Are you trying to open an E-commerce store? In this article, we will see a detailed comparison of WooCommerce vs Shopify.
WooCommerce and Shopify both are eCommerce platforms used for making online stores. Both have different sets of features for the online business.
WooCommerce is integrated with WordPress to make the E-commerce website it has lots of customization features and add-ons.
While Shopify is also another E-commerce platform owned by a private company named Shopify Inc.
In this article, we are going to see which is the best E-commerce platform for running the online store with its features and functionality.
What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is one of the WordPress free plugins which integrated with WordPress and turns the website into an online store. It is an open-source eCommerce WordPress plugin.
This plugin is designed for merchants who are using the WordPress platform. And it is launched on 27 September 2011, and become popular for its ease simplicity, and easily customizable features.
WooCommerce powers 30% of the eCommerce website over the internet and it has millions of active installations. It is also easy for beginners to install and makes the online store of their choice.
What is Shopify?
Shopify is the online eCommerce platform that provides merchants a facility to sell their products online by making the store using Shopify.
It provides merchants with a bunch of services such as payment, Marketing, Shipping, and customer engagement tools. Here you don’t have to worry about all the aspects of the website you have to only focus on the strategic part of the website.
Shopify provides all the technical aspects of the website such as Hosting, technical support, security and caching, etc.
Things That you should look at before starting the E-commerce website:
Starting an online store is one of the challenging and strategic parts for any user, to start the online store let’s see what necessary things we should take care of before starting the online store.
Here are the top sides of the E-commerce stores that we kept in mind to start the online store.
- Budget of the website: Before starting the website, it should be a better idea to analyze how much it will cost to make the fully fledged eCommerce website.
- Ease of Use of the website: An E-commerce website has lots of functions, to manage all these functions it is required to analyze how many things are easy to use i.e., ease of use.
- Types of Payment methods Provided by the Platform: To target a wide range of customers to sell the products on your website. You have to add multiple payment methods to your website.
- Integration: How many products and services you can integrate with your website? So that you can boost your business with ease.
- Scalability of your business: While using Shopify and WooCommerce, which platform is best to scale your business growth? The platform should have the potential to grow your business.
Above this is the basic requirement for all businesses to run an online store. For fulfilling all customer requirements and smooth functioning of the business you have to also manage the inventory system, shipping management, etc.
here we see the in-depth comparison of the WooCommerce and Shopify platforms. Which is the best one for setting up the online store?
Cost: WooCommerce vs Shopify
Setting the online store is costlier than a normal website, so if we choose the right platform for our online business then it becomes less expensive and easier to expand the store.
You have to calculate all the estimated costs of running the online store so that it becomes easier for you to choose the right platform for setting up your store.
Choosing the right platform will reduce the cost of your eCommerce website.
Cost of Running the Shopify:
Shopify is not free it cost some charges for making the online store. It has three plans for running the online store the first one is Basic, the Second is Shopify and the third one is Advanced.
The Basic plan is Rupees 1499/ month which is best for new eCommerce Businesses. The second plan is for Rupees 5599/ month which is ideal for expanding businesses with consistent online sales.
And the last one is for Rupees 22680/ month which is ideal for establishing businesses with high-volume sales.
The plan combines the hosting, SSL, and other security features and all these things manage Shopify.
In Shopify, it comes with the Shopify branded sub-domain in the last of the extension for example https://www.your-shop-name.myshopify.com
You can also add your domain name after buying the custom domain name from Shopify or any other domain name provider.
With the Shopify Basic plan, you can add unlimited products to your store and start selling the products.
Payment is also one of the most important features of any online business.
Shopify provides its payment solution which costs 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction for the basic plan.
All these transactions and Shopify plan for monthly charges become expensive in terms of money for the beginner who does not have a profitable business.
Cost of Using the WooCommerce:
WooCommerce is the eCommerce plugin for WordPress which is free as it is open-source software and used by millions of websites.
However, for running the eCommerce website you need the Domain name, hosting plan, and SSL certificate.
After buying the domain name and hosting plan. you can now install WordPress and WooCommerce to your hosting to run the eCommerce store. But here you have to pay for the domain and hosting plan to run the eCommerce website.
In running the WooCommerce store you don’t have to pay for WooCommerce, which is one of the best parts of WooCommerce stores and it is a lot more customizable.
