Shopify vs. WooCommerce: Know the Best ecommerce Platform

With the recent developments in the commerce industry and the way the pandemic took us closer to ecommerce, many consumers are still working from home and prefer to make purchases online rather than in-store, allowing companies to thrive for growth in ecommerce sales and businesses across the board. 

Getting started with ecommerce is easy if all the details are laid out before, like the best platform, best apps, and marketing tips for a successful business and others. With that, one of the first steps involved in setting up your online business is selecting a platform to build your website. And there are many DIY ecommerce store builders with easily built-in options.

Shopify and WooCommerce are the two leading solutions to help you get started, with each having its own pros and cons. Therein, the important thing as a business owner is to make sure the platform you opt for has everything you need for a successful business.

Whether you want to start with the best dropshipping platform or a platform that provides built-in fraud detection, in this WooCommerce or Shopify guide, we'll show you a detailed comparison of Shopify versus WooCommerce. From breaking down each platform's functionalities to their differences, the comparisons are simplified to ease your decision in choosing the best option for your ecommerce store.

About WooCommerce:

Nearly 40% of websites are built on WordPress, an open-source content management system. The platform's user-friendliness allows creators and entrepreneurs to build their websites, but it lacks basic ecommerce features like listing products, accepting payments, tracking inventory, and fulfilling orders by default. To address that, WooCommerce, a WordPress ecommerce plugin built by Automattic, comes into play.

Packed with its unique features, strengths - WooCommerce is an open-source WordPress plugin that can turn a website into an online store. While the plugin's flexibility allows you to build a fully functioning ecommerce store, it only becomes challenging when you decide to opt for any customizations.

Plus, WooCoomerce being a plugin, questions your ecommerce store's security. You are also likely to add unnecessary cost and complexity to your ecommerce journey, like setting up the hosting and keeping the store PCI compliant.

It is often being criticized for its lack of supporting multiple languages and the ability to set up more than one storefront. The WooCommerce WordPress plugin is an easy-to-use free ecommerce building option.

Key features of WooCommerce:

• Price: Free but requires hosting
• Customer support: via Email, support center, and community forum
• Mobile app features: Creating and processing the products, viewing analytics, and performing report generation.
• Point of sale (POS): Yes
• Website hosting: Third-party selected by you.

About Shopify:

Founded in 2006, Shopify is an ecommerce platform that powers around a million online stores worldwide. It is a hosted web application, which means that it’s Software as a Service (SaaS). With Shopify as your ecommerce platform, you can quickly build and run an online store with all functionalities. The Shopify ecommerce platform takes care from hosting, payment to security.

The in-house solutions to common ecommerce problems, like payment systems (Shopify Payments) and fulfillment networks, set Shopify to be a full-service ecommerce platform that makes a lot of sense and gives enough options for many people.

Innovating to give entrepreneurs endless possibilities to present their brands creatively and grow limitlessly, Shopify offers the option to display video and 3D assets on product pages. The ecommerce platform Shopify also integrates with dropshipping apps, easing your exploration opportunities.

Another attraction of using the Shopify platform is its point of sale (POS) functionality. This built-in functionality will allow you to sell in physical locations yet have an effective ecommerce business using mobile devices.

Key features of Shopify:

• Built-in abandoned cart recovery: Remind your customers about their liked product by sending out emails.
• Multiple Sales Channel - Yes, with Shopify, you can sell on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
• Social media integration- Yes, the Shopify-powered platform allows customers to purchase within the app.
• Cost: Depending on your store requirement, you can choose an appropriate Shopify plan.

Best of all, Shopify supports multiple sales channels and social media integration, letting merchants like you sell everywhere from anywhere. You can integrate multiple dropshippers, sell on eBay, Amazon, Instagram, and Facebook, and better your sales opportunities rather than just having an ecommerce store. The various possibilities offered by the Shopify ecommerce platform allow you to reach a wider audience at no extra cost.

Basic considerations for a ecommerce platform:

Now that you have a brief knowledge of both platforms, below are some of the factors you can consider while selecting Shopify or WooCommerce ecommerce platform for your business.

Budget

offering free doesn't mean it is valuable; look, it is a fully functional ecommerce store even if it costs you little.

Ease of use

The platform you choose should likely offer updated features, easing your build options.

Payment Methods

With updated features, you should have the ability to support multiple payment methods.

Integrations

To grow exponentially, your selected platform should support numerous integration tools.

Scalability

Inclusive of all the above points, the platform should support you in scaling as your business grows.

