The Battle Between WooCommerce vs Shopify

WooCommerce vs Shopify: a long standing debate on which site has more to offer, and more importantly, which is a better fit for your business. Ecommerce platforms are taking over the internet and there has been a long-standing debate on which ecommerce platform is better. It is our job to help navigate you through the options and present to you the better fit for you and your business. Ecommerce stores offer more than just products, but services and loyalty. Customers want to feel wanted, valued, appreciated especially if they’ll be buying plans yearly long.

This article will give you a step-by-step approach to help you know more about the leading ecommerce platforms (WooCommerce vs Shopify), and which fit is best for you – whether it be a hosted platform or a self managed ecommerce site. We believe that in this battle between WooCommerce vs Shopify, WooCommerce is the winning player.

The Most Popular ecommerce Platform World-wide 

When we look into opening a business online, we turn our focus to ecommerce Businesses. Ecommerce is the buying and selling of products through the Internet or the Web. It is also any other medium or exchange that is occurring on the world wide web. WordPress, an Ecommerce platform, is considered to be one of the most popular sources to create your own website or blog.

With over 43.3%, WordPress powers most of the websites on the world wide web, or as we call it today, the Internet! A Content Management System, is a software assisting users in creating, managing and editing content without any technical knowledge. This allows us to look at the end result that WordPress creates which is an easy, accessible website. If you’d like to read more about WordPress hosting, read our blog on the Ultimate Guide to WordPress Hosting.

What to look for in your Ecommerce Platform

When starting an online business, it is important to keep factors in mind that will help in deciding which ecommerce platform is the best suited for your business needs and goals. Basic requirements to an all online store may vary lightly, however, you may need to look at options that cater to shipping, payment gateways, inventory management, invoicing, taxes, drop-shipping, etc. Some of the things to keep in mind fall below:

Budget 

When deciding on an ecommerce store, the initial cost of starting matters. One needs to keep in mind that there will be a budgeting set as a starting price, editor and an ecommerce priced plan afterwards. 

Ease of use 

The ease of use dictates how easy an ecommerce platform will be to use, design, and take lead after the hosting provider has set up all you need to begin your online business store. A central usability concept comprises all user experience (UX) elements, the central being Ease of use.

Through ease of use, therefore, a friendly user experience, business owners can drastically reduce the amount of resources needed. With reduced need for resources, in turn saving time and money as a business.

With an easy to use site, users can access and navigate your online business guaranteeing you consistent and committed customers. With loyal customers and, soon, traffic, your sales will be boosting!

Payment Methods 

Payment methods indicate whether the billing would be done online, with multiple options, or even through the use of credit cards. The best way to approach and set up your customers through payment methods is to offer every option to prevent your customers from backing out during checkout. By having payment options, even ones that are not locally used, customers are able to make payments Internationally, and increase sales. 

Integration 

Integration involves the number of services and third party tools used to integrate to your ecommerce business. This could be in the form of plugins. Customers are able to purchase plugins from the WordPress Store to continuously elevate their business, as well as their task management. 

Scalability 

Scalability is the capacity to be changed in size or scale, and as your online business begins to grow, it is important that your system is able to increase in performance and cost, as a response to changes in the systems processing demands. When we think of user experience and scalability, it is important to focus on creating uniformity throughout the systems.

If the base design is thought out in detail, it allows us a chance to win over customers, no matter the traffic, and get more income!

WooCommerce

WooCommerce sites is a popular ecommerce platform powered by WordPress. WooCommerce allows its users to create an online store and sell products or services. As of October 2022, the WooCommerce plugins powered over 4 million businesses, making it one of the most widely used ecommerce platforms on the internet. 

WooCommerce Hosting 

We understand the trouble that comes with starting your online business, we also understand the importance of having a server, ready to use, that doesn’t require knowing the nitty-gritty. GuruDesk offers web hosting services dedicated to WooCommerce hosting, alongside other hosting packages. Check our WooCommerce Hosting 101, to read more about what you need to know before choosing a provider. WooCommerce Hosting is specifically designed to offer support, as well as functionality for business owners to be able to develop their online shop without the hassle of site design and development expertise.

With the ability to selectively, uniquely customize your ecommerce business, WooCommerce offers hundreds, no thousands of plugins and themes to make your business all the more you.  Now let’s delve into the battle between WooCommerce vs Shopify!

Shopify 

Aside from WooCommerce, comes a runner up: Shopify. An all-in-one ecommerce platform that assists in building an online store, Shopify allows its clients to sell in multiple places such as in person, web and across all social media platforms. On Shopify, there’s no need to worry about technical aspects that range from web hosting, security, caching, etc. Shopify stores offer multiple different apps that can be downloaded to elevate your ecommerce store.

