Building a successful online business is hard work. Not only do you have to worry about designing, manufacturing, and marketing your products, you also have to manage the technology that powers your online shop.

But with a sophisticated e-commerce platform in place, running your digital store can actually be relatively easy. These tools are designed to simplify the technical side of operating an online business, allowing merchants to stay focused on higher-priority tasks.

In this post, we’ll compare WooCommerce and Shopify, two of the most popular e-commerce platforms for online retailers. Take a look and see how these companies stack up in terms of usability, customisation options, price, and more.

About WooCommerce and Shopify

WooCommerce began in 2008 as WooThemes, which designed and sold WordPress themes. Since 2017, the company has focused exclusively on e-commerce. As an open-source e-commerce solution, WooCommerce works on top of WordPress sites, making it easy for sellers to add it to their existing website. More than 3.3 million websites currently use WooCommerce.

Shopify was founded in 2006 and has become one of the most well-known e-commerce solutions in the world. With the platform, merchants can create an online store, host it on Shopify, and start selling their products right away. More than one million merchants in 175 countries use Shopify to sell their products online.

Both WooCommerce and Shopify allow merchants to manage payment processing, shipping, and marketing from their respective platforms. But how do they differ? Let’s explore four key areas.

Usability

Shopify allows users to build their own websites by dragging and dropping text, images, and links onto premade templates. Even if you aren’t tech-savvy, it’s incredibly easy to use the Shopify for this purpose.

On the other hand, WooCommerce sits on top of your WordPress-powered site. That’s great if you already have a website that’s built with WordPress. If not, you’d have to first design and launch your website, before installing the WooCommerce plugin.

However, once your Shopify or WooCommerce store is up and running, the functionality of the two platforms is quite similar.

Advantage: Shopify

Customisation Options

Both platforms allow you to personalise the look and feel of your online store, but there’s a clear winner in this category.

Shopify has 70+ free and paid themes to choose from, which is more than enough for most store owners. You can also hire a Shopify expert if you need special features that you can’t find in one of the prebuilt themes.

On the other hand, WooCommerce allows for much more flexibility and customisation. It also offers free and paid themes, but since it’s an open-source platform, developers are encouraged to build custom sites.

Advantage: WooCommerce

Price

As a WordPress plugin, WooCommerce is technically free. However, to run a successful online store powered by WooCommerce, you will need to consider the price of web hosting, purchasing a domain name, and additional theme customisation.

It can be a pain to manage all of these details yourself, which is why many store owners prefer Shopify in this regard. Shopify bundles several services within its three plans, so it’s really a matter of personal choice in this category.

Advantage: Your preference

Support

WooCommerce and Shopify both provide ample support documentation, as well as active user communities that shop owners can consult for help. However, only Shopify offers 24/7 support for all of its customers. It’s a great perk, especially considering Shopify plans start at just $29 USD per month.

Advantage: Shopify

There are many more criteria that you could evaluate when it comes to these e-commerce platforms, but all things considered, they’re both solid choices for powering your online store. You can learn more about Shopify and WooCommerce by visiting the company