WooCommerce is a popular e-commerce platform based on WordPress. As an open-source solution, it is free to use. However, many businesses decide to migrate to the Shopify platform, which requires paying a monthly or annual license. Why do store owners decide to take such a step? Does it make sense to migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify and when? How to effectively migrate your store to avoid problems? I will try to answer all these questions in this guide.
Building a store on WooCommerce doesn't involve any subscription costs. This makes it easy to start building a business on this platform. However, as your business grows, limitations become apparent that may justify migrating from WooCommerce to Shopify. The top five areas where Shopify shows its advantage over time are:
The total cost of ownership of the solution is not just subscription costs. When you include all the fees associated with setting up and maintaining a growing store, WooCommerce often turns out to be a more expensive solution.
It is important to remember that in the case of WooCommerce stores, you must bear the costs of purchasing and maintaining the hosting infrastructure yourself, which in Shopify is included in the subscription. As a WordPress plugin, it only offers basic functionality, so store owners have to pay a number of fees for additional plugins.
In addition, any changes to the website, as well as updating the store on WooCommerce, require the support of an IT specialist. Owners of such stores can maintain their own IT team, work with an agency or hire freelancers. All of these costs should therefore be included in the monthly costs of maintaining the store.
According to a report by Boston Consulting Group, the long-term cost of creating and maintaining a store on Shopify ison average 32% lowerthan in the case of WooCommerce. It is worth adding that the study also included the cost of setting up a store, which in the case of WooCommerce, according to the same study, is on average 49% higher than in the case of Shopify.
Shopify takes care of hosting, SSL certificates and automatic updates. Thanks to this, it eliminates the risk of failures or hacker attacks, the consequences of which are very painful for the business.
From a technical point of view, Shopify providessecure data encryption and storage,a higher level of access control to the platform and automatically creates data backups. Above all, however, operating in the cloud, it guarantees99.99% uptime, regardless of the amount of traffic on your site, e.g. during periods of increased promotions, such as Black Friday, Valentine's Day, or before Christmas. During such periods, reduced store availability can translate into a very large loss of potential profits.
In the case of open-source platforms such as WooCommerce, companies must take care of most of the above-mentioned aspects themselves, including compliance with the payment card security standard (PCI), which means a greater risk of cyber threats to end customers.
Shopify offers an intuitive interface that does not require advanced technical knowledge, complex training, and is very user-friendly for new users.
Anyone can manage Shopify from the store administrator level, without the need for programming knowledge. Using the user panel is based on the low-code principle, i.e. a visual interface that limits the use of code to an absolute minimum. This allows for quick changes to the appearance of the site, products, or navigationwithout the need for coding. WooCommerce, on the other hand, requires the use of additional plugins that are often incompatible with each other, which means that programmers have to be involved in even the smallest modifications.
In terms of content management, Shopify replaces separate CMS systems. However, those users who value the functionalities offered by Wordpress do not have to give it up. It can be easily integrated with Shopify, which allows you to separate the backend from the frontend of the store.
While the performance of each WooCommerce-based store is fully dependent on the hosting purchased and maintained by the store owner, Shopify serves over 644 million buyers around the world on its infrastructure at the same time.
Page loading speed, which is crucial for user experience and search engine positioning, also speaks in Shopify's favor. Studies show that 38% of visitors abandon a page if it takes longer than 5 seconds to load, and 70% of customers say that site speed affects their purchasing decisions.
In the case of WooCommerce, manual optimization of content and images is necessary to ensure fast performance. Additionally, numerous plugins often lead to slower store performance. Shopify, on the other hand, offers optimization mechanisms such as a content delivery network (CDN) and automatic image optimization.
The most important of all the statistics cited, however, is the one that compares shopping cart conversions. Global study commissioned by Shopify shows that Shopify, thanks to its optimized checkout, outperforms WooCommerce in conversion rate by 17%.
Shopify offers a wide range of applications to extend the functionality of the store. It allows you to easily customize the store to your needs without worrying about complicated integrations or increasing the risk of a store security breach.
The WooCommerce ecosystem consists of about 800 applications that allow you to extend the functionality of the platform beyond what the bare engine offers. Stores that want to combine sales across different channels, such as B2C, B2B, and offline, face the need to integrate multiple systems on their own.
On the other hand, Shopify offers over 8,000 applications on its marketplace, and depending on the plans offered, a number ofadvanced e-commerce functionalities, including B2B tools, POS, multi-currency, support for various languages, extensive product configuration, and marketing options that go beyond just order management. Thanks to regular updates, Shopify introduces around 200 new features a year, and brands can scale their business without burdening themselves with technical debt.
This difference between technologies is also noted by proud industry reports, such asIDC, Forrester, or Gartner, which distinguish Shopify as one of the market leaders, especially in the large brands.
Migrating from WooCommerce to Shopify is a strategic decision for companies that are reaching the next stage of development and are looking for a more reliable, easier to use and scalable platform. Although WooCommerce is a popular, free, open-source solution based on WordPress, in practice it often turns out to generate higher long-term costs related to hosting, the need to employ IT specialists and the integration of many additional plugins. Shopify, despite its subscription costs, offers an all-in-one solution that eliminates many of the hidden costs and hassles of managing an online store.
Successfully migrating from WooCommerce to Shopify can be a profitable business move that allows businesses to sell online more efficiently and securely and grow long-term with lower operating costs. If you want to learn more,contact us.