WooCommerce vs Shopify 

Our goal in this ‘Battle of WooCommerce vs Shopify’ article is to give you an in-depth look at WooCommerce vs Shopify and to assess the best fit for your needs. With the general requirements set forth and mentioning both, the advantages and disadvantages, we hope to present to you, the reasons why WooCommerce is the best fitted ecommerce website for you and why GuruDesk is the suited hosting provider for you!

Which is Cheaper: WooCommerce vs Shopify

Subscription 

WooCommerce requires a first subscription fee, however, does not require monthly fee subscriptions. 

Shopify expects business owners to pay a monthly fee subscription for one of three packages, basic shopify, shopify and advanced shopify plan.

Budget

Value for your Money – Free to Install, reasonably priced extensions found on WooCommerce online stores or WordPress store that assist in adding greater value and functionality for your ecommerce business at a low cost.

Costly apps – adding shopify apps will increasing your shopify pricing yearly expenses.

Which is Easier: WooCommerce vs Shopify

Ease of Use

WooCommerce is considered to be not beginner-friendly, however, if you have a hosting provider, similar to GuruDesk to, building the online store of your dreams won’t take much time.

Shopify has a hosted software – which includes hosting and security, no need to build an online store.

Build Time 

Hosting Providers are able to install and assist you through a managed hosting service. However, through regular ecommerce hosting, clients are able to install and design according to your desire! 

All features present and ready, therefore, having your store ready and live. 

Customization (Plugins and Integration)

As an open-source platform, WooCommerce was designed to have plugins and extensions known as WooCommerce plugin or WordPress plugin. Its Plugins Directory boasts over 59,000 options, payed as well as free plugins. 

Shopify offers over 3,200 applications, which is nowhere near the size or quality of WooCommerce.

Which has Better Payment Gateways: WooCommerce vs Shopify

Payment Options 

Making it better value for money, WooCommerce has no transaction fees for third-party gateway payments. 

If you use Shopify Payments, chances are you’ll have a transaction fee. 

Which is More SEO Friendly: WooCommerce vs Shopify

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 

WooCommerce has code-optimized for SEO, in addition has a lot of great plugins and guides that assist you in becoming an SEO pro. Not to mention, WooCommerce is considered to be the more SEO friendly CMS!

Shopify has decent SEO features, incomparable to the wealthiness acclaimed by WooCommerce. 

Which is the Better Customer Support Representative: WooCommerce vs Shopify

Customer Support 

With a 24/7 live chat and phone customer service support, WooCommerce has the best customer support tested, with an expansive knowledge center. GuruDesk offers live customer support to be able to assist in whatever minor question or concern one may have.

Shopify users will be able to speak to customer support 24/7 in order to have their issues resolved, keeping customers and sales figures happy.

Which is More Protected: WooCommerce vs Shopify

Security 

Hosting Providers offer SSL Certificates for free. WooCommerce works with all popular payment gateways in the world, and they offer PCI-DSS.

Shopify features include SSL Certificate and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), which are security standards compliant by default. 

WooCommerce vs Shopify – In-Depth

Subscription & Budget

Cost is more often than not, the most important aspect for an ecommerce business owner. Evaluating the cost of your options before getting started allows you to know and keep in mind the costs of plugins and other software and services. 

WooCommerce: When starting out we understand the toll it’ll take on your finances: that is why when we compare WooCommerce vs Shopify, we stand with the fact that you will earn back what you payed for. With a wide range of free plugin and add-ons, as well as paid. This therefore, cuts down the cost making it more budget friendly. Did we mention that you can use your WordPress plugin on your WooCommerce site?

Shopify: Including SSL Certificate and Web Hosting, Shopify offers three plans. The basic plan, which does not offer third-party add-ons, and prevents your online business from going to the next step. This would demand you purchase the Shopify Plan or even the Advanced Shopify plan every month. 

Ease of Use 

Starting an online business should not require you to be fully equipped with web designer and developer knowledge. Having basic concepts will allow you to navigate both the mentioned sites, yet there’s some advantages that stand forth more than others. 

WooCommerce: Installing the WooCommerce plugin would be easier through a managed hosting service. You would be able to manage updates, store backups, and ensure that your website is safe and secure. Another added bonus is the 59,000 plugins, free and paid, that can automate most of your tasks. 

Shopify: Shopify skips the aspect of design and offers you ready made designs and themes. You are able to customize, however, limiting your control since you are only able to use the design and development tools offered as shopify themes, on the shopify store. 

