WooCommerce vs Shopify

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.

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.

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 -

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

Ease of use

Themes

Plugins and apps

Pricing

Payment methods

SEO

Marketing tools

Security

Scalability

Customisation

Community and support

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.