- Trying to choose an e-commerce platform
can be so overwhelming.
They all look great on their websites
and both WordPress and Shopify have super fans
that will tell you they are the only solution for you.
Well, here at Exposure Ninja,
we've built dozens of websites,
worked with hundreds of clients
using every imaginable platform,
and we've analysed over 20,000 different sites and stores.
In this video, we're gonna cover the differences
between Shopify and WooCommerce,
and help you find the best platform for you.
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Now, we're gonna analyse these platforms
using seven criteria: ease of use, marketing tools and SEO,
scalability and growth, build time,
payment methods available, security, and price.
In each of these categories,
we're going to declare a winner and a loser,
and this will help you choose the right platform for you
based on what's most important in your
particular circumstances.
But before we do any of that,
we need to understand that Shopify and WooCommerce
are coming at e-commerce from a completely different place.
Shopify is a closed system
because Shopify is a company and a
very profitable one at that.
When you sign up for Shopify,
you are locked into their system
and they control what you can and can't do.
They set the rules.
Ultimately, if Shopify wanted to beat you
off their platform, they could absolutely do that.
Now the plus side of this is that Shopify is
doing extremely well and investing lots of money
in building out their platform and its capabilities,
and they're likely to do so for the foreseeable future.
BuiltWith estimates that Shopify powers
29% of U.S. e-commerce stores.
So they are the biggest by market share.
This means that Shopify is unlikely to shut down
or stop investing in their platform anytime soon.
But if they ever did, that would be a real issue
for people who have Shopify stores,
because essentially Shopify owns it
and you're kind of just renting it.
By contrast,
WooCommerce is open source
and it's built on the open source WordPress platform.
This means that you can do virtually
whatever you want with your store.
You have unlimited possibilities.
If the WooCommerce company died,
you could technically just keep your store running.
WooCommerce also has
great market share, with around 20%
of U.S. e-commerce stores.
So not as much as Shopify,
but still a very considerable percentage.
And WordPress itself is the most popular
content management system on the internet.
So what does this mean for you?
Well, either way, whichever waggon you hitch yourself to,
you are probably going to be okay
in the short to medium term.
Neither of these e-commerce platforms is going away,
but understanding how they come at things
from a completely different perspective
and the closed system versus open source model helps us
to understand some of the key differences that we're gonna
be seeing as we go through today's analysis.
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The first criteria that we're gonna compare
Shopify and WooCommerce is in ease of use.
Obviously ease of use is a really important consideration
all the time, but particularly if you are new to e-commerce
or you don't have the time or energy to get involved
in the development side of thing.
Let's talk about design, first of all.
If you want something that looks great
straight out of the box, then Shopify is,
undoubtedly, the winner for you.
You can get started and build a Shopify store
very quickly and it looks usable.
Of course, there are quite a lot of free and paid themes
on Shopify's Theme Store that you can choose
and you have HTML and CSS editing capabilities
should you want to customise them a little bit more.
When we're building a site for a Shopify client,
for example, we will take a basic Shopify theme
that loads very quickly,
and then we will customise and edit it
to make it perfect for that business.
Now, with WooCommerce, you have way more options.
You have so many more themes.
Not only do you have the WooCommerce Theme Store,
but you also have third-party sites like Themeforest
and just independent developers that have built
WordPress and WooCommerce themes.
And of course you have almost infinite customization options
because the whole thing is open source.
Obviously these unlimited options come
at the expense of simplicity.
So you're typically gonna have to put more time
into building a WooCommerce store
if you're gonna get it looking really good.
All right. What about functionality?
Let's say that you wanna add order tracking,
referral programmes, email marketing, fulfilment,
whichever e-commerce platform you choose,
you're going to need integration.
So how do they stack up?
Well, with Shopify, you have the App Store.
In here, you'll find thousands of apps
for every imaginable integration
that you could possibly want.
There's a mixture of free and paid,
but usually a theme will have some kind of paid component.
This Shopify App Store is a closed system,
meaning that Shopify controls and owns it.
