Shopify vs WooCommerce: You must know online shopping and how it is done. And if you have good knowledge of blogging, you were also introduced to the term Dropshipping. It is a legal process where a vendor achieves orders from a third party and supplies ship straight to the clients.
For doing this work, some online stores are there. These online commerce platforms allow you to store and sell your products online.
Among various platforms, Shopify and WooCommerce are also there. They both are popular in the market for Dropshipping.
Before buying any one of these two, you must be aware of them briefly. Let’s discuss them and compare which one is better for you.
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Shopify
Shopify is an e-commerce Canadian company popular for providing service to online retailers. It offers features like shipping, payments, storing, marketing, and many more.
The company was founded by Tobias Lutke in 2004. He was a computer programmer for trade but later he built his own company.
They are one of the secure e-commerce companies and have no trust issues. Worldwide they are fluently running stores for small dealers.
Shopify has more than a million of global businesses connected to them.
WooCommerce
Moving further, WooCommerce is also an e-commerce plugin for WordPress. For those sellers who are connected to WordPress, WooCommerce is a good option.
WooCommerce is meant for both small and large size merchants.
It was launched in 2011. Firstly, it was developed under WordPress theme developer, and later Mike Jolley and James Koster worked on it.
After getting identity as WooCommerce, it got popular among sellers.
Today, there are about 1,135 themes on ThemeForest and more than 500+ on WordPress. WooCommerce slightly raised a lot and now one of the affordable Dropshipping providers.
What About Pricing?
Shopify Pricing: A simple pricing method including three basic plans. Their three Shopify plans are priced at Basic Shopify – $29, Shopify – $79, and Advanced Shopify – $299. The main difference between each lies on the fees it charges for accepting credit cards.
Each Shopify plan changes the number of staff accounts available, as well as the ability to send out gift cards, and recover abandoned shopping carts.
WooCommerce Pricing: On the other hand, costs nothing upfront, but you need to set up hosting on your own. Hosting costs may vary depending on the scale of your store but generally speaking, a modest operation should run you less than Shopify’s basic plan.
Also read: Best Web Hosting For eCommerce Store
Shopify vs WooCommerce: Pros and Cons
Shopify Pros and Cons
| PROS 👍 | CONS 👎 |
|---|---|
| Fast loading time | The more expensive yearly bill |
| Shopify includes hosting and security | Limited capability |
| Includes SSL certificates | Customization is better with other platforms. |
| SEO-ready outside the box | |
| Built-in mobile optimization | |
| 24/7 support – have your issues resolved around the clock | |
| Sell on other channels like Amazon, Facebook, eBay and Pinterest as a built-in feature |
WooCommerce Pros and Cons
| PROS 👍 | CONS 👎 |
|---|---|
| It’s free to install | Not beginner-friendly |
| WooCommerce is simple to configure on WordPress. | More manual SEO configurations required |
| WooCommerce offers complete customization and control. | Slower average site speed |
| Search engine-friendly | |
| WordPress has a huge community online. | |
| Uses customizable SEO-optimized |
Comparison of Shopify with WooCommerce
1. Starting Cost
Talking about Shopify, it costs in the cult as its basic plan starts with $29. After that, you have to purchase its other features monthly.
Apps and themes charge are monthly in this plan. In WooCommerce, you have to only pay for themes and hosting. One time purchase is there for 12 months.
*So, in terms of cost…Shopify is costly. Whereas, WooCommerceis low in price.
2. Security
In an e-commerce business, a customer’s security is very necessary to build their trust. Payments and all other factors tell about the security strength. By default, Shopify has free of cost features of security. But WooCommerce charges from you.
*In Shopify, you get access to these features without any cost but while using WooCommerce you have to pay for using those features.
3. Plugin
Plugins play an important role in an e-commerce company. As WooCommerce is connected to WordPress, there is a one-time purchase of these plugins is available.
You have to pay once and use it for a year. If we talk about Shopify, there are monthly based apps and plugins. This means the purchase of them should be followed every month while use.
*So, on these bases WooCommerce is cheaper than Shopify.
4. Skills Required
This term refers to technical skills and knowledge. In Shopify, you don’t need high technical knowledge. A beginner can easily understand the working of Shopify. There is simple graphic work; Demo Videos are also available on Shopify so, you can learn any particular function in it.
If we talk about WooCommerce, you need technical skills up to a good level. To work on this platform you must have WordPress and basic HTML knowledge. There are no demo videos, in short…if you are new to this field, choosing WooCommerce first is not a good decision.
*Overall, Shopify is recommended for beginners. And if you have some past experience, go for WooCommerce.
5. Maintenance Time
It is also an important point; it means how much time it takes for updates and backups. Shopify has an automatic maintaining function…you don’t need to back up every feature manually. It does it itself.
This results in saving your time which you can use in marketing and selling. WooCommerce is slightly different, here you have to perform every update and backup manually. From time to time you have to check WooCommerce where it needs maintenance.
*So, Shopify smartly saves your precious time.
6. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
SEO is essential in every business. Shopify has an in-built panel, it provides a lot of features with SEO. You will get all the necessary functions and features in the same place. WooCommerce lacks in this field. You have to install extra plugins for SEO.
*Hence, WooCommerce is quite complicated than Shopify.
7. Overview
The first page of Shopify is simple and clean. All things can be easily untestable. If you are new in this and literally know anything, Shopify will guide you respectively, and help you to create an e-commerce store.
Talking about the overview of WooCommerce, it is pretty as well. The community is highly supportive and provides some free themes as well.
WooCommerce vs Shopify: Which one is better and why?
After comparing Shopify and WooCommerce you might get the idea of which one is suitable for you. Both have some pros and cons. They provide their best features as possible.
From my point of view, Shopify is quite better than WooCommerce. This is because Shopify has led in many areas.
WooCommerce needs every work to be done manually and consumes time but Shopify saves my time. I can use that time further in marketing or selling. In business time is valuable.
If someone is new in this field and not introduced to these things, Shopify will guide him and raise his level. Although, I found Shopify much comfortable.
So, Shopify is the best option for DropShipping and highly recommended. However, Shopify is decently costly.
Hence, choosing one of them depends on your requirements and budget. If you have a good budget, you can go for Shopify and if you are restricted in budget margin…WooCommerce is still available for you.
I hope, this article helped you. Which e-commerce site you are using till now? Comment below and let us know, which one you are purchasing and why?
Also Read: Shopify vs Bigcommerce, Shopify vs Squarespace, Shopify vs Magento, Shopify vs Amazon,