Here for adding the extra functionality to your store you have to buy add-ons which may cost you extra money than normal.
As WooCommerce is an Open-source software and there is always some free alternative for the paid plugin available. This makes WooCommerce less costly than Shopify.
Therefore, after the whole analysis, we can say that WooCommerce is more convenient in terms of cost. Hence WooCommerce won in comparison to the cost and money.
Ease of Use: WooCommerce vs Shopify
Starting the website and managing all its technical parts is one of the difficult tasks for the non-techy person.
And if you are not the developer and you don’t have the knowledge of the programming and coding then it becomes complex to run your website.
So, the eCommerce platform should be in such a way that every user who has less knowledge can also easily manage and run their website successfully.
Now, Let’s see the comparison of both WooCommerce and Shopify in terms of Use of Ease.
WooCommerce: Ease of Use
As WooCommerce is free software and is not self-hosted on any website, so for running the WooCommerce you have to install WordPress and then install the plugin WooCommerce.
After installing WooCommerce you have to complete the basic setup of the online store. But WooCommerce is fully customizable and you can add any features by using the add-ons to your WordPress website.
Here you have to manage all the updates, keep backups, and also make sure that your website is fully secure from hackers and all.
You have full control of the platform, as WordPress has more than 59,000+ plugins by using this plugin you can add any of the features to your eCommerce website.
For becoming an expert in WooCommerce you have to learn the things related to WooCommerce. As WooCommerce is a little bit complex for the beginner as here you have to handle all the settings on your own.
Shopify: Ease of Use
Shopify is a private company and it is fully hosted where you don’t need to manage, back up the website, keep updating the website, and check for security purposes.
All the things were managed by Shopify itself, and you need to do anything related to the technical issues.
Here you have to sign up for Shopify, then it asks for the basic details of your store. After that, you have to install any of the free themes from Shopify.
Then you can start uploading the product to your website, it also has the drag and drops editor for editing the theme of the website.
It manages your product page, sales, and inventory inside Shopify.
From the beginner’s point of view, Shopify becomes easier in managing the store and here they don’t have to worry about the technical part of the website. They only have to work for the strategic part and grow their business.
Therefore, after seeing the comparison of both platforms, here we can say that Shopify is easier to use for beginners.
Payment Methods: WooCommerce vs Shopify
The payment method is one of the most important parts of any eCommerce website. Now there are many payment gateways available in the online world to accept payment.
So, to make a profitable business it is required to select the best platform that will accept all the payment methods from the customer and also be convenient for your eCommerce website.
Therefore, it is necessary to choose the platform which supports multiple payment gateways.
Now, let’s compare the payment methods supported by both WooCommerce and Shopify.
Payment Option in WooCommerce:
WooCommerce supports almost all the payment methods but by default, it comes with the PayPal and Stripe payment gateway.
It also has the WooCommerce payment solution and the support is provided by the Stripe gateways.
By integrating the other plugins into your WordPress, you will become able to accept payment from Amazon pay, Alipay, Authorize.net, and many more.
In WooCommerce there is no barrier to any payment gateway. the company creates the add-on for WooCommerce and then starts providing the support for that Payment method.
Payment Option in Shopify:
Shopify accepts almost all the necessary payment gateways which the customers use during the checkout process.
Shopify has its payment solution which is powered by stripe and accepts all third-party app payments.
It charges an extra 2 % on every transaction which is made by the third-party payment gateway. This charge will be reduced when you take the Advanced Shopify plan it becomes 0.5% by paying the 22,680 rupees per month.
This is a comparison of both the WooCommerce and Shopify payment gateway methods.
Final Words:
This is the above comparison of both the WooCommerce and the Shopify platforms. Hope you understand the advantages and disadvantages of both eCommerce platforms.
And you can start your own eCommerce online store, WooCommerce gives you the whole freedom and power of customization as it is open-source software.
Whereas Shopify has the flexibility of Ease of use where you don’t have to do any installation and maintenance all of the things are done by Shopify itself.
But as your business grows your transaction and subscription cost will also increase which is not good for any business.
This is all about the WooCommerce vs Shopify eCommerce platform. And if you have any query related to this you can drop the comment in the comment box, we will surely reply to your comment with a proper solution.
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