WooCommerce vs Shopify?

[E-com_K]

I've asked a few questions on this forum already regarding ecommerce and the platforms that are available. Now that I have looked in to the different platforms and had a few quotations from web designers for WooCommerce and Shopify, I am stuck with which one to choose.

Here is a bit about me and what I am looking for:

• I have been selling clothing on eBay and Amazon now for a few years.
• I am now ready for an ecommerce website, one which allows me to grow my product range and have features such as store categories and sub-categories, product filtering menu (colour, size, style etc), a blog, and a secure checkout, to name a few.
  
• I would like the website set up within 6 weeks ideally.
• I like that Shopify has the 24/7 support and is easy to use, but I have heard good things about WooCommerce regarding SEO and the ability to customise.
• I will be hiring a designer/developer to create and set up a custom design.
  
• I don't have any coding experience, but I do have experience with ecommerce and an understanding of SEO.

So one question: if you were looking for the above, would you choose Shopify or WooCommerce?

 

[threenine]

Personally I would choose WooCommerce. However, I would say that may decision would not be taking into account any SEO capabiliteis of either platform.

SEO can be manipulated for both platforms can both be easily enhanced.

I would go for the WooCommerce in particular the WordPress platform over the Shopfiy platform any day of the week. The primary reason why would just be that between that two platforms in my opinion and experience WordPress is just far more scalable.

I have personally been able to build and get a store running utilising WordPress and WooCommerce in matter of hours. I have to admit they have been very basic stores, but they were continually worked on till they became very complex stores.

There are also a number of free and fantastic plugins available to integrate with WP & Woo, for things like CRM systems and Email Systems like MailGun etc.


This is your business, and you need to make the desision as what is best for you, but all I can say is that for starting out I would never look any further than WP & Woo.

 

[fisicx]

Shopify is easy to use but you are paying each month and these costs will increase if you want extra features. And it also means you are stick with them forever.

Woocommerce is free - all you pay for is the hosting. And if you just want a simple store it could cost less to build than you would pay shopify in a year. You also have the flexibility to move the site to a new host and have full control over every single line of code.

24/7 support means little. I've got clients with woocommerce sites who rarely need any help at all.

I'd always recommend woocommerce. But why just limit yourself to these two options? @antropy offers OpenCart and he reckons it's better than both your choices.

 

[E-com_K]

Thanks for your opinion @threenine. I thought I had made my mind up with Shopify earlier this week, but now that I have looked more in to WooCommerce, I am leaning more towards them.

 

[E-com_K]

@fisicx I thought Open Cart was more complicated for people like me who don't know code, which is why I haven't considered it.

 

[fisicx]

If you are employing someone to build the site for you then not knowing code isn't a problem. Even if you want to do it yourself it will take a little longer to learn all the nuances but you still don't really need to know code.

I'd still go for woo - but I'm biased as that's my specialty!

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Hi @E-com_K

As you're going to be hiring a designer/developer, the complexity of the platform doesn't matter so much.

OpenCart is lightweight and easy to use, although likely a bit more complex than WordPress + WooCommerce for development.

However for maintenance - which you'll be doing - such as adding products, changing products, it's really no more complicated. In fact it's arguably a bit easier as it's a traditional eCommerce platform.

However WooCommerce is fine once you get used to it too.

Both will run great on a range of hosting packages - you won't need your own server.

Magento on the other hand is more complex still, and notoriously resource intensive, and would perform much better on its own server.

So if you stick to WordPress + WooCommerce, OpenCart, or even PrestaShop - then you'll be fine in terms on editing products and running this on good value web hosting.

OpenCart is arguably better suited to a traditional eCommerce store, and WooCommerce to a lower number of bespoke or image heavy products.

However both can be used successfully for either.

A very popular OpenCart theme that's well suited to fashion/clothing websites is Journal

Importantly, both are good platforms, widely used, and open source.
That means many members on here, and other designers/developers can help and make any changes for you.

And importantly like @fisicx said, your hosting and website are decoupled, which won't be the case with Shopify.

So if you want to change your web hosting provider, use a different designer, scale up your hosting but keep your website the same, then you have that freedom and control.

You also pay a premium for Shopify, and it gets more expensive the more successful your website and business is.
That's the cost of not having to outlay initially for a designer.
However if you're planning to to pay someone to design a Shopify site as well (and not do this yourself - which it's aimed at), then you're losing that advantage.

So if you are planning to pay a designer regardless of the platform, then choosing WooCommerce or similar will be better value, and give you better ownership and control of your website property.

As a web host ourselves we're obviously biased, but I hope that helps.

