Launching your E-commerce site is something big, it brings customers and clients all around the world at your doorstep. It also speeds up the conversion from lead to client. Shopify and Woocommerce can shorten the sales cycle by proceeding with purchase without talking to you first.

Choosing your platform between Shopify and Woocommerce

Those are the two heavy hitters when it comes to E-commerce platforms. Shopify as a self hosted platform, and Woocommerce as a wordpress e-commerce module.

Shopify

All-in-one e-commerce platform, Shopify makes It easy for you to create your online store. It offers templates, payment processing, web hosting, security (SSL) all in one.

Woocommerce

Woocommerce is an open source plugin developed by WordPress that allows you to add e-commerce functionalities to your current wordpress website. Which allows you to add it as an evolution of your wordpress site and be completely independent when it comes to choices of external services.

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We will look at prices when it comes to hosting and payment processing

WordPress

You can find decent shared hosting for around $10 a month, and if you already have a wordpress website on a virtual server, like Godaddy or 1and1, those will do really well for you for a start. When it comes to credit card processing, you can read this article.

Shopify

You have three different hosting plans, for either $29, $79 or $299 a month that will offer you different features. Credit card rates are slightly below Woocommerce rates if you go through Shopify Payments getaway, then go above the Woocommerce rates if you use external gateways.

Regarding cost, Woocommerce is definitely a leg above Shopify when it comes to revolving costs.

Ease of Use

Woocommerce

Woocommerce is fairly easy with a minimal amount of training, and after setup has been completed. And this is what we are here for. It’s a little more of a learning curve than Shopify, but is much more customizable.

Shopify

This is the big plus from this system. It’s easy to setup, you can do it yourself, good drag and drop interface, you can also manage your sales your reports and everything else. This is quite intuitive.

If you are by yourself, Shopify is the solution you want. Now with the assistance of a team of professionals, Woocommerce brings a level of customization that will provide you with better results overall.

Scalability

When it comes to scalability, it’s quite easy with Shopify, you just need to upgrade plans. With Woocommerce, you might need to upgrade servers and go for some more specialized hosting providers. It might seem overwhelming for you, but with the right team assisting you, growth is not an obstacle with Woocommerce.

Data Ownership

This is quite an important subject for me to bring up, having your own hosting, server, database and general data. With Shopify, all that information is located on their server and you can only access it through their interface. Woocommerce gives you access to the server files through FTP on your server, and your MySQL database on PhpMyAdmin. When it comes to the integration and plugins, it will be based on PHP language. So, there is a definite advantage for Woocommerce on this one.

Conclusion

I would definitely recommend Woocommerce as the data ownership is key when it comes to setting up a website of any type. With E-Commerce, controlling the data is even more important, and I always tend to stay away from “all-in one” solution.