Are you looking for the best online store builder for your e-commerce shop?. If so, you’ve probably come across well-known platforms like Shopify and WordPress.
Shopify is a dedicated ecommerce platform that helps you to build your online store. It hosts your site and gives you all the tools you need to bring your store to life.
In contrast, WordPress is an open-source platform where you host your website and install WooCommerce to create your ecommerce store.
Both are goliaths in the web building space, but they cater to very different needs. Having a good website is essential for all businesses, so choosing the right content management system (CMS) is paramount to your success .We are here to help you decide which one is right for you: Shopify or WordPress.
Shopify
Shopify boasts over 5.4 million live websites and is trusted by many big brands, including Tesla, Netflix, BBC, and others. The web builder is a safe and efficient online store builder.
What Is Shopify?
The platform allows anyone to create an online store and sell their products online through one of the most popular hosted eCommerce builders available.
Shopify in particular, allows you to create an e-shop without the need for previous website development experience.
Why Shopify?
Besides offering a variety of “easy-to-use” templates, Shopify allows customers to sell products online. Shopify has themes and templates available that can be customized to meet each business’s unique branding requirements.
Advantages of Shopify:
- World’s most popular e-commerce platform for online store builders
- Between March 2020 and January 2022, Shopify’s ecommerce stores increased by 201.53%
- The platform is easy to use and offers greater flexibility
- With Shopify’s POS system, retailers can integrate online stores into any retail environment
- Shopify offers a wide range of SEO-enhanced features and online marketing tools
Advantages of Shopify over WordPress:
- Shopify is easier to set up and use for “non-developers”.
- Any of the features and plugins you would need to source separately in WordPress are built-in, notably themes, ecommerce tools, and payment gateway integrations
- The Shopify solution includes hosting, which is more costly than self-hosting.
- You won’t need to worry about the technical aspects of maintaining your site with Shopify.
- Security is dependent on Shopify. With WordPress, it depends on how diligent you are with updating and securing your site.
WordPress
A WordPress website is one of the easiest, most cost-effective ways to build a website or blog. In fact, WordPress powers over 43.3% of all websites on the web.
What Is WordPress?
On the other hand, WordPress is an open-source CMS (Content Management System) designed for blogging.
With over 30 million live websites, WordPress is the largest CMS platform based on PHP and MySQL. It was launched in 2003 and can now be found on The New York Times, Bloomberg, Spotify, etc.
With the changes to the core code and WordPress’s vast ecosystem of plugins and themes, you can build any website using WordPress, from a real estate marketplace to a magazine.
Why WordPress?
WordPress is a website builder, allowing you to construct a website exactly as you please. It’s a self-hosted software and is far more technically advanced than plug-and-play alternatives.
Advantages of WordPress:
- WordPress sites are responsive, making them mobile-friendly
- WordPress has everything a SEO-ready site needs. Disable Google indexing, customizable SEO elements for each page and plugins dedicated to SEO are just a few ways WordPress makes sites competitive in search engine rankings
- You can quickly get backlinks using WordPress. The RSS feed feature allows other bloggers to syndicate your content across directories and websites
- Well-known WooCommerce plugins for your eCommerce store
- Using WordPress’ security plugins and updates, your site remains hack-proof
Advantages of WordPress over Shopify:
- It’s open-source and can be downloaded for free.
- Unlike Shopify, WordPress lets you build any site your heart desires – Free reign.
- WordPress offers a much more comprehensive selection of templates than Shopify does.
- WordPress includes autosave, revision history and archiving tools.
- There are countless WordPress plugins – both paid and free – that allow you to extend functionality. Shopify sites are more limited in terms of features available and most additional plugins on Shopify cost you money, so depending on what you need to do it can get quite pricey
Which One is Better: Shopify or WordPress?
WordPress is a powerful content management system (CMS) for store owners to manage their websites fully. Shopify is known for being a web builder that meets all business requirements.
While you don’t need any technical skills to open a Shopify store, WordPress asks you to have a certain technical skill to edit underlying code.
Because of this, it’s hard to say which is better. It depends on your business size, budget, technical skills, etc.
The Key Differences Between Shopify and WordPress
Shopify is a hands-off, simple, dedicated ecommerce solution. With Shopify, you can build your site in minutes. It takes care of virtually everything, from hosting to payment processing to security, on the technical side.
If you run into problems, Shopify support is always there for you. This platform is excellent for beginners who want to learn about ecommerce and a great choice to use as your online store builder.
With WordPress, you can get a hands-on, flexible ecommerce solution. With more experience in the eCommerce and web space, the plugin options are greater. Additionally, the backend code is more tightly controlled, content marketing and management tools are more flexible, and product listings are fewer restrictions.
If much of the site infrastructure is already in place, WordPress users are also better off sticking with this platform.
Our Final Thoughts on Online Store Builders
At Digital Briefcase, we make website building easy and hassle-free. Using our graphic design and development teams, we create a great user experience, while our expert SEO team ensures that the right audience gets to experience it.
Whether you’re upgrading an existing site or starting from scratch, we’d love to answer your questions about whether Shopify, WordPress, or another CMS is the best online store builder for you. Get in touch today!