Need advice on Wix vs Shopify for scaling my UK running brand

[teamstryq]

Hey everyone,


I’d really appreciate some advice from those of you running ecommerce brands in the UK.


I currently sell through Wix, and it’s been great for getting started — simple layout, easy design, and decent SEO tools. My website’s (I run a Scottish running-gear brand selling belts and hydration vests for runners).


The challenge I’m running into now is that I’m growing faster on TikTok Shop and Amazon, and Wix feels a bit limited for integrations, fulfilment, and multi-channel analytics. I’ve been looking at Shopify because of how well it connects with those platforms — but I’m torn.


I’ve read a few horror stories about transaction fees and app costs stacking up, but also lots of people saying Shopify is much more scalable long-term.


For anyone who’s made the switch from Wix to Shopify — was it worth it?
Did you notice improvements in speed, SEO, or conversion tracking?


I’d love to hear from other small product-based businesses who’ve outgrown Wix or are managing multi-channel sales.


Cheers,
Martin

 

[TCH]

I’ve read a few horror stories about transaction fees and app costs stacking up

not a lot wrong with the freebies like AbanteCart or OpenCart

run one of them alongside, see what you think

I know it's not what you asked

 

[fisicx]

Plenty of lower cost alternatives to both wix and shopify.

Even Wordpress with Woocommerce will give you far more freedom than you have with wix.

 

[LPB 123]

It's not really about linking TikTok / Amazon with Shopify. It's more about what they can ALL link to well.

Order management software, accounting software, ticketing software etc. Shopify is very popular so it's easy to link to these kind of things as so many apps are created with Shopify (and Amazon and TikTok) at the forefront and they add other platforms to this but do develop for the these popular platforms first. You probably won't find it as easy to sync from some of the alternatives without a developer.

The costs are higher than other platforms. The costs to sell on Amazon are high though.

On the Shopify vs Wix. Shopify is dedicated to ecommerce whereas Wix is a website builder to build all sorts of websites. Between those I think Shopify is the clear choice. As for Shopify vs WordPress/Woo vs OpenCart vs others, try them all out. Everyone has their own preferences on what works well for them.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

What happens if (i.e. when) Shopify becomes too expensive, lacks features, becomes unhelpful or goes bust? Goodbye your business.

You should consider keeping more control by using a non-proprietary system.

 

[Byzantium]

What happens if (i.e. when) Shopify becomes too expensive, lacks features, becomes unhelpful or goes bust? Goodbye your business.

You should consider keeping more control by using a non-proprietary system.

Shopify going bust ? you might as well say worry about Amazon going bust.

Shopify becoming too expensive ? there is a price to pay for everything and if it works, then pay up.

I'm going the other way, I want to move onto Shopify as I see them doing the heavy lifting and updating etc. as a huge incentive to use them.

 

[YasmeenLondon]

You should consider keeping more control by using a non-proprietary system.

This is a great rule to have in business.

Personally I do not mind proprietary systems that do all the heavy liftings in the early stages of a product cycle.

These systems are great to get started in the shortest time possible, something you require when validating a new business concept or introducing a new product to the market, less time worrying about website design, maintenance and care and more time invested in marketing and order fulfilment.

But once that product, brand or business becomes established generating steady income, scaling and business continuity become my priority and I move away from proprietary systems to either something open source or custom built.

 

[EnterprisePro]

What happens if (i.e. when) Shopify becomes too expensive, lacks features, becomes unhelpful or goes bust? Goodbye your business.

You should consider keeping more control by using a non-proprietary system.

This is a great rule to have in business.

Personally I do not mind proprietary systems that do all the heavy liftings in the early stages of a product cycle.

These systems are great to get started in the shortest time possible, something you require when validating a new business concept or introducing a new product to the market, less time worrying about website design, maintenance and care and more time invested in marketing and order fulfilment.

But once that product, brand or business becomes established generating steady income, scaling and business continuity become my priority and I move away from proprietary systems to either something open source or custom built.

I do agree with the sentiment on proprietary systems, and I think its important at least from a data perspective, but you would need a lot of resources for maintenance, upkeep, security etc. I would also urge having the capability inside the organisation to manage those, rather than outsourcing to freelancers and so forth.

Shopify is a mature product and they are now subject matter experts. If your capability is in the products you're selling, stick to your business model and include the premium for Shopify as a robust platform to deliver the customer and admin experience you're after. Even large enterprises use third party products, such as ecommerce solutions provided by Salesforce, IBM and similar. Although Shopify and the like will have provisions for data backups and so forth, it doesn't hurt to have your own contingency plan, such as getting frequent downloads of data from those platforms. I've done this for a client using Shopify API access where their customer and order data are fetched every couple of hours and product data once daily, plus other data entities at various intervals.

In support of the other argument, building proprietary systems and custom solutions is one of the core things we do, but we've built re-usable components and a robust architecture with our own runtime governance that allows us to be on the pulse of everything, so the point is, it is possible but one should not approach it with a deploy-and-forget mentality.