Platforms like Shopify and WordPress allow you to join the growing world of e-commerce. In a few weeks, it’s more than possible to set up an e-commerce store for less than $150 to $200 and start selling products online.
In this article, we’re going to unpack the differences between Shopify Vs. WordPress, two of the more popular platforms suitable for starting an e-commerce business. By the end of this report, you should have a good idea of which platform will suit your online venture.
How Do You Sell Online with Shopify or WordPress?
If you want to start selling products online, then you need a platform where you can display your wares to visitors.
There are numerous models available to help you achieve this goal. Shopify is the third-largest online shopping platform, with sales of more than $135-billion in sales and more than 220 million buyers visiting Shopify stores to buy products and merch.
Shopify offers you a convenient way to set up an e-commerce store. You can think of it as a business-in-a-box type of setup that’s easy to navigate and scale as your business grows. It’s not surprising to see that so many e-commerce retailers are choosing to work with Shopify over other platforms like WordPress.
However, while Shopify is convenient and offers an easy way to start your online business, most websites use a WordPress platform to manage their online store. WordPress is the gold standard of website software, and it’s free for use.
While that statement of being free for use attracts plenty of attention from newbies looking to start an e-commerce venture, there’s a catch. Many of the addons and plugins for WordPress are expensive, and along with your hosting and domain, costs can escalate quickly.
So, which is the best platform for e-commerce? Is it Shopify? Or should you go with WordPress?
Comparing Shopify Vs. WordPress – What’s the Difference?
Shopify is an example of a website builder. These platforms are straightforward to use and typically integrate user-friendly functionality that makes it easy for people with no development or design skills to build a website.
Building an e-commerce store is a snap with Shopify, and there are plenty of online tutorials on YouTube to help you understand how to start with Shopify and build a successful e-commerce business from scratch.
Website builders typically come with a monthly subscription fee. As a result, you never really own your webstore, you’re just renting it from Shopify.
This functionality makes for an attractive option when starting your e-commerce journey. Still, it has both pros and cons you need to be aware of before you commit to using Shopify as the backbone of your e-commerce strategy.
WordPress is different. You get two WP formats; WordPress.org and WordPress.com. A .com solution is an excellent tool for blogging and adding modules to a basic website that you can self-manage once you learn the ropes of how to use the platform.
However, the .org version of WordPress is a much more advanced, self-hosted website building tool, suitable for building a large e-commerce site.
WordPress.com is a blogging platform that works in the same way as a website builder, allowing you to create your website easily. WordPress.org is self-hosted software and is far more technically advanced.
How Do I Choose Between Starting with Shopify or WordPress?
Since WordPress.org is the superior offering between the two versions, we’ll be using it as the basis for comparison to the Shopify platform in this review.
It might surprise you to learn that WordPress.org is the driving force behind more than a third of all internet websites.
Shopify is no slouch, and it’s the preferred platform for more than 600,000 e-commerce stores. Entrepreneurs and celebrities use Shopify, so don’t think that you can’t build a successful website without all the bells and whistles available on a WordPress platform.
WordPress doesn’t come ready out of the box for use as an e-commerce store. If you want to turn your WordPress site into an e-commerce giant, you’ll need the help of plugins to give your site functionality to take payments and handle other business tasks.
With Shopify, it’s possible to get your store up and running in 24-hours, but with WordPress, it’s going to take a bit more time. Therefore, if you need to get online as soon as possible, look at the Shopify option. However, if you have some time on your hands, then we suggest you look at WordPress instead.
Shopify Vs. WordPress – The Pros and Cons
Let’s start our head-to-head comparison of the Shopify and WordPress platforms by looking at the pros and cons of each solution.
What are the Pros of Shopify?
- Easy setup – Using Shopify is a pleasure if you have no previous experience in website design or development. Your e-commerce platform comes with hosting and security, making it a turn-key solution for your e-commerce business. All you need to do is make a few customizable changes, load up some products, install a few apps, and you’re ready to start selling.
