WooCommerce vs Shopify

15 January 2024

tl;dr

Choosing Shopify you'll be able to get further without technical knowledge, and you may never require a designer or developer.

Choosing WooCommerce there's no limitations, but you'll possibly need a website developer and/or website designer at some point.

The two most popular ecommerce platforms for online stores. Choose Shopify for initially a lower cost of entry and speed to market. Choose WooCommerce for flexibility, fewer limitations and easier custom implementations.

Introduction

By the numbers there are two leading ecommerce solutions for online stores and these are WooCommerce and Shopify. So, you're in good company when selecting one of these platforms.

According to figures from Builtwith WooCommerce has 6,434,034 total live websites with 140,920 live Australian websites vs Shopify 4,724,756 total live websites and 147,419 Australian websites.

Overall WooCommerce edges out Shopify for the most popular ecommerce platform used. However, as of October 2023 Shopify has 20% of the top 1 million ecommerce websites vs WooCommerce at 17% (source Builtwith).

When you compare two successful online stores both with 1,000+ products, one using WooCommerce, the other Shopify, they can seem very similar and achieve similar sales.

However, the path to a successful online shop using these platforms is very different.

WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce platform built for WordPress. Therefore, it provides you with the most powerful content management system (CMS) to run an online store. Thanks to its open-source nature, you can customize every aspect of your store and build custom extensions. Support for a WooCommerce store comes from your hosting company, WooCommerce for premium extensions, other plugin developers and self-learning documentation.

Shopify is a hosted eCommerce platform that helps you to create an online store without worrying about technical knowledge, every aspect is included in the Shopify plan such as hosting, security, domain, etc.

Note About Support

Shopify states they offer 24/7 support, but in reality you are dealing with a chatbot. Shopify used to have a telephone number for support, hence why they have had some good reviews (in the past). The reviews and feedback about their support since dropping their call centre is not good.\

WooCommerce, on the other hand, has never had telephone support, they offer chatbot and email support. Mostly you are referred directly to the developers of extensions on the WooCommerce marketplace and their knowledge and ability to solve your problems is superior to Shopify support.

More often than not, to alleviate your general frustration (and time) not being able to talk to someone, you're going to benefit from the assistance of your local WooCommerce or Shopify developer.

What Shopify says about WooCommerce?

While WooCommerce and WordPress are both free open-source platforms, the cost of running an online store on the platform isn't free.

You'll still need to pay for hosting, SSL certificates, and plugins to create a secure and live website.

You'll still need to pay for hosting, SSL certificates, and plugins to create a secure and live website. On Shopify, hosting, an SSL certificate, and so forth is included in a monthly subscription. One of the benefits of this, is that as your business grows, the cost of hosting doesn't change keeping the price point manageable.

Shopify's platform was built specifically to make commerce better for everyone. WooCommerce, on the other hand, was built on Wordpress, which is a CMS. The ecommerce element was added after the main product was created instead of being integrated into from the beginning.

Read more on the Shopify website and their take on WooCommerce »

What WooCommerce says about Shopify?

Shopify makes it easy to accept and manage online payments, but only on their terms. Shopify is a closed platform. There are limited product variations, no sub-categories, no options to migrate, and there is nothing you can do about it.

All of Shopify's features are tied to their paid plans.

WooCommerce offers the freedom of open source. You have full code access and ownership, the option to customize any aspect of your site, and can integrate any service – with complete control. Want to change something? You can. Add functionality without upgrading.

All of Shopify's features are tied to their paid plans. For example, third-party shipping rates and advanced report building are only available in the Shopify Advanced plan at $299 per month.

Read more on the WooCommerce website about their take on Shopify »

What do we say about WooCommerce and Shopify?

There is no doubt we can create a custom store and develop unique functionality easier with WooCommerce. There is more flexibility to do what you want to do, especially with multiple stores and multiple brands.

Using WooCommerce there is more flexibility to do what you want to do, especially with multiple stores and multiple brands.

