If you’re thinking about setting up an ecommerce website, there’s a good chance you’ll have come across both WooCommerce and Shopify, two of the most popular platforms available for selling products online. Both allow businesses to create online shops, manage products, process payments and fulfil orders, but they take rather different approaches to how websites are built and maintained. Having worked with various ecommerce systems over the years, I think both have their advantages, although choosing the wrong one for your particular business could result in a considerable amount of unnecessary expense and frustration.
One of the main differences is that WooCommerce is a free plugin for WordPress, whereas Shopify is a hosted ecommerce service that charges a monthly subscription. At first glance, that might make WooCommerce seem like the obvious choice, particularly if you’re working with a limited budget. However, there’s considerably more to running an ecommerce website than simply installing some software, and the cheapest option isn’t necessarily the one that will cost you the least over the longer term.
What’s the Difference Between WooCommerce and Shopify?
WooCommerce was originally launched in 2011 and has become one of the most widely used ecommerce solutions available. Because it runs on WordPress, you have considerable flexibility over how your website is designed and which features you choose to include. You can install it on an existing WordPress website, add your products and configure payment and delivery options without paying anything for the WooCommerce plugin itself.
Shopify takes a rather different approach. Instead of installing software on your own hosting account, you pay Shopify a monthly subscription to provide the ecommerce platform and much of the technical infrastructure required to run it. This means you don’t have to worry about configuring a web server, maintaining the underlying software or arranging separate hosting.
Personally, I think this is one of Shopify’s biggest advantages, particularly for smaller businesses that don’t have access to somebody with web development experience. There’s something quite appealing about being able to concentrate on selling products rather than worrying about whether your website is going to stop working after a software update.
Is WooCommerce Really Free?
One of the main selling points of WooCommerce is that it’s free to download and use, but I’d be cautious about interpreting that as meaning it’s free to operate an online shop.
You’ll still need somewhere to host your website, along with a domain name and potentially a suitable WordPress theme. Depending on your requirements, you might also need to purchase additional plugins for things like subscriptions, advanced delivery options or integrations with other business software.
These costs can start adding up, particularly if you’re running a more complicated ecommerce website. There’s also the time involved in maintaining everything, keeping WordPress and its plugins updated, and resolving any technical problems that occur.
Shopify’s Basic plan currently starts at $29 per month when paid monthly, with more expensive plans offering additional features and lower payment processing rates. Although Shopify Payments is available to UK merchants, businesses using alternative payment gateways can also incur additional transaction fees.
For a relatively small online shop, Shopify’s monthly subscription might actually work out cheaper than paying somebody to maintain a WooCommerce installation, particularly if you’re not particularly technically minded.
Which Is Easier to Use?
I think Shopify probably has the advantage here, particularly when it comes to getting a new shop up and running. Its administration interface is designed specifically for ecommerce, and most of the essential functionality is available without needing to install numerous additional applications.
Adding products, managing orders and configuring delivery options are all relatively straightforward, although things can become more complicated when you want to introduce functionality that isn’t supported by default.
WooCommerce is also reasonably easy to use, particularly if you’re already familiar with WordPress, but there’s generally more configuration involved. You’ll need to choose suitable hosting, install WordPress and WooCommerce, configure your payment gateway and make sure everything works together properly.
However, WooCommerce offers considerably more flexibility when it comes to modifying how your website operates. If you want to create a particularly unusual product page, introduce bespoke functionality or integrate your shop with another system, having access to the underlying PHP code can be extremely useful.
Of course, that flexibility is only really an advantage if you’ve got somebody capable of making those changes.
What About SEO?
From an SEO perspective, both platforms are perfectly capable of achieving excellent search engine rankings, although there are some differences worth considering.
Because WooCommerce runs on WordPress, you have access to a wide range of SEO plugins, including Yoast SEO, along with considerable control over your website’s content and URL structure. This makes it relatively straightforward to optimise product pages, category pages and supporting content, particularly if you’re comfortable making technical changes.
Shopify also provides much of the functionality required for SEO, including editable page titles, meta descriptions and redirects. However, there are some restrictions, particularly around its URL structure. Product pages, for example, use URLs containing /products/, while category-style collections use /collections/, and you can’t simply remove these elements through the administration interface.
Personally, I don’t think this is necessarily a reason to avoid Shopify, as having a particular word in your URL structure isn’t going to prevent a website from ranking well. However, I do prefer having the flexibility to configure things exactly how I want them, particularly when working on larger or more complicated websites.
It’s also worth remembering that neither platform will automatically deliver good SEO results simply because you’ve installed it. You’ll still need to carry out keyword research, optimise your content and make sure your website provides a good experience for visitors.
What Happens When Something Goes Wrong?
This is another area where I think Shopify has a significant advantage, particularly for businesses without technical support.
With WooCommerce, you’re responsible for maintaining the website, including WordPress updates, plugin compatibility and backups. If an update causes your checkout to stop working, you’ll generally need to investigate the problem yourself or pay a developer to resolve it.
Shopify handles much of this infrastructure on your behalf, including hosting, server maintenance and the core ecommerce software. This doesn’t mean Shopify websites never experience technical problems, but it does remove quite a few of the responsibilities associated with running a self-hosted website.
However, there’s a disadvantage to relying on a hosted platform, because you’re also dependent on Shopify’s systems and the functionality it chooses to provide. With WooCommerce, you have considerably more freedom to modify your website or move it to another hosting provider if you’re unhappy with the service.
Which Should You Choose?
Personally, I think the decision largely comes down to how much flexibility you need and how comfortable you are with managing the technical side of an ecommerce website.
If you’re setting up a relatively straightforward online shop selling physical products, and you don’t have access to a web developer, I’d probably recommend Shopify. It’s relatively easy to use, much of the technical infrastructure is managed for you, and you can concentrate on running your business rather than maintaining your website.
However, if you’re already using WordPress, require particularly complicated functionality or want complete control over how your website operates, WooCommerce could be a better option. It’s an extremely capable ecommerce platform, and with the right development expertise, you can build something that’s tailored very closely to your requirements.
Ultimately, I don’t think either platform is inherently better than the other. Both are capable of running successful ecommerce websites, and the quality of your products, customer service and marketing will probably have a considerably greater impact on your business than which platform you choose.
My advice would be to consider what your business actually needs, including the ongoing costs of maintaining the website, rather than simply comparing the initial prices. If you don’t need the additional flexibility WooCommerce provides, there’s little point making things more complicated than necessary. Equally, if Shopify can’t accommodate the way your business operates without expensive workarounds, its apparent simplicity might not be much of an advantage.