This means two things.
Firstly, it tends to mean the apps
are better straight out of the box.
So you don't have to worry too much
about how it's been developed or how it works.
They tend to just work as you would expect.
The other thing is that because Shopify charges
the developers a fee for listing in the App Store,
Shopify apps tend to be more expensive
than their WooCommerce counterparts.
So what about WooCommerce?
Well, WooCommerce also has its own extension store
and here there are thousands of different
possible WooCommerce extensions
that you can add to your store.
But aside from this, there are all
the third-party extensions that have been built.
What you'll usually find with WooCommerce is
not only can you find an extension
to do basically whatever you want it to do,
but you'll also find a huge number of extensions
that give you each piece of functionality.
So you've got a range of choices between free
and very expensive, paying monthly.
So that gives you a huge amount of variety in choice.
The downside of this obviously is you've got
to sift through all of this stuff
and because WooCommerce plugins aren't
like vetted and approved
into an official WooCommerce store all the time,
this also increases the likelihood
that there will be conflicts, mismatches,
and things that just don't work
or plugins that haven't been kept
up to date for a long time.
So the onus is on you to make sure that the plugin
that you're installing does what it needs to do
and plays nicely with the rest of your site.
So on that note then, what about support?
What happens if something breaks?
Well, Shopify has 24/7 support.
You can phone them, you can email them,
or you can talk to them on live chat,
and they're pretty good,
but there's also a pretty active forum
where people can post questions
and the Shopify community can provide answers.
Now WooCommerce on the other hand,
because it's not making money out of you,
you're not paying a subscription fee to WooCommerce,
it's very difficult for them
to provide a centralised support team.
This means that WooCommerce support is either up to you
to go and find a developer that can help you fix
whatever issue you're coming up against
or go to the WooCommerce community.
This is a vibrant community,
as it tends to be with open source projects.
So there are lots of forums and posts
and helpful people that will try and help you out,
but again, the onus is on you to find the right solution
and to implement that yourself.
So overall then for ease of use, who wins?
Well, both platforms are relatively easy to use.
It's important to say this,
you will be able to build and maintain a store
using whichever platform you want.
If you're adding e-commerce to an existing WordPress site,
then obviously WooCommerce is by far
the easiest way to do that.
But overall, for most people,
Shopify is a clear ease-of-use winner.
Because Shopify prioritises simplicity
over unlimited flexibility
and because it is a closed system,
which Shopify manages very tightly,
it is a much easier e-commerce platform
to get something usable out of the box very quickly.
Our second comparison criteria is marketing tools and SEO.
The saying, "build it, and they will come,"
has never been less true than with e-commerce.
And every day we are sent e-commerce stores
by owners that are struggling to market them
because they haven't thought about how they're actually
going to promote their store and drive traffic to it.
So how do these platforms stack up
with marketing and SEO capabilities?
Well, starting with SEO,
the story with Shopify was always
that the SEO capabilities were limited.
It was one of the trade-offs that Shopify made
in order to make the platform simple to use.
We've just released a video all about Shopify SEO.
So I'm not gonna go into loads of detail here,
but the short version is that those SEO limitations
are way more severe than they used to be.
Today, we see some very successful,
high-ranking stores built in Shopify.
And if you're willing to stick with it,
you can basically implement what you need to implement
on a Shopify store to get it ranking and performing well.
Now, WooCommerce, it's part of WordPress, which is basically
the most SEO-friendly platform ever to exist.
It's a dream to optimise, it's a dream to SEO,
and you can do whatever you want with it.
Another important marketing consideration
is blogs and content.
Now you've heard us talk before
on the Exposure Ninja videos and our podcast
about the importance for e-commerce stores
of getting some kind of content section on your website,
whether it's your blog, or a news section, or an article,
knowledge-based thing, or a content hub.
So how do these platforms stack up with the flexibility
and functionality that they offer in this area?
Well, it helps to think about exactly what they are.
