Dilemma - woocommerce to shopify?

[gtechrob]

Got a bit of a dilemma that I need help with.

We (Gtechniq) are selling ever increasing vols on Amazon. Which is great from a turnover POV - not so great from a profit POV.

Our most profitable channel is direct from our websites (US, France and UK).

We run a wordpress front end with a woocommerce back end.

Am increasingly thinking that shopify are a better option for eCommerce as they make our products easier to buy wherever customers find them.

Will be a lot of pain for us to change our site in its entirety (we are part way through a site refresh already that has yet to go live) and am wary of the constraints if we go fully over to shopify.

But. Seems that shopify's Shop Pay is now available to non shopify sites which sounds interesting. ChatGPT recommended https://www.checkoutwc.com/ which also looks interesting.

Anyone been in the same boat or had clients go through this process?

Thanks for any info!

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

they make our products easier to buy wherever customers find them.

Hw do they do that?

shopify's Shop Pay is now available to non shopify sites which sounds interesting.

It is also expensive.

What is slow about the native WC payment process?

 

[gtechrob]

seems that shopify's commerce network is becoming quite the counterpoint to amazon.

and as a customer I have noticed how nicely the shopify checkout works. is very akin to the amazon one click type experience. I know woo has some options (as I have listed) and I also know that shopify is relatively expensive.

but if the net is we have better conversion and can lure some amazon customers to our site, then this will make sense.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

seems that shopify's commerce network is becoming quite the counterpoint to amazon.

Amazon is a shopping platform. Shopify is an ecommerce/shop builder. They are 2 very different things.

I have noticed how nicely the shopify checkout

If you have average php/design skils, you could probably redesign the pages yourself.

lure some amazon customers to our site,

How do you plan to do that - a very big marketing budget?

 

[fisicx]

Moving to shopify won’t change anything except cost you more.

If you don’t like the woocheckout, build your own.

 

[gtechrob]

ok ok this is ai but.. it summarises why shopify is becoming increasingly dominant:

Shopify’s real strength is no longer just its website platform, but the size of its commerce network. Through Shop Pay and the Shop ecosystem, it gives merchants access to a huge pool of already recognised shoppers whose payment, address and delivery details are stored, making checkout faster and typically improving conversion, especially on mobile and internationally. It also benefits from optimisation across billions of transactions, giving Shopify far more data to improve checkout, fraud prevention and customer experience than any individual WooCommerce store could achieve alone. The key point for Gtechniq, though, is that some of this network advantage, particularly Shop Pay, may be available without a full migration, so the real question is how much of Shopify’s benefit we can capture while retaining WooCommerce.



we are a global brand turning over close to £20m

Amazon sales are increasing by about 3% yoy and in markets where we run amazon ourselves - it accounts for 40% of our turnover. great on a turnover POV but for those of you who know amazon will know margins are poor.

I am trying to lure as many shoppers away from amazon. shopify seem to understand this dilemma the best and have the best solution for it. simple as that.

for ref. we migrated away from a custom ecommerce cms to benefit from the off the shelf woo and wordpress stuff. which was a good move. zero interest in going back to this.

 

[fisicx]

Nobody will ever be able to give you a definitive answer as there are so many variables, options and other moving parts.

The reasons AI gives you are tenuous and not necessarily valid as it all depends on your target market.

What you could do is set up a shopify site and do some testing.

I doubt however if you will get people moving away from Amazon. People like Amazon because of Prime and the buyer protection it provides. And of course, you can compare sellers.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

ayment, address and delivery details are stored, making checkout faster and typically improving conversion

You should have passed the conversion stage long before the final steps of payment...

Also, there are several other payment platforms that offer this, e.g. Stripe (with Onelink), who are 20-25% cheaper per transaction.

we are a global brand turning over close to £20m

Even more of a reason not to put your eggs in a single suppliers (platform & payment) basket - If Shopify went bust, goodbye your business!

