woocommerce vs magento

Are you planning to create your own eCommerce store? But, in a dilemma whether to choose WooCommerce or Shopify. Then, fret not; there are thousands of entrepreneurs like you who are facing the same issue. The prime reason for this is that both WooCommerce and Shopify are similar with a superficial analysis. This is the reason why we have created this post.

Here we have done a brief analysis of both eCommerce building platforms so that our readers can make a well-informed decision.

Business Share

Let’s have a look at how much business share both these eCommerce website building platforms have. Although picking a winner just on popularity might seem unfair, this gives us clarity about the market trend and what your competitors might be doing.

While 21% of users use WooCommerce to power their store, Shopify at 18%, giving it tough competition. Looking at these stats, it is clear that WooCommerce is a more preferred platform than Shopify. But on a closer analysis of the top 10k eCommerce websites, things start to change.

The trend is slowly shifting in favour of Shopify, with over 23% using the eCommerce platform and only 5% of websites working on WooCommerce. 

Ease To Launch An Online Store

Now, let’s have a look at how easy it is to build an eCommerce store on WooCommerce and Shopify platforms. 

If you are building an eCommerce store on the Woocommerce platform, then you have to manage two separate things:

1. First, you need to Install WordPress and learn about its interface
2. Install and configure the WooCommerce plugin on your WordPress website and learn about the interface

As a retailer, before you start making sales and generate revenue, you first need to handle:

• WordPress installation.
• WooCommerce installation and configuration.
• Finding hosting
• Finding and selecting a theme for your WooCommerce marketplace.
• Handling other associated details such as payment gateways, tax calculations, and more.

This might seem easy, but surely there is a learning curve associated with WooCommerce. 

Now, let’s move on to its competitor – Shopify.

There is not much to worry about for those who choose Shopify to build their online eCommerce platform. Start accepting orders and making online sales; all you need to do is:

• First, you need to create a Shopify account
• Buy a domain name for your website or sync the existing one.
• Select and choose a theme for your Shopify website.
• Lastly, you can use Shopify’s own payment gateway to start accepting orders, and you are good to go.

Payment Gateways

The next big factor that you as a retailer needs to consider while choosing the best eCommerce building platform is the payment gateways. Unless you have a specific need, both offer a variety of payment gateways for accepting transactions.

When it comes to WordPress eCommerce plugin, being open source and large development community allows it to support popular payment gateways like:

• Stripe
• PayPal
• Square
• PayFast
• AmazonPay

The big players and WooCommerce also offer support to many niche payment gateways – Postgiro (a Swedish gateway), Przelewy24 (a Polish gateway), and others.

Now, have a look at the other eCommerce building platform – Shopify.

Shopify also offers integration of multiple big payment gateways like;

• PayPal
• Stripe
• Authorize.Net

And, in addition to this, the platform has its own payment gateway with which you can accept payment, and no other additional effort is required. One thing to keep in mind is that you need to pay an additional fee in case you choose a third-party payment gateway. 

Costs Of Each Platform

The next thing is how much it costs to build an eCommerce website on both platforms.

When it comes to WooCommerce, a variable cost is involved, and it’s hard to pin down an exact cost. The only fixed cost involved with this platform are:

• Hosting server.
• The domain name of your website.
• Which third-party payment gateway are you using?

In addition, you are likely to pay for the premium theme and plugins you are using in your WordPress eCommerce website.

In contrast to this, Shopify offers a transparent and easy pricing policy that makes it easy to calculate the overall development cost. The pricing involves:

• Shopify Basic – $29
• Shopify- $79
• Shopify Advanced – $299

In addition to these plans offered by Shopify, some other factors add up to the development cost as well. These other factors are:

• You have to pay a one-time fee for the premium themes
• There are some premium apps you have to pay for monthly, although there are also free apps.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

We all know only creating an eCommerce platform is not enough. You need to make your online platform Google-friendly and rank higher on SERP for better results.

This is where WooCommerce has a competitive edge over Shopify. The YoastSEO plugin of WordPress allows easy upload and editing of meta tags, meta description, alt tags, slug, and other factors that are important in SEO.

On the other hand, there is no such plugin in the Shopify eCommerce building platform that makes it Google-friendly. The platform faces some limitations to optimize its search engine, but that’s not the only thing. Creating subcategories is also a daunting task, and this is the second thing that’s wrong with the Shopify eCommerce platform.

Dropshipping

If dropshipping is what you are looking for, then WooCommerce has a DropshipMe plugin with over 8000 active installations. With this plugin, you can easily import products, complete orders, and manage everything related to dropshipping.

However, if you are getting the impression that Shopify has nothing to offer for dropshippers, then that’s not the case. The platform is well integrated with popular dropshipping platforms like Dropified and Oberlo. Just choose an app from the eCommerce store, and you are good to export products.

Although with a well-designed plugin DropshipMe, the eCommerce platform takes an edge over Shopify.

Wrapping Up

That’s pretty much everything related to WooCommerce vs Shopify eCommerce building platform. If you are looking for a clear winner between both, then it’s hard for us to declare a winner. Although from the above comparison, you might get an impression that Shopify is a better platform, that might not be the case in reality.

Depending upon your requirement, the preference for an eCommerce building platform changes. Thus it is best to get in touch with a WooCommerce or Shopify web development company during the initial stages to know which one best suits your online store needs.