With WooCommerce you're more likely to need a developer at some stage for your online store.

Using Shopify it is more likely that you will be able to get started for less, even though WooCommerce is "free".

Strengths of WooCommerce

WooCommerce is especially convenient for people who are already have a WordPress website or are familiar with WordPress. You just have to install the WooCommerce plugin and you are on your way.

WooCommerce offers the freedom of open source. You have full code access and ownership.

Open Source Platform

WooCommerce is an open-source platform, meaning you have full code access and complete ownership of everything to do with your online shop. You also have the freedom to develop whatever you want whenever you want.

Cost Effective

WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin, that will work on any WordPress website or WordPress hosting. You can simply purchase a domain name and get a decent WordPress hosting plan to get started selling your products online.

Integration and Plugins

Since WooCommerce is so popular there's a huge range of free and paid plugins to cover almost any feature, service or integration you may need. From product bundles, to bulk discounts, from selling gift vouchers to multiple payment gateways, there's a plugin already available.

Customisable

With access to the source code and with a vast community of developers and development companies specialising in WooCommerce, you can create a unique online store. For whatever idea you may have there'll be a way to customise your shop to implement your ideas.


Although WooCommerce is open source it is owned and developed by Automattic the company behind WordPress.com, Woo, Jetpack, WordPress VIP, Simplenote, Longreads, The Atavist, WPScan, Akismet, Gravatar, Crowdsignal, Cloudup, Tumblr, Day One, Pocket Casts, Newspack, Texts, and more. Automattic is a fully distributed company and employs around 2,000 people worldwide.

Strengths of Shopify

Shopify is a great option for newbies starting an online shop and also experienced ecommerce merchants and their website developers. There's a friendly interface and administration for beginners and a large range of advanced options for seasoned professionals.

Shopify is an all-in-one package, including hosting, security, payments, etc. Just one supplier required to run your online shop.

All-In-One Package

Shopify includes hosting, security and accepting payments, there's nothing you have to organise, research or pay extra for. Choose your theme, add your products and you're virtually selling straight away.

Shopify Tools

There is an extensive portfolio of tools available such as Logo Maker, Slogan Maker, Terms and Conditions Generator, Image Resizer, Barcode Generator, etc./ Plus Shopify has a stock photo library with over 20,000 royalty-free high quality images available for commercial use.

Shopify Magic

One of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks for merchants is writing product descriptions. Shopify Magic, Shopify's artificial intelligence tool, is designed for ecommerce and it will create product descriptions in seconds.

Drag and Drop

Shopify themes are developed for ecommerce with selling features built-in. Plus, their online store editor allows you to simply change things with their drag and drop system.


Additionally, in the Shopify App Store there are over 8,000 free and paid Shopify apps available for customising your online shop.

As Shopify is a closed system every app in the Shopify App Store has been tested, vetted and put through a 100-checkpoint review before being made available to merchants. This would not be possible in the open source environment of WooCommerce and WordPress.

WooCommerce Things to be Aware of

Continual Updates

Your WooCommerce website will be dependent on quite a lot of plugins, both WordPress-related and WooCommerce-related including the website theme. When WooCommerce or WordPress releases an update, and these are frequent, many of your plugins and theme may require updates.

You should always test your store on a staging website before updating your live website. Clicking update on anything (WooCommerce, plugins, WordPress, PHP) could create enormous problems for your live online shop.

Updating can create incompatibility issues between updated themes, plugins, WordPress core, WooCommerce or PHP versions that can potentially break your website or leave it vulnerable.

Maintenance

Proprietary SaaS platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce employ a team of technical experts to continuously monitor and fix any issues that arise. They have their own infrastructure to run their platforms. It is a closed system.

With WooCommerce it is ultimately your responsibility for the operation and security of your website. Of course, you will most likely have a hosting company to oversee the operation of your website, but at the end of the day the buck stops with you. This includes ensuring your website is protected from unauthorised access (hacking), your customer information is secure and the website performance is optimal.