- Purpose-built for e-commerce – Unlike WordPress, Shopify doesn’t build blogs or offer other information sites. The sole purpose of this platform is for e-commerce. Dedicated user experience means that this platform does e-commerce properly, and thousands of users attest to its top-quality performance for facilitating e-commerce.
- No external hosting solution required – When you sign up with Shopify, your platform requires no external hosting or cybersecurity solutions. Shopify takes care of all of that for you, allowing you to focus on building and marketing your store.
What are the Cons of Shopify?
- Transaction fees – Unlike WordPress, Shopify requires you to use its payment gateways. As a result, you need to pay a 0.5% to 2% transaction fee on the value of every sale you make with the platform. However, it’s possible to avoid this fee if you decide to use the Shopify Payments gateway.
- Design issues – Shopify is a bare-bones e-commerce solution. If you decide to over-customize your store, you may need to reformat your content for use on the site.
- Not as simple as other solutions – Shopify is a very user-friendly solution, and it’s the most popular choice for newbies starting an e-commerce business. However, Shopify is still not as user-friendly as other platforms like Wix, which offer drag-and-drop functionality when building your site.
What are the Pros of WordPress?
- Customizable solution – WordPress requires some technical expertise to set up, but you can always outsource the development to someone else if you have the budget available. WordPress is a more customizable solution than Shopify. You have a more extensive choice of design features like themes and templates, allowing you to provide a customized solution for your e-commerce business. The number of addons and plugins for WordPress is mind-boggling. However, you need to keep an eye on the costs.
- User-friendly editor – The new “Gutenberg” editor makes it easier to publish your blogs and pages, with most users stating it’s an improvement over the old model.
- Plenty of developer resources for research – There are thousands of WordPress resources available online. These resources can turn you from a novice to an expert if you have the time and patience to learn and apply.
- Loads of plugins – The variety of plugins is impressive, with solutions for any problem you’re encountering with your e-commerce business.
What are the Cons of WordPress?
- Technical design and development experience required – As mentioned, you need a good understanding of code and the basics of WordPress if you want to use this site yourself. However, nothing is stopping you from hiring someone to do the hard work for you if you have the budget.
- However, you should learn as much as you can about navigating and using the WordPress site yourself. Learning how to use the site will help you work around small challenges, avoiding the need to hire a developer every time something goes wrong with your website.
- Addons and plugins can get expensive – There are plenty of useful add-ons and plugins for your WordPress site. The WooCommerce plugin is a great example. However, pay attention to the subscription costs of all your plugins, as your monthly operating costs will continue to climb as you add new plugins to your store.
- External hosting, domain, and cybersecurity required – Unlike Shopify, where you get a hosted solution, WordPress requires you to buy a domain and hosting for your e-commerce site. Hosting also adds to your monthly running costs, as do the annual costs of registering and renewing your domain.
Shopify Vs. WordPress – What are the Key Differences?
When it comes to defining the key differences between the Shopify and WordPress platforms, we took eight different criteria into account. We looked at each of the offerings and stacked them against each other in a head-to-head battle for e-commerce victory.
Here are the criteria involved in our decision-making process for determining the best e-commerce platform.
Shopify Vs. WordPress: Comparison Categories
- Category 1: Ease of Use
- Category 2: Design
- Category 3: Domains and URLs
- Category 4: E-commerce Features and Tools
- Category 5: Payment Solutions and Fees
- Category 6: Attracting Customers
- Category 7: Merchant Support and Helplines
- Category 8: Pricing Model
Shopify Vs. WordPress – Ease of Use
When assessing the performance of an e-commerce platform, ease of use is up there as the number one feature new users want from their e-commerce experience.
The biggest difference between WordPress and Shopify is that with Shopify, you don’t need to know a line of code to get the platform working. You can upload blogs, product listings, images and video clips, all without entering any complex code commands.
