E-commerce has exploded in popularity over the last decade. In 2022 alone, over $1 trillion in sales were generated from e-commerce stores globally (source). With the industry growing rapidly, more business owners are looking to create their own online stores.
However, building and managing an e-commerce store is no simple task. Business owners must make several key decisions upfront – like choosing the right e-commerce platform on which to build their online store.
Two of the most popular e-commerce platforms on the market are WooCommerce and Shopify. At a glance, both WooCommerce and Shopify offer user-friendly website builders, convenient payment processing integrations, and marketing tools to help drive sales.
However, under the surface there are some significant differences between these two platforms that business owners must consider before deciding on one over the other. This in-depth guide will explain those key differences and help you determine if WooCommerce or Shopify (or perhaps something else) is the best fit for your e-commerce needs.
WooCommerce and Shopify – A Brief History
First, let’s take a quick look at the history and basic premises of WooCommerce and Shopify:
WooCommerce
- Created in 2011 as an open-source, WordPress-based e-commerce plugin
- Maintained by Automattic, the company behind WordPress
- Currently powers over 5 million active online stores
- Free to install, user pays only for domain, hosting, themes, extensions if needed
Shopify
- Founded in 2006 by Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, and Scott Lake
- Provides an all-in-one hosted e-commerce platform
- Currently powers over 1.7 million businesses
- Charges monthly subscription fee for access to platform and services
So in summary – WooCommerce is a free, downloadable plugin that helps you sell products through WordPress sites. Shopify is a monthly-paid SaaS platform built specifically for e-commerce from the ground up.
Both are fantastic options – let’s explore the key differences in more detail.
Starting an Online Store: Setup Differences
The first difference sellers will experience is during the initial website and store setup process.
Since WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, users must first set up WordPress hosting, install WordPress, and then install and configure WooCommerce. Shopify handles all of that for you since users create stores directly on their platform.
WooCommerce
- Must purchase domain and WordPress hosting separately
- Manually install WordPress and required plugins
- More complex setup but highly customizable
Shopify
- Domain and hosting included in subscription fee
- No manual install required – create storefront in Shopify admin
- Quick setup getting store online fast
Overall, Shopify’s all-inclusive pricing and one-stop setup process allows new e-commerce sellers to start selling faster. WooCommerce gives developers and advanced WordPress users more initial control though during the manual setup and configuration.
Building and Customizing Your Storefront
Another key difference comes when building out and designing your actual online store. How much design flexibility do the platforms offer? How tech-savvy must you be?
WooCommerce
As an open-source WordPress plugin, WooCommerce gives sellers access to every aspect of the store’s frontend and backend design. The plugin itself handles cart flows and payments, while the WordPress theme controls webpage layouts.
Hundreds of free and paid WordPress themes offer site design and modification capabilities – accessible even for users with very limited technical skills. More advanced customization does require HTML/CSS knowledge.
Overall though, WooCommerce stores feel like highly-custom WordPress sites…because that’s exactly what they are! Sellers have nearly endless customization options through plugins, themes, and manual code changes.
Shopify
Shopify simplifies storefront design using an intuitive drag-and-drop editor and hundreds of professional themes. The Shopify admin lets you customize everything visible on your online store pages without touching any code.
Their theme store includes plenty of free and paid themes to choose from. Paid premium themes unlock further customization features. Additional customization can also be achieved by editing theme code directly or via Shopify Experts.
Shopify streamlines store design for those without web development expertise. You sacrifice some advanced-level control for simplicity – but that trade-off allows faster store creation and fewer technical headaches.
Managing and Selling Products
Of course the main purpose of an e-commerce platform is to effectively display and sell your products (or services) online. Both WooCommerce and Shopify excel here across desktop and mobile experiences.
However, based on your specific product catalog and inventory needs, one platform may prove better suited than the other.
WooCommerce
Adding and managing products is done directly in the WordPress dashboard. The experience feels similar to managing blog posts or other content.
Since WooCommerce lacks a centralized inventory management system, users must utilize a mix of native features, plugins, and/or external tools to manage stock levels accurately. This flexibility provides more customization but also adds potential complexity.
WooCommerce itself places no limits on SKUs or product count. However, the greater WordPress ecosystem offers plenty of product import tools and optimized databases to support huge catalogs if optimized properly.
Shopify
Shopify provides a streamlined, user-friendly product dashboard letting you create, group, and manage products with ease. Inventory quantity, tracking, and reporting comes built-in.
Their platform comfortably supports up to 100,000 SKUs out of the box. Larger catalogs are possible but would likely require upgrading to Shopify Plus or customization work.
For most typical small-midsize businesses however, Shopify’s built-in product management and inventory features offer everything needed. WooCommerce can manage huge catalogs too but requires more technical expertise to optimize performance.
Payments, Transaction Fees, and POS
Managing transactions and accepting payments is the lifeblood of any ecommerce operation. Shopify and WooCommerce handle payments and transactions very differently.
WooCommerce
One of WooCommerce’s major advantages lies in payment flexibility. It works seamlessly with all major payment gateways – PayPal Commerce, Stripe, Authorize.Net, and 50+ others.
You choose your payment partners and transaction fees range between 2% – 3% on average – lower if you qualify for volume discounts when processing large transaction volumes.
Built-in support for popular WordPress POS solutions like WooPOS also lets physical store owners leverage WooCommerce for centralized inventory and order management across physical and digital storefronts.
Shopify
Shopify Payments handles all transactions natively within Shopify stores. Their rates range from 2.4% – 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction – very comparable to WooCommerce’s partners.
