Shopify and Woocommerce are widely used e-commerce platforms. But what is the difference? We explain it to you from A to Z.
Digital proficiency is a must
Many companies have recently been putting extra effort into their online presence. Offering your service or product online is essential nowadays. However, not every company has yet checked in on this departing boat. Are you one of those entrepreneurs who have yet to make the translation to the online world? Then this article is for you! We will explain to you the differences between Shopify and Woocommerce from A to Z. So when you're done reading, you'll know exactly which platform is most suitable for you and best suits your needs.
"What is the best choice for me? Shopify or Woocommerce?"
The name says it all: 'Shop'ify. A platform 100% dedicated to e-commerce. Shopify has designed its platform in such a way that it is accessible for the majority of people, plug and play. This has allowed it to grow quickly because many medium and small businesses have gone online with their shop. In the past, this was only possible for large companies because everything still had to be programmed.
There are a number of reasons why companies choose the Shopify platform. Because sShopify is designed for the e-commerce world, it is mostly shops that choose Shopify for hosting. This is because it comes with many options that make running a shop easy, and it is also scalable.
It is also possible to host your Shopify webshop at an external provider. In short: Shopify offers everything under one roof, but also allows you to use resources from third parties.
You can choose from a good number of free and paid themes. The paid themes charge a one-off fee of between USD 140 and USD 180. This is then paid for immediately and you no longer have to pay for it annually, which is the case with some paid WordPress themes.
One drawback is that you pay $29 a month for hosting Shopify, which is still quite a lot of money annually.
The builder of Shopify is designed in such a way that in principle everyone can use it, however, not everything can be adjusted. There are many nice options you can use, but there are also many things that are programmed into the theme. Eventually, some things can be changed through coding, but we will leave that for now.
Shopify itself does not get you very far as a shop, you actually only pay for the technology. But the power lies in the platform as a whole, it is more than just an e-commerce platform. It has a marketplace with over 4,000 apps that enhance the functionality of your shop, all of which connect seamlessly to the technology of Shopify.
So anything you think of and anything you need for your shop is an app for it, no more tricky coding. Examples of this are: Mollie (for payments), PostNL (for shipping), Shopify SEO (for findability), Apps for special integrations on your website, apps for reviews and also integrations of all social media platforms. This makes it easy to link your company's social media accounts to your website.
Also think about automatic integrations with companies you have a partnership with, for example a fulfilment centre. This will make your orders, your stock and the delineation process all automatic, making it even more scalable with Shopify.
It's one of the most important things to happen in the e-commerce world in recent times, and one that many companies can still learn a lot from, is customer support. In many stores, it's almost impossible to speak to someone or where you can put your question, while it's so easy to install an app for the customers where they can put their question. Just by showing that it's there, customers get a sense of familiarity, which in turn makes them more likely to convert.
First of all, what is Woocommerce? It is a plug-in that you install on the WordPress platform. It provides you with all kinds of functionalities to help you set up your shop in the best possible way, for example: stock, shipping and tax integrations. In addition, you can easily connect payment providers such as Mollie to your website, allowing customers to pay at your webshop.
Themes and customisation options largely come with the theme you install as a plug-in, allowing you to design the website as you wish. This does not mean that Woocommerce does not come with options. By installing Woocommerce you get a number of options that make it easier to turn your website into a webshop, such as using a variable product. This is the setting of options of a product so you don't have to create all different products for each colour or size.
The customisations and options that Wordpress offers are also endless, think of every line and angle on the website you can adjust in the shape and colour of your choice. This makes the options for designing a website endless, while Shopify clearly has its limits.
Woocommerce is a plugin of its own that is built on the open source of WordPress. After Woocommerce, there are about 58,000 other plugins that seamlessly integrate with the platform. Not all of these plugins are directly related to Woocommerce, but they can improve the overall website and thus the customer experience. These plug-ins offer options for everything you can think of, think of a reservation pop-up for restaurants or a plug-in to automate your customer service. I hear you thinking, I'm going to use as many plug-ins as possible. But just like too much food, too many plug-ins are also bad for your website. So get rid of plug-ins you don't use in order to maintain the speed of your website, this is important for your SEO.
Besides all the plugins, you also have, as mentioned above, a plug-in for customer service. But besides giving your customer the option to ask or report something, it is very important to actually respond to this.
Shopify has become very popular especially in the last few years. This is because the e-commerce world has taken a leap. Shopify makes it easy for its users to get started and this goes hand in hand with the large number who wanted to start in E commerce.
In addition, Woocommerce / WordPress has been a great platform for many companies for years, because it offers so many options. But which one should you choose?
That depends on what you want to do, who is going to do it and what you want to do. If you are a beginner in the E-commerce world and you are going to prepare your website yourself, then Shopify is the best choice. But if you don't want a standard website and perhaps want to have the website made by a specialist, then I would choose WordPress. This is because it gives you so many more options, but not every business needs this to be successful. So there is no question that one platform is better than the other, but it depends entirely on what you want to do with your website.
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