Shopify is an e-commerce platform with a bit
of a blog functionality stuck on,
whereas WooCommerce is actually a blog platform
with the e-commerce functionality stuck on.
So therefore you have way more flexibility
and control of setting up a content section
on a WordPress WooCommerce store.
Usually Shopify sites will either add-on
the default Shopify blog, the news section,
and then they'll rename it,
but the functionality here is pretty limited.
The next step up is to add an add-on which will allow you
to build out a content hub or knowledge base.
Again, this can be limited and it can feel
quite disconnected from the rest of the store.
The level above this is to actually add-on
a separate content management system
onto your Shopify store, for example,
as a sub domain or as a folder.
And ironically, one of the most popular solutions here
is to bolt on a WordPress site onto your Shopify store
so that content section can really be optimised
and have all the functionality that you would want.
So which platform wins in the marketing and SEO round?
Well, really we've got to hand it
to WordPress and WooCommerce here.
They are very difficult to beat.
This is one area where the unlimited flexibility,
complexity trade-off really works in their favour.
Having said that, the gap is much closer
than it was a few years ago.
So this is clearly an area that Shopify is
focusing on and putting attention into.
So we would expect to see more developments
in this area to come.
Let's now look at scalability and growth
because obviously you want an e-commerce platform
that can grow with your brand.
Well, Shopify has various different pricing plans
that allow you to go from startup
all the way to Shopify Plus,
where you're gonna be running an enterprise business,
and there are large global brands
that are running successfully on Shopify.
This gives you the reassurance that boring stuff
like bandwidth and server speed and the things
that you'd rather not spend your time
thinking about are all handled for you.
But obviously as you scale your Shopify store,
the fees that you pay to Shopify will grow
and quite significantly.
And of course, high-profile stores like Gymshark still prove
that, given enough traffic on Black Friday,
any site can go down,
regardless of what platform it's built on.
With WooCommerce, it's very different.
You can upgrade your hosting whenever you choose,
and you are in complete control of the costs.
And that's kind of the WooCommerce vibe.
You're in control of changing
and upgrading the bits as you need them.
It's all up to you.
That's the good news and the bad news.
The plus side of this is that your store's fees
will usually be lower, but of course the downside of this is
that you have to spend more time thinking about this stuff
and possibly paying developers to manage this stuff for you.
So who wins on the scalability side of things?
Well, honestly, this is a difficult one to call.
If you want hassle-free scalability,
then Shopify is definitely the winner,
but if you want complete control and you want lower costs,
then WooCommerce is likely to be your choice.
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Round four, ding, ding, ding, build time and maintenance.
We've built a lot of stores in both WooCommerce and Shopify.
So which is the simplest to build in
and which requires the least maintenance?
Well, the great thing about Shopify is you can get something
usable up within literally 15 minutes.
Just sign up for your store, get it all set up,
put your products in and away you go.
You're gonna have something that looks decent.
With WooCommerce, you can definitely get something set up
in 15 minutes, but it will look rubbish.
Typically it takes way longer to get
a WooCommerce store looking good.
When we're building or designing these sites,
usually we'll be planning a Shopify build
to take between one and two months,
and that's with custom design
and custom coding in the theme.
Whereas with WooCommerce,
we're usually gonna be looking at three months plus,
and it can be significantly longer
if there's functionality and complex integrations.
And it's a similar story with the ongoing maintenance.
Shopify stores don't tend to require
a huge amount of ongoing maintenance.
Of course you wanna tweak things, but with WooCommerce,
it's useful to have a developer on hand,
even if they're not full-time,
just a contact that you know who you can ping
when you wanna do things like do plugin updates
or find out why something isn't working.
So when it comes to build time and ongoing maintenance,
Shopify is a clear winner here.
Next up, payment providers.
With things like Splitpay, Apple Pay, Google Pay,
all the rage with e-commerce,
it's important that whatever e-commerce platform you choose
gives your customers a range of simple
and easy-to-use payment methods.
So which e-commerce platform is best?