However, sellers cannot use other payment gateways without adding fixed monthly fees for a Shopify Payments alternative solution called Shopify Balance.
One major advantage unique to Shopify is a seamless built-in retail POS solution. The Shopify POS mobile app syncs directly with your online store’s inventory, creating a centralized retail management hub across all sales channels.
Overall Shopify offers better out-of-the-box support for unified commerce across in-store and online shopping experiences. WooCommerce requires integrating various plugins to connect physical inventory and transactions into overall reporting.
Marketing Tools and SEO Capabilities
Making sales isn’t just about showcasing products online. Retailers must actively bring in customers through marketing efforts including email campaigns, content creation, SEO optimization, and more.
WooCommerce and Shopify both assist store owners with driving sales through built-in and 3rd party marketing capabilities. Their respective strengths differ greatly however.
WooCommerce
Since WooCommerce exists within WordPress, users gain access to the most robust content management and SEO toolsets available. Thousands of free plugins and themes optimize on-page content for search engines while integrated blogging and RSS feed support content creation.
Email marketing requires using 3rd party providers like MailChimp, Constant Contact, or Klaviyo for complex campaigns. But basic customer email automation comes free in WordPress.
WooCommerce’s major advantage lies in leveraging the WordPress ecosystem to power nearly unlimited content marketing possibilities – huge for SEO.
Shopify
While lacking WordPress’s standalone content options, Shopify still helps merchants market their brand through quality themes, blogging tools, and built-in customer engagement options.
Shopify’s native email marketing tools enable beautiful, engaging campaigns while automated and personalized emails nurture customer relationships without external tools needed. Conversion optimization features like social proof notifications and sales countdown timers boost profits.
Where Shopify really falls short is on WordPress’s advanced SEO capabilities. On-page optimizations are decent but control remains limited. Shopify clearly focuses more on guided selling tools over deep content control. Merchants wanting extensive blog and content-focused initiatives may feel too restricted.
Security
Running a secure online business is non-negotiable in today’s landscape of near-constant cyber threats. WooCommerce and Shopify both provide multiple security tools – but once again take differing approaches.
WooCommerce
As an open-source platform built within WordPress, locking down WooCommerce depends heavily on third-party hosting, plugins, and adhering to evolving best practices.
Researching reputable website host providers and properly hardening WordPress forms the foundation. Free and premium plugins like WordFence firewall also protect stores by actively monitoring threats.
Ultimately WooCommerce security requires proactively planning – installing SSL certificates, strong passwords, strict user permissions. While an open platform invites more vulnerabilities, nearly all can be safeguarded using diligent security protocols.
Shopify
Security forms a core part of the Shopify infrastructure. As a closed cloud-based system, the Shopify team handles applying security updates and regularly monitors every store for threats.
Automatic SSL comes built-in along with fraud analysis tools, PCI compliance, and malware detection. Shopify’s centralized security team essentially manages threats on behalf of all its merchants.
The trade-off with added security is no direct filesystem access and limited control over hosting infrastructure. But for most store owners, Shopify’s robust security provisions offer very reliable protection.
Support and Expert Help
Even the most user-friendly platforms will inevitably generate questions and issues that require one-on-one support. Shopify and WooCommerce both offer support channels to help struggling merchants.
WooCommerce
As an open-source platform, no dedicated team provides direct support for general WooCommerce issues. The user community forums serve as the 1st line of assistance where volunteers offer advice to one another.
Finding reliable support typically involves using paid WooExperts developers, signing up for Automattic’s $299/year WooCommerce subscription service, or paying 3rd party WooCommerce plugin developers for assistance when issues relate specifically to their proprietary tools.
This means you must be prepared to pay as you go for WooCommerce support needs – or be very self-reliant and technical – downsides for less experienced merchants.
Shopify
Standard Shopify plans include 24/7 email support and live chat on weekdays. Higher-tier Shopify plans also come with phone assistance. Email response times typically fall under one hour.
Additionally the vibrant Shopify community forums provide tips and peer discussion for when issues fall outside typical tech support. Between official support channels and community guidance, most questions find answers quickly.
Overall Shopify does a tremendous job being readily available for struggling store owners – a huge perk especially for non-technical users. Their support infrastructure handily outclasses WooCommerce’s largely DIY and paid approach.
Summary: Choosing WooCommerce vs Shopify for Ecommerce
We’ve explored the key differences across nearly all aspects of the WooCommerce vs Shopify debate – from core features to support and security. How do you determine which platform emerges as ‘the best’ choice though?
The bottom line: both WooCommerce and Shopify stand as excellent ecommerce solutions. Shopify offers a polished all-in-one user experience that just works. WooCommerce provides incredible design freedom marrying WordPress flexibility with robust commerce capabilities.
Here are a few final recommendations based on common merchant profiles:
Choosing WooCommerce
WooCommerce excels for:
- Seasoned WordPress users wanting a unified site + store
- Developers who value open-source flexibility
- Large complex product catalogs
- Advanced SEO needs and custom content plans
- Those seeking payment processor alternatives
Choosing Shopify
Shopify excels for:
- First-time online sellers wanting quick setup
- Anyone not familiar/comfortable with WordPress
- Selling under 100k SKUs long-term
- Cross-channel selling with brick-and-mortar
- Standalone online brand identity over blogs
Be realistic about your technical abilities, business model, and growth expectations. Weigh the pros, cons, and costs closely across core ecommerce feature needs.
With the right choice between WooCommerce vs Shopify, your custom online store offers immense potential to start and scale a successful long-term retail business.
