Shopify vs. WooCom­merce

In this com­par­i­son of Shopify versus WooCom­merce, we take a closer look at two of the most widely used ecommerce systems globally. Which solution offers important features that the rival doesn’t have? What are the strengths and weak­ness­es of the two store concepts? What are the pros and cons when choosing between Shopify or WooCom­merce?

Shopify and WooCom­merce take different ap­proach­es. Shopify is a closed system; its backend cannot be modified by the user. In addition, the ecommerce system, which has been on the market since 2006 and is operated by a Canadian company, is designed as an all-inclusive solution for e-commerce. The package includes all the services required to create and operate a web store.

This includes, among other things, the design and op­er­a­tional concept of a store (through pre-designed themes and templates), security features (e.g. SSL cer­tifi­cates for encrypted data trans­mis­sion) and the required technical in­fra­struc­ture for web hosting (via Shopify Cloud). Despite the all-in concept, Shopify can be extended with plugins from the Shopify App Store. Shopify is not free. The lowest tariff with the most important basic functions of the store system costs $29.

The Shopify al­ter­na­tive WooCom­merce, on the other hand, is a free ecommerce system that can be in­te­grat­ed into WordPress as a plugin. The open source software WordPress was orig­i­nal­ly designed primarily for the creation of blogs, but can be extended via plugins to function as a full-fledged content man­age­ment system (CMS). This means it can also be expanded to a pro­fes­sion­al store system.

Unlike Shopify, WooCom­merce, which is con­sid­ered the most widely used WordPress ecommerce plugin, is not an all-inclusive store system. Users have to be much more proactive in creating and main­tain­ing their web shop. However, they benefit from a large community and countless ex­ten­sions.

Our detailed Shopify versus WooCom­merce com­par­i­son below discusses the sim­i­lar­i­ties, special features and dif­fer­ences of the two ecommerce platforms. It also explains the strengths and weak­ness­es of Shopify or WooCom­merce when selling online.

Generally, both systems are con­sid­ered beginner friendly. WooCom­merce is par­tic­u­lar­ly suitable for more ex­pe­ri­enced WordPress users who have already worked with the CMS and know their way around the software. Total beginners will be left having to find a suitable web hosting provider because online shops can be rather demanding on the web space that’s required. Novices would also need to set up WordPress and fa­mil­iar­ize them­selves with the CMS, its functions and modular structure. In­stal­la­tion of the WooCom­merce plugin is rel­a­tive­ly quick and easy.

Shopify, on the other hand, is quick to learn and easy to use for all user groups. The main hurdles involve choosing the right package for your shop. You can test Shopify free for 14 days. After the trial phase, you select a so-called template or theme (i.e. the basic layout for the ap­pear­ance of your web shop) and can start designing the online offer.

To detail the in­di­vid­ual functions of each package would go beyond the scope of our Shopify versus WooCom­merce com­par­i­son. Suffice to say that both systems provide all the necessary basic functions to launch a web store and support the ERP (en­ter­prise resource planning) and mer­chan­dise man­age­ment systems functions that are important for online retailing. The dif­fer­ences are down to in­di­vid­ual features and the cost of special functions.

Both platforms enable mul­ti­chan­nel selling, i.e. over Amazon, eBay, Instagram, and Facebook. However, WooCom­merce users have to pay extra to be able to sell on some platforms (store in­te­gra­tion on Facebook is free of charge). A special feature is the recovery of the shopping cart after an aborted purchase during checkout. Shopify lets you send emails to customers au­to­mat­i­cal­ly to remind them of an abandoned cart. This may lead to them returning and finishing their purchase. WooCom­merce does not offer this feature in its basic version, but it can be retro­fit­ted via plugins.

Pursuing a content marketing strategy or using a blog to com­mu­ni­cate with customers and improve search engine op­ti­miza­tion (SEO)? Then the pos­si­bil­i­ties are greater with WooCom­merce. The ecommerce system exploits the advantage of its in­te­gra­tion with WordPress. With Shopify you can also integrate a blog into the website, but the options for content man­age­ment are not as com­pre­hen­sive as with WooCom­merce.

Shopify and WooCom­merce are both flexible and can be extended. With Shopify, you gain access to over 2,000 apps and tools that offer optimal flex­i­bil­i­ty and ex­pand­abil­i­ty according to your needs. WooCom­merce can also be adapted to suit in­di­vid­ual needs by adding free plugins and ex­ten­sions for extra functions.