Dashboards
The dashboard is the control panel for your Shopify or WordPress Store. Both platforms have useful dashboards, but WordPress offer a lot more functionality. If you have experience with code., then setting up a WordPress site won’t be a hassle, as its pretty basic stuff, but installing some plugins and other software’s might be somewhat challenging for inexperienced users.
Shopify’s dashboard is much more user-friendly, and it takes the confusion our of managing the backend of your store. Adding products and descriptions to your site is easy, as you upload in file format like you would with an excel or word document. If you encounter a problem, then you always have the option of contacting the support center.
Adding Products
Adding products to your store is very easy with Shopify but complicated with WordPress. WordPress requires you to know some code, and WordPress is not a native e-commerce platform.
In other words, you’ll need to add additional plug-in features or programs to get the site to respond the way you need it to for an e-commerce experience your customer will enjoy. However, there are plenty of options available when it comes to plug-ins for your WordPress site.
WooCommerce, Ecwid, and BigCommerce are all viable plugin options for your WordPress site. They help you leverage the best features of these e-commerce platforms, while still retaining the other benefits associated with a full WordPress site.
Shopify is a purpose-built site, specifically designed for e-commerce. It might offer a blog module, but its nothing like a WordPress blog. Shopify stores are site meant for selling products, focusing on a retail experience more than building an authority on the niche they are selling to online.
Domains
When you open your Shopify store, Shopify gives you the option of running on their host domain. As a result, you don’t need to pay any hosting fees, saving you money on your operating costs. However, with WordPress, you must have a domain ready and hosting available to load the site and get everything to work.
Ease of use – Winner: Shopify
When looking at the ease of use of the platforms, it’s clear that Shopify is a much more user-friendly experience, especially for new users. For those people that are stuck at home during the pandemic lockdown, learning to use a Shopify site is easy, and you can get it up and running by the time the city gets back to normal operations.
With a WordPress site, you’ll need to spend a few weeks studying how to use all of the functions, and even then you’ll probably need an expert to help you with some of the code.
If you’re looking for a “business-in-a-box” solution that you can implement right away, then Shopify is your best option.
Shopify vs WordPress – Design
Your e-commerce store needs an eye-pleasing design that’s functional, user-friendly, and affordable. Without a decent design, your se-commerce store will look like a fly-by-night, and people won’t trust your website.
Therefore, the design of your site matters. If you’re looking for the Rolls Royce of platforms, the WordPress is the best option out there. WordPress is free to use, but this is where the costs of using the platform start to appear.
WordPress charge for all the design components you ant to add to your site, as well as the plugins and further features. There are themes and other plugins available for free, but you can expect to spend some money if you want to customize your site.
Build Time
The build time of getting your site up and ready for market makes a huge difference in your profitability. One edge that Shopify offers you over WordPress, is that it comes ready for use with a few minor changes. You don’t need to code a new template; you just pick one from the Shopify App store and apply it to your site in minutes.
As a result of the plug-and-play functionality of your Shopify site, you can get up and running in a fraction of the time it takes to setup a WordPress site. WordPress requires coding and learning how to use it without the help of an expert can take weeks for newbies to learn.
Themes and Templates
The template and theme you use on your site make a huge difference in your conversion rate. Shopify offers you the option of choosing between 10 free themes for your store. The theme sets the background, color, and design style of your site interface.
They have around 60 other themes available, but you’ll need to pay for them, with prices starting at $140 per theme, depending on the functionality and popularity of the template. While it might sound like a lot of money, building a store with a budget of $140 is impressive when you consider what one months rent costs on a brick-and-mortar retail location for a single month.
All the Shopify themes are mobile responsive, and compatible with any mobile device. That’s a critical point when it comes to selling online. More people are using their phones to check out from their favorite online retailer, and you’re missing out on 50% of retail volume if you’re not mobile ready.
While Shopify has a great customization range for themes, WordPress blows them out of the water. WordPress has so many themes available, and there’s so many to choose from it might be challenging to make your final decision.