Best of luck,

Dan

 

[bigbuzzbelfast]

I was also going to suggest opencart as well although I also use woo-commerce. The only thing I find with woo-commerce and wordpress is the updates seem to be never ending and yes I do know why that is.

Yet I have a few customers and myself who run opencart shops and they need very little upkeep compared to woo-commerce/wordpress

 

[SuperLiam]

Woocommerce 100%

Main reasons why:

- Fees: Once you pay for your domain and hosting then there are no ongoing costs with respect to the day to day of the website, with Shopify you pay per month, which could be invested in Marketing/PPC.

- Freedom: With WordPress and Woocommerce you have total freedom over the future of your website to change servers, customise and do what you like. If you choose a web host with a CPanel you'll also have the benefit of having complete server access.

- SEO: You mentioned you have an understanding of SEO, which makes me wonder why you'd ask this sort of question, using WooCommerce you'll be able to optimize the socks of your backend and onsite SEO.

I hope this helps you make your decision.

 

[fisicx]

...using WooCommerce you'll be able to optimize the socks of your backend and onsite SEO.

Shopify is no different, you can optimise everything just like with wordpress (woocommerce has no built in SEO tools).

 

[SuperLiam]

Shopify is no different, you can optimise everything just like with wordpress (woocommerce has no built in SEO tools).

That isn't enough of a reason to go with Shopify, I previously had a client before who had this same dilemma and they were more inclined to go with Shopify because it was Ruby on Rails so I just built them a custom store myself using Ruby on Rails, Spree commerce and hand-coding the whole site from scratch...

If I had to choose for myself I would choose to hand code everything myself every time because no matter how much you think you have complete freedom, you'll never have as much freedom doing the whole thing yourself but given this question WooCommerce wins hands down every single time.

 

[SuperLiam]

(woocommerce has no built in SEO tools).

WooCommerce doesn't need SEO tools... go to plugins > install new > Yoast SEO > activate.

 

[fisicx]

Yoast is about the worst SEO plugin. On a busy site it can slow things down the a crawl and the traffic light thing is useless. SEO has moved on a lot in the last year of so, Yoast is now way behind the drag curve. Popular =/= Good

I'd still use wordpress but my point was that wordpress is no better or worse for optimising than shopify.

 

[SuperLiam]

I have several client sites ranking 1-4 on Google & Bing as a result of using Yoast and other SEO techniques, if you just rely on Yoast alone and the traffic lights then you're going to fail every time of course but use Yoast as part of a great on-site and off-site SEO plan and you'll smash competitors out the water.

I'm talking in the context of the question asked, even WordPress has its limitations and I always prefer to use my own CMS and I have a good network of high-quality links for client sites, I tend not to use Wordpress but answering the original question I would use it over Shopify.

 

[fisicx]

All you need from an SEO plugin is the ability to edi page titles and meta descriptions. You don't need Yoast for this. In fact most of what Yoast offers either has no SEO impact or can adversely affect ranking. The Yoast sitemap for example just isn't needed.

 

[SuperLiam]

I think this has gone off topic, I'm not some Yoast fan trying to sell it for its features I personally think it's all a load of rubbish, I prefer to do everything myself, buddy. You're preaching to the choir haha

 

[Jolt.co.uk]

Shopify for simplest management/overheard

WooCommerce for more capability and can scale, but you'll need help. Hire someone reputable or an agency, not someone that could disappear and leave you high and dry overnight.

And for those inaccurate comments on Magento being woeful... Magento is incredibly powerful, and much leaner on resources in its latest versions. Of course hosting companies that underpower their servers or cram too many accounts onto a single server will complain, but don't let that cloud the fact that it is the most popular ecommerce platform and has the most marketshare for a reason.

 

[SuperLiam]

@Jolt.co.uk - Completely agree and also Magento is still a great platform, spot on.

 

[antropy]

But why just limit yourself to these two options? @antropy offers OpenCart and he reckons it's better than both your choices.

Haha yes indeed we do in certain circumstances:

* Shopify is best if you want something online very quickly and very cheaply to test an idea.

* WooCommerce is best if you aren't doing anything too complex with your product catalogue in terms of custom ways to show content or custom requirements around delivery etc. AND your site is going to be very content heavy, with the shop as a secondary thing once users have been drawn in by your information.

* OpenCart is best if you have a lot of products and the shop is the main focus of the site and you may need customisation to automate your business as much as possible.

 

[XZeng]

After reading this thread I'm even more torn between Shopify VS Woocommerce than before.

I already have an existing woocommerce shop currently not mobile friendly as it's an old site.
I'm torn between choosing a new woocommerce template or moving over to shopify completely.

