Shopify vs WooCommerce: Beginner’s Guide to a Smooth Store Launch

By Mitali Purkait Ghosh on May 7, 2024

Whether you drop ship products for a markup, sell handmade goods, or want to get into the D2C business with your factory products, this is the perfect time to launch an online store. However, most entrepreneurs find themselves in the middle of a tug-of-war between Shopify and WooCommerce. Which option is right for launching your store?

Well, both are very different in nature and what they have to offer. It boils down to several factors including your budget, the level of customization you want, the scale you hope to reach, and more such factors. If you’re looking for Shopify website development services, Digital Concepts has a team of experts who can help you build an amazing online store.

We also have WooCommerce developers for hire who can help you build a store with that platform. Since we have both types of developers who have worked for different clients with different needs, we thought of creating a guide that helps entrepreneurs choose the platform that aligns with their needs.

Before we dive deep into the Shopify vs WooCommerce comparison, let’s look at the factors that must be considered while choosing an e-commerce platform.

Key factors for choosing your e-commerce platform:

• Ease of Use– It must be beginner-friendly.
• Pricing– It must fit your budget.
• Security– It must have robust security features to keep customer data and your site safe.
• Payment Options– It must support multiple payment methods, especially those that are popular in your country.
• Support– You should get robust support. When you hire a Shopify or WooCommerce developer in India from Digital Concepts, we help you solve any problems that may arise after your store goes online. 
• Customization– Choose one that can be customized to align with your brand identity.

Whatever platform you choose, it must be a strong contender that fulfills your niche requirements on these basic factors. That’s why the question “Shopify vs WooCommerce, which is better?”has no definite answer. It always DEPENDS!

Let the showdown begin!

Shopify vs WooCommerce Comparison:

Round 1: Ease of Use

WooCommerce is an open-source ecommerce plugin for WordPress while Shopify is a fully hosted platform itself. If you use WooCommerce, you’ll need more technical expertise to:

• Handle security updates
• Manage your own server
• And hire a WooCommerce development service for customizations.

Not very beginner-friendly!

Shopify clearly takes the cake in this round since it handles everything from your store security and hosting to any other technical aspect. There are drag-and-drop tools that feel more intuitive to use. It’s more layman-friendly and doesn’t require a lot of coding language. On the other hand, if you want something complex out of the platform like modified themes to stand out from the competition, we offer custom Shopify development.

Round 2: Pricing

WooCommerce is an open-source free plugin. However, since you need to host the site yourself, and buy a domain name and a few additional plugins and themes to build your store, the cost is variable. If you’re in the cozy hands of a WooCommerce development company like Digital Concepts, we can use free themes, plugins and our development wizardry to keep costs as low as possible.

On the other hand, Shopify has subscription-based plans that offer more features as you climb the tiers. However, the subscription plans don’t include everything. You still need to pay for:

• Domain fee
• Website theme
• Shopify apps

When it comes to Shopify vs WooCommerce pricing, the latter usually comes out on top. Are you tracking the score? It’s 1:1 for now.

Round 3: Security

Shopify is looking to make a comeback in this round as it takes full responsibility for your website’s security and takes it very seriously. It’s PCI compliant, all of its plans come with an SSL certificate and there are fraud prevention tools to protect your customers.

On the other hand, you share the responsibility of securing your site when you choose WooCommerce. You must:

• Keep WordPress version, WooCommerce version, and other plugins updated to prevent security vulnerabilities.
• Choose a secure web hosting provider
• Update all the plugins
• Install security plugins

Don’t want that shared responsibility or spend more time updating and managing your site instead of running your business? You can always choose a web development outsourcing company like Digital Concepts.

Round 4: Payment Options

Both WooCommerce and Shopify present several payment options. However, there are key differences in payment processing charges and other attributes. Let’s explore them:

• Convenience vs Flexibility– Shopify has an in-built payment processing system that handles your transactions seamlessly. WooCommerce doesn’t have any. This makes it more flexible since you can choose the payment gateways that are popular and offer more value in your region.

• High Fees vs Competitive Pricing– With WooCommerce, you pay the payment gateway provider and that allows you to choose the most cost-effective option. On the other hand, you’re stuck with Shopify’s payment fee and any other additional charges they pile on. Even if you choose a third-party Shopify app for payments Shopify charges you an additional transaction fee of 0.5% to 2% as a penalty.

So, while Shopify appears seamless on the surface, it often can’t beat out the competitive pricing of certain third-party payment plugins for WooCommerce. This further establishes WooCommerce pricing as more affordable. 

Scoreboard Update!

Shopify : WooCommerce :: 2 : 2

Round 5: Support

WooCommerce is open-source and that’s why it gets the attention of thousands of developers who are always:

• Contributing towards its development
• Making plugins for new features, and
• Helping each other solve complex problems on WooCommerce forums.

However, as a store owner, you don’t get to simply dial for customer support and get them to help you out. For that, you need the help of a WooCommerce development company like Digital Concepts. That’s not all.

On the other hand, Shopify is a paid platform that takes care of its customers with dedicated live chat, email, and phone support. They also have an extensive library of video resources and tutorials. The subscription fee pays off!

Round 6: Customization

Being an open-source platform, WooCommerce is written in PHP, a dominant web development language. Despite losing popularity in recent years, PHP maintains its position among the top 10 most popular programming languages in the world. That’s why WooCommerce and WordPress have a ginormous developer base who create all kinds of plugins, themes, and extensions for your store.

When you need any kind of customization, a WooCommerce developer is just a gig or job description away. On the other hand, Shopify is written in its own template language- Liquid. That’s why hiring Shopify developers in India for customization is challenging unless you have the Shopify development services of Digital Concepts. Hence, the final round goes to WooCommerce.

Final Score!

Shopify : WooCommerce :: 3 : 3

You are the tiebreaker

Both Shopify and WooCommerce have different strengths and weaknesses and you need to choose one that best suits your budget, support or customization requirements, and the other factors mentioned in this post. Consider the Shopify vs WooCommerce pros and cons and select the platform that empowers you. Either way, Digital Concepts is here to support your choice with our web development services. Write to us at sales@digitalconcepts.in with your requirements or click here to know more about our services.

Mitali Purkait Ghosh

Mitali Purkait Ghosh, the Co-Founder of Digital Concepts, brings a wealth of knowledge and innovation to the marketing sphere. Mitali and her dedicated team offer unparalleled expertise in digital marketing and content writing, among other key online strategies.