Shopify vs WordPress is a common question we get asked almost weekly. Being agnostic to systems we have no reason to support 1 more than the other, however we certainly do have recommendations for both in different scenarios.

Simply put both have strengths and are fit for purpose depending on what you need. Below outlines the strengths and weaknesses for both which might help guide you. If this ecommerce cms article doesn’t help you, give us a call and we’ll help you through it.

What are the pro’s of shopify?

Shopify in our opinion has won the race to being the dominant ecommerce website cms if we’re comparing it only to wordpress. This is due to a variety of reasons, but it’s mostly to do with cost benefits in building Shopify.

One of the key reasons Shopify is cheaper up front is due to there’s less custom development required. Now that doesn’t mean no development is required, for most larger businesses custom development will be required. If you’re a small 1 person business you can spin up a Shopify website in a day, with no development experience.

Unlike WordPress, Shopify does not need a seperate hosting solution, this alone makes it more attractive so many small businesses. Instead of an annual hosting fee, Shopify charges monthly to access the website infrastructure. That means you don’t own the website, Shopify does. If that IP or ownership is an issue for you, that might be a reason to choose WordPress. 

Shopify benefits:

• Self hosted solution
• Lower up front costs
• Improve security out of the box
• More integrations that non developers can setup
• Improved themes (although themes aren’t always recommended)
• Improved usability for developers to build a consistent customer journey through the purchase process

Shopify issues

• Monthly fees can add up if you use their apps
• The website is never yours, it’s their IP
• If you use a theme, your website could be the same as your neighbour’s, or even competitors
• Its not built to be as easily customised

If Shopify sounds like the right choice to you, contact us today and we’ll help build your new ecommerce store.

Shopify costs

The costs of Shopify are monthly hosting fees, however it’s not quite that simple. Shopify monthly fees are for hosting, but it will not include things like apps, custom solutions, transaction fees, etc.

 

What are the pro’s of wordpress?

WordPress is the most popular cms in the world with (at the time of this article) 43% of websites globally. It’s widely popular due to it’s customisable solution that’s been around a lot longer then other CMS platforms like Shopify. With that in mind, wordpress is a better solution if you’re looking for a custom build that is not an ecommerce site. If you’re looking for an ecommerce website, the question becomes more involved.

WordPress has 2 platforms to choose from, the CMS you need to host yourself, or a hosted solution which is really more a blogging platform.

WordPress can be an ecommerce website. There are various commerce tools that can be built into wordpress, however Woocommerce is the winner here, it’s the most popular, easiest to use, and integrates with more systems their its peers.

We build wordpress websites from the ground up, they are not themes, they are market leading. WordPress is our non commerce choice of CMS due to it’s flexibility, popularity, and usability.

What are the benefits of wordpress?

1. Fully customisable CMS
2. The most popular CMS globally, so more people know how to use it
3. Endless prebuilt integrations with other systems like CRMS, ERPs etc
4. Easy to use
5. Can be made into a headless website which means it’s super quick if built well
6. It’s your IP

WordPress issues

1. Being a custom solution there is more of an up front cost to building
2. If it’s not built well, (it can have security issues, we don’t have this due to how we build our websites)
3. You’ll need to organise hosting (we can do that for you)

So who wins, WordPress or Shopify.

If you’ve read this far you will have learned, well, it depends on what your business needs are.

If you’re looking for an ecommerce store, the decision is normally Shopify. We do build Woocommerce websites when Shopify isn’t desired, however Shopify is generally a better choice.

If you’re building a non commerce website, well then the decision is simple -wordpress.

Need a new website? Contact us today.