WooCommerce vs Shopify

WooCommerce and Shopify are two of the most popular eCommerce platforms. Did you know Shopify gives support to more than 800,000 online stores? While WooCommerce is affirming to be the best open-source and customizable eCommerce platform built on WordPress, Shopify also has great features and utilities. 

So which e-commerce giant is the right option for you?

WooCommerce is an eCommerce platform that converts a WordPress website into a robust online store. As it is an open-source platform, you can install it for free. If you want to save money, go for WooCommerce development though you need to spend on security and hosting. When you use WooCommerce, you can build a customized and big online store if you are a coding expert or hire one.

Shopify is a reliable, user-friendly, and robust eCommerce platform that offers beautiful templates and excellent customer support. When you use Shopify, you need to pay a monthly premium.

Keep reading to learn the pros and cons of both  WooCommerce and Shopify, followed by their comparisons depending on various factors so you can understand the right option suited to your business.

WooCommerce – Pros

• Unlimited customization – As it is an open-source platform, you can implement coding to customize your online store the way you want.
• Scalability – The flexibility of WooCommerce helps you to fulfill all your demands.
• High value for money – It is free to install. Moreover, the extensions are available at an affordable price that helps you to add functionality to your online store at a reasonable cost.

WooCommerce – Cons

Not starter-friendly – As a beginner, you find it challenging to use WooCommerce. You need to have some coding knowledge or hire a dedicated developer from us; otherwise, you will struggle to build the online store on this platform.

Shopify – Pros

• Hosted software – Shopify offers security and hosting. Moreover, you don’t need to use coding to build an excellent online store.
• Multichannel integration – A built-in feature enables you to sell on other channels such as Facebook, Amazon, Pinterest, and eBay.
• 24/7 Support – The around-the-clock support helps you solve your issues anytime to increase sales figures and satisfy customers.

Shopify – Cons

• Transaction fees – Shopify is the only ecommerce platform that enforces its transactional fee unless you use its gateway, Shopify Payments.
• Costly apps – When you use apps, you end up paying a high annual bill.

WooCommerce vs Shopify – Which is Better?

Here is a detailed comparison of WooCommerce vs. Shopify, depending on various factors.

Usability

WooCommerce has a steeper learning curve than Shopify. Testing shows that Shopify is much easier to use than WooCommerce for a regular user. Many people use Shopify to build a far cleaner website than they thought they could to highlight their products.

Shopify is an eCommerce platform that helps you manage many technical aspects when operating your online store. It covers everything from your domain name to hosting (your website’s online location) and any security (SSL) certificate.

When you use Shopify, you don’t need to install, update or manage any software. So, you also don’t need to think about backups or security.

On the contrary, you need to quickly source your website security and web hosting to support your WooCommerce store. Our dedicated WooCommerce plans offer user-friendly features such as auto-installation, backups, SSL certificate, and domain name.

Many hosting providers charge new customers starting at only $5 per month (usually $13.99).

The Answer

WooCommerce is a more technical e-commerce platform that demands a certain level of expertise for usage or interest in learning. In contrast, Shopify is more user-friendly than WooCommerce. Anyone can easily access Shopify, and you don’t need to know coding to make the most of it. Use Shopify if you want to use an eCommerce platform that you can use easily throughout.

Ensure you choose a robust builder for your eCommerce website!

Development Duration

Do you want to build a feature-rich and robust online store quickly? Are you ready to devote more time to get more control of development? With Shopify, you can make your online store live quicker than WooCommerce. If you are a beginner or have limited technical expertise, Shopify can be the right choice.

Making your online store “live” is relatively easier and quicker these days. You can set up your eCommerce website yourself and give the desired look and feel by selecting and editing themes. As Shopify stores all required components together in a place, you don’t need to set up an online store with WordPress manually.

WooCommerce is effective for business owners who don’t aim for quick massive sales. Building an online store with WooCommerce demands more creativity than with Shopify. With an ample amount of creative control, you can build your desired website yourself.

WooCommerce setup wizard covers the primary features but doesn’t offer anything advanced. It expects a high level of technical expertise from users. You may need to manage tasks yourself at times.

If you are a beginner as an online seller and want to increase your brand presence quickly, go for Shopify. It is a platform that combines advanced eCommerce features with speedy development.

The Answer

Shopify is user-friendly with integrated salient features and themes that you need to fill with content. The Shopify development time is faster than WooCommerce if you set up an online store from scratch.

Themes and Design

Your website appearance matters a lot in the online world. With both WooCommerce and Shopify stylish themes, you can give your eCommerce website a professional look and feel.

The looks of your WooCommerce website depend on your level of technical expertise and working hours. There is no limit when you create new WooCommerce themes. Woocommerce themes are easy to design from scratch. For instance, In WooCommerce, there are 1000s of premium-specific eCommerce themes to scrutinize.

WooCommerce offers a broad collection of themes, while Shopify offers a curated selection. The latter have taken time to choose the themes suited to your online store.

Shopify theme store contains more than 70 free and paid themes. If you add variations, the total count may cross 100. As Shopify is a dedicated eCommerce platform, they offer very polished themes and an easy selling process.

Premium themes prices start from $140. Though it seems expensive, you invest this amount once to build your online store. Paid themes help you generate higher revenues.

