Shopify or Woocommerce

[NEF]

Looking to migrate away from Opencart, any suggestions as to which cart to choose between Woo and Shopify ?

Does shopify need an app to gain better SEO functionality or are the base options better on the latest version than previous versions ?

 

[Solve My Problem]

Shopify has no problems with SEO, however you would want a premium theme.

Most people can get away with the $29 a month account.

The shipping is fairly basic and requires a custom solution for most merchants unless the requirement is basic.

I have clients on Woo but most of the Shopify work is migrating from Woo as people are growing. Some clients don't need more than Woo. We often see sales increase after migrating to Shopify.

As long as it's planned properly you won't loose SEO and can have a smooth migration.

 

[Solve My Problem]

I have a document that goes to all prospective clients, it's a balance in showing the positives but also ensuring clients are aware of the restrictions of Shopify. It's always important to realise as a SaaS there are elements that cannot be changed (checkout for example)

We use Turbo theme for clients, it's a decent regularly updated theme. With the new updates modifications are much easier from a tech point of view meaning update costs are kept down. The one off cost is $400, however it is a very strong converting theme and means most clients don't need additional apps.

Shopify have recently updated the platform allowing theme modifications using a app style system rather than needing to edit core theme files, big bonus.

For one store earlier in the year we made massive changes, things like product subtitles, custom shipping options for products, linked products (brewery and they wanted to show other products that contained each beer), gift wrap service etc.. Everything was coded rather than using Apps which saved over £500 a year in app costs.

The latest one was for a music label, apart from custom shipping options the only features we needed to add was the option to add tracks that could be listened to as well as custom tabs on product pages. Everything else was covered within the theme.

It's far from perfect, but is very much a turn key solution if setup correctly. The admin is very easy to use, the API allows for custom coded options.

Most small businesses can get away with the $29 a month account unless they need more staff accounts. Paid yearly they get a discount and get the free shipping calculator service allowing 3rd party rates (we write custom options for clients needing it)

There are a couple of tweaks that can be applied to most themes that traditionally improve the SEO but a decent theme off the shelve will be a very strong start.

Images should be named correctly, alt tags set etc... thoughts to front page product linking, top level menu items etc.. the usual stuff.

Often when migrating things like images can be named in an automated fashion with alt tags etc.. which save on a lot of work.

 

[Wesley Cude]

I believe it really depends on your technical capabilities. If you are looking to easily set up the website yourself, I would suggest using Shopify as it appears to be easier. Personally, we prefer to use WordPress/WooCommerce as we have more flexibility to customise the design and there are a large number of free plugins. In this scenario, Yoast SEO is perfect to optimise a WooCommerce store.

 

[fisicx]

In this scenario, Yoast SEO is perfect to optimise a WooCommerce store.

Used to be good but it’s now one of the worst. RankMath is a better option, not just for the features but also because it’s technical architecture is far superior. If you have a busy site Yoast has a big performance penalty.

 

[Wesley Cude]

Used to be good but it’s now one of the worst. RankMath is a better option, not just for the features but also because it’s technical architecture is far superior. If you have a busy site Yoast has a big performance penalty.

Ah ok, I didn't know that. Could you explain what you mean but a 'big performance penalty'? I have an eCommerce website and over the last few months, the rankings have tanked.

 

[fisicx]

Almost all the SEO work you do on any site is the content and internal navigation. Add in schema, trustmarks, reviews and similar and you are about done. All that is left is the page title and descriptions. Most of the above doesn't need an SEO plugin. The rest you can fix with a couple of functions in your theme functions.php (an easy fix for for a halfway competent developer).

Yoast is full of cruft - none of which is going to help you ranking. Their concept of a focus keyword is out of date and the traffic lights are just misleading.

When a page is loaded, Yoast reload the page in the background to run it's checks. It's this that affects performance. If you only have a couple of visitors per day you wouldn't notice. But a site getting thousands of visitors will see a performance drop.

 

[antropy]

Looking to migrate away from Opencart, any suggestions as to which cart to choose between Woo and Shopify ?

Why on Earth would you move away from a better platform to a worse one?

Paul.

 

[NEF]

Why on Earth would you move away from a better platform to a worse one?

Paul.

Moving forward, I think shopify or woocommerce are better. They also look better than most opencart options.

 

[fisicx]

Moving forward, I think shopify or woocommerce are better. They also look better than most opencart options.

Looking good is less important than generating sales. And OpenCart is way better than Woo. And your long term costs will be way higher using shopify.

 

[antropy]

Moving forward, I think shopify or woocommerce are better. They also look better than most opencart options.

What about them is better in your view other than the looks?

And there are good themes for WooCommerce and Shopify for sure but there are good ones for OpenCart too if you know where to look.

Paul.

 

[NEF]

Looking good is less important than generating sales. And OpenCart is way better than Woo. And your long term costs will be way higher using shopify.

I have no issue at all with opencart I quite like it, I’ve used it years and the older style journal theme. I checked one Envato also and if I could find something slick like journal or magento style I would revise it, I have my own dedicated server , so running woo commerce, or opencart would be an easy option and like you say cheaper in the long run ..

What about them is better in your view other than the looks?

And there are good themes for WooCommerce and Shopify for sure but there are good ones for OpenCart too if you know where to look.

Paul.

It just looks more professional , and feels more fluid, slicker to use from front end to cart .

I checked some of my competitor stores and a few are using shopify , others are running custom stores and some magento .. it seems the bigger stores are using primarily magento . I’m just trialling shopify at the minute , there’s a few themes I really like .

I mainly use stripe for payment at 1.4% , but with shopify that’s going to jump from 1.9% to 2.2% for the same thing depending on which package I choose .

My main concern with shopify is not the cost , it’s the SEO side of it , also there is a decent Wordpress theme I have viewed also , but when I trialled the admin side it seems very clunky in comparison to shopify …

 

[antropy]

I have no issue at all with opencart I quite like it, I’ve used it years and the older style journal theme. I checked one Envato also and if I could find something slick like journal or magento style I would revise it, I have my own dedicated server , so running woo commerce, or opencart would be an easy option and like you say cheaper in the long run ..

Best to avoid Envato as the code quality is awful. Look on the OpenCart marketplace instead. There's a good discussion about good themes here: https://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php?t=157098

I checked some of my competitor stores and a few are using shopify , others are running custom stores and some magento .. it seems the bigger stores are using primarily magento . I’m just trialling shopify at the minute , there’s a few themes I really like .

Magento is best avoided really too for these reasons: https://www.antropy.co.uk/blog/the-lure-of-magento/

I mainly use stripe for payment at 1.4% , but with shopify that’s going to jump from 1.9% to 2.2% for the same thing depending on which package I choose .

My main concern with shopify is not the cost , it’s the SEO side of it , also there is a decent Wordpress theme I have viewed also , but when I trialled the admin side it seems very clunky in comparison to shopify …

So Shopify take a pretty large commission on payments on top of their fees, and Shopify sites aren't so great for SEO? And WooCommerce has a clunky admin?

It sounds like if only you could find a really nice OpenCart theme you'd be ok?

Paul.

 

[fisicx]

I mainly use stripe for payment at 1.4% , but with shopify that’s going to jump from 1.9% to 2.2% for the same thing depending on which package I choose .

So you pay more and have monthly fees and have to spend extra for other functions just because it looks nice.

If you want nice looking sites there are thousands of woo and opencart themes. As suggested by @antropy avoid anything from Envato - all you will get is clunky, poorly coded themes.