Build Time 

Which platform offers you more freedom in creating an ecommerce site that is more meaningful, unique and different? Build time refers to the design aspect and how one platform offers it as opposed to the other one. 

WooCommerce: As WooCommerce includes WordPress installations and asks for its users to best download plugins and themes that closely relate to their work or tasks. WooCommerce holds more of a creative approach that demands control, yet allows for the site to be truly yours. 

Shopify: Shopify will more likely have your store live faster. At the cost of that, you will not be able to reflect the essence of your brand, and your brand identity will be determined by Shopify’s pre-existing themes.

Customization 

One thing about ecommerce platforms: you will always need third-party tools to grow your online business. Those come in the form of email marketing software, analytical tools and more. 

WooCommerce: As an open source, WordPress plugins offer more than 59,000 free and paid plugins to assist in building and improving your ecommerce business store. There are a lot more integrations and add-ons available for WooCommerce, due to the lower barrier of entry. In the battle between WooCommerce vs Shopify, this makes WooCommerce a lot easier to customize than Shopify. 

Shopify: There are both free and paid apps offered in Shopify’s app store. Free apps have their own pricing since they are created through third-party services, paid add-ons often need monthly subscriptions and vary from one app to another.  

Payment Options

It’s important that the platform offers multiple or different payment options to best suit all customers, local or international.

WooCommerce: Supporting all popular payment service providers, WooCommerce payments allows for payment integrations for Amazon Pay, Square, credit and debit cards and more, as well as the default payment methods such as PayPal and Stripe. 

Shopify: Shopify offers its own payment solution, Shopify Payments, as well as third-party payment gateways, which charges 2% fees for each transaction made. This transaction on top of the transaction fees charged by the payment gateway make it a lengthy bill.

Search Engine Optimization 

It is important for a website to be able to climb the search engine rankings. 

WooCommerce: With efficient SEO plugins, guides and prompts, WooCommerce offers a wide range of resources to ensure your site makes it high in Google’s search results.Through codes optimized for SEO, one is able to dig deep and add meta descriptions into Google, to simplify the process of users finding your page. 

Shopify: Shopify offers the addition of basic SEO information to one’s store. Through the apps visible on Shopify store, clients can download SEO Booster that helps scan your online store and fix problems. 

Customer Support 

Both being easy to use, WooCommerce vs Shopify offer and handle support issues seriously. 

WooCommerce: There are TONS of support options that you can use when needed. With extensive tutorials and guides, clients would be able to help themselves out. We must not forget about customer support teams offering 24/7 chat support, which offer help to users and experts. 

Shopify: Shopify users are able to contact customer support 24/7 through multiple of different mediums, as well as it offers tutorials and guides on how to best offer clients the chance to fix things on their own. 

Security 

It is important that every website includes high-level security. This is especially important when customers process their confidential information such as personal information or payment processes. 

WooCommerce: With a Hosting Provider such as GuruDesk, SSL Certificate is offered once purchasing your hosting plan. You are also eligible to make your WooCommerce site, PCI-DSS Compliant – Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) which is accepting credit card payments within legal regulations. 

Shopify: Shopify comes with built in SSL certificate, which helps in processing your customers’ personal information and payments. Shopify is also PCI-DSS Compliant. 

Why WooCommerce 

With its user-friendly and easy to use adaptability, WooCommerce makes a great choice for businesses, whether local or corporate. Offering more than 55,000 plugins and customizable options (WordPress plugin too!), tailoring and designing your store to best suit you has never been easier. WooCommerce humbles itself in offering a unique experience to businesses that allows for a form of individuality among the sea of options. 

Customization

Think of it like editing your profile, you present to your viewers the best seeming qualities. Similarly, it is important to optimize your site and design it to what best fits your business. At the end of the day, it should be a reflection of what your brand portrays. When building your ecommerce site, it is important to pay great attention to the little things. From visuals, to color schemes, to good design, customers pay a great deal to feel connected. Understanding how the human brain works, more so in regards to how people buy, could potentially contribute to how successful your online store is. A big chunk of your online business lies in the psychological aspect. 

WordPress Integration

With a seamless integration to WordPress, WooCommerce allows for an easily managed online store, as well as a website, that transfers content from one platform to another without the hassle of managing both separately. With high Scalability in addition to plugins and extensions, you are able to add that much more functionality to your store. Did we mention that you could add WordPress Plugins, too?! 

WordPress or WooCommerce?

Well, we first ask you to find a suitable host, such as GuruDesk, to help you establish the foundation of your store. Second of all, we need to explain the fact that WooCommerce acts like an extension of WordPress. It takes an already rich website and transforms it into an ecommerce site, ready to use.