If you have a tight budget, you can buy and use many free themes.WooCommerce’s entry theme, Storefront, comes with a fresh and clean framework and fully responsive mobile devices.

Selecting an excellent theme is an essential part of the selection between WooCommerce and Shopify. You should also know how to customize a theme as and when required.

The Answer

When it comes to themes, WooCommerce vs. Shopify comparison is a bit confusing as both offer various themes suited to online store owner needs. WooCommerce allows countless customization, but its themes are not easy to use for beginners. Shopify offers more polished and sleeker themes than those of WooCommerce. Use coding to customize your Shopify themes as you wish.

Take a look at some of the finest WooCommerce and Shopify themes for eCommerce websites.

The Best WooCommerce Themes to Use for Your Online Store

Here are some of the best WooCommerce themes that you can use for your eCommerce website:

Astra

Astra is a free and clean WordPress theme supported by WooCommerce that offers flexible customization options. It has an advanced homepage design with multiple widget-equipped areas to drag and drop widgets quickly.

This WooCommerce theme supports all page builder plugins that help in building custom WordPress page designs. It is pretty easy to set up this theme as a beginner. As it’s designed for SEO, your website can rank high in Google and other search engines.

Extra

Extra is a flexible WordPress theme activated by Divi Builder, a well-known drag and drop. This theme offers over 800 pre-built designs that help you to build your website fast.

With this theme, you can easily change fonts, colors, header, and page layouts without CSS coding knowledge. Use Extra to design stunning store layouts and work smoothly with WooCommerce. As it is fully responsive, it would look good on all devices and their screens.

Shoppe

The Shoppe is an easily customizable WooCommerce WordPress theme for eCommerce, lifestyle, and fashion websites. It offers a robust and fast product search, wishlist, shopping cart, product image zoom, and quick look.

With Shoppe, you get numerous styling and layout options that you can use easily. It comes with the Themify Builder that allows you to build custom layouts.

OceanWP

OceanWP is a free and robust WordPress WooCommerce theme. It comes with premium features in the free associated plugin. You get various options in the live customizer to choose colors, backgrounds, styles, headers, navigation menus, and integrated templates to build custom landing pages.

This WooCommerce plugin is compatible with drag and drop builder plugins such as Elementor and Visual Composer.

Neve

Neve is a powerful, feature-rich, and fast-loading WooCommerce theme that you can use to build your eCommerce website. This theme supports premium page builders like Beaver Builder to customize your online store.

It is AMP compatible,mobile-ready, and supports RTL languages. As Neve is translation-ready, you can use it with the WPML plugin.

Digital Pro

Digital Pro is a tremendous Woocommerce theme that is optimized for WordPress performance and speed. It comes with premium-designed templates for WooCommerce stores, page templates, customizable header, and three widget areas.

It offers WordPress live customer support and a custom theme options page that helps you to set up this theme.

Ultra

Ultra is a multipurpose and flexible theme with beautiful designs. It includes many pre-built website layouts that you can install with a single click.

With this eCommerce plugin, you can replace the content with your own. It consists of contact forms, pricing tables, photo galleries, multiple header styles, and more.

Shoptimizer

Shoptimizer is an advanced WooCommerce theme. It comes with several features to optimize conversions, including faster checkout, product details, requesting callbacks, FOMO timers on product pages, and many more.

This WooCommerce theme consists of a mega menu, catchy page templates, and a speedy product search feature. It is user-friendly, with theme settings accessible in the WordPress customizer.

Hugo

Hugo is a fully compatible WooCommerce theme that you can use for your online store. It consists of an attractive home page design featuring an image slider.

This WooCommerce theme comes with custom widgets for social media, content discovery facilities, contact information, and various color schemes for buttons, fonts, and backgrounds.

Hotel

Hotel is the perfect WooCommerce theme for the hotel and hospitality industries. The modern homepage design comes with a big header image, call-to-action button, and welcome message. You can easily set up this WooCommerce plugin to include bookable products such as rooms and amenities.

The key features of this WooCommerce plugin are widget-ready points, sidebars, background, and custom header.

Neto

Neto is a great WooCommerce theme that consists of a stunning homepage design and storefront with a featured product slider on the top. It offers various shortcodes, custom widgets, and techniques to build layouts for your online store.

This WooCommerce theme supports custom logo upload and endless color options.

Presence

Presence is a powerful theme suited to be used by online retailers and store owners. It comes with a variety of pre-built websites that you can install and modify easily.

This WooCommerce theme offers six color schemes, two slider styles, boxed and full-width designs, multi-blog page designs, and more. It also comes with testimonials, custom widgets, social icons, and events calendar integration.

The Best Shopify Themes to Use for Your Online Store

Here is a list of Shopify themes you can use for your eCommerce website:

Unero

Unero is a clean, minimalistic, and mobile-optimized Shopify theme available on ThemeForest. Use this theme to attract different types of shoppers.

As Unero has upgraded swatches for product information, you gain more control over how you share these details with target buyers.

Elomus Shop

Elomus Shop is a single product Shopify theme that helps you to sell all kinds of products. It consists of over 15 pre-built websites – each one customized using a drag and drop builder.

With Elomus Shop, you get to use features such as multiple currencies, product color swatches, and Ajax layered navigation.

Eva – Responsive eCommerce Shopify Sections Theme

Eva is a responsive and customizable eCommerce Shopify section theme. It comes with eight pre-built home page templates.