The above-listed points are basic requirements that you must consider before opting for an ecommerce platform. However, here are some more points that you might need to consider as per your needs:

• Shipping,
• Inventory management,
• Invoicing,
• Taxes,
• Dropshipping

Deep insights on WooCommerce versus Shopify

If you read through the above point, you are more likely to understand that these different platforms are neither the “best” for everything and everyone. It’s all about your specific needs. Both the platforms are about scaling your business along with complexities. And to help you make the right step, here is the breakdown of all the points that will let you pick the right one.

WooCommerce to Shopify Migration with HulkApps Support

Deciding on WooCommerce or Shopify ecommerce platform is not an easy feat. However, we acknowledge that choosing the right platform for your online business is a high priority. Suppose you have started with WooCommerce or are using a different ecommerce platform that is no longer compatible with your online business and wish to migrate to Shopify. In that case, connect with our WooCommerce to Shopify migration experts to have all your product information migrated appropriately to Shopify.

You can go through below to learn about how we support WooCommerce to Shopify migration process. Currently, we are supporting migration for over 50+ carts, including

• Magento to Shopify Migration
• Volusion to Shopify Migration
• Oracle Commerce Cloud to Shopify Migration
• PrestaShop to Shopify Migration
• Salesforce to Shopify Plus Migration
• Django to Shopify Plus Migration

HulkApps WooCommerce to Shopify Migration Approach

1. Define the migration scope: We will migrate the associated data like customer, product, collection, auxiliary pages, historical orders, blogs, articles, discounts, reviews, gift cards, and subscription details based on the migration scope.
2. Data collection: To get started quickly, we collect data from merchants like tool access, database dump access, exported files needed during migration, and finally API access to ease the migration process.
3. Data analysis: In this, we check for rectifications; that is, we evaluate the requirements for all required fields and later modify and set values accordingly. And we do mapping of existing data fields with Shopify fields.
4. Development: With all the data collected, we begin our Project Setup in the migration tool, Project setup as per the migration skeleton, and Custom scripting or modification.
5. Migration: In this almost final step, we turn off Shopify and third-party notification and migrate the data according to the pre-defined migration checklist and later check for 301 redirects.
6. Reports: Once the data is migrated, we look into success, and failure reports to know the migration status and work into those points to avoid data loss during migration.
7. Post migration: We observe and solve all 404 requests in these post-migration steps. We also prepare gap statics and necessary subscription migration sheets in the process.
8. Data reconciliation: It is the final step we do data reconciliation; that is, we configure the customer report, revenue report, product statistics, active subscription reports, and Next month's billing and prepaid reports.

Why should merchants prefer Shopify to WooCommerce?

In this section of Shopify or WooCommerce, we shall learn why Shopify ecommerce should be your preferred choice. Shopify not only helps you get started quickly, it empowers merchants with full control over the Shopify inventory tracking system and others, as listed below.

• Launch and get started on the same day:

  With Shopify taking care of your domain and hosting, you can easily set up and launch your store simultaneously (using the subdomain). In Woocommerce, you might need approximately 72 hours to get started as it requires you to buy a domain and later point it back to the server.

• Built-in fraud detection:

  With competition around, Shopify's built-in fraud detection feature will help you determine risk with the order. WooCommere also offers these features of assessing every order but with an Anti-Fraud extension, which nearly costs around $79 a year.

• Growth opportunities with detailed analytics

  From the dashboard to Shopify app performance, Shopify provides detailed analytical information, such as financial reports, product reports, and many more. WooCommerce ecommerce plugin also includes analytics, but it's only available on version WordPress 5.3+.

• Comprehensive app store

  As said earlier, WooCommerce is a plugin to transform the WordPress platform into a commerce store; therefore, WooCommerce has approximately 575 extensions to support. In comparison, Shopify is explicitly built to make commerce better for everyone, offering about 6,000+ apps for all kinds of ecommerce merchants.

Final thoughts:

Both Shopify and WooCommerce/WordPress are great ecommerce platforms that allow you to scale in the future. Take some time to understand both platforms before starting because migrating can be tedious.

Both platforms have their wins in the battle of Shopify versus WooCommerce; therein, you can finalize your ecommerce platform depending on your business types. Our final suggestion towards WooCommerce versus Shopify is that if your high priority is to build an e-commerce-first, content-second, opt for the Shopify ecommerce platform. If vice-versa, then go for WordPress/WooCommerce.

Always remember that both platforms require additional marketing, customization, configurations, and technical expertise support as commerce evolves to deliver a better customer experience.