So far these are my reasons why I would like to move to Shopify.

-With my woocommerce shop I feel everything works in a very precarious way. Every time there is a wordpress update, one of the apps might stop functioning. At that point, I have to email my web developer to tell him to help me fix it. I need a separate app for almost everything and some of the things don't work. For example: to this day, I'm unable to send out an automatic customer satisfaction follow up email.

- I might be able to save some money on a monthly basis if a part of my customers checks out using shopify's own payment gateway. They charge 1% less than paypal or stripe so it might just make up for the monthly payment I have to pay to Shopify, which would be £63/month. Woocommerce isn't that cheap either when you consider having to pay for the hosting, buying of the apps, paying for my web developer to fix things when it breaks. If you are with Shopify, they maintain the site and have a 24/7 support service.

-Apparently, the site loading speed on Shopify is very fast. Mine is not very fast. Maybe having too many plugins is what's slowing down my site.

-Shopify makes a lot of good marketing tips and makes it easy for you to create discounts, coupons, launch competitions etc. I guess their interests are aligned with yours. The more you sell the more fees they can collect I assume. If the most non- tech savvy friend of mine can use it easily.

-Good integration with google shopping. They make it easy for you to put your products on google shopping. In the future, I think they are bringing pinterest integration as well. As far as I know in the US it's already possible.

-I installed the Yoast SEO and the suggestions it's making does not make sense.

-I'm constantly having to look out for and research plugins to put onto my site. Whereas on Shopify they make it very easy for you to install new plugins.

-They have a really good reporting system. At the moment I'm using google analytics. I can get some of the data, but a lot of it is a mess due to paypal redirects so checkouts look like they were referred by paypal.


Shopify Cons
-I'm worried the apps might become very expensive. I had a look at the XERO /quickbooks integration with SHOPIFY and people are extremely unhappy with the free version. The paid version is like $60/month. What if there are more apps I rely on that are decent only if you have the paid version. Very quickly your monthly bill might become huge.

-Some of you said some of the basic functionalities are not there. Which ones do you mean?

-Also, you mentioned that when you scale up Shopify isn't great for big e-commerce sites.
I'm looking to upgrade my current site and would not want to touch it again for another 5 years at least.

- Are there any specific problems shopify has that I'm unaware of and can only find out once I set up shop? Obviously, I know the cons of woocommerce because I've been using it for so long.
What are the downsides of shopify?

What I'm looking for in my new website is for it to be fast, as little hassle after the site has been set up from me as possible, scalable as I don't want to move in a few years time and work smoothly.

Sorry about the long winded post. I'm paralyzed by indecision at the moment. Would really appreciate any comments you may have for me. Thanks!

 

[fisicx]

It's not long winded at all - it summarized the problems many people like you have.

Most of the issues you are having with woocommerce can be easily fixed. I've never had an issue with updates breaking things. If the site is properly configured and you don't rely too much on plugins then is a very stable platform. I've got loads of clients all using woocommerce and they all do ok with fast loading sites and lots of integration with all sorts of things and no need to pay for lots of plugins. So maybe the problem is your developer.

 

[antropy]

After reading this thread I'm even more torn between Shopify VS Woocommerce than before.

No thoughts on OpenCart?

 

[Francois Badenhorst]

So one question: if you were looking for the above, would you choose Shopify or WooCommerce?

I'm a complete rookie here (there's definitely more qualified people on the forum). BUT I've been setting up on Shopify recently and I can say it's been a total delight. It's affordable (important for me) and it's very simple to tailor it. If a short time frame in terms of set up is a worry, then I can definitely recommend Shopify.

 

[fisicx]

IIt's affordable (important for me) and it's very simple to tailor it.

Just like wordpress and woo then .

I tried Shopify and just couldn't get the hang of it. Everything I wanted to do needed an extension or was blocked or would cost me money.

 

[XZeng]

Thank you all for your feedbacks. I read in a forum that when you install too many plugins for woocommerce the speed of the site becomes slower.

My big concern for Shopify right now is that it doesn't integrate with Xero or Quickbooks well. I would have thought that would be a given. People have also said that it's good for smaller businesses but as you grow it's backend is not very good for scaling up, esp in dealing with warehouse dispatches.

Do you guys have any thoughts on using Magento? I will need to pay for a developer anyway, so the ease of set up is not an issue.

Thanks

 

[Katherin Watson]

I would recommend you to use Woocommerce. For my personally, I do not own one but my friend does and his website is very versatile. Woocommerce allows him to customize his website for his own need. And he seems happy with it, so I think it is good too.

