Oh the golden question of building a strong website, we know what you’re thinking. You are launching your online store very soon and wondering what is the best to work with? Does wordpress website with WooCommerce work well? Well, let’s dig in.

A quick introduction

Shopify seems like the easy answer, the platform is super user-friendly. All the shop functions are readily-available and payment options can be conveniently linked. After which, It can be efficiently set up in a short amount of time. As for Woo-commerce, one will need to link it to the wordpress account first, then integrate it with a wordpress template. Plugins can be added as you need them.

Instead of diving straight into the pros and cons of Shopify and WooCommerce, we want to share with you our thoughts. As a branding and design agency, so far we have built >20 WordPress websites. Most of which uses WooCommerce as a preferred solution, than Shopify.

Our Shopify Design Experience

First, we will ask our client first to select the shopify template that he/she prefers out of the 70+ available, then we will begin the design process to beautify it with the branding of the client. Our design will be quite restricted as we can only modify the template to the extent that Shopify allows.

After the design is approved, we will proceed to export the required assets. With the assets prepared, we install it onto the online Shopify platform and live it. With experience, it is true that a Shopify website is much faster to set up. As compared to WooCommerce, Shopify has built-in functions and require minimum technical knowledge.

Our WordPress with WooCommerce Design Experience

First, we will start by designing the web pages based on how we envision the brand look and feel, we have very minimal creative limitations, which means we can go pretty wild here in design 🙂  Once the designs are approved, we will usually use the Flatsome theme on wordpress to create the website template, with WooCommerce plugin integrated. The interface for Flatsome is very user-friendly, meaning that we will build the website in a way that the client can easily update simple things themselves without having us to work on it on an hourly charge.

We always strive to ensure that the product page is designed efficiently with required tags, product categories, prices, description, purchase options etc, which is similar to what Shopify offers as well.

If I don’t have a budget to hire a web developer, will Shopify be best?

Well, yes it is the easiest solution in the short term, but it may not be the most efficient solution in the long term. The Shopify platform requires less technical knowledge, hence it is much quicker to set up, along with built in features like SSL certificates. It also takes care of basic SEO for you.

Our recommendation

The WordPress WooCommerce website solution is the most optimum way to create a website that has unlimited functions and one that can be built to last for years. It can take a little longer to set it up yourself without a web developer, but once you have the proper themes installed, you will find that WooCommerce is equally user-friendly.

It allows you to create a minimum viable product with the necessary ecommerce functions, while envisioning your future needs to build a much bigger business than what it is today. The biggest difference is that WooCommerce allows you to have greater control over the branding of your website and hosting. This is why, as a design and branding agency, we will usually recommend WooCommerce over Shopify.

Some reasons to choose WooCommerce:

• It is simple to set up, see this guide WooCommerce 101 For Beginners where they explain it all in a simple language.
• It is free to use (But you pay for added functionalities)
• WooCommerce powers 22% of the top 1 million ecommerce sites in the world
• >70 million ecommerce shops on wordpress uses WooCommerce
• You can build a much stronger SEO with WordPress blogging infrastructure than Shopify
• WooCommerce does not charge transaction fees per product sold

Backed by a strong WooCommerce Community:

• 34.8% of website uses WordPress v.s 1.7% uses Shopify
• 500+ websites are built each day using WordPress while only 60 – 80 are using platforms like Shopify and Squarespace

Beautiful WordPress Websites built using WooCommerce:

• Online Florist and Preserved Flowers – Bloomback
• Artisanal Clutches and Bags – The Looms Workshop
• Anti Itch Eczema Cream – Suu Balm™
• Durable all-in-one independent light source – Commlight

The above websites were designed by Lime Agency, and developed by our partner – wordpress expert Eneko.

We will let you take the final decision on what is best for your business. At the end of the day, we are simply sharing our personal experience so that you can make the most informed decision. You will need to decide what works best for your business, and what is the most cost-efficient way for you moving forward. Good luck!

References: Kinsta  /  w3techs