Shopify and Woocommerce are the two leading and the most popular E-Commerce platforms in the world. In case you are planning to make it big as an entrepreneur by launching an E-Commerce store, you must have struggled to choose between Shopify and Woocommerce. To come to a final decision, we will have to juxtapose the two E-Commerce platforms and find out which one is best for your store.

Let us first analyze Shopify and Woocommerce: 

Shopify  

Shopify is a multinational Canadian E-Commerce platform that helps you create and customize your own store to sell your niche products. It also provides aid in managing inventory, shipments, and payments to simplify the process of running an online business. There is no headache of maintaining or upgrading the software, as it is a cloud based service.

Woocommerce   

Woocommerce is a free plug-in built for WordPress. It affixes the E-Commerce component or functionality to your existing WordPress website so that you can transform it into a full-functional online store with just a few clicks. The plug-in was launched in 2011 and was obtained by the owners of WordPress.com in 2015.

Contrasting Shopify and Woocommerce:

Since you are launching your own store, you need to lay down objectives like budget, user interface, scalability, integrations and payment modes. You must consider these basic fundamentals before choosing between Shopify and Woocommerce.

Ease of Use:

• Shopify takes care of all the technicalities of your website for you as a beginner. It manages your products, inventory and sales. Shopify is a completely hosted E-Commerce platform.
• Woocommerce gives you the freedom to customize and manage all the operations of your store as you want it to be. Since it’s not a hosting E-Commerce platform, you will have to take care of the installation and management of the website security along with other updates.

Cost:

• The basic monthly plan of Shopify starts at $29 and the amount will be $79 if you wish to upgrade. Also, at $299 you get an advanced Shopify plan. 
• As mentioned above, Woocommerce is a free WordPress plug-in but it requires a domain name, SSL Certificate, and a WordPress account to use.

Customer Support Options:

• Shopify offers to help if you want to set things right on your own by providing how-to-guides, video tutorials, knowledge base, forums and documentation. A 24/7 customer support via live chat, phone, twitter, and email is also available.
• On the other hand, Woocommerce does not provide any customer support as such because the main emphasis is on the website construction. Although the official website allows you to help yourself through guides and tutorials, but your technical expert would have to manage the customer support area.

Dropshipping with Shopify and Woocommerce:

• Shopify has integration with apps like Vendorboat, Printify, AliExpress, Oberlo, etc. for various Dropshipping marketplaces. But you need to keep in mind that each of these apps has their own membership fees, shipping and other costs, before Dropshipping with Shopify.

To learn how Dropshipping with Shopify works, read this blog.

• Woocommerce permits you to install extensions that allow you to fulfill orders from your website. You can even allow other vendors to sell on your store by designing your own E-Commerce marketplace. But you vendor and supplier might have minimal order requirements, membership fees and other costs. 

Payment Methods:

• Shopify has its own payments solutions known as Shopify Payments. Woocommerce allows any payment company to create add-ons and provide support for it. Both the platforms provide around 100 third party payment gateways in India. Some popular ones include PayTM, PayU, PayPal, Cashfree, CCAvenue, RazorPay and so on.
• Payment modes like Net Banking, Credit/Debit Card, EMI, Wallet, Cash on Delivery, etc are also considered. On each transaction made through third party payment, an extra 2% fees is imposed, so it’s a tie between Shopify and Woocommerce.

Features:

Shopify and Woocommerce are popular for the various E-commerce tools that they provide for you to ease out your business.

Shopify:

• Unlimited products
• Discount codes
• Website and blog
• Built-in inventory management
• Abandoned cart recovery

Woocommerce:

• Free WordPress plug-in
• Built-in blogging
• Uptime and pagespeed
• SEO optimization
• Customization freedom
•  

Shopify or Woocommerce: How to choose?

Considering the points from the above discussion, it straightly narrows down to your preferences, skills and the way you want to manage your business. Both Shopify and Woocommerce are the most acknowledged and sought-after E-Commerce platforms in the world with their own pros and cons.

With Shopify, you don’t have to worry about any technical or software related issues. It is easy to get started with and has uncomplicated pricing plans. The major drawback of Shopify is that you don’t get complete command over everything. You can upgrade only as per your selected plan and since it runs on a pay-as-you-grow basis, it gets hard to manage costs.

Woocommerce contrarily provides you full command of your website and business. Besides, it is cheaper to launch an E-Commerce store with Woocommerce. But the disadvantage is on the technical side. You will have to look after the software maintenance and upgradation on your own or else depend on your technical expert.

You will be delighted to know that Vendorboat has integrations with both Shopify as well as Woocommerce. We specialize in making mockups of products with your designs and selling in your own store. Manufacture and shipment of the products to your end customer under your branding is also handled by us. 

Therefore, if you are searching for a budget-friendly solution, Woocommerce might work the best for you. You will be able to fully control your online store.

But if you want something that is seamless and well-organized with infinite scalability, then Shopify would be the better option for your business.

In case you have made up your mind on which E-Commerce platform to choose and probing for a trustworthy Dropshipping partner, feel free to visit our website.