Shopify, Prestashop or what else?

[lumencreative]

So, a bit of background... I used to be a web developer (employed full time as such) and have built Opencart, Prestashop, Joomla and Wordpress sites in the past. The last company I worked for ran their ecommerce store on OSCommerce which was horrible.

I left my web developer job about 7 years ago and started my own business and have always run our ecommerce store on Prestashop and aside from a few issues here and there, have been happy with it, though never complaisant and always looking at what else is around.

Anyway, I am looking to develop our new website....our current site is only partly functioning at this point (truthfully I've never got round to finishing it). The current site is on an older version of Prestashop now and if I stick with Prestashop I'd want to upgrade the PHP version on my VPS server and then upgrade the Prestashop version which will break the remainder of the current site. I'm also contemplating getting rid of my VPS and moving to some good quality PCI Compliant hosting instead.

I have two websites currently on Shopify and whilst I like the platform, they are only low volume sites at the moment and I went with Shopify to scope out the platform before updating our main website. I don't mind Shopify's 2% transaction fee on these two sites but for our main website, I have a 'proper' merchant account where I only pay 0.69% on card transactions (although a bit more for commercial debit/credit cards). With the addons I have on these two sites, I am paying nearly £70 per month for the two websites vs £55 per month for my own VPS.

So, I need convincing one way or the other... do I build our new main website on Shopify or do I stick with Prestashop - or is there another platform worth looking at? I have to say, my one pet peeve with Shopify is that all the plugins/addons are pay monthly rather than just buying them and be done with it.

 

[Shopclicks]

I have two websites currently on Shopify and whilst I like the platform, they are only low volume sites at the moment and I went with Shopify to scope out the platform before updating our main website.

Are you getting organic traffic to these sites? Have you found it easy to rank for search terms with search volume?

 

[lumencreative]

Are you getting organic traffic to these sites? Have you found it easy to rank for search terms with search volume?

To be honest, the one site has only recently gone live so not enough data to go on really. The other site gets all of its traffic from organic search and I’ve not really done anything special in terms of seo. For example, I’ve just checked and one of the products on the more established shopify store (been up for almost a year) comes up number 6 on Google, with the top 4 results being Amazon and Etsy.

 

[Shopclicks]

I’ve just checked and one of the products on the more established shopify store (been up for almost a year) comes up number 6 on Google, with the top 4 results being Amazon and Etsy.

Do you know the search volume of search term you checked?

 

[lumencreative]

Do you know the search volume of search term you checked?

I do indeed, but this line of questioning is not helping my decision hahaha

 

[Shopclicks]

I do indeed, but this line of questioning is not helping my decision hahaha

If SEO is not a part of your marketing strategy, stick with Shopify. Otherwise go with an open source platform.

 

[lumencreative]

If SEO is not a part of your marketing strategy, stick with Shopify. Otherwise go with an open source platform.

Can I ask what makes you say that? I know if several people that use shopify and rank very well for some very competitive organic search phrases.

Genuinely would like to understand your justification for that comment.

 

[Shopclicks]

Can I ask what makes you say that? I know if several people that use shopify and rank very well for some very competitive organic search phrases.

Can you give me a search term to look at?

 

[lumencreative]

Can you give me a search term to look at?

Not my website but as an example if you search ‘coaster printing’, the first organic result (artcoasterprinting.com) is a shopify store (a friend of mine).

Not a particularly high search volume but it’s a specific niche and he does very well.

 

[Shopclicks]

Not my website but as an example if you search ‘coaster printing’, the first organic result (artcoasterprinting.com) is a shopify store (a friend of mine).

#3 from my location and an incognito search. If the site is converting well that's great. Note that Google has picked up the home page rather than a collection page for that search.

 

[antropy]

So, I need convincing one way or the other... do I build our new main website on Shopify or do I stick with Prestashop - or is there another platform worth looking at? I have to say, my one pet peeve with Shopify is that all the plugins/addons are pay monthly rather than just buying them and be done with it.

OpenCart extensions are usually about $20 as a one-off.

If you want us to set up a demo for you to play with get in touch: [email protected]

Paul.

 

[antropy]

If SEO is not a part of your marketing strategy, stick with Shopify. Otherwise go with an open source platform.

Why do you think Shopify is bad for SEO?

Paul.

 

[Shopclicks]

Why do you think Shopify is bad for SEO?

The easy answer first. Please show me a search term with high volume (20,000+/month) which displays a Shopify store in the number 1 SERP position, which does not include the brand or store name.

If you find one, I'll say well done, find me another one. There are millions of Shopify stores, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

The second reason/s.

Shopify stores are inherently slow loading and very few stores have pages which pass Core Web Vitals.