This Shopify theme offers a drag and drops page builder to create a diverse selection of possible themes. The unique checkout feature simplifies the online shopping process for buyers on your eCommerce website.

Roxxe – Responsive Multipurpose Shopify Theme

Since its inception in May 2020, Shopify has been one of the top and user-friendly themes on ThemeForest.

With a responsive design, this Shopify Theme loads very fast. Its key features are – mega menu, collection page, single click demo importer, and simple integration with Exit Intent Popup, Trust Hero, and Email Collection Bar.

Porto

Porto is a responsive Shopify theme with clean lines that you can transform to various online stores.

Before using it, check out the look of the available demos to get an idea about how they could suit your online store.

Avone

Avone is a multipurpose Shopify theme that is perfect for adding clarity and improving the quality of your eCommerce website. The design process is focused on user experience, and the home page gives complete control.

Avone is a clean and feature-rich Shopify theme; it allows shoppers to browse and shop with simplicity. You can choose the right from a wide variety of demos suited to your online store.

Kalles

Kalles is a clean, responsive, and multipurpose theme that suits any type of eCommerce website. It consists of a mega-menu, an advanced filter module that allows customers to sort products per price, color, and size.

This Shopify theme has a responsive mobile design, integrated customization options, a catchy lookbook, and several other features.

Zeexo

Zeexo is a multipurpose and clean eCommerce template exclusively designed for professional eCommerce websites. It consists of over 60 home, product, and store pages. The endless color options help you create a Shopify storefront that suits your brand.

This Shopify theme is mobile-optimized and responsive, ensuring users can smoothly access your eCommerce website across all devices. You can deliver your users an excellent viewing experience when they shop on your Shopify eCommerce website. 

Yanka

Yanka is a multipurpose Shopify theme with minimum design. This theme displays your online store beautifully across all mobile devices and screen sizes. When you use this theme for your online store, it looks far more attractive.

The key features of Yanka are – mega menus, multiple filters, responsive design, Instagram shop, and right-to-left support.

Wokiee 

Wokiee is a multipurpose Shopify theme that helps you to build your desired eCommerce website design.

If you want to create a unique Shopify store, choose Wokiee with no second thoughts, as it is one of the best themes you get in the marketplace.

Basel

Basel is a multipurpose and responsive eCommerce Shopify theme. It offers an aesthetic storefront for various eCommerce businesses such as – electronics, food, beverages, and fashion.

The customization options help you customize cod schemes, drag, drop page builder and upload your logo. Basel is compatible with the Nitro Apps range, including Product Lookbook, Product Bundle, Nitro Live Coupon, Cartify, Stockify, and Fontify.

Shella

Shella is a perfect Shopify theme to give a great start to online store development. This Shopify theme offers features such as – MegaMenu builder, a banner builder, and an advanced filter.

After talking about the WooCommerce vs. Shopify themes, let’s discuss the WooCommerce plugins and Shopify apps you can use for your online store.

The Best WooCommerce Plugins

Your WooCommerce online store usually needs high-quality plugins and customer support to stand out.

Here are the best WooCommerce plugins you can use:

WooCommerce PDF Invoices and Packing Slips

WooCommerce PDF Invoices and Packing Slips are perfect for different types of businesses. This plugin helps you automatically attach PDF invoices to specific emails. You get the option to create and print packing slips individually or in bulk. The main plugin is available for free, but you need to pay for the Pro version.

Benefits:

• Once you install it, you can print out PDF invoices and packing slips for your present and previous orders. As this plugin allows using multiple languages, people across the world can use it.
• You get additional features in the Pro version to send packing slips directly to printers, connect to Dropbox and use premium templates.
• If you have a B2B online store, choose WooCommerce PDF Invoices and Packing Slips, as you can easily send invoices to clients. It also helps if you ship your products without using a third-party fulfillment center.

YITH WooCommerce Wishlist

YITH WooCommerce Wishlist is similar to the “Favorites” list that you can find on several major online stores like Amazon. This plugin allows customers to check back in and look for favorite products they intend to buy later. It increases your sales and builds a better interface for customers.

Though the core plugin is free, you can use extra features for $89.99.

Benefits:

• YITH WooCommerce Wishlist gives the capability to boost sales per checkout. It offers gift lists for different events. Customers can share wishlists on social media platforms.
• This plugin shows an ‘Add to Wish list” button on specific places on your website. You can customize the wishlist formatting, several columns, and display products on the page.
• You don’t need a “wishlist” feature for your new online store or a site with only a few products. YITH WooCommerce Wishlist can be a great choice if you are a reputable brand with a massive customer base.

Custom Product Tabs for WooCommerce

Custom Product Tabs for WooCommerce is a plugin that clears your product pages with close tabs. You can name tabs with information such as descriptions, reviews, and specifications.

The tabs you add to your online store support different types of content such as – text, images, videos, and visual elements. You can manage tabs in the standard WordPress editor custom coding. The core plugin is available for free with an optional upgrade for $29.99.

Benefits:

• The quick installation helps to add and edit tabs to product pages. The plugin compatible with WPML to translate in the future enables you to save specific support tabs from pasting your other product pages.
• If required, you can export product tabs, making your pages easily readable and frees up space to store vital information.

