WooCommerce VS Shopify: The Real Comparison That Matters

Selecting an appropriate eCommerce business platform for your desired e-store can be a challenging job. The average user does not have a clear conception of the many features and functionalities offered by eCommerce platforms. There are several different e-business solutions of all types available in the market. But here we will be comparing and discussing the two most popular and widely used eCommerce platforms for a modern marketplace, WooCommernce Vs Shopify.

Here is a statistical chart with some of the current competitors of WooCommerce and Shopify conducted by one of the most popular CMS detector plugins: wappalyzer. (April 2017).

WooCommerce Vs Shopify: The Comparison

Design & Templates

One of the biggest selling points of WooCommerce is that it can work with any theme that follows best practices and standard recommendations. You can make any WordPress theme of your choice work together with WooCommerce without any trouble. You can even turn your single store WooCommerce site into a full-fledged multi-vendor marketplace by being able to design it the way you like it! Currently, the best choice for a WooCommerce-based multi-vendor marketplace plugin is DOKAN.

The best part is that WooCommerce designs and themes are all mobile responsive. They have a fashionably sleek and artistic outlook, which makes it perfect for modern, cutting-edge websites.

The themes in Shopify are visually refreshing. They look quite nice in the eyes when you look at it. There are 10 built-in store templates that are absolutely free out of more than 54 different themes/templates. Moreover, the themes of Shopify bring quite a variation in its outlook offering its user more than 100 discrete designs. All the themes are mobile responsive with a number of coloring options. All its design and themes look fresh and lively which is somewhat suitable for most modern-day websites.

Pricing, Software & Domain/Hosting Cost

Every eCommerce platform has its own separate pricing style, as has WooCommerce and Shopify. Here is a brief comparison of both these platforms’ pricing approaches.

Here is the basic overall comparison chart of WooCommerce and Shopify

The above comparison chart clearly suggests that when it comes to cost affordability WooCommerce might be the first choice for most people. Also, the unlimited product attributes option is a no-shower in Shopify that might just be an advantage for WooCommerce. Other than this, both of these e-commerce platforms hold quite similar attributes in terms of their user-friendliness and overall customer satisfaction rate.

Mobile e-commerce and in-built marketing facility are solid in both of the solutions while in terms of Point of Sale (POS) support, both have it but WooCommerce has a reliable POS solution in the form of wePos, an advanced & responsive Point of Sale system plugin created especially for WooCommerce store.

Interface & Usability

The plugins run very fast, smoothly, and responsibly when installing on a WordPress-based website. A complete customizing ability of testing, updating, or changing any options from the dashboard provides just the right amount of user-friendliness to its user. Keep adapting until you are satisfied!

WooCommerce makes it very easy for anyone to create an eCommerce. It only requires very basic knowledge about WordPress and WooCommerce to get on with your desired eCommerce store. In comparison to Shopify and other similar tools, WooCommerce’s user intuitiveness stands out more. And it's a function that empowers rookies and the average users.

Launching an eCommerce store with Shopify is very simple. Just simply create an account, select a free theme, customize your site design and you are all set to go. Just keep an eye on the left-hand side menu in the homepage. All the required items are already present at your fingertip there. Just add or customize products and other details selecting your preferred options from the side menu.

The operation of an online store is quite upfront with Shopify and it does quite a better job in this department compared to some of its contemporary tools, such as Magento.

SEO

The WooCommerce SEO can be customized with a wide range of tools making it a very SEO-friendly platform. It also gives access to your store source code.

WooCommerce gives some exceptionally SEO-specific options due to its advantage of being able to integrate it with WordPress content or through other available content of third-party plugins. The SEO potential of WooCoomerce is limitless mainly due to the fact that it is built on top of WordPress.

WooCommerce SEO score: 98 out of 100 (According to research performed by ecommerce-platforms.com)

On the other hand SEO of Shopify is enhanced with needed features, such as editable tags, URL of pages, Image ALT tags, description of meta key, image file name customizations, and more.

Shopify SEO score: 98 out of 100 (According to research performed by ecommerce-platforms.com)

Also Read: Shopify vs WordPress – Which One is Better and Why?

