Shopify Vs WordPress WooCommerce: Which One to Pick for E-Commerce Store?

Shopify Vs WordPress WooCommerce: Which One to Pick for E-Commerce Store?

According to Statista, worldwide e-commerce retail sales are estimated to surpass USD 6 trillion by 2023. This projection is undoubtedly exciting for entrepreneurs, and to guarantee themselves a fraction of the profits, they’re using e-commerce platforms, such as Shopify and WordPress (WP), to develop online premises. 

While both of these solutions are powerful, they cater to a unique set of requirements, hence the endless “Shopify vs WordPress” debate among users. If you’ve been considering the right solution for your e-commerce store, this comparison article will prove handy in clarifying things concerning these platforms. Below, we comprehensively examine and compare Shopify and WordPress to help you to decide on which one is ideal for your business needs. 

What Is WordPress (and WooCommerce Plugin to Enable E-Commerce)

WP is an open-source content management system (CMS) coded in PHP and paired with MariaDB or MySQL database. It’s available in two variations, namely WordPress.org and WordPress.com. 

WordPress.org is a self-hosted software that anyone can download and install on their web server. With this software, you can develop any website while enjoying access to an array of technically advanced WP features. WordPress.org powers about one-third of internet sites. 

WordPress.com is a hosted software that avails tons of tools for constructing and managing a website. Anyone who uses this solution requires a plugin, e.g., WooCommerce, to access different e-commerce functionalities. 

With that said, what exactly is WooCommerce? It is an open-source e-commerce plugin that is designed for WordPress. After activating it on a newly-developed or existing WP site, you can swiftly start an online premise, completing essential aspects, such as checkout pages, payment channels, shipping preferences, integrations, etc. 

What Is Shopify?

Shopify is a website application (meaning it resides on the cloud) that assists people in creating and launching online premises and retail POS. It’s an all-inclusive e-commerce software that makes it possible to perform essential functions, case in point, processing payments, and organizing inventories without fretting about the technical issues of administering a site, e.g., hosting, site safety, and so forth. Nonetheless, those with coding skills can modify the CSS or HTML of their site according to their preferences. 

Shopify offers people an array of customizable templates to meet the needs of their businesses. Besides that, it enables the vending of either digital or physical provisions. 

Since it is a SaaS solution, users don’t possess this software. Instead, they are billed for use. A Shopify solution can be accessed on any browser provided there’s an internet connection, thus, allowing people to control their ventures regardless of location. Moreover, many applications can be integrated with a Shopify premise for more personalization. 

Shopify Vs WordPress SEO

Search engine optimization is paramount to the operation of any internet-based premise. After all, sites with excellent online visibility have higher traffic, which translates to increased sales.  

Holding everything constant, WordPress is effortlessly the superior platform regarding SEO. For one, it allows you to leverage Yoast, which is among many excellent tools for search engine optimization. With this plugin, you can conduct comprehensive evaluations of your posts to ensure proper online performance. Moreover, Yoast avails a practical guide on how to revamp the quality of your content. 

Moreover, WP shines in SEO because it permits the development of neat URLs. This way, it enhances the visibility of your internet-based premise since Google, the leading search engine favors this URL structure. 

Also, since WP can be accommodated on a server of your preference, you can settle on any swift solution. This way, you don’t have to jeopardize your site’s load speed, which is still an essential factor for SEO. 

With Shopify, you still get access to decent search engine optimization features. Case in point, you can effortlessly use SSL, edit meta descriptions and alt tags, utilize already premade XML sitemaps, automatic redirects, and so forth. Moreover, you can leverage tons of plugins to ensure the visibility of your internet-based premise. 

Shopify’s major drawback concerning SEO is that users cannot make their URLs as neat as they’d want. This platform adds prefixes to the URLs, which Google tends to dislike. 

Shopify Vs WordPress: Blog Features

Blogging is paramount to an internet-based premise. It’s handy in inbound promotion, which helps to boost sales from more engaged visitors. 

While both Shopify and WP have a blogging provision, WordPress effortlessly takes the day. Here are some reasons why:

  • It enables you to preserve an archive of alterations made to various posts; 
  • It makes it possible to utilize classifications and tags in posts;
  • It accepts the formation of content with neat URLs.

All said, WP taking the cake here should not come as a surprise. After all, this tool is known for being an excellent blogging solution all over the globe. 

WordPress Vs Shopify – Which Is Cheaper?