Beeketing for WooCommerce

Beeketing for WooCommerce is one of the best all-inclusive WooCommerce marketing tools. This plugin consists of over ten features, including tools for cart abandonment, boost email marketing, and online sales. You get options for up-selling, cross-selling, email capturing, and loyalty programs.

The primary plugin is available for free to download and install. Some library extensions are free, but the more advanced extensions range from $8 to $49 every month.

Benefits:

• Beeketing for WooCommerce comes with a whole set of products. It offers cross-selling and up-selling opportunities. With this plugin, you get discounts and coupons at any point in the checkout process.
• Select from templates for emails and abandoned cart popups. This plugin offers options for welcome emails, drip campaigns, and Facebook Messenger support.
• Marketing is crucial for every ecommerce website. So, if you want something more like a suite than separate plugins, check if Beeketing for WooCommerce works for you.

WooCommerce Customizer

WooCommerce Customizer increases the number of WooCommerce customizable settings. They are already available in WooCommerce, but you need to customize code to make them work. Thus, use this WooCommerce Customizer plugin to finish those tasks efficiently with visual settings.

Benefits:

• As a WooCommerce website owner, you should test out this WooCommerce Customizer plugin. It eases the customization of small components like the Create Account button. Some themes may do these customizations on your behalf.
• The plugin is available for free. Most of the extensions are free, but you need to pay for advanced extensions.

PickPlugins Product Slider for WooCommerce

The PickPlugins Product Slider for WooCommerce plugin solves an issue that you discover after launching your online store. This plugin can be the right choice if you like a product slider on your home page or other web pages. It is perfect to recommend products inside your blog posts as you can frequently write posts related to your products and send users directly to your online store.

The free plugin offers most of the required features. Download the premium version for $29. You get to use approximately 30 themes and other designs, such as the top-rated and recently viewed products.

Benefits:

• You can add product sliders to all pages and posts of your choice. From font sizes to item categories to text alignments to custom ratings, you can customize everything.
• The animations and customizations are far more impressive than pre-built WordPress themes. Choose this plugin if your theme doesn’t have a product slider or function/look the way you want.

WooCommerce Multilingual

The WooCommerce Multilingual plugin merges the leading plugins with WooCommerce to deliver an excellent experience and change the language of your website.

Benefits:

• It merges with WooCommerce and popular extensions such as Tab Manager, Subscriptions, and Bookings. This plugin immediately changes your text into your preferred language.
• You can complete transactions on everything on your website – home page, products, and collections. With a click, you can change currencies.
• Choose WooCommerce Multilingual if you have plans or already sell to countries with various languages.

Booster for WooCommerce

Booster for WooCommerce comes with an exciting features’ collection, including currencies, international discounts, bulk price conversion, and tools to let your customers offer their pricing.

You get extra features for payment gateways such as products and checkout. It’s great to test it out before purchasing a premium plugin that solves one problem.

The main plugin is available for free, while Boosts Plus is available for $49.99.

Benefits:

• The Booster for WooCommerce plugin allows an advanced online experience without requiring a new theme or several plugins. Change price labels and buttons with free price labels, custom price labels, and more button labels.
• The Booster for WooCommerce plugin allows an advanced online experience without requiring a new theme or several plugins. Change price labels and buttons with free price labels, custom price labels, and more button labels.
• Look at the complete list of Booster for WooCommerce’s full list of additional features. It is impossible to cover the long list of features in a single short blurb, replacing the requirement for other themes or plugins.

EU VAT Compliance Assistant for WooCommerce

The EU VAT Compliance Assistant for WooCommerce is a niche tool for those running business in the EU. Value Added Tax(VAT) is a fee required for EU sales, including digital products such as audio sales and ebooks. Thus, you may see that you need to include VAT into your costs.

Some main plugins are available for free. The price of the premium version starts at $50.

Benefits:

• EU VAT Compliance Assistant automatically changes your website pricing to add EU VAT charges. The additional charges are recorded if you audit it and add accounting fees.
• VAT rates differ in every country. Thus, the plugin attempts to calculate rates. You can type in custom VAT costs if required. Advanced reporting helps you to break down costs and buying behaviors when VAT is applied.
• If your customers are mainly located in the EU, you need an EU VAT Compliance Assistant. It is also a great option if you would like to combat the chance of selling a product to customers in the EU.

Checkout Field Editor

The Checkout Field Editor plugin helps to add, edit and delete custom fields in your checkout department. This plugin merges directly with WooCommerce and converts your checkout module into something more versatile.

Custom fields are crucial for different types of businesses, mainly B2B companies with regular custom orders.

The main plugin is available for free. You can upgrade to use more features for $39.

The premium version offers some excellent new themes with a list of other fields such as checkboxes, file uploads, and numbers.

Benefits:

• The plugin makes checkout module customization easy. It offers new field items that help to add options such as types, labels, and classes. Editing is possible without coding knowledge. So, you can change standard shipping and billing fields.
• The core version with field types (email, text areas, selections, etc.) is free.
• You can place fields in various areas of the checkout process the way you want. With a single click, you can enable and disable fields. Use the drag-and-drop interface to adjust the order of your new and current fields.
• You don’t need a Checkout Field Editor if the WooCommerce checkout works for ecommerce businesses. Some online stores require adding new fields like a B2B store that asks for complete details on every order.

