonable as mentioned before, you are still stuck with the monthly payments and they will only get higher the better your online store does.
Shopify vs WooCommerce
When researching either WooCommerce or Shopify you will get many mixed reviews form both users and buyers as although they essentially provide the same service they are very different when it comes down to detail, mostly for the selling side of it. Putting all the reviews aside it really boils down to which platform is best for your business, as every business is different and one platform might cater for your companies needs better than the other.
Having gone through the pros and cons of each one, the main differences that each user is most likely to agree on is that Shopify is provided as an all in one service as an e-commerce solution to your online selling needs, providing you with everything you need get started with selling online, holding back on the details. This is proven to be the best solution for less tech savvy users that also don’t want to have to pay web designer fees to get started, it is the perfect easy to use online store, the only downfall is that due to not having to learn anything about the platform you are limited to the customisation of your store.
Which brings us to WooCommerce, which essentially is everything Shopify is not. It takes more knowledge and perhaps the help of a qualified Web Designer but you are allowing many more doors to open regarding the look, design and functionality of your online store.
In conclusion when choosing which one is right for your business you need to take in to account is it just a simple store you want or a more complex online platform with different functionality or something you want to expand on in the future.
For any enquires with regards to setting up an online store whether it be WooCommerce or Shopify please get in touch with Faber Web Design, who offer services and support for each platform from design and build to expansion of already existing online Stores.
our customers.