However, installing your WordPress theme requires a bit of coding knowledge, and if you understand the basics, you can get around installing the theme yourself. There are over 1,000 official themes to choose in the WordPress store, and another 2,000 or more available from private developers on WordPress.org.
Best design – Winner: WordPress
WordPress has far more custom options and the design themes are limitless. The only downside is that you need to understand a bit of code to get the templates and design working.
Shopify doesn’t have thousands of themes, but there are plenty that are more than adequate to run a e-commerce store. The best part about Shopify for newbies is that you don’t need to understand any code to load new themes to your store.
Shopify Vs. WordPress – Domain and URLs
When you register for a WordPress account, and start a site, you need a domain name and hosting to go live with your e-commerce store. Domains and hosting are a great way to start your brand identity online, and a custom URL featuring your brand name, or a variation of your brand name, goes a long way to building trust in the eyes of the online consumer.
However, it costs money to buy a domain, and then acquire hosting. Even shared hosting will cost you a few dollars a month for the service. When you start to taste success, you’ll need to upgrade your site to private hosting, and that can add up to costs significantly.
Still, dedicated hosting and a WordPress site are the gold standard for e-commerce. There’s a reason why this combination is on over 30% of all website installations online, because it works.
Shopify allows you to use custom domains and URLs for your online store. However, it also recognizes that newcomers might not have the resources for a domain and hosting. Therefore, you can piggyback on Shopify while you save your profits for a custom domain and hosting for your e-commerce store.
Domains and URLs – Winner: Shopify
Shopify offers users the option of trading off the web-builder platform or using a custom URL. This flexibility lowers the barriers to entry for newcomers that can’t afford the expenses of domains and hosting when starting.
Shopify Vs. WordPress – Features and E-Commerce Tools
The features and tools of an e-commerce webstore are what separates the offering of one platform to another. You can have a great design and user-friendly interface, but if there’s no functionality and performance, then what’s the point of using the platform?
Shopify provides the difference in this department. As we already discussed, Shopify is a purpose-built e-commerce platform designed to facilitate selling online. WordPress is a full-suite website installation that requires the use of plug-ins to work as an e-commerce site.
Built-in Features
Therefore, foe newcomers to e-commerce, using a Shopify platform is a better idea compared to a WordPress website when starting your first e-commerce storefront.
By using Shopify, you get access to plenty on built-in e-commerce features, and an app store that helps to enhance the functionality of your e-commerce store. With WordPress, you need the assistance of a third-party e-commerce plugin like WooCommerce to help you convert your platform into an ecommerce store.
For newcomers that don’t have the coding skills or the budget to hire an expert, going with, Shopify reduces your costs and allows you to minimize your time to market with your e-commerce store, while mitigating the expenses involved with coding your WordPress site.
Shopify Standard Features
Shopify has hundreds of ecommerce features, with some of the free standouts being the following.
- Abandoned cart customer recovery
- Discount code services
- Multi-channel sales integration
- Shopify e-commerce stats
WooCommerce WordPress Plugin Features
WordPress requires the installation of the WooCommerce plugin to turn your website into an e-commerce store.
You can add all this functionality through other third-party plugins as well, with many of them being free for use. WooCommerce comes from the same developers as WordPress, and you can expect the following features when loading the plugin to your platform.
- You can sell any type of product, digital or physical
- Built-in blog
- Product ratings and reviews
- Product filtering and sorting
- Guest checkout
- Favorite saved products
- Shipping rate calculator
- Available in translation options
Features and E-commerce tools – Winner: WordPress
When it comes to the best e-commerce tools, WordPress wins thanks to the variety of plug-ins that facilitate e-commerce. However, Shopify comes with a user-friendly setup, and plenty of functionality, without needing to install any plugins.
While WordPress is technically the winner of this category, Shopify is no write-off, especially for newbies. Newcomers will find Shopify to be the better option, as they don’t need any coding knowledge or third-party plugins to start selling online.
