eCommerce Platforms: Shopify vs WooCommerce

eCommerce platforms are vital to setting up an online store. These platforms enable consumers to browse different items online. Thus, learning the difference between platforms helps distinguish their advantages and disadvantages. With experience in developing hundreds of stores, our eCommerce developers came up with the top pick platforms — Shopify and WooCommerce.

Source: Statista.

Developers can create a successful online store using any of these eCommerce platforms. With a skilled eCommerce website developer in the Philippines, you can work with your choice. 

We’ll focus on the top two platforms!

Shopify and WooCommerce: An eCommerce Platform Comparison

Pricing and Cost

Shopify

Firstly, Shopify allows you to try it out for free for three days (no credit card details needed!) You can pay for its three plans (Basic, Shopify, and Advanced) monthly or annually. Here’s a breakdown of prices:

Source: Shopify.

WooCommerce 

Next, WooCommerce is free to download as a plugin on WordPress. In fact, updates are also free. Users can manage online stores from their WordPress websites. Consider learning how to add short product details or descriptions, or create coupon codes!

However, it also offers Woo Express, giving you access to everything your eCommerce business needs for success. For the Essential and Performance WooCommerce plans, you can pay as little as $1 for the first three months. But for the former, which provides essential features for your online store, you pay $39 a month or $25 monthly if billed annually. 

If you need higher-level features, consider the Performance plan, where you’ll pay $70 a month or $45 a month if billed annually. Lastly, there’s an Enterprise plan.

Source: WooCommerce.

Conclusion: Shopify wins in this category.

Popularity and Market Share

It’s always good to learn what your competitors are using so your eCommerce developers in the Philippines can build the right online store for you. In fact, a fair number of other eCommerce platforms are active today. In an estimate, there are 4,806,002 live websites using Shopify, according to Shopify Usage Statistics. However, WooCommerce Usage Statistics states that a staggering 6,195,313 live websites are WooCommerce users.

Source: BuiltWith.

However, based on recent statistics for market usage distribution in the top million websites, Shopify tops the list. Next up is WooCommerce.

Conclusion: Shopify wins this category with a 21% distribution.

User Experience

Shopify

Shopify doesn’t require significant technical knowledge to use. Skilled eCommerce website developers in the Philippines can use it to configure an online shop for you. Thus, the process of setting up a store is straightforward! 

Business owners can easily manage products, orders, and customers through the centralized admin panel.

Additionally, Shopify has an app store that allows users and eCommerce developers to extend functionality and add features. It handles server management, security, and updates as a fully hosted solution.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is integrated with WordPress sites. Thus, you can count on an expert WordPress developer to handle website setup for your eCommerce business!

In fact, WordPress and WooCommerce interfaces are similar, so developers don’t need to contend with a learning curve. Also, WooCommerce benefits from the vast WordPress plugin ecosystem and users can easily add various functionalities. That said, WooCommerce users have control over hosting costs so that it can be more cost-effective, especially for smaller businesses. 

Conclusion: Shopify easily wins this category.

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SEO Features

Beyond what these three top platforms can offer, the main drivers of an eCommerce website are marketability and searchability. According to WebFX’s SEO Statistics, around 93% of all internet activity starts with a search engine. Thus, you’ll need help running an online store if customers can’t find your website on search results.

There are a staggering 200 ranking factors for Search Engine Optimization. But the top eight are as follows:

1. Quality Content
2. Backlinks
3. Technical SEO
4. Keyword Optimization
5. User Experience
6. Schema Markup
7. Social Signals
8. Brand Signals

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Here’s how SEO-Friendly each eCommerce platform is:

Shopify 

Shopify has multiple advantages for SEO. It has built-in mobile responsiveness. You can edit page titles and descriptions and create 301 redirects. But most of all, this platform is built for blogging. You can use the right content strategies to get the attention of readers and search engines!

Here’s a quick rundown of Shopify’s crucial SEO features:

• Customizable SEO-friendly URLs for your online eCommerce store;
• Customizable titles and meta descriptions;
• Supports header tags and image alt text;
• Automatic XML sitemap generation;
• Mobile-friendly themes;
• Fast page load speeds;
• Secure Sockets Layer encryption;
• Blogging capabilities, and
• Supports product reviews.

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WooCommerce

WooCommerce is an SEO-friendly WordPress plugin rather than a standalone platform. As a result, its SEO-friendliness is tied to the WordPress website itself. It offers the following advantages:

• Access to SEO plugins like Yoast SEO, etc. 
• Control over product and category descriptions, meta tags, alt text, etc.;
• Custom URLs for your eCommerce website;
• Structured data markup;
• XML sitemap support;
• 301 redirects, and
• Support for customer reviews and ratings.

Conclusion: Shopify and WooCommerce are tied.

Community and Support

Shopify offers reliable 24/7 support for customers and eCommerce developers. It is available through live chat, email, and phone.

An extensive Shopify help center has documentation, guides, and tutorials. Thus, it has an active community for exchanging ideas and sharing experiences.

Automattic, the developer behind WooCommerce, provides limited customer support. However, they enable you to submit a support ticket to WooCommerce.com for any plugin-related issues. WooCommerce benefits, first and foremost, come from the vast WordPress community. 

Users can find support for WooCommerce store setup and management through the following:

• Forums;
• Community discussions;
• Extensive documentation;
• Guides;
• Tutorials, etc.

With WooCommerce, users seek support from third-party eCommerce developers or agencies familiar with the WordPress ecosystem.

Conclusion: Shopify wins this category.

Conclusion

Shopify and WooCommerce are great tools. Both provide similar features for building the perfect online shop. Thus, the best choice just depends on what you’re looking for that suits your eCommerce website.

If you feel like you need more guidance and a dedicated team to help build your eCommerce website, you can always contact an eCommerce website developer in the Philippines. We are always here to assist you in your website needs and goals!

About Adam Tan

Adam is a charming geek who loves his family's Siberian Husky, enjoys the occasional night out with friends and, most of all, lives and breathes new trends and updates about the web and its technicalities. If you want to stay updated with changes or new trends on the web or learn about the technicalities that are involved, he's your guy. He's capable of writing cheesy stuff as well, but he'd rather stick with the manly stuff.

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