If you’re making a website for dropshipping, you probably already know that WooCommerce and Shopify are the best platforms for it. The real challenge, though, is deciding between WooCommerce and Shopify.
There’s no question that both platforms are very adaptable, possible, and easy to use. You can’t do better than WooCommerce or Shopify if you want to set up an online dropshipping store.
Which one, though? For this, we will talk about the main ways in which WooCommerce and Shopify are different. Keep reading.
What’s Shopify?
Shopify is a place where online businesses can buy and sell things. It’s basically an open-source portal that lets you set up your online store with a number of themes and options. Shopify has been around longer than WooCommerce because it came out in 2004, and we’ll talk about how that can help your store.
On Shopify, if you want to set up and run a store, you have to pay a monthly fee and a small percentage of what you sell. But it’s easy to set up a store on your own, even if you don’t know how to code. It has store templates that look professional and are easy to change and design.
What’s WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is not a platform, but a plugin that was made by WordPress and is available through it. You can turn your WordPress site into an online store by adding the WooCommerce plugin to it. WooCommerce came out seven years after Shopify, but in a short amount of time, it has become a very popular platform. Over 3.8 million people use it every day.
WooCommerce has features that are easy to use and workable, just like Shopify. You don’t need to know how to code to change templates or site designs.
Shopify vs. WooCommerce
Since both WooCommerce and Shopify are very popular on the market, dropshipping businesses often don’t know which one to choose. We’ll compare both options below to help you decide which one to choose.
Setup
If you know how to use WordPress, you know how to use WooCommerce too. For WordPress users, setting up WooCommerce is easy because you just need to install the plugin and start making changes to your website. But in this case, you will have to run and set up your dropshipping store on your own. For more advanced functions, this may require some knowledge of how to code.
In the WooCommerce vs. Shopify debate, on the other hand, Shopify is a guide! As soon as you sign up, you are shown how to do everything. Don’t worry if you don’t know anything about technology. You don’t need any with Shopify.
Simplicity
The user buys and takes care of WooCommerce hosting and a domain. Since it’s not a hosted service, you have to update, install, back up, and maintain your store.
You have to do everything on your own to set up WooCommerce. But now we have choices from hosting and domain providers that help us take care of the whole service. If you don’t know how the platform works, this might help.
Since Shopify is an online store, this platform is very easy to use. Everything will be easy to understand for you. Once you’ve chosen a template, you can change it to fit your needs and start selling it in your dropshipping store.
Integration
On Shopify, it only takes one click to connect your social media. This means that you don’t need to know how to code to link your Google, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook accounts. Find the option and add links to your official pages.
This doesn’t mean, though, that WooCommerce is behind. You can count on the WooCommerce plugin for this. There are easy-to-use extensions that let you add links to your social media accounts and integrate eBay, AliExpress, Amazon, and other online stores. You can also install and use a POS system from a different company with WooCommerce.
Customization
We don’t need to talk about how flexible WooCommerce is when it comes to customization. Millions of stunning and beautiful online stores were made with WooCommerce and can be found on the web. WooCommerce is one of the best ways to make a beautiful online store (just the way you want it) because it has a lot of themes and is easy to change.
Shopify isn’t too far behind WooCommerce when it comes to the customization part of this WooCommerce vs. Shopify debate. It has a number of templates that can be changed. These designs are clean, professional, and nice to look at. They are great for many different kinds of online dropshipping stores. Shopify is also great because it works well on mobile devices.
Payment
We are extra careful when it comes to payments because money is important. It’s important for every customer to know how they can pay you. It’s not hard to lose information or fall victim to payment fraud.
With WooCommerce, you can use Stripe and PayPal, which are the two most popular and trusted ways to pay. Most dropshipping companies and their customers are used to these ways of making payments. If you want to offer more ways to pay, you can use add-ons and other popular payment methods.
But keep in mind that WooCommerce is an open platform, so any payment service can make an add-on for it. You might find methods that aren’t used as much. Before you use any payment method, it would be best to look at the reviews.
Shopify accepts about 100 different ways to pay, and each transaction costs 0.5% or more, depending on the Shopify plan you choose.You can also use Shopify Payment, which is a payment processor made by Shopify and is free. This is a less complicated method.
Shopify makes it easy to automatically figure out taxes for international transactions based on the country. Depending on the customer’s country, the total is added to the bill.
SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the last difference between WooCommerce and Shopify that is also important. Every dropshipping store needs marketing, which is the key to its success. Marketing is impossible without SEO that works.
SEO is definitely a good thing in WooCommerce. The WordPress editor helps you with meta descriptions, URLs, meta tags, alt tags, image alt text, and other things. Yoast SEO, one of the most well-known SEO plugins, can also help you improve your on-site SEO. The plugin will help you figure out where you’re weak and where you’re strong. This makes SEO easy.
SEO isn’t very good on Shopify. First, you can’t fully change your URLs because they use a fixed type of URL.But Shopify helps with core SEO features that make your website easy to use and easy to find.
Conclusion
When it comes to dropshipping, it may be hard for business owners to choose between WooCommerce and Shopify. Since a lot of people don’t know how to code, they don’t know which platform to choose. But luckily, both WooCommerce and Shopify are easy to use and have a lot of features you can use. Some of the best dropshipping tools, such as dropship-empire, can even be used with both WooCommerce and Shopify.
We suggest looking closely at the above things to make the right choice. Which part is important and helpful for your business? You can write down the good and bad things about your business. This list shouldn’t be generic, because what works for one business might not work for another. So, make a list and figure out which platform is best for your business.