Shopify Vs. WordPress – Payment Solutions and Fees
Both Shopify and WordPress allow you to work with any of the hundreds of payment processors available. You get access to Credit and Credit card payment processors, as well as Stripe. PayPal, and all the other alternatives.
However, Shopify allows you to avoid unnecessary payment processing fees if you choose to use its gateway, Shopify Payments.
Payment solutions and fees – Winner: Shopify
Shopify fives you all the same payment solutions as WordPress, with the convenience of using the Shopify Payments platform to further reduce your operating costs if you’re a newcomer to selling online.
Shopify Vs. WordPress – Attracting Customers
Designing an outstanding e-commerce store is not enough to guarantee your success. Both Shopify and WordPress e-commerce platforms require promotion through SEO strategies. SEO helps to drive traffic to the site, getting more people to see your offer.
Shopify with Built-in Functionality and an App Store
Shopify caters for SEO functionality like using specific product titles and descriptions loaded with your targeted keywords, Shopify also allows for other tactics like customizing URLs and site structure, making it easier for the search engines to crawl through and understand.
The Shopify App Store has plenty of additional apps to add to your store to improve its SEO capability.
WordPress Third-party Plugins
With WordPress, your SEO strategy runs through third-party plug-ins. Yoast SEO is an example of SEO plugins that help you match criteria for your SEO campaign, in line with other content already published online. Yoast has a free plan, which its pretty much useless, or you can buy the premium version for $69.
There are plenty of other beneficial plug-ins available for your WordPress platform, but most of them cost a subscription fee or one-off payment. These costs add to your overall expenses for running your e-commerce business.
Attracting customers – Winner: Shopify
Shopify is the better platform for attracting new customers. There are a bunch of free apps in the Shopify App Store to help you manage your Shopify account. WordPress has plenty of plugins with SEO functionality, but most of them cost a considerable fee for use.
Shopify Vs. WordPress – Merchant Support and Helplines
WordPress has a decent support system. However, it’s not a purpose-built platform for e-commerce. Therefore, when things go wrong, a WordPress developer would have a hard time telling you about the problems with your Yoast SEO plugin.
With Shopify it’s a different experience. Shopify understand that you’re a dedicated e-commerce merchant, and you need immediate assistance. They understand that your site has the sole purpose of selling products, unlike a WordPress site which could be a lifestyle blog or an e-commerce site.
As a result, you get a customized and tailored e-commerce helpline geared specifically to supporting merchants in need of support for their business.
We were impressed by the depth of the support on offer with Shopify. You get a dedicated support chat available 24/7, as well as email support and phone support line. However, the live chat is the most impressive, and representatives are quick to help with relevant resources.
Merchant support and helplines – Winner: Shopify
Shopify wins the award for the best merchant support. The 24/7 live support chat is the standout. The representatives in the chat will do their best to help you on the spot. If they can’t they’ll point you in the right direction to a developer that can clear up the issue., or a resource that can assist.
You get the same level of world-class assistance from the support teams regardless of the Shopify plan you’re using.
Shopify Vs. WordPress – Pricing Models
WordPress is available for free download from the WordPress.org official site. However, it cost is an issue for you when setting up your first e-commerce business, you might want to think about going with Shopify instead.
Shopify has a monthly subscription fee of $29, $79, or $299, depending on the type of plan you’re taking. The Shopify plan is the most popular option, at $79. And it comes with a store and all the tools you need to build it out yourself. It’s for this reason that its part of a range of software’s called “web-builders.”
Some newcomers to Shopify might think that they can’t afford the $79 per month. However, now you can get a free trial of Shopify for 3-months before you ever pay a cent. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across America and the world, Shopify recognizes that there will be an influx of people looking for opportunities to make money online.
As a response to situation, the CEO of Shopify stated to company will be extending the free trial period from 14-days to 90-days to give people time to start making money with the platform before they worry about paying for subscription fees.