Well, both platforms have a range of integrations
and are very easy to set up with things
like Stripe and PayPal, which gives you
a huge range of different payment options.
Shopify also has its own shop pay service,
which can be very easy to use if your customers
have bought from a Shopify store before.
They usually have, and can enable them
to go through checkout very quickly.
But who's the winner?
We're gonna call this a tie because both platforms
are so easy to set up payment processes with.
The final shootout in our comparison is pricing and fees.
Now Shopify has different plans starting at $29 a month,
going all the way up to Shopify Plus
where you'll be paying 2,000 plus per month.
Add to that, the fees for the add-ons,
which tend to be more expensive
than the WooCommerce equivalent,
plus Shopify's transaction fee,
which you have to pay on every sale that you make,
even if you don't use Shopify as the payment processor,
and the fees really start to add up.
Now these transaction fees do fall
as you move up in different packages.
So at the very low end, when you're paying $29 a month,
you'll be paying a 2% transaction fee.
But as you move up through their offering into Shopify Plus,
that transaction fee comes down much further.
But regardless, when you're doing decent revenue
through a Shopify store,
those fees are going to feel painful.
WooCommerce, by contrast, has no fees.
WooCommerce is free. WordPress is free.
Of course you might be paying for any paid extensions
or plugins that you use, but you can often find free
or cheap versions of those anyway.
The only cost you'll have to pay for your WooCommerce store
is your payment processor fee,
but you'll have to pay this with Shopify as well anyway.
So it's clear that WooCommerce is
the most economical option.
But as for calling a winner in this category,
it's really difficult because WooCommerce and Shopify
are offering such different propositions.
With Shopify, you're paying for that closed system.
You're paying for the protection
and you're paying for the support and the ease of use.
Whereas with WordPress, you've got a bunch of free tools,
but you are in charge of doing all of that stuff yourself.
You'll probably have to pay for ongoing development support,
which you might not have to pay as much for, with Shopify.
So it's really difficult to weigh up these two costs
because they are such different propositions.
Overall, though, if pricing and fees
is a real priority for you,
it's very difficult to beat the free WooCommerce.
(wind whooshing) And by the way,
the team here at Exposure Ninja,
we build, optimise and promote e-commerce stores.
That's what we do.
We've got a team of 107 ninjas
at the time of making this video,
which builds, optimises and promotes e-commerce stores
and other websites through SEO, content marketing,
pay-per-click social media, email marketing,
and conversion rate optimization.
This is what we do.
If you want some
free help and support with your e-commerce store,
then you can request a free website
and digital marketing review from the team here.
All you need to do is go to exposureninja.com
and click the big button to request
your free website and marketing review.
One of the consultancy team here
will take a look at your store.
They'll have a look at how you're promoting it already
and how well you're doing.
They'll also analyse your competitors
to see what they're doing for any clues
for areas that you could be focusing on
to generate more sales through your store.
They'll then put together a prioritised action plan
that you can follow over the next 6 to 12 months
to significantly increase your store's revenue.
They'll send this through to you as a video.
It's completely free of charge. There is no catch.
There is no obligation to use Exposure Ninja services.
So request your free website and digital marketing review
today at exposureninja.com.
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So what's the verdict? Which platform wins?
Well, the ultimate answer is,
it depends on what's most important to you.
If ease of use, simplicity and having something
that just works straight out of the box is your priority,
then Shopify is the e-commerce platform for you.
If however, you're willing to get your hands dirty
and you value the flexibility and lower fees,
then WooCommerce on WordPress is a great option,
and we've built high ranking,
high-performing sites on both platforms.
There is no one best.
And I'd like to leave you with this point,
your e-commerce store's success is not dependent
on the platform that you used.
These are just tools and brands are built
on how you use these tools, not which one you choose,
Shopify or WooCommerce.
You can make a successful store
on either of these platforms.
It's all about what you do with it, how you promote it,
the proposition that you have
and the traffic that you drive.
Yes, choose an e-commerce platform that you like,
but it's what you do with it that really counts.
You've got this.
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