WooCommerce Menu Cart

The WooCommerce Menu Cart plugin functions well with several eCommerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, complete, and WP-eCommerce. It helps to add a “shopping cart” button in your core navigational menu.

As most themes are compatible with WooCommerce, you need to add some aspects like the “shopping cart” icon using this plugin.

WooCommerce Menu Cart has a free version. The premium version is available starting at $27 that offers extra cart icons, cart flyouts, and other elements. This plugin converts “on-WooCommerce” themes into totally functional online stores as the shopping cart icon is crucial to push sales and remind customers about their carts.

Benefits:

• You can add a “shopping cart” icon or only the products and prices. Settings are available to float the cart icon to various areas of the navigation menu.
• Custom CSS helps you to do advanced edits easily. The Pro Version offers an excellent list of automated updates, flyouts, and more cart icons.
• Choose the WooCommerce Menu Cart plugin if your current WordPress theme doesn’t have cart icons. When you don’t want to sell products through your website, opt for this theme as you don’t need any ecommerce element.

YITH WooCommerce Compare

If you sell products whose features can be directly compared side-by-side, choose YITH WooCommerce Compare. You install this plugin, set the features you want to compare for every item, and add the “Compare” button, which your customers can click.

You can use the YITH WooCommerce Compare Plugin for free. Upgrade to the YITH Premium Club to access all YITH plugins and premium support starting at $63.99.

Benefits:

• You can add a quick feature to offer a better experience to shoppers. As the plugin gets installed in seconds, you can position the Compare button anywhere.
• A popup appears in a comparison module that doesn’t take shoppers away from the current page. Instead, customers see clean table comparisons, and then they return to shopping.
• Shoppers can include items in their carts directly from the comparison pages. Use simple settings such as table title, button text, access, and product image size to adjust items.
• If your products have the same features that demand side-by-side comparison, choose the YITH WooCommerce Compare plugin. Products with standardized features such as electronics, appliances, and jewelry will show in such ways.
• Use the YITH WooCommerce Compare plugin if you lack a comparison tool to display the products you sell on your ecommerce website.

The Best Shopify Apps to Enhance Your Ecommerce Website

When it comes to enhancing the functionalities of your eCommerce website, you can use a variety of Shopify Apps. You also get the right app to include customer reviews, boost email marketing, advertise your products on social media, and get analytics insight. 

Here is a list of the best Shopify apps to use for your online store:

Oberlo

If you need a product to sell or a small business concept, Oberlo can give you a supplier. With this app, you can search an online marketplace with available products to directly import into your Shopify store.

Once you receive an order, you can deliver it via your dropshipping supplier, who will ship the products to customers on your behalf. As Oberlo ships the products to customers, you don’t need to worry about product packaging or shipping.

Offset

Choose Offset if you want to neutralize shipping emissions that lead to climate change. It is a Shopify app that estimates the total generated emissions by your delivered order which becomes offset.

Its cost is usually low,i.e., a few cents per order, and payment goes to forest protection measures. Offset comes with a dashboard where you can see the environmental effect like protected trees and share the statistics with customers.

Shopify Email

Shopify Email is an excellent marketing app to build an email list and manage campaigns. With this app, you can send branded emails to subscribers via the Shopify admin dashboard in a few clicks.

The app has various pre-built templates that extract your logo, descriptions, product images and other elements from your online store. You can also customize the buttons and text in minutes.

ReConvert Upsell and Cross-sell

To increase your average order value and cart size, upsell and cross-sell to your customers. ReConvert Upsell and Cross-sell helps you build a “Thank You” page, i.e., an “order confirmation” page that converts new customers into repeat customers.

This plugin allows you to customize a landing page with a drag-and-drop builder and access features such as personalized recommendations, countdown timers, reorder buttons, and post-purchase surveys. Such customization helps you automatically re-engage customers who bought in your online store.

Better Replay

Better Replay allows live recordings of buyers’ sessions that help you to see people’s interaction with your Shopify store and the products they look at. This information helps you identify and fix where shoppers are stuck and assess new ideas to boost conversions and reduce abandoned carts in your online store.

This Shopify app is 100% free and records approximately 5000 sessions every month. You don’t need to know coding to access this app.

Advoz

Do you need help to improve your social media advertising? Use Advoz, a free Shopify app. When you install this app, you get access to a certified advertising professional who can create customized ads for Google, Facebook and Instagram.

With this Shopify app, you can create a high-quality audience to generate leads to your online store. You only need to pay for a weekly advertising budget, create a Facebook business account and add a product catalog to help support your support profile.

Jebbit

With Jebbit, you can create quizzes to engage with customers. Shoppable quizzes help customers find the products suited to their interests in your online store. Such quizzes help you to boost conversions and sales. You can easily create surveys, personality quizzes, product match quizzes, and lead generation forms.

It comes with a visual builder that enables you to map out and create excellent experiences. The omnichannel distribution and no-code design components help you meet customers at shopping places and give personalized product recommendations that boost sales.

Friendly Accessibility

Online shopping differs from one shopper to another as they use different devices and make different decisions. Some may find it tough to use a mouse or read text, while others may have color-blindness. The Friendly Accessibility app enables you to build an online store that anyone can access.

You can simply change settings such as text size, readable fonts, contrasts, and more to help any shopper navigate easily. When you use this free Shopify app, you can enable your desired features to change your online store.