When you are launching an e-commerce store, the cost of the venture is one of the things at the top of your mind, and both WP and Shopify come with some charges. First off, Shopify has three payment packages to select from as follows:

  • Basic: Includes basic features, such as a site and a blog, unlimited products, two staff accounts, 24/7 support, among others. The package is suitable for new online ventures for $29 a month. 
  • Shopify: Includes features from the basic plan plus three additional staff accounts, professional reports, register shifts, 1-5 store locations, and more. It’s an excellent plan for growing businesses and goes for $79 a month. 
  • Advanced: Includes everything on the previous plans plus more advanced features, such as better shipping discount and real-time shipping, advanced reporting, up to fifteen staff accounts, etc. The plan costs $299 a month and is wonderful for huge enterprises and medium businesses that want to scale. 

 

Apart from these three packages, it also has Shopify Lite, which can be used to open a business venture on Facebook, and Shopify Plus created for enterprises handling large volumes. The platform gives a 90-day trial period. New customers can use it at no cost and choose a plan once the period has elapsed. 

WordPress, on the other hand, is designed as a free-to-use software/website builder. But you’ll be required to part with additional costs when you’re developing your website. Some of the charges include hosting fees, WP templates, WP plugins, and training courses (if you don’t know your way around WP). WooCommerce, which is what converts your WordPress site into an e-commerce store, comes at no charge. 

So, which solution is cheaper? WordPress might be less expensive in the beginning. Nonetheless, going by the things you’ll require site (plugins, extensions, themes, etc.) and, of course, the hosting you purchase, and the cost may run into hundreds of dollars. Shopify, though, gives you an all-inclusive package and a fixed payment per month. 

WP is definitely cost-effective for anyone who already owns a WP site, as one only needs to add an electronic commerce component to it with the help of WooCommerce. But if you’re starting at the very beginning, Shopify might be cheaper in the long run. 

Which Is Better – Shopify Vs WordPress for E-Commerce?

Both are outstanding site creators that have grown to be extremely well-liked today. However, to identify the ideal one for your online business, you’ll need to weigh the advantages and limitations of each option based on particular criteria. Here is a table comparing the two solutions:

Criteria Shopify WordPress
Set up Straightforward set up (no programming expertise required) Requires some technical know-how (coding skills are a plus)
Templates & themes Limited high-quality templates and themes Includes a selection of themes, as well as a variety of templates
Hosting Free hosting Doesn’t include hosting fees
Customization Limited to the features offered on the package that you’re on WP and WooCommerce allow users unlimited customization freedom, i.e., adding several plugins for increased functionality or features
Product variations Three product variations (material, size, and color) Unlimited products’ variations
SEO Limited capabilities in terms of SEO Advanced capabilities

 

All that in mind, Shopify is a wonderful option to start for a beginner or anyone who doesn’t have site-building expertise or time required to develop an e-store from scratch. It facilitates the establishment of a decent modern-looking online store in no time and on a fixed budget. WordPress would serve you more effectively if you’ve got a WP website, and you are familiar with basic programming or want to develop an e-commerce store that you may fully personalize to your liking. 

Main Difference

The primary distinction between Shopify and WP is that the former is an e-commerce development and hosting service that provides users with all the tools for developing an e-store and selling products with zero programming capabilities. It also offers free hosting at a fixed monthly or annual fee. 

WordPress, on the other side of the sphere, is an all-in-one open source website software that supports electronic commerce ventures through the addition of the WooCommerce plugin. So, Shopify is built explicitly for online commerce while WP is for developing any website. 

WordPress Vs Shopify – Google Trends 

On Google Trends, Shopify has an average interest of 66/100, while WordPress has an interest of 87/100 in the last 12 months. By April 2020, Shopify had picked at 100/100 and WP at 99/100. From these trends, you can tell that the two solutions continue to grow in popularity among e-commerce businesses. 

WORDPRESS VS SHOPIFY – GOOGLE TRENDS 01WORDPRESS VS SHOPIFY – GOOGLE TRENDS

How Many People Use WordPress and Shopify?

WordPress is arguably the biggest website development solution on the internet. A survey by W3techs discovered that 36% of all sites use WordPress. Also, WP holds 63.3% of the total content management market share. Also, there are 3.8 million WooCommerce powered sites on the web in 2020, according to BuiltWith

As for Shopify, there are about 2.9 million sites powered by it on the web. Still, WooCommerce and Shopify take the first two slots as the biggest electronic commerce platforms with 26% and 21% of the e-stores’ market share, respectively. 

Verdict

Shopify and WordPress (and WooCommerce) are excellent choices for developing e-commerce stores. The decision, therefore, is dictated by your budget, technical expertise, time, and preference. 

If you possess a site that runs on WP or you are interested in unlimited customization leeway, WordPress is definitely the right choice. But if you’re new to the website creation sphere and want a store to be up and running in little time, Shopify can be your best bet. 

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