When you want to build an eCommerce website, at some point, you might wonder:
“Shopify or WordPress, which one is better?”
While both platforms allow you to build successful online stores, they are also very different. Let’s take a closer look at both options and find out which suits your online store project the best.
Once you have gone through both of the E-commerce platform pros, cons and differences, you will need to identify when to use Shopify or WordPress and also weigh up the costs associated with each platform.
In a sentence, the main difference between Shopify and WordPress is that Shopify is an online tool/service, whereas WordPress is stand-alone software that you need to install yourself.
In order to use Shopify, all you have to do is go to Shopify.com and sign up to create an account. Once done, you only need to go through a quick setup, and your e-commerce store is up and running.
To use WordPress as your e-commerce platform, on the other hand, requires a lot more steps. You have to buy a domain and web hosting account, you need to pick a theme plus a handful of plugins to take care of SEO, social media integration etc., you need a plugin like WooCommerce to provide you with all of the ecommerce features and you need to go through the configuration process of your e-commerce site (the store details, payment gateway integrations, products, and etc.). Let’s just say all of these steps can take a little bit of time.
Last but not least, with Shopify, you also get support, which means that should you ever encounter any trouble with the platform, you can simply contact the support team, and they will (likely) solve it.
With WordPress, there’s no support, per se.
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Shopify – What Is It?
- An all-in-one e-commerce solution/tool. It allows you to build a functional e-commerce store from scratch, without a designer’s or developer’s help.
- There’re no coding skills required to use Shopify.
- It’s a paid tool – from $29 to $299 per month.
- It allows you to sell whatever you wish
- Use it offline and online (you can use it as your online store, but also use something called Point of Sale with Shopify, which is their system for retail stores that allows you to integrate your on-location store with your setup in Shopify).
- More than 100+ online store designs to choose from (some of them paid).
- Every new site gets a custom subdomain for free – for example, YOURSTORE.shopify.com.
- There’s 24/7 support.
WordPress (WooCommerce) – What Is It?
- An all-in-one website software. It allows you to build any kind of website, provided that you can handle the slightly technical setup.
- Some website building skills are required
- The WordPress software is free. In order to use it, you need to sign up for a web host and buy a domain name. When all is put together, you can get started with WordPress for about $5 / month.
- Great content management features.
- Thousands of themes/designs to choose from, both free and paid.
- Exceptional extension possibilities through plugins.
- No direct support, but a very helpful support community.
We hope you found this information useful.
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