It is estimated the eCommerce sales will hit almost $5M by the year 2021 – because you can now easily create your online store on top platforms like WordPress and Shopify.
But which one is ideal for developing your online shop?
While Shopify is a dedicated platform to help you host your site and offers a myriad of tools to facilitate store sales, WordPress is an open-source platform where you need to host your site yourself and install specific plugins to enjoy a broad range of eCommerce tools.
Shopify Vs. WordPress – Weighing the Pros and Cons
Even though both are giants in the website building space, they do cater uniquely to different user needs. To give you a clear and upfront picture form the outset, here are a few initial pros and cons you may want to consider:
Shopify
Pros
- Requires no technical skills at all to set up
- The comprehensive dashboard and bulk upload features let you start selling fast
- Over 70 responsive Shopify themes to choose from
- Basic features for selling and scaling online store accessible from the start
- Supports over 100 third-party payment gateways and also offers an in-house gateway
- Offers integrated SEO features for better store optimization and ranking
- Vendor handles security and updates
- Around the clock ‘human’ support via chat, phone, email or forum
Cons
- Content management isn’t as feature-rich as WordPress
- Imposes arbitrary limits for product types and options
- Extra transaction fees if you use anything other than Shopify payment
WordPress
Pros
- More flexible and powerful, with broad-ranging customization features
- Payment and transaction fee depend on the plugins you use
- Several thousand themes to choose from
- Content management system more feature-rich than Shopify
- No limits on products types and options/content
- Massive resource library online, delivering insights from forum experts and professional developers
- The new ‘Gutenberg’ editor makes it easier to understand and use
Cons
- Requires more time and effort to understand how it works and you must install an eCommerce plugin
- eCommece plugins offer basic features but more plugins must be installed for a better store experience, with at least paid plugin to integrate SEO and social media elements
- Hosting, WordPress and plugins must be updated manually
- Servers and platform must be maintained on your own or through a third-party
- Despite many tips and tutorials available for free, no human customer support
It’s understandable that a mere pros and cons list may not be enough to help you decide which one to use. Here’s when you should choose one over the other;
When to use Shopify
Use Shopify if:
- You need a quality eCommerce store quickly and don’t have any existing website
- You don’t possess any website-building, design or coding skills and you’re not looking to hire anyone to setup the eCommerce store for you
- You need to use an exceptional eCommerce platform that comes with 24/7 ‘human’ customer support
- You need to integrate your online and offline/brick-and-mortar store
When to use WordPress
Use WordPress if:
- You don’t mind installing it on a web host, configuring it, and launching a website through it – all on your own
- You don’t mind paying for extra plugins to handle everyday options like social media and SEO
- You don’t mind obtaining eCommerce features such as WooCommerce via plugins, because WordPress primarily is a blogging platform
- You want great-looking, ‘brandable’ themes to make your e-store look unique
So what’s the Bottom Line?
Here’s a short and sweet answer to wrap things up:
You’d want to go with Shopify if you don’t have an existing website and need to quickly launch your e-store.
Choose WordPress if you have an existing website and don’t mind installing WooCommerce as an extension of your existing website.
Oh, you’re welcome!