Growth and Scalability

If your website is quite small and growing gradually scalability is usually not a problem. However, as your business expands, and this can occur rapidly, the large number of active shopping carts, concurrent customer checkouts and the general increase in traffic can quickly overload and even crash your website. WooCommerce websites can handle huge amounts of traffic and orders, but the infrastructure hosting your website needs to match the demand. You will need to be aware of when to increase your hosting capacity and or hosting supplier.

Code Conflicts

There are 800+ commercial (paid) extensions available in the WooCommerce marketplace, thousands of commercial plugins for WooCommerce and WordPress available directly from vendors, 60,000+ free plugins in the official WordPress directory and not to forget all the thousands of WooCommerce/WordPress themes you could install.

Due to this vast array of choices, one of the most common causes of errors and website crashes is from conflicts between different plugins.

You may find a plugin that you believe will solve all of your problems only to find that installing that plugin creates bigger issues. This is not uncommon in the WooCommerce and WordPress space.

No Central Support

There is no doubt that WooCommerce and WordPress have a great community and information is available almost everywhere. However, there is no central support for WooCommerce other than chat and email available for customers that have purchased extensions from the WooCommerce marketplace. Even if you purchase extensions from the official marketplace you will mostly be referred to the developer of that extension, as WooCommerce is not the developer of most extensions in the marketplace.

Outside of the official extensions you will find every theme or plugin has its own support channels. For everything else you will need to source your own WooCommerce support professional or search through WooCommerce and WordPress forums to solve your problems.

Shopify Things to be Aware of

Plans and Price Increases

In Australia, as of 2023, Shopify has three paid plans of AUD$56, AUD$149 and AUD$575 per month. You can start on the basic plan, but you only have 14 days' free trial period while you build your online shop.

The basic plan has limited features and this means that you'll most likely be paying the higher plan (AUD$149 per month) to access a feature you need.

In addition it is likely that you will be paying for a theme (there's 12 free themes available) and apps from the Shopify App Store to run your online shop successfully.

Shopify Processing Fees

Using Shopify Payments for accepting credit cards is the most economical option. You will pay for Australian credit cards (not including Amex) 1.75% + 30¢ AUD per transaction, international credit cards and Amex you will pay 2.9% + 30¢ AUD per transaction.

If you want to use a third-party payment system then you are charged 2.0% for every transaction (on top of the fees you'll already by paying your third-party provider).

Limited Customisation

Shopify is customisable, but there are limitations. Unlike WooCommerce, and other platforms that use PHP, Shopify uses its own template language called Liquid. Website designers and developers that are proficient in PHP are everywhere, however designers and developers familiar with Liquid, not so much.

You could spend hours learning to use the Liquid template language or you would need to hire a specialist designer/developer for your customisation.

When working with an all-in-one site builder like Shopify, you give up some design flexibility that you get with self-hosted platforms like WordPress.

Technical Support

Shopify states they have 24/7 support, but in reality you're using firstly "your virtaul Help Center assistant" and then hopefully a support agent will jump on their live chat.

Shopify used to offer telephone support, but that has been recently removed. There is no telephone number or other contact information on their website.

Essentially, there is not much difference now between Shopify and WooCommerce support. Even though you may have to get your WooCommerce support from various sources it is more likely you'll be receiving help from a developer with in-depth knowledge about your issue.

In 2023 here is some of the recent feedback on the community.shopify.com website about Shopify support -

"...chat support is hopelessly inefficient...long delays between replies...to say nothing of the absurdity of trying to explain complex issues over chat..."

"...each time I have to contact chat support my heart sinks...spend hours trying to resolve an issue that would take 5 minutes with a phone call..."

"...last week I had 4 situations I needed to resolve...4 hours of time on the chat...never received one call back or email from them..."

"...the issue is chat support...is frustrating, time consuming and inefficient...hundreds of complaints...that phone support is no longer..."