We think that’s a great initiative by the company and provides every American that has access to a laptop, mobile device, and an internet connection, the chance to make a living working from home. In this time, we can expect a significant change in the way we work and interact with people daily.
Those people that can adapt to a new lifestyle of working from home, can build a successful business with minimal startup capital.
However, it will take time, and time is your greatest asset. But if you find yourself stuck in a lockdown, or without anything to do this weekend, consider investing in your future, and put the time into developing your first e-commerce store using Shopify.
Pricing plans – Winner: Shopify
WordPress is available for free download right now. However, that might be somewhat misleading to newcomers to the e-commerce game. As you can see from this review, the basic shell of WordPress is free, but there’s plenty of work that goes into turning that shell into a successful e-commerce business.
It’s not uncommon for e-commerce entrepreneurs to sink around $1,000 to $3,000 into site development to pay for the theme, coding, SEO, and other plugins used in setting up a WordPress site that’s ready for e-commerce capability.
Large E-commerce sites can be anywhere up to $30,000 using a WordPress platform, depending on the time and software used in the development of the platform.
Shopify plans range from $29 to $299 per month, but it includes everything you need to start your e-commerce business from scratch. Some developers might charge for specific apps in the app store, but there are plenty of useful free applications that help to enhance the performance of your e-commerce store for free.
Shopify Vs. WordPress – The Final Verdict
If you’re looking to set up an e-commerce store, you might not need all the additional functionality of blogs and other add-ons that you get with a WordPress site. Therefore, Shopify presents a realistic solution for your business. However, if you’re thinking about setting up an authority site in a specific niche, and you want an online store as part of your offering, then WordPress is the better solution.
Whichever one you decide to work with depends on your e-commerce goals. Shopify is easy to set up and manage, and there are plenty of ways you can enhance your store using the apps available in the app store. WordPress is more challenging to set up but offers you more possibilities for creating customizations.
Let’s have another look at the qualifying criteria that swayed our decision on the best e-commerce platform for newcomers to e-commerce.
Ease-of-Use
- Verdict: Shopify
- If you’re looking for a business-in-a-box type of product, the Shopify is your best bet. This e-commerce platform is so easy to set up and manage, and you can run multiple stores at the same time without much hassle.
- WordPress can present challenges for newcomers that might be challenging to overcome. While WordPress does offer superior functionality, it also has a steeper learning curve.
Platform Design
- Winner: WordPress
- Shopify is a great product, but WordPress is a masterpiece of design and development. There are so many add-ons and plug-ins available that you can customize your site to suit the most extensive e-commerce operations.
- Shopify scales with your business as well, but it has nowhere near the same kind of functionality as WordPress.
Domains and URLs
- Winner: Draw
- Both WordPress and Shopify allow you to set up custom URLs and domains on the respective platforms. This setup is an essential part of doing business online, and owning your domain can mean the difference between a conversion and the prospect walking away.
E-Commerce Features and Tools
- Winner: WordPress
- When it comes to having a suite of useful e-commerce tools, both Shopify and WordPress offer a wide range of add-ons, apps, and plug-ins for your e-commerce store. However, Shopify can’t match WordPress for the sheer amount of options available in the app store.
- Still, users need to be aware that plug-ins are not always a free service, and the cost of these add-ons can add considerably to your monthly operating costs.
Payment Solutions and Fees
- Winner: WordPress
- Setting up payments is where Shopify and WordPress have the most significant difference. Shopify charges you for using any other payment gateway other than the Shopify-approved system. If you do go with an outside payment gateway, you’ll have to pay transaction fees.
- WordPress lets you set up any payment gateway you like and add as many payment processors as you want, and you can even accept payments in cryptocurrency.
Attracting Customers
- Winner: WordPress
- When it comes to attracting customers, we think that Shopify is a good route to go with when starting your e-commerce venture. Shopify has plenty of helpful apps available for free that can improve your SEO and selling opportunities online.