Standard Shopify stores do not have product categories, they have collections. Collections are similar to an internal search results function and are not seen by search engines as product categories. This makes it more likely that search engines will index the homepage of a Shopify store rather than the Collections page in product search. This makes it more difficult to compete against sites with recognisable product categories.

Collections create duplicate products with different url's. Not favoured by search engines.

 

[lumencreative]

The easy answer first. Please show me a search term with high volume (20,000+/month) which displays a Shopify store in the number 1 SERP position, which does not include the brand or store name.

If you find one, I'll say well done, find me another one. There are millions of Shopify stores, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

The second reason/s.

Shopify stores are inherently slow loading and very few stores have pages which pass Core Web Vitals.

Standard Shopify stores do not have product categories, they have collections. Collections are similar to an internal search results function and are not seen by search engines as product categories. This makes it more likely that search engines will index the homepage of a Shopify store rather than the Collections page in product search. This makes it more difficult to compete against sites with recognisable product categories.

Collections create duplicate products with different url's. Not favoured by search engines.

I kind of get what you're saying re product categories...it suprised me that Shopify doesn't have proper categories and instead uses collections, however, I hadn't realised that the same product in different categories would end up with a completely separate url...that's something worth looking into for sure.

What I don't understand though is why you'd think a company as big as Shopify would have a system the way it is if it was so inherently bad for seo?

 

[lumencreative]

The easy answer first. Please show me a search term with high volume (20,000+/month) which displays a Shopify store in the number 1 SERP position, which does not include the brand or store name.

If you find one, I'll say well done, find me another one. There are millions of Shopify stores, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

The second reason/s.

Shopify stores are inherently slow loading and very few stores have pages which pass Core Web Vitals.

Standard Shopify stores do not have product categories, they have collections. Collections are similar to an internal search results function and are not seen by search engines as product categories. This makes it more likely that search engines will index the homepage of a Shopify store rather than the Collections page in product search. This makes it more difficult to compete against sites with recognisable product categories.

Collections create duplicate products with different url's. Not favoured by search engines.

Not quite meeting your targets but if you search 'candles', the 2nd organic result (candlesdirect.com) is a shopify store and that has a search volume of over 9,900/month.

 

[Shopclicks]

What I don't understand though is why you'd think a company as big as Shopify would have a system the way it is if it was so inherently bad for seo?

It's amazing what good marketing can convince people of. The problem is there because they make it really easy to set up a shop by taking away a lot of the functionality that confuses novices.

 

[Shopclicks]

Not quite meeting your targets but if you search 'candles', the 2nd organic result (candlesdirect.com) is a shopify store and that has a search volume of over 9,900/month.

I have them at #3 behind Yankee Candle and John Lewis. Note that it's the homepage that appears in that search.

PageSpeed Insights

pagespeed.web.dev

 

[thetiger2015]

It's amazing what good marketing can convince people of. The problem is there because they make it really easy to set up a shop by taking away a lot of the functionality that confuses novices.

....so you're saying Gym Shark and Emma Bridgewater fell for marketing because they're...novices?

 

[lumencreative]

....so you're saying Gym Shark and Emma Bridgewater fell for marketing because they're...novices?

I wonder if, being a £33m company, Emma Bridgewater uses Shopify+

Anyway, I was just looking at their site and where my site structures urls as domain.com/collections/**collectionname**/products/**productname the emma bridgewater site is domain.com/products/**productname - I wonder if I've done something not quite right.

 

[Shopclicks]

....so you're saying Gym Shark and Emma Bridgewater fell for marketing because they're...novices?

I seriously doubt they built their own sites or were even given a choice.

The search volume for 'emma bridgewater' is 135,000/month. The search volume for 'gym shark' is 835,000/month.

It's smart for Google to push them towards the top of searches because they know people like the brands. They aren't there because they have Shopify stores or outstanding SEO.

Both will have spent 10's of thousands on custom templates. Something the novices can't afford.

 

[lumencreative]

Anyway, just to get the thread back on topic, there are things I don't find particularly helpful with Prestashop either to be honest, like the way the product id number is part of the URL for everything, be it content pages, categories or the products themselves. That in itself surely doesn't help SEO either.

 

[Shopclicks]

Anyway, just to get the thread back on topic, there are things I don't find particularly helpful with Prestashop either to be honest, like the way the product id number is part of the URL for everything, be it content pages, categories or the products themselves. That in itself surely doesn't help SEO either.

Best practices:

URL Structure Best Practices for Google Search | Google Search Central | Documentation | Google for Developers

It's a good idea to keep your site's URL structure as simple as possible. Learn more about the URL format recommended by Google, such as the use of hyphens, underscores, and domain structure.

developers.google.com

 

[lumencreative]

Best practices:

URL Structure Best Practices for Google Search | Google Search Central | Documentation | Google for Developers

It's a good idea to keep your site's URL structure as simple as possible. Learn more about the URL format recommended by Google, such as the use of hyphens, underscores, and domain structure.

developers.google.com

Yeh, I've seen this. I have to say, the id numbers in the Prestashop URL have never caused me any issues, I just don't like it.