Optimized Caching 

To improve your WordPress’s site or WooCommerce’s site, allows for an accelerated site speed and performance. This helps reduce the load on your server. By having GuruDesk as your hosting provider, you are able to have a built-in optimization, able to detect and exclude dynamic pages from our caching solution, leading to a more functioning site, with speed and performance. 

Database Optimization 

With WooCommerce vs Shopify extensions running on WordPress, content will be stored within the database. Content can be product data, which is pricing, descriptions, stock quantities, status, product variations and more, customer details, as well as their purchasing and order history. GuruDesk will be able to continuously take into account and offer solutions that optimize your storage needs, avoiding heavy database queries that may come into  use if customers heavily depend on searches to find what they’re looking for. 

Server Reliability

Server Reliability is especially important for ecommerce sites. Hosting providers need to ensure uptime in order not to lose any potential customers. It’s a crucial factor to consider when choosing a web hosting service, as a website with a high uptime will be more reliable and provide a better user experience for visitors. At GuruDesk, we offer 99.9% uptime to prevent you and your business from losing any customers, or even future potential customers. 

Hosting Support 

Hosting support lightly translates to a medical assistant, within the technical world. If customer service takes more than 20 to 30 minutes to respond, chances are customers are already leaving your site, in search of another to fulfill their needs. At GuruDesk, our main priority is assisting our clientele in all things technical to offer a smooth sailing site, fit for every online business. 

Security & SSL Certificate

It is vital that when working with confidential information, data to be stored and secured. Your hosting provider offers around the clock server hardening and security-boosting options (firewalls, malware scans) to prevent you from having any form of hacking. SSL Certificate validates ownership of your domain that branches out into security and encryption perspectives to secure user data, as well as online payments and more. It somewhat like having that much more peace of mind when building and maintaining your online store. 

The Psychology of Design 

Now, we understand that Shopify offers an easier approach by having per-existing themes offered to you as an option in a sea of choices. Yet, with WooCommerce vs Shopify, having your hand in the design offers a greater approach in how you sell what your customer needs. We can call them WooCommerce themes, but the only difference is, you get to design the theme to your liking!

We’ve given you a breakdown as to why customization is an important factor to consider when choosing your ecommerce platform, and now we are going to give you a summarized version into how showcasing your brand identity through the use of design and psychology play out into generating a larger audience and, therefore, more income! 

People & Images

The Psychology of Web Design to be exact, has to do with many factors. Think of including images and videos with faces. People’s attention is more likely to shift and respond to faces. People connect on another level when other people are involved, more so than just a company. A company without people feels distant. However, a company showcasing the founders, team, or even customers offers a connection that goes far along. Make sure your WooCommerce vs Shopify store showcases you and your team to help win the customers that feel more connected to you.

Color Scheme 

The Psychology of Color plays a vital role in web design, by creating a strong brand, boosting sales and leading visitors to specific pages or actions. Did you know that people formulate an opinion about a product within 90 seconds? Better yet, did you know that 90% of that decision solely relies on color? You can increase your brand recognition by 80% if you take the time to focus on the right colors. Just a hint of advice, avoid overcrowding your website and make sure that the color of choice works well with your brand. Here’s a little example, blue aligns well for healthcare and legal websites, while red and orange are suitable for entertainment and food websites.

Credibility 

Visual design is vital in a business of ecommerce platform. Your customers are not only clicking on your site to buy your product, but to buy you as a brand. Factors such as images and videos all the way to the small things, such as colors, fonts and the correct usage of grammar and spelling are vital in order to sell the site, as a whole. Consider the following with designing your ecommerce business with WooCommerce: 

• Avoid spelling and grammatical errors since it is associated with unprofessionalism. 
• Avoid hard-to-use fonts. The easier to read, the better. 
• Avoid Clutter. Focus on the content that portrays your brand and calls to action. White spaces are known to improve and help focus on important information.
• Avoid inconsistencies. Keep your style going throughout the site to help your audience, or customers, believe that they’re in the right place, and that your brand is worth remembering. 

Why choose GuruDesk Hosting for your ecommerce Business

We understand the hassle of building and that’s why we strongly believe GuruDesk is able to assist you on your online business journey. WooCommerce vs Shopify is considered to be one of the most popular ecommerce sites, which Shopify falls after. Unlike Shopify, WooCommerce stands true to being one of the top ecommerce sites.

As your hosting providers, we believe that with GuruDesk, you can focus on your ecommerce store without worrying about security, user experience, plugins, server reliability, dropshipping business, hosting support and more. We handle all the technicality on your hosting account. All we need is your visions and goals, and we’ll help you sail off to where your heart desires.