I am trying to lure as many shoppers away from amazon.

How?

for ref. we migrated away from a custom ecommerce cms to benefit from the off the shelf woo and wordpress stuff. which was a good move. zero interest in going back to this.

There are other self hosted ecommerce systems you could use....

 

[Shopclicks]

seems that shopify's commerce network is becoming quite the counterpoint to amazon.

No, it isn't. The Shop App holds a tiny share of the global marketplace trade.

and as a customer I have noticed how nicely the shopify checkout works. is very akin to the amazon one click type experience.

All you need for your Woo checkout is a faster theme and a one-page checkout (not the 3 steps you currently use).

but if the net is we have better conversion and can lure some amazon customers to our site, then this will make sense.

Shopify will damage your current SERP positions through traditional search engines.

To improve your conversion rate you need to focus on site speed, checkout process & product categorisation.

 

[fisicx]

@gtechrob - Looking at your site there are a whole load of things you could do to improve things. Your hosting isn't helping - it's really slow. Then you have how the products are categorised and presented, the site design and much much more.

Moving to shopify isn't the answer. You need a full review of your online presence to determine what needs to be done.

 

[gtechrob]

ok thanks for all the input so far. wasn't looking for a critique for our existing site tbh as as mentioned previously we are part way through a pretty large site update. doesn't seem much love for shopify so far... but think with a near half billion profit and >25% market share, the risk of shopify going under is pretty remote...

by all accounts, shopify leads for high traffic sites and has a near x10 GMV vs woo.

would be personally more interested in any business on here that has made the switch and how they found it. my hunch is that the familiarity of it and the lack of friction (eg customers not having to enter address details etc.) could well generate a meaningful uptick.

 

[gtechrob]

tried to edit that post.

am still thinking that we may be better sticking with woo and updating the cart to something like checkout wc - but as above. it would be interesting to hear the experience of a business that has made the switch.

 

[fisicx]

The shopify checkout works if you sign up for an account and aren’t blocking cookies. Otherwise it’s no different to anyone else.

My point about issues with your site were to suggest fixing them would maybe realise what you have is as good as shopify can offer.

But it still won’t get people using the site in preference to Amazon. For many they default to Amazon for everything and will never even realise you have a website.

 

[gtechrob]

the point re amazon is to go with something as seamless as possible to stem the flow of shoppers leaving the site and purchasing on amazon. or the kind souls that realise we make pennies on the pound on amazon, visit our site with good intentions - we want that experience for them to be seamless. I am very aware our current site is not userfriendly and it's something we are working on. but to repeat to the level I get boring. I am mainly interested in anyone who has migrated from woo to shopify and what their experience has been.

 

[Shopclicks]

by all accounts, shopify leads for high traffic sites and has a near x10 GMV vs woo.

This performance is skewed by the number of top brands who switch to Shopify. These brands don't rely on product or category search results. For example: people search for the brand term Gymshark, 823,000 times a month. Google would be foolish not to keep Gymshark product categories at the top of search results. It's the brand awareness that works for them. If you don't have that, expect poor performance.

There is at least one horror story by a past contributor to this forum. I won't single them out publicly.

 

[antropy]

I would also recommend you stick with and refine your WooCommerce site for the foreseeable future for the same reasons mentioned above.

In our experience (we mostly develop OpenCart sites), we have had a handful of new/returning clients over the years that used Shopify for a while, didn't like it, then came to us to build a new OC site.

There are plenty of stores that do well with Shopify and love it, but there are also plenty of them that switch back for one reason or another.

Kelly at Antropy

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

with a near half billion profit and >25% market share, the risk of shopify going under is pretty remote..

They said that about We Work, Worldcom, Blackberry, Blockbuster and many more!

shopify leads for high traffic sites and has a near x10 GMV vs woo.

As mentioned, this is not because of Shopify, but the individual brands themselves. Shopify will not spend a penny marketing & promoting your business.