Customer Support Service

WooCommerce gives full emphasis on its user support facility. Because WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin, any user can get support regarding their various queries and issues through the WordPress forums anytime. WooCommerce also has a feature for registered users to obtain free and reliable support by generating support tickets from their accounts.

On the other hand, the Shopify support team offers its users 24/7 support with the facility to reach them via email, live chat, and phone. Thus allowing users to reach out for assistance at any time.

Overall Similarities & Dissimilarities at a Glance

Overall Advantages & Drawbacks

Pros of WooCommerce

• WooCommerce comes with powerful features like built-in user reviews and ratings. This brings transparency and reliability among users by letting them vote/rate for any products they like or dislike.
• WooCommerce reports are well-organized. Specific category filters, such as sales by date, product, category and coupons display in a much-systematized manner in WooCommerce reports.
• The WooCommerce plugin is absolutely free. There's no opportunity for the hassle of payments. Simply download, install, and start adding your desired products from the WordPress dashboard.

Cons of WooCommerce

• WordPress might be free but the hosting in WooCommerce isn’t. So the user will need to spend separately for hosting.
• Setup of the WooCommerce plugin might look simple but needs a good amount of care when setting it up on the WordPress site.
• To run and use WooCommerce, you need to have a WordPress-powered website.

Pros of Shopify

• Hosting in Shopify is totally free. This means setting up Shopify is easy and fast. The user simply requires to opening an account and can start using it right after adding the products.
• Shopify comes with a number of SEO options and social links helping the user to promote their products and website.
• The admin dashboard of Shopify is intuitive and up to date. The user gets a very user-friendly vibe from it.

Cons of Shopify

• The default product attributes on Shopify are limited to just three. All products can be described by their size, color, and material. For each of these parameters, creating new ones isn’t possible.

The Verdict

The below table might just be helpful enough for you to decide which platforms to go for based on what you expect from your eCommerce platform or the type of user you are:

Why Users May Prefer One Over the Other?

Mostly all WordPress users prefer to use WooCommerce. The convenience of WooCommerce for people already using a WordPress website is that you will just have to install the WooCommerce plugin and you are good to go. Or else, you have to build a new site from scratch to integrate WooCommerce with it.

Shopify is most preferable and a good alternative for both beginners and professional eCommerce site users. It has a friendly design that caters to beginners. It also has a good range of advanced features and settings which the professional users will very much appreciate.

A Few Other Cool Alternatives & E-Commerce Enhancement Options

Not just the comparison between these two reputable e-commerce platforms, for years there has been an ongoing battle of which one is better between a number of other similar e-commerce or marketplace solutions with them that can essentially boost the growing online business. A few of those reliable and powerful e-business solutions include:

• BigCommerce: Said to have some of the best built-in features with a less technical complexity but a smoother e-commerce management platform.
• Wix eCommerce: A solid e-commerce platform for small businesses that offers the best ease-of-use in terms of managing its technical side and powerful sales features and functionalities.
• Magento: An scalable self-hosted e-commerce platform with customization flexibility but requires a bit of technical knowledge that is entitled to be highly suitable for large e-commerce businesses.
• Dokan: This is the no.1 WooCommerce based multi-vendor marketplace solution that fulfills every demand for setting up a virtual e-store with the most advanced & cutting-edge features for a complete e-commerce business management process.

Concluding Notes

Hopefully, by now you probably have a better idea about the things that you need to know before comparing these two renowned e-commerce solutions. Quite clearly both platforms boast about having some dynamic features and a powerful user interface. But different clients will prefer different platforms based on their preferences and business needs. So it won’t be fair to single out any one of these specific platforms right away without knowing about their eCommerce business requirements.

So for a more practical idea about the capacity and performance of each of these e-commerce solutions, one must look into its offerings in detail themselves to find out which one suits their business requirement better. If not these two then there are also other e-commerce platforms like the ones mentioned above that might suit your business needs as well. So whichever you may choose, get it when you are absolutely sure about its, after-sales support, stability, performance, and scalability.

So which e-commerce platform did you enjoy using the most? If you are using anything from the list above or something new that we haven't talked about then feel free to share your experience with us in the comments below.