Content Management

Shopify's Content Management System (CMS) is fairly straightforward and user-friendly, but in comparison to other CMS platforms, particularly WordPress, it is rather limited.

For small businesses and organisations the Shopify system is probably adequate. However, large organisations with more complex requirements and a lot of content and resources may need to consider other options.

Summary

Platform overview
WooCommerce
It is a WordPress plugin, which means, to use WooCommerce you will require a hosted WordPress website.
Shopify
It is a standalone, proprietary ecommerce platform that provides everything you need to set up an online store.
Ease of use
WooCommerce
If you're already comfortable with WordPress, then WooCommerce will likely be easier to navigate.
Shopify
It's designed to be user-friendly for beginners with capabilities for advanced users. You won't need technical skills to use it.
Themes
WooCommerce
3,000+ free and paid WooCommerce specialist themes on ThemeForest and WordPress.org alone. Plus most of the 11,000+ WordPress themes will work with WooCommerce.
Shopify
There are 12 free themes and 154 paid themes available on the Shopify themes website which can be styled to suit your brand.
Plugins and apps
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is built on top of WordPress therefore providing access to 60,000+ free WordPress and WooCommerce plugins, plus many more paid plugins.
Shopify
Shopify operates the Shopify App Store that contains over 8,000 apps, all tested and vetted by Shopify technicians.
Pricing
WooCommerce
The core WooCommerce plugin is free, but you will have costs for hosting and also charges for additional extensions or themes.
Shopify
The monthly subscription fee covers hosting and basic features. You will have transaction fees and costs for additional features (apps).
Payment methods
WooCommerce
There is support for a wide range of payment gateways and your only transaction fees are from your selected payment gateway.
Shopify
Has its own payment gateway (Shopify Payments) and there are third-party gateways available. Shopify takes a fee for all transactions.
SEO
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is optimised for SEO, and there are a variety of free plugins specialising in providing the best SEO tools and features for your store.
Shopify
There are built-in SEO optimisation features, but Shopify recommend "SEO Optimizer" (subscription required) which is similar to the free "Yoast SEO" plugin for WordPress.
Marketing tools
WooCommerce
All sales and marketing tools are available using plugins and extensions, both paid and free. Integrations for email marketing, CRM and multichannel are available.
Shopify
Similar tools are also available for use with Shopify, both paid and free. There is the advantage of having these all available in one place, the Shopify App Store.
Security
WooCommerce
Mostly dependent on your hosting provider, but you're ultimately responsible for the security of your shop and customer information.
Shopify
Provides a secure, hosted environment, taking care of security measures, and you don't need to worry about software updates.
Scalability
WooCommerce
This depends on your hosting infrastructure, but with the appropriate hosting setup, WooCommerce can handle high-traffic stores.
Shopify
Known for its scalability, as your business grows your hosting and server management is taken care of. You will just have cost increases.
Customisation
WooCommerce
Highly customisable, almost limitless, especially if you have coding knowledge. Plus, there are thousands of themes and plugins available to modify your store.
Shopify
You can choose from a variety of themes, and while you can customise them, you will not have the full control that is available with WooCommerce.
Community and support
WooCommerce
There is support from WooCommerce for their extensions, a huge community of users and developers, plus many forums, tutorials, and resources available due to its association with WordPress.
Shopify
Offers limited 24/7 customer support as outlined. However, there's also an active community, but probably not as extensive as WooCommerce due to the proprietary nature of the Shopify platform.

Conclusion

If you're already using WordPress, or familiar with WordPress, then WooCommerce will be a fairly seamless integration. Choosing WooCommerce is a no-brainer.

Additionally, if you want maximum control of your online store and potentially want to do something custom, then WooCommerce would also be the obvious choice.

If you're after a user-friendly platform that requires minimal technical knowledge then Shopify could be the better option.

Also, if you want nothing to do with hosting, security or server capacity for your growing store then choose Shopify.

Either way your selection won't be wrong, these platforms are popular for a reason.