Fancy FAQ

FAQ pages are a medium to deliver a positive customer experience in your online store. They get instant answers to common questions and clear doubts. Fancy FAQ helps you create search-friendly and attractive FAQ pages for your website to build trust among shoppers and convince them to make a purchase.

PayWhirl

Use PayWhirl to build, manage and sell subscriptions via Shopify’s native checkout. Customers can create their accounts, check their billing history and adjust their payment plans at any time.

With PayWhirl, customers can add new payment mechanisms and information related to their subscriptions without contacting your support team.

Tip Quik

If you want to make your customers and employees happy, choose Tip Quik, as it gives the option to add a tip for employees before checkout. With this Shopify app, you can design a customized pop-up and install the snippet on your checkout page.

Every employee gets happier with more income, and every customer gets the chance to express gratitude. Thus, Tip Quik creates a win-win situation for both employees and customers.

Promo.com

Promo.com is a free Shopify app that helps you build product videos that boost sales for your online store. You need to give the slightest effort to make videos.

Choose the kind of video and product to promote. With Promo.com, you can pull all previous images and videos on your website to make a promotional video for your business.

Sales Features

When it comes to selling products via your online store, both WooCommerce and Shopify have many offerings. They offer you the features that you need to build a robust online store. The integrated features’ benefits of both platforms differ from each other.

Here are some of the sales features:

Multichannel Selling

WooCommerce and Shopify allow you to sell products on multiple channels – eBay, Amazon, Facebook, and Instagram. To use WooCommerce, you need to pay $79 to install all features, except When you choose Shopify, you don’t need to spend anything to integrate your online store with these channels. 

Abandoned Cart Recovery

Shopify includes a standard feature that WooCommerce doesn’t – abandoned cart recovery. It is an essential feature as it helps customers finish a canceling order without filling in their details again.

The customer receives a brief email reminder asking them to complete the sale. The abandoned cart option helps to win back your potential customers. This feature won’t let you lose your sales prospects.

Shipping

When you offer an easy and smooth shipping experience to customers, it boosts your brand image. WooCommerce and Shopify enable you to offer shipping and sales globally.

Shopify has partnerships with UPS, USPS, DHL Express, and Canada Post, saving time and efforts for courier sourcing. It offers far more advanced in-built eCommerce tools.

Once you sign up with Basic Shopify, you get impressive selling features including:

• Discount codes
• Unlimited products
• Abandoned cart recovery
• Website and blog
• More than 100 payment options

Shopify’s most fantastic shipping features cost you money to install from WooCommerce Extensions Store. For example, accepted payments from Authorize.net. Shopify offers you all the tools required to run an already built-in eCommerce business.

The key WooCommerce features include the following things:

• Built-in blogging
• One-click refund from customers
• Facility to include products and checkout to a broader variety of online store pages
• Unlimited customization that allows users to edit anything from the homepages to the “Buy” button.

Both WooCommerce and Shopify meet the merchants’ selling requirements. As the Shopify features are integrated, they are ready to use the moment users sign-up. WooCommerce’s power lies in its plugins, but it comes with certain excellent features to upscale your online store.

The Answer

WooCommerce offers great features but not “Abandoned Cart Recovery.” As Shopify comes with in-built features and user-friendly features, it is more accessible than WooCommerce. Features like Abandoned Cart Recovery are crucial for the success of your business. Shopify has cutting-edge sales tools that can take your business to the next level!

Plugins and Integrations

When you install plugins and integrations, it enables you to add more elements to your eCommerce website. You can install apps to add more functionality in all business areas, including SEO, marketing, and shipping on WooCommerce and Shopify. These platforms offer a wide variety of app choices.

WooCommerce is an open-source platform that depends mainly on plugins. You can choose from more than 50,000 options that allow you to build a custom website with the most fantastic features.

When it comes to installing plugins and integrations on your online store, WooCommerce has everything to offer!

Shopify comes with more than 1200 free and paid apps that you can trust. As a first-time user, you tend to feel confused when deciding which app to install, check customer reviews and star ratings.

The Answer

If you want to succeed in the app department, you should choose WooCommerce over Shopify. As the former is the minor open-source software, it depends on plugins for most of the features. Thus, WooCommerce is such a popular platform to include plugins and integrations to an online store.

Marketing Tools

To achieve maximum success in your business, you need to know how to grow it steadily. With the implementation of advanced marketing tools, you can grow and expand your business rampantly and even connect to maximum customers. You need to choose the marketing tool that allows you to spread your message loudly and without restrictions.

Here are the marketing tools offered by both WooCommerce and Shopify:

Email Marketing

WooCommerce depends on plugins for email campaign features and offers MailChimp integration that helps you send customized emails easily. When you use Shopify, you can conduct various email campaigns using the most appropriate apps.

Social Media Integrations

Shopify supports multichannel selling; it enables you to integrate your online store with eBay, Amazon, Facebook, and Pinterest. You can even advertise your online store via such channels. Multichannel selling exposes your business to a broader audience base without any investment.

WooCommerce enables you to integrate your online store with eBay, Amazon, and Instagram for $79. But you can also promote your eCommerce website on Facebook for free.

The Answer

Shopify is better than WooCommerce in offering marketing tools. The former offers an excellent selection of marketing features like multichannel selling to expose your brand to millions of target social media users. On the contrary, WooCommerce depends heavily on plugins for its marketing tools.

