Comparison WooCommerce vs. Shopify

When it comes to small and medium-sized shops, our experience shows that the choice usually comes down to one of two alternatives: WooCommerce or Shopify.

The two names stand for different concepts; both are equally well suited for SMEs, but they approach the topic in very different ways.

What is Shopify?

Shopify is a ready-made shop system. You don’t need your own website, you don’t have to install anything, everything is already there. Shopify is a so-called SaaS platform (Software as a Service). You pay fees to use this service, and the provider also takes a share of each sale. In return, Shopify takes care of the technology.

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is an extension, that is a plugin for WordPress. WooCommerce can be downloaded free of charge, just like WordPress. To use WooCommerce, you require your own website, which includes buying a hosting plan. You are responsible for maintaining this website yourself.

Which solution is the right one for you?

Capability

Both WooCommerce and Shopify can be customized and personalized very well. You can sell all kinds of products, both physical and digital.

Expenses

With WooCommerce, you can basically set up a shop for free, or rather for the moderate cost of a hosting plan. In Germany, however, you need an extension to make the shop legally compliant for sales in Germany. There are two options that do this: German Market and Germanized. Germanized is available in a free basic version.
Shopify offers a range of subscription models. There is no free plan for Shopify.

There are many third-party extensions available for both systems. In terms of sheer numbers, WooCommerce is ahead. There are also free plugins available for WooCommerce. This is not the case with Shopify.

In the long run, however, you won’t get very far with WooCommerce’s free options. Sooner or later, you’ll need to purchase a plugin license. For example, we required several such plugins for the Viereck Verlag shop.

Take multilingualism, for example: a shop is very complex. If you want to display your shop in different languages, you will find that only paid plugins offer the necessary functionality to reliably implement multilingualism throughout the system.

Example: shipping costs. Goods are potentially shipped all over the world. Therefore, a powerful plugin is needed to correctly calculate shipping costs for all regions.

There are also plugins that make your work much easier. One of the most important plugins for shop operators with lots of products is definitely Admin Columns PRO. With its help, you can display specific product features in the product list, sort by these features, and edit many products at once (bulk edit).

However, even with Shopify, you usually need third-party extensions, which must be paid for in addition to the monthly fee.

Usability

WooCommerce takes some getting used to. The system is complex and it takes a while to set everything up and find your way around.
Shopify’s interface is more intuitive. There are lots of templates, which makes it easier to get started. On the other hand, this means you have less control, as you are tied to predefined options.

That’s possible with Shopify.

If you want to get results quickly and don’t have the nerve to deal with issues such as updates and web hosting, Shopify is an interesting option.

With Shopify, however, you are tied to one provider. In addition to the monthly “rent”, money flows to Shopify with every transaction. Third-party extensions incur additional costs.

That’s possible with WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a good choice for anyone who wants to run their shop as independently and flexibly as possible.

WooCommerce is open source, meaning that the website and shop belong solely to the operator. All profits go into your own pocket. Depending on the payment options used, most or all of your profit stays with you. Costs are easy to control because WooCommerce allows you to proceed in small steps. There are also many free extensions available for WooCommerce.

However, getting to grips with WooCommerce takes time. Independence also entails responsibility: you have to take care of website maintenance yourself. This means you have to perform regular updates and ensure the security of the website yourself.
Some hosting providers offer special hosting packages for WooCommerce that help with this, or you can hire someone to take care of things.

Conclusion

In terms of performance, both systems are comparable. The differences lie mainly in the cost structure and the type of business model. Among other things, Shopify takes a share of every transaction, whereas WooCommerce does not. But Shopify takes care of many things that you have to keep an eye on yourself with WooCommerce.

Shopify is geared toward the American market. This means that it may not be possible to meet all requirements. For example, if you want to connect local payment service providers or parcel services. Or if you want to implement very specific shipping options. In this case, there is a relatively high chance that Shopify will not be able to help, but that some developer has written a plugin for special cases X and Y for WooCommerce.