Both providers offer free and paid themes. However, Shopify limits the number of free store layouts to 10. WooCom­merce provides sig­nif­i­cant­ly more themes for free. And the selection is even more extensive than Shopify’s when factoring in paid WooCom­merce themes. Shopify templates tend to look a bit more pro­fes­sion­al and mature.

If you’re not satisfied with the selection of themes and features, you can add your own or com­mis­sion a designer to optimize the backend code. WooCom­merce offers more extensive pos­si­bil­i­ties to customize a store system, if only because of the un­der­ly­ing open source concept.

A crucial aspect in comparing Shopify versus WooCom­merce are the payment options for customers. The good news: Both systems support common payment methods. The Shopify Payments service bundles several payment providers (e.g. Stripe, Apple Pay, and Google Pay) and accepts all major credit cards (e.g. Visa, American Express). All payments are secured. Shopify Payments is PCI-compliant and supports 3D Secure Checkouts for secure card payments on the web.

Since Shopify Payments is tightly in­te­grat­ed into the store system (managed via the Shopify admin panel), real-time mon­i­tor­ing of payments across providers is possible. So you don't have to leave Shopify, payments can be monitored largely from within the system. Charge­back fees may become due for certain cases and sometimes the account is frozen while booking errors or in­con­sis­ten­cies are being checked. In addition to Shopify Payments, third-party payment gateways can be used (e.g., PayPal).

WooCom­merce scores points because of its wide support of payment providers. Payments via credit card, Stripe, and PayPal are possible. You can configure the payment methods from the settings menu in the plugin. It is possible to add PayPal Pro which is a paid extension for WooCom­merce that lets you use PayPal with a better checkout ex­pe­ri­ence and allows consumers to check out without leaving your website. Square and Authorize.net are ad­di­tion­al payment gateways for WooCom­merce stores.

Whether Shopify or WooCom­merce, both e-commerce platforms are known for their pro­fes­sion­al search engine op­ti­miza­tion. WooCom­merce users have access to numerous SEO apps to optimize their stores for search engines. A well-known and proven SEO tool for WooCom­merce is Yoast SEO, which is used by website owners worldwide; it is not re­strict­ed to WooCom­merce stores or WordPress. The basic version is free of charge but there are ad­di­tion­al charges to use the premium version. One other benefit of WooCom­merce is that you can find numerous tutorials for search engine op­ti­miza­tion online. Even beginners can quickly fa­mil­iar­ize them­selves with the topic.

In addition to basic functions suf­fi­cient for solid SEO, Shopify offers a range of spe­cial­ized apps to improve the SEO of your web store (e.g. the SEO Booster). However, the range of ad­di­tion­al tools is not quite as extensive as that of WooCom­merce. One important factor for an optimized Google ranking is the load time of a website, also known as the page speed in search engine marketing. Shopify boasts fast loading times as part of its all-inclusive package. When searching for a suitable hosting partner for your WooCom­merce store, it’s worth going for a provider that can deliver a high-per­for­mance in­fra­struc­ture. Check out online user ex­pe­ri­ences with web space providers and cloud service to be sure.

Shopify’s basic package is often crit­i­cized for its lacking support for mul­ti­lin­gual­ism. To launch your Shopify store in­ter­na­tion­al­ly and offer support for multiple language, you’ll be relying on separate plugins. Spe­cial­ist trans­la­tion ex­ten­sions like Langify are rec­om­mend­ed. But they incur an extra charge of around $17.50 a month and come with one serious dis­ad­van­tage. From an SEO point of view, swapping to a second language using JavaScript in the frontend is not desirable because it doesn’t help with boosting Google ranking. In­di­vid­ual store products may be harder to find when searching for them online using a search engine.

Another weakness in lo­cal­iza­tion is the user ex­pe­ri­ence when shopping online. For example, US customers visiting a German web shop may view the product prices in dollars, but during checkout encounter the final price in euros (the store's base currency tends to be used at checkout). In the worst case scenario, irritated customers may cancel their purchases and demand greater trans­paren­cy over prices. Less common cur­ren­cies like the Iranian Rial are currently not supported by Shopify at all. However, there are solutions. For example, you could run multiple parallel stores for specific target countries. Shopify Plus lets you manage 10 stores from a single account.

When it comes to trans­la­tion tools, WooCom­merce scores well because it allows the so­phis­ti­cat­ed WPML plugin to be in­te­grat­ed, which enables extensive search engine op­ti­miza­tion for mul­ti­lin­gual pages. You control the design of URLs, can set SEO meta data for trans­la­tions, and sitemaps are built in a manner that ensures Google Webmaster val­i­da­tion. The eCommerce version of the plugin costs $79 and an account renewal adds $59 over sub­se­quent years. Should you not find a suitable solution for your store, there are plenty of al­ter­na­tives to WPML, such as Mul­ti­lin­gual­Press, Weglot, and Trans­latePress - all of which are premium plugins.