Payment Gateways and Transaction Fees

When selling your products online, you need to add gateways for your customers to pay for what you sell. WooCommerce and Shopify offer you more than 100 payment gateway options. These payment gateways are either in-built or added later via integrations.

Here are the critical payment gateways:

• PayPal
• Apple Pay

• Stripe
• Square
• Debit and credit cards

The transaction fees differ from one payment gateway to another. Check the differences before choosing an eCommerce platform. For instance, Shopify charges 2% per transaction when you use a third-party gateway.

Upgrade to a more advanced Shopify plan to reduce this transaction charge. You can even get rid of it totally by using Shopify Payments, the company’s option.

One of the enormous benefits of WooCommerce is that(unlike Shopify), it does not charge its transaction fees when using a third-party payment gateway,i.e., non-WooCommerce payments.

Bank charges still apply with WooCommerce, like charges from a payment provider like PayPal. If you sell a massive volume of products, WooCommerce can be a better option. It can be a great choice if you want to select your merchant account. In case you use Shopify Payments, it can be a big difference.

The Answer

Regarding payment gateways and transaction fees, WooCommerce is a better option than Shopify, as the former doesn’t charge transaction fees. If you use Shopify Payments, you will have to pay a surplus on Shopify. It gives an edge to WooCommerce, a more suitable option for online stores selling in volume.WooCommerce supports more payment options.

Search Engine Optimization(SEO)

SEO is a crucial element for the success of any type of website. When you work on SEO, your online store gets displayed at the top of SERPs and attracts maximum target customers. When shoppers type in keywords related to your products/services, they find your eCommerce website easily.

Both WooCommerce and Shopify are suitable for the SEO purpose of your website. They are good eCommerce platforms, and thus, they ensure their products display in front of the right customers.

WooCommerce is built with search engine optimized code integrated with WordPress and its vast collection of SEO plugins. You can make the most of them and include detailed meta titles and descriptions to your web pages that tell Google what they are all about.

You can find some SEO features such as customizing URLs to help search engine users discover your web pages quickly and detailed SEO guides/instructions throughout the entire development process. Both WooCommerce and Shopify offer apps and integrations to enhance your online store. 

Yoast, the WordPress comprehensive SEO plugin, is user-friendly and offers excellent support, like hiring your SEO expert. Moreover, WooCommerce offers more SEO plugin options than Shopify. The latter offers a variety of SEO plugins in its App Store. SEO Booster, the free plugin, scans your online store to identify and fix issues that deteriorate the performance.

With Shopify, you can easily include basic SEO information in your online store. Add meta titles and descriptions to your images, products, and web pages.

The Answer

When you use WooCommerce, you get access to a variety of great SEO plugins. Moreover, it offers valuable SEO guides and instructions. Shopify does not have many SEO apps to offer that may get limited in the long run.

Security

Every website, mainly eCommerce, needs optimum security as you can quickly process most minor customers’ payments and handle their personal information. With Shopify, you can take complete care of your online store as it is a hosted eCommerce platform. It effectively handles security breaches and ensures your website is safe from hackers.

On the contrary, WooCommerce works with WordPress and, thus, is self-hosted. The simple plugin doesn’t consist of integrated security. So, you need to handle any security by yourself or the hosting provider.

SSL Certificate

The complete form of SSL is Secure Sockets Layer. You can protect your website’s personal information with an SSL certificate as cyber attackers cannot misuse your data. Shopify consists of integrated SSL that you can see in a mini padlock icon beside the handling process in your URL.

Here are the key benefits of having an SSL certificate:

• Security during the customers’ payment and personal information processing
• Boost your online store SEO as Google gives preference to websites with SSL
• Allow customers to know your website is safe to browse and increase your sales

WooCommerce doesn’t come with its SSL. Since it is an element of WordPress that is an open-source platform, it is responsible for sourcing your SSL certificate. Most people would do this task via their hosting provider as they provide a free SSL certificate when you sign up for a hosting plan like Bluehost.

PCI-DSS Compliance

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) sounds quite complicated. It means that your eCommerce website is built to accept credit card payments aligned with legal rules and regulations.

As Shopify is fully PCI-DSS compliant, you do not need to initially set up anything and start processing debit and credit card payments.

WooCommerce is not automatically PCI-DSS compliant. You can make it compliant by following these steps:

• Select a secure and trusted hosting provider, mainly one that claims and dedicatedly promotes PCI compliance. Shared and cheap hosts are unlikely to do these things.
• Implement security measures when setting passwords and restricting access to your server.
• Don’t store credit card information anywhere.
• Use hosting providers and SSL to add security to the checkout process.
• Add minimum installed plugins. Compliance comprises all installed software which includes plugins and WordPress.
• Upgrade your plugins to make sure the latest security fixes are done.
• When working with your payment processor, use an ASV (Approved Scanning Vendor) to scan your website and detect issues. Fix them immediately until the scan.

The Answer

As Shopify is a hosted platform, it takes care of your eCommerce website security. The platform is PCI-DSS compliant and comes with an SSL certificate. You will need to source SSL and work for PCI-DSS compliance yourself.

Customer Support

Shopify offers 24/7 customer support via phone calls, email, and live chat. This eCommerce platform offers a community forum, setup wizard, and user guides.

