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WooCommerce vs Shopify – Which of these two eCommerce platforms are better in 2024? While WooCommerce is powering over 5 million websites around the globe, Shopify is the second-best eCommerce platform among the top 1 million websites.
As global eCommerce sales cross $4 trillion, which of these eCommerce platforms are better? This Shopify vs WooCommerce comparison guide will answer this question. So, let’s get started.
Developed by Tobias Lütke and Scott Lake, Shopify is an eCommerce platform that was released in 2006. Effectively, Shopify makes it easy to launch an online store with its out-of-the-box functionality.
Here are the best features of Shopify:
With Shopify, you don’t need a separate web hosting plan. As the tool is easy to use, you can build an online store in a matter of minutes!
Developed initially by WordPress theme developer, WooTheme, WooCommerce was acquired by Automattic in 2015. WooCommerce is a free and open-source WordPress plugin that can be installed on any WordPress site.
Here are the best features of WooCommerce:
Before using the WooCommerce plugin, you need to first install WordPress and register your website domain. While WooCommerce is not as user-friendly as Shopify, it provides better control over every operation in your online store.
Next, let’s see how easy (or difficult) it for you is to launch your online store on either of these platforms.
What is the difference between Shopify and WooCommerce when you are looking to launch an online store in a quick time? Shopify is more user-friendly as you can use its out-of-the-box features to create a functional store in a quick time. With WooCommerce, you need to first obtain a web host and domain name.
On the positive side, WooCommerce offers the following:
What about website functionality and design? Which of these eCommerce platforms offers more control? Let’s discuss that next.
In WordPress WooCommerce vs Shopify, which offers you more control over your website functionality? WooCommerce scores over Shopify with its following features:
Which of these eCommerce platforms offers more control over your online store design? Here again, WooCommerce is the clear winner due to the following reasons:
How many payment methods are supported by Shopify and WooCommerce? Let’s discuss that next.
To be successful, eCommerce stores must support a wide variety of payment methods. Online stores support a range of payment gateways across geographical locations.
Both Shopify and WooCommerce support multiple payment gateways for the convenience of online shoppers. Shopify supports external payment gateways but charges a fixed fee for each payment transaction. It does not charge a transaction fee when you use its Shopify Payments gateway.
WooCommerce also supports payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net but does not charge any transaction fees when shoppers use these gateways to make purchases. Additionally, WooCommerce has its payment gateway, WooCommerce Payments, which is free to use.
Next, let us look at Shopify vs WooCommerce pricing. Which tool is more expensive to purchase?
When it comes to pricing, both WooCommerce and Shopify offer different pricing plans. Let’s first talk about Shopify:
Shopify has a fixed pricing with 3 different plans as follows:
Additionally, you need to pay a transaction fee of 2.9% (plus $0.3) for the Basic Shopify and Shopify plans. For the Advanced Shopify plan, this transaction fee reduces to 2.4% (plus $0.3). Shopify also charges more if you are using any paid theme or an external payment gateway.
What about WooCommerce? The WooCommerce plugin is available for free. On the flip side, you still need to pay additionally for web hosting, website security, domain registration, and WooCommerce extensions. However, there are plenty of built-in WooCommerce themes and extensions that do not incur any additional charge.
How easy or difficult is it to migrate between Shopify and WooCommerce platforms? Here are some third-party tools that enable seamless migration from Shopify to WooCommerce without losing any online order, customer data, or inconveniencing your online shoppers:
What about customer support? Which eCommerce platform provides better support? Let’s discuss this important consideration next.
Though WooCommerce and Shopify are easy to use, you could still require customer support. Here is how they compare.
Let’s start with Shopify:
WooCommerce offers customer support in the following ways:
Both WooCommerce and Shopify platforms allow domestic and international shipping. Additionally, they allow drop-shipping where you can send purchased products directly from the vendors to the customers.
To enable drop-shipping, Shopify uses third-party applications like Aliexpress Dropshipping. On the other hand, WooCommerce uses the AliDropship plugin to ship products to customers directly.
Which platform are more SEO-friendly? Let’s discuss that next.
WooCommerce is better than Shopify when it comes to being SEO-friendly. The WooCommerce code is optimized for SEO and includes a host of SEO plugins like Yoast SEO and SEO Framework to improve your SEO score. With WooCommerce, you can add meta titles and descriptions (with relevant keywords) to your product pages and URLs.
Shopify also allows you to add basic SEO keywords to your online store but is not as feature rich as WooCommerce. However, to boost your SEO, you can install plugins like SEO Booster on your Shopify store.
How secure are the WooCommerce and Shopify platforms? Let’s discuss this feature for both platforms.
How secure are these eCommerce platforms from online threats and cyberattacks? Here is what makes Shopify secure:
For WooCommerce website security, you can install third-party security plugins that keep your online store safe from hackers.
Next, let’s discuss how easy it is to store your product inventory on either of these platforms.
Both the WooCommerce and Shopify eCommerce platforms provide you with complete control over adding new products (or editing existing ones). Similarly, both platforms allow you to bulk upload your product catalog easily.
WooCommerce rates are higher when it comes to product variations or attributes that can be applied to the same product. WooCommerce has no limit on the number of product variations. On the other hand, Shopify puts a maximum limit of 100 variants and 3 options for each product. You can increase the number of product variations using a third-party Shopify app.
Conclusion
Using the WooCommerce and Shopify eCommerce platforms, you can easily create an online store in a quick time. In this article, we have presented a host of reasons why WooCommerce is best for modern eCommerce stores.
With extensive experience in WooCommerce development, we at WePlugins can help eCommerce business owners set up a functional store quickly and efficiently. Want to learn more about WooCommerce? Read our official blog page. To get you started with your eCommerce business, here is how you can hide the “Add to Cart” button on your WooCommerce store.
You can improve your WooCommerce site functionality by partnering with us. Drop us a message.
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