At first glance, there seems to be a clear winner in our Shopify versus WooCom­merce com­par­i­son when it comes to pricing. After all, the open source plugin is free and in­te­grates plenty of useful basic eCommerce features at no ad­di­tion­al charge. But keep in mind that Shopify offers a feature-rich all-inclusive solution. Its rates are trans­par­ent and while in­di­vid­ual ex­ten­sions may incur follow-up costs, expenses are fairly easy to estimate and budget for.

With WooCom­merce, many services are free, but web hosting and pro­fes­sion­al ex­ten­sions, some of which are in­dis­pens­able, incur extra charges (some are not cheap either). Expenses such as domain fees, design, branding, marketing, and ad­ver­tis­ing charges can put a strain on the wallet. These added expenses for running an online store suc­cess­ful­ly aren’t unique to WooCom­merce and will also apply to those running a Shopify store.

Ir­re­spec­tive of the platform you choose, don’t forget that in-house de­vel­op­ments and adap­ta­tions may be required down the line (for example, ad­di­tion­al design charges to find a suitable theme). You may need to make changes in the future due to scaling of your Shopify or WooCom­merce store, which will likely generate follow-up costs.

Con­sid­er­ing follow-up costs, new store owners should think carefully about what they require now and possibly in the future. Since WooCom­merce is a fairly open system, offering a (tempting) selection of ex­ten­sions, WordPress users should plan thor­ough­ly and with foresight. It’s worth taking into account that when choosing a paid plugin, you can sometimes get it wrong and waste money on an in­te­gra­tion you don’t really need.

Also keep in mind that time is an important factor for cal­cu­lat­ing costs. If you invest too much time and energy in the tech­nol­o­gy of an ecommerce platform (WooCom­merce is par­tic­u­lar­ly time-intensive), sales and the objective of creating a solid pro­mo­tion­al strategy for your store (including SEO, content marketing, social media ac­tiv­i­ties, etc.) may suffer. And what may appear easy to handle by yourself at the start, may soon become daunting and harder to delegate at a later stage.

Various factors can put a strain on the budget. That's why it’s hard to give a general answer as to whether Shopify or WooCom­merce is the more cost-effective store system in the long run. Shopify charges include tariffs and trans­ac­tion fees, while WooCom­merce may incur hidden extra charges to cover ex­ten­sions.

In terms of main­te­nance, Shopify plays to its strengths as a SaaS solution (Software as Service solution). A Shopify web store is stored in the cloud. Hosting, main­te­nance, and security measures are taken care of by the system provider. Support is provided but is re­strict­ed to a single provider and clearly defined contact persons.

WooCom­merce is con­sid­ered a more time-intensive ecommerce platform when it comes to main­te­nance, support, and security. That’s because of its dis­tinct­ly modular character. You’ll be keeping an eye on the entire package, plugins, and ex­ten­sions and maintain various security and software updates. In return, however, you gain access to com­pre­hen­sive setting and control options – an advantage for store owners who prefer to be re­spon­si­ble for the main­te­nance and security of their online stores.

Spe­cial­ist security updates are par­tic­u­lar­ly important for WooCom­merce, because WordPress is a common target of hackers due to its pop­u­lar­i­ty. In­di­vid­ual modules are not exactly well-co­or­di­nat­ed which could be viewed as another dis­ad­van­tage when it comes to security, support, and main­te­nance. In addition, security problems, conflicts, and mal­func­tions can occur between modules from different man­u­fac­tur­ers. In case of de­struc­tive bugs, you may need to reach out to several contacts or be left waiting for an update. However, special plugins help to reduce the security risks as­so­ci­at­ed with a WordPress account.

When running a WooCom­merce store, ad­di­tion­al main­te­nance efforts and security issues can also arise from the fact that an extension is no longer being developed. Shopify customers may well ex­pe­ri­ence something similar, but added software is the exception rather than the rule with an all-in-one solution. Main­te­nance and security issues due to dis­con­tin­ued plugins are rare.

WooCom­merce users in par­tic­u­lar are well advised to carefully compile their plugin portfolio in terms of security, support, and main­te­nance. Proven tools that have been on the market for a long time, are ac­com­pa­nied by an active user forum, and provide broad support are preferred. A stricter selection also sim­pli­fies the operation of the web store and increases the ef­fi­cien­cy of sales ac­tiv­i­ties.