When you use Bluehost to boost your WooCommerce store, it gives you access to their excellent customer support. You get to enjoy 24/7 phone and live chat support facilities and an extensive knowledge center filled with gainful information.

With WooCommerce, you can directly submit tickets for general support and go through various setup guides that initially help you build an impeccable online store. It has extensive help resources, mainly when combined with Bluehost support.

The Answer

WooCommerce(Bluehost powered) offers excellent 24/7 support and ample helpful guides. Shopify offers excellent support, but it can’t match the level of WooCommerce and Blue host offerings.

Pricing

Shopify has fixed pricing, whereas WooCommerce is more flexible. The Shopify price starts from $29 and goes up to $299 per month. Once you upgrade, you get more advanced features like professional reports.

WooCommerce is free. It comes with additional costs, including security, domain name, and hosting.

Shopify fixed pricing plans allow you to track your investment easily. On the contrary, WooCommerce is open-source software that enables free installation. Though, you need to pay for hosting($35 to $50/month), domain($10 to $20/year), security(free to $200/year) and extension fees(free to $100/month). These fees are included in the Shopify plan.

Take a look at the comparisons between Shopify and WooCommerce:

Shopify

• Basic ($29/month)
• Normal ($79/month)
• Advanced ($299/month)

WooCommerce(powered by Bluehost)

• Starter($13.99/month)
• Plus($17.99/month)
• Pro ($31.99/month)

Shopify offers a 14-days free trial, while Blue host offers a 30-days money-back guarantee if you are not fully satisfied. Both WooCommerce and Shopify offer enterprise-level price plans that are only available via quotes and only suited for businesses as big as enterprises.

WooCommerce is ahead of Shopify regarding value for money depending on features such as transaction fees, software installation costs, and price plans.

The Answer

WooCommerce is better than Shopify in terms of pricing. The former is free to use, and its extensions cost only $39(on average) each. But Shopify offers fixed pricing plans and more expensive applications.

WooCommerce Online Store Development

WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin that you can install after you set up WordPress on your domain. The initial step needs to be a hosting platform.

Search for a trustworthy provider that specializes in WooCommerce and WordPress hosting. Instead, consider buying managed WordPress hosting because of its optimized website performance.

Hosts such as DreamHost and SiteGround offer WooCommerce-centric packages that are pretty installed with WordPress and WooCommerce. However, many providers will probably give you a cPanel account and a single-click WordPress installer.

To set up WordPress, click on the installer app, and your system will deal with the rest automatically. The entire process of WordPress installation and launching on your domain takes a few seconds.

When you log into your WordPress account, you can integrate WooCommerce from your dashboard’s plugins section. Search for the WooCommerce plugin and then proceed with installation and activation processes.

WooCommerce launches a wizard the moment it gets activated to assist you with the online store development process. Access it and specify online store elements, including website pages, product features, and payment mechanisms.

Once you follow these techniques, you will have a complete eCommerce website with its associated product pages. The complete setup process, including online store customization with a compatible page builder, takes you approximately one day.

Shopify Online Store Development

As Shopify offers a complete package, you can start afresh and gradually move forward. Firstly, you need to sign up by entering your credentials. Besides your email address, it will ask for your online store name before moving ahead with the registration procedure. There is no complication about entering your personal information; it takes one to two minutes to complete the registration.

Once you sign up, Shopify instantly directs you to the most exciting part of its dashboard, i.e., designing your eCommerce website. The first stop needs to be Shopify’s theme library. It presents a collection of approximately 100 pre-built website themes spanning all the business sections.

It’s pretty easy to find the perfect theme for your Shopify online store. The free and premium themes are clean, beautiful, and modern. Shopify allows you to use its visual drag-and-drop website builder to customize the design elements. It’s created, so it offers all the required flexibility to revamp your online store without compromising its simplicity.

The amount of time you spend on eCommerce website development depends on its size and customization level. For instance, a basic storefront takes approximately 5 to 10 minutes to define all the elements.

Then comes the final stage of adding products to your eCommerce website via Shopify’s dashboard. Visit the products page, enter your products, specify their relevant properties and then save them.

So, you need to do all these things to build an eCommerce website on the Shopify platform. Though 14 minutes are sufficient to build a basic storefront, dedicate an hour if you want to customize its framework properly.

Which Option to Choose – WooCommerce or Shopify?

Shopify and WooCommerce are both powerful platforms to start your eCommerce store. It truly comes down to your skills and preferences.

Shopify is a lot easier to use. It doesn’t require you to install anything, and you can get started quickly. Setting up payments is more accessible, and they have easy-to-understand pricing plans.

The disadvantage of Shopify is that you don’t have complete control over everything. Your costs can go high with transaction fees, add-ons, and integrations. Your upgrade options are limited to select plans, and you cannot manage costs on a pay-as-you-grow basis.

WooCommerce is open source and gives you complete control of your website. It costs a lot to start an online store with WooCommerce, especially with these WooCommerce hosting companies.

The disadvantage is that you’ll have to maintain the software. It comes with a bit of a learning curve. However, millions of beginners are already using it, and they get over the learning phase relatively quickly.

If you are looking for a cost-effective solution and want complete control of your online store, WooCommerce is the best platform. If you want something hassle-free with infinite scalability, then Shopify is the better platform for you.

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