 

[threenine]

I would have to agree with @Alan , @fisicx @antropy and @SuperLiam . In general your problem isn't which shopping cart, your real problem is how!

We have done implementations where we have used both Magento and WooCommerce on the same site, and integrated them using FishPig plugins.

We used Magento for the high volume , high transaction items in the store and WooCommerce and WordPress for the low volume highly customisable specialist product selection and digital content items the store sold.

At the end of the day, your choice should never be based on your capabilities and preferences. It has to be driven by what the customer wants and expects.

The cold hard brutal fact is, without the customer you don't have an e-commerce store.

You can go ahead and agonise about the selection of your shopping cart for months, and even after you've implemented you still only have a shopping cart.

Until your customers start paying and purchasing your products, that is and only ever will be when you have an e-commerce site.

 

[jackdorsey]

i think shopify is better because you will supported best for your work that don't worry any problem as: security, optimization content and you don't need must know about domain, hosting, website you also run a ecommerce shop

 

[fisicx]

But you do have to pay for shopify. And wordpress is easy to secure and keep updated. I've got loads of clients all using wordpress without any drama.

 

[threenine]

i think shopify is better because you will supported best for your work that don't worry any problem as: security, optimization content and you don't need must know about domain, hosting, website you also run a ecommerce shop

Exactly the same as woo commerce , I'm sorry but that argument just doesn't stack up.

Woo commerce and Wordpress is very actively maintained.

There are loads of ways to even auto update. Ideally you should use a theme recommended by woocommerce

 

[jackdorsey]

Exactly the same as woo commerce , I'm sorry but that argument just doesn't stack up.

Woo commerce and Wordpress is very actively maintained.

There are loads of ways to even auto update. Ideally you should use a theme recommended by woocommerce

I understand but if you have no knowledge of building a wordpress website then you are very hard to use woocommerce. with shopify you don't need worry that.

 

[fisicx]

Why is it very hard to use woocommerce?

When you install the plugin there is a full walkthrough that sets everything up for you.

 

[threenine]

I understand but if you have no knowledge of building a wordpress website then you are very hard to use woocommerce. with shopify you don't need worry that.

Totally contest that point too!

We have plenty of customers sign up and use WP & WooCommerce , who have little to zero in depth knowledge of IT, and are able to follow the simple walk through guides.

At the end of the day, it is all about personal preferences. All these shopping cart scripts fall into a commodity bucket and there is very little that sets them apart.

Each and every single one suffer from the same virtues and faults.

However, I would say, from the analysis I have conducted based on research that I have to admit based on my particular requirements Woocommerce , worked out cheaper, secure and convenient.

That being said we have also built stores using Magento and open cart and Drupal. Each having successes and failures.

Personally I wouldn't touch shopify with a barge pole. Mostly because we run most of our own hosting servers

 

[paulyh]

Why is it only shopify you are looking at for a hosted solution?

I'm actually thinking of moving away from woocommerce to shopwired because even though woocommerce is easy to run etc, I have encountered a few plugin problems and woocommerce updates affecting themes.

Even though I will be losing some control moving to a hosted solution, I can see more benefits in terms of time saved than maintaining a self hosted site.

 

[threenine]

This kinda proves my statement earlier in this thread.

Getting stuck in analysis paralysis regarding which one of these shopping cart scripts is the best, is ultimately futile.

The fact is your website is going to constantly evolve. On average every 8 -12 months in some extreme cases every 3 months. This primarily will be driven by your target market and products.

 

[E-com_K]

@paulyh I also looked at BigCommerce but I didn't like that they charge extra depending on your turnover.

Thanks for everyones advice on here - I decided to go with WooCommerce and I currently have a developer hired to design and build the website.

 

[threenine]

@E-com_K Fantastic news! Good luck, farewell and prosper!

Please do keep us posted on how you get on. Remember you are not alone and everyone here is rooting for your success!

 

[WHGB Tom]

-Apparently, the site loading speed on Shopify is very fast. Mine is not very fast. Maybe having too many plugins is what's slowing down my site.

Might be something to do with where you are hosted if your site is really slow. However a lot of plugins would also cause this. Woo can work really well and be as fast as pretty much anything out there. Its a lot of factors that contribute to performance.

 

[fisicx]

@paulyhThanks for everyones advice on here - I decided to go with WooCommerce and I currently have a developer hired to design and build the website.

Just make sure the developer doesn't force you to sign off on a design before building the site. This is 100% the wrong way to do things. Build the site using a free theme, get all the products loaded up, make sure everything works and then start to play with layouts.

 

[Nico Albrecht]

use a solution where you have full control over such as opencart mangento etc.. if you use a paid service you are at their price mercy.