Having run stores with both Shopify and WordPress/WooCommerce over many years, I find they are as different as cats and dogs. Your choice will really depend on your comfort level with technology and the degree of control and customization you are after. Do you have good technical skills? Or do you prefer to sacrifice a bit of control for ease of use?
They both have their benefits and drawbacks. Shopify has a very popular App Store with thousands of merchants, and WordPress has many plugins for e-commerce and add-ons to WooCommerce as well. Like a cat, Shopify tends to be relatively low maintenance and purrs along well on its own. WordPress with WooCommerce is more like a dog that requires lots of maintenance and walks, but will do as it’s told! Here are some more pros and cons below.
Shopify
PROS
- Ease of use in getting started & simple user interface
- Decent list of free mobile device optimized themes
- Huge set of apps and a strong developer community
- Dashboard shows benchmarks vs other store owners
- Hosting, website security and maintenance is taken care of
CONS
- Apps can be expensive and charge usually monthly or % fees
- Less flexible for a customized look & feel in your cart or design
- Tricky process to embed code in themes or integrate some APIs
WordPress/WooCommerce
PROS
- Inexpensive to get hosted on WordPress with lots of free plugins
- Highly customizable and great WordPress features/plugin integrations
- Can offer landing pages, blog posts and more flexible content designs
CONS
- Need to get your own web hosting & some technical know-how
- Potential for security issues & plugin/theme conflicts
- No benchmarking vs other stores on how they are selling/optimizing
I hope you make your choice and start selling soon!
P.S. Have you tried our free Gravy Shopify App yet?
P.S.S. Want to Create A Logo In 10 Minutes with AI?
P.S.S.S. Watch our YouTube channel for Shopify tutorials, advice and more.