 

[fisicx]

I am mainly interested in anyone who has migrated from woo to shopify and what their experience has been.

I know quite a few that moved to shopify, realised how expensive it was then returned to their original platform. They also discovered all their ranking had gone because you can't migrate to shopify the same way you can between other platforms. Escaping shopify is hard.

 

[Paul Carmen]

the point re amazon is to go with something as seamless as possible to stem the flow of shoppers leaving the site and purchasing on amazon. or the kind souls that realise we make pennies on the pound on amazon, visit our site with good intentions - we want that experience for them to be seamless. I am very aware our current site is not userfriendly and it's something we are working on. but to repeat to the level I get boring. I am mainly interested in anyone who has migrated from woo to shopify and what their experience has been.

Is this part of a data driven marketing plan; e.g. are you sure shoppers are leaving your website & going to Amazon?

I suspect they find you, or more likely your products, on Amazon and buy there. You can do what you like on your own ecom platform, but if that's what's happening it won't change anything much by moving to Shopify.

You'd be better off getting these customers to sign up for marketing and sending them to your website if they are repeat spenders. An incentive in the packaging that makes you more money than Amazon's commission/fees is worth considering (careful of their T&Cs).

You may need to run PPC and SEO marketing to attract customers, as that can still be cheaper than Amazon. But ensuring your site and its checkout are conversion optimsied first is crucial.

 

[fisicx]

@Paul Carmen makes a good point about repeat customers. What incentives are you providing to entice them to buy direct rather than off Amazon? Are you for example selling it cheaper with next day delivery? Are you doing multi buy deals?

Have you even fully optimised your Amazon portal? You may be able to get a better deal @AmazonGeek might be able to help with this.

 

[gtechrob]

interestingly I did a scrape of what platforms large b2c global cosmetic brands use. most use salesforce commerce cloud which would be way overkill for us. but quite a few such as Dermalogica use shopify plus. none use woocommerce.

sure they are way bigger than us but interesting none the less.

think my route will be to carry on our woo and general site improvements whilst having a deep dive in both shopify plus and shopify advanced.

on amazon - we use an agency - very happy with them but as with anything there will be areas for improvement.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

So, how many millions is your brand/business?

 

[Paul Carmen]

interestingly I did a scrape of what platforms large b2c global cosmetic brands use. most use salesforce commerce cloud which would be way overkill for us. but quite a few such as Dermalogica use shopify plus. none use woocommerce.

sure they are way bigger than us but interesting none the less.

think my route will be to carry on our woo and general site improvements whilst having a deep dive in both shopify plus and shopify advanced.

on amazon - we use an agency - very happy with them but as with anything there will be areas for improvement.

What's interesting about the platforms large B2C brands use, what does it tell you?

What are the areas for improvement with the agency, that should be part of the plan?

What does your data say, what's your marketing and sales plan tell you, based on your data insights and customer/market/keyword research?

I suspect that the agency are incentivised to drive Amazon sales, which is not very profitable for you, so they are likley to actively work against your goal to move business to your own more profitable website.

That's how you grow or consoldidate, but make more money, by using the data to inform your plans. Guessing and saying look at what these massive companies do is simply a waste of your time.

 

[gtechrob]

going to resist going down rabit holes on this thread. was hoping to hear from anyone who has made the move. as above. think we will continue with the woo updates including checkout and do a deep dive into shopify plus and advanced.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Don't rule out other platforms. Something like Magento is used by some big companies, but there are others.

 

[fisicx]

going to resist going down rabit holes on this thread. was hoping to hear from anyone who has made the move. as above. think we will continue with the woo updates including checkout and do a deep dive into shopify plus and advanced.

Yes. I have clients who moved to shopify, got frustrated with the platform and the costs and moved back to self hosted.

It can work very well for some but not for others. You just won’t know until you try. The biggest gripe appears to be integration with stock control systems, CRM and accounting packages. You can get them to work but the costs soon rack up.