- However, it can’t compare to the amount of versatility on offer with the WordPress platform. There’s a reason why so many successful websites run WordPress, and the SEO plug-ins alone can be enough to win the argument.
Merchant Support and Helplines
- Winner: Shopify
- Shopify’s merchant support is available through live chat, email, and 24/7 phone support. WordPress does have a significant resource network available, but it’s nothing like the hands-on support you get from Shopify.
Pricing Models
- Winner: Shopify
- WordPress claims it’s a free platform, and it is. However, they neglect to mention the rest of the associated costs involved with getting your website up and running. You’ll need to purchase domains and hosting, and then there are the costs of the plug-ins. Some plug-ins are free, and some cost a monthly subscription fee.
- Many WordPress sites make the mistake of adding too many plug-ins too early, costing them valuable seed capital they need for the operations of their e-commerce business in its early stages.
- When you sign up with Shopify, you get a range of e-commerce tools and features built-into your store than help you promote your products and succeed online.
Shopify Vs. WordPress – FAQ
Do you still have a few unanswered questions about choosing the right e-commerce solution for your business? Look through these frequently asked questions for further insight into your decision.
What are the best plug-ins for WordPress e-commerce?
WooCommerce is the best WordPress plug-in for your e-commerce store. This app has everything you need to turn your WordPress site into a robust e-commerce store. WooCommerce comes from the same development team that’s responsible for the creation of the WordPress platform. Setup is easy; there is no charge for using the plug-in and no transaction fees.
When I open a Shopify store, Do I need to pay for hosting?
No, you don’t need to pay for hosting on your Shopify store. Shopify is a web-builder program, and it supplies your store with a domain and hosting free of charge. WordPress requires you to buy a domain and pay for shared, dedicated, or private hosting with your account.
What’s the best hosting solution for WordPress sites?
When you start with WordPress, it’s going to take some time to build traffic to sustainable levels where tour seeing thousands of unique visitors per day. Therefore, in the beginning, you can get away with shared hosting and then migrate to dedicated or private hosting as your business grows.
Can I Use WordPress and Shopify together?
Yes, you can. WordPress has plenty of plug-ins, and they even offer a Shopify plug-in for your WordPress e-commerce site. You get the same Shopify e-commerce functionality, and you can link it to your Facebook account for a fee of $9 per month.
Shopify Vs. WordPress – Which Model Suits Newbies with Small Budgets?
If you’re a newbie to the e-commerce game, and you’re not familiar with website design, then Shopify offers you an attractive way to start an e-commerce store with limited knowledge and resources. You have fewer monthly expenses as your subscription plan covers everything you need to start your store and get selling.
If you’re planning on starting an e-commerce store, then we would recommend you do so with Shopify over WordPress. Shopify is simple and effective, and it’s a proven system for selling products online.
If you’re looking to establish an authority site and grow your online business using many different strategies, such as e-commerce, blogging, affiliates, and others, then the WordPress platform is the better choice for you.
Starting with a WordPress store and a limited knowledge of how to use it correctly means you’ll need to outsource the design and management of the site to another company. Outsourcing can also add significantly to the costs of running your e-commerce company.
If you’re on a budget, and you’re not an expert coder or designer, then we recommend you go with Shopify as your platform of choice.
Shopify Vs. WordPress – Which Is the Better Choice for Scaling My Business?
Shopify is a fantastic comprehensive e-commerce solution. Shopify also allows you to scale your business through the different Shopify subscription plans available. You can start with a free store, and migrate through the pricing plans as your business grows.
Shopify is a purely e-commerce focused business model, and each plan offers a new addition to your e-commerce business that allows you to scale your company to any size you want.
WordPress does offer a lot of opportunities to scale, but you need to know what you’re doing. You might find yourself searching through forums for advice or hiring costly advisors or WordPress experts to build you a large authority site. While WordPress can scale, it’s not nearly as efficient and e-commerce dedicated as Shopify.