 

[Shopclicks]

Yeh, I've seen this. I have to say, the id numbers in the Prestashop URL have never caused me any issues, I just don't like it.

Nice clean URL's with Woocommerce.

 

[lumencreative]

Nice clean URL's with Woocommerce.

I agree but I honestly don't like woocommerce and will never be converted.

 

[Shopclicks]

I agree but I honestly don't like woocommerce and will never be converted.

Just pointing out the merits.

 

[lumencreative]

Just pointing out the merits.

I'm all for that. I just have a mental block about using something that was designed as a blogging platform for a busy eCommerce business. Obviously I know woocommerce has its benefits and is a successful and well loved eCommerce platform nowadays but it's just not for me.

I'm also not saying it has to be prestashop or shopify...the one site I have on shopify is on shopify as there were limited choices in what the order management system we use would integrate with - basically Shopify, Prestashop, Magento or Bigcommerce.

I wanted to try an alternative to Prestashop and didn't like the complexity of Magento so chose Shopify.

I still need to make a decision about which platform for our main site though so any other suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Shopclicks]

Obviously I know woocommerce has its benefits and is a successful and well loved eCommerce platform nowadays but it's just not for me.

Not trying to convince you but what don't you like about Woocommerce?

 

[wayzgoose]

I'm all for that. I just have a mental block about using something that was designed as a blogging platform for a busy eCommerce business.

It's just a back end to get used to, same as any other platform. Just ignore the heading that say "Blog" !

 

[lumencreative]

Not trying to convince you but what don't you like about Woocommerce?

It's just a back end to get used to, same as any other platform. Just ignore the heading that say "Blog" !

To be honest, my biggest issue with Woocommerce is just how slow the backend is. Even on the Woocommerce demo site, the backend is incredibly slow.

Wordpress was never designed to be an e-commerce solution, it was designed for blogging. Its whole backend is designed for blogging, even just looking at the wording used for certain parts of the backend. Yes, Woocommerce is a worthy ecommerce plugin for Wordpress and for many people it works well and scales well, but for me, I’d rather have a system that was built for e-commerce and not adapted to make it work.

 

[Shopclicks]

To be honest, my biggest issue with Woocommerce is just how slow the backend is. Even on the Woocommerce demo site, the backend is incredibly slow.

Still not trying to convince you. But I can guarantee you the backend of Wordpress and Woocommerce is not slow. It's the theme you were using that slows a site down.

 

[japancool]

Still not trying to convince you. But I can guarantee you the backend of Wordpress and Woocommerce is not slow. It's the theme you were using that slows a site down.

I found it to be slow, and that was a clean OOB install.

 

[Shopclicks]

I found it to be slow, and that was a clean OOB install.

Which theme did you install? You installed Wordpress via cPanel?

 

[japancool]

Which theme did you install? You installed Wordpress via cPanel?

I hadn't installed any themes, just what was default with the install. Yes, via cPanel.

 

[Shopclicks]

I hadn't installed any themes, just what was default with the install.

Yep the default themes you can choose from the Wordpress installer are slow. There are much faster free themes you could have installed.

 

[japancool]

Yep the default themes you can choose from the Wordpress installer are slow. There are much faster free themes you could have installed.

Someone installing Woo for the first time wouldn't know that. It's not a particularly good look to entice people to use it. Most people installing software will assume that a system will work best and at its fastest with a clean install. Well, maybe that's not true with Linux-based software.

In any case, there was no choice of themes to install when I did it, not that I recall.

 

[lumencreative]

Yep the default themes you can choose from the Wordpress installer are slow. There are much faster free themes you could have installed.

I can’t see the default theme with Wordpress slowing down the backend. Slowing down the frontend, perhaps but the file system for the backend is totally different.

 

[lumencreative]

Still not trying to convince you. But I can guarantee you the backend of Wordpress and Woocommerce is not slow. It's the theme you were using that slows a site down.

I didn’t install a theme, it was the default setup on the Woocommerce demo site and it was painfully slow.

 

[japancool]

I can’t see the default theme with Wordpress slowing down the backend. Slowing down the frontend, perhaps but the file system for the backend is totally different.

Yeah, just to clarify, I was talking about the backend too, not the front end. The front end was fine.

 

[Shopclicks]

Someone installing Woo for the first time wouldn't know that. It's not a particularly good look to entice people to use it.

I tried to tell you in your own thread

If you do this, be very aware that some themes can really slow your site down and you may lose your core web vitals passes. I can recommend the Neve theme (free or premium).