Shopify vs WordPress
Shopify is Best for:
Ecommerce Stores
Shopify Website Setup
Setting up a Shopify website is very easy. Unfortunately, Shopify does not offer a wide variety of free templates. Luckily, any of those free templates can be a great start for your ecommerce website.
The benefit of setting up a Shopify website is that everything is web based, so you can get started with only a few clicks. With WordPress, you must install WordPress onto your computer. Unfortunately, WordPress setup is best completed by a professional, otherwise your website has a higher risk of being hacked.
- Sign up for a Shopify Account.
- Choose your website theme.
- Start creating your ecommerce store.
Shopify Strengths
Shopify was created as an ecommerce software. That means, Shopify websites are meant to sell products in stores. Shopify is amazing for many reasons.
- Shopify makes online stores easy.
- Use Shopify to connect your in-person and online stores.
- Shopify makes marketing easier.
- Shopify websites make social marketing leads easier too.
We also love that Shopify integrates with everything, including:
- Facebook Messenger
- Amazon
- And more!
Shopify Weaknesses
Shopify websites are not well suited for:
- Portfolio websites
- Agency websites
- Service websites
- Blog websites
These website types are content heavy. Shopify websites are best for online stores. If you hope your website will lead to blog readers, service leads, or will showcase your work, a Shopify website is not best for you.
Shopify Cost
All Shopify plans include an SSL certificate, a website, a blog, 24/7 support, shipping labels and shipping discounts, unlimited products, and unlimited file storage.
Their plans start from $29 and go up $299 a month for larger companies. We love that Shopify makes it easy to accept credit cards in-person and online, while keeping your customers secure in the process.
Learn how to get started with Shopify!
WordPress is Best for
WordPress Website Setup
A WordPress website will require you to purchase a couple of items beforehand:
- A website domain
- Web hosting
These can cost you anywhere from only $5 a month, to $100 a month.
After purchasing these items, you can start installing WordPress. After installing WordPress your domain, hosting and WordPress platform should all be connected. Wordpress has a multitude of free website themes, but there are paid website themes available too. Now your WordPress website has a face that you can use to update your website’s appearance. If you’d like to create an ecommerce website, install the Woocommerce plugin and any others that may be crucial to your website’s success.
WordPress Strengths
WordPress is great for content heavy websites like blogs. If you want to build a website as a portfolio for your work or as a way to let leads know about your services a WordPress website is perfect for you. WordPress offers a wide variety of plugins to support content sharing, social media integrations, and SEO. Exploring the WordPress plugin store is definitely a creative experience.
Although free WordPress plans don’t offer 24/7 support, a large WordPress community helps with debugging and navigating the WordPress world. For only a few bucks, WordPress offers more data space, email and live chat support, and they remove their WordPress ads from your site.
WordPress Weaknesses
WordPress is a great way to get started with creating a website on a budget. Unfortunately, taking the time to learn WordPress can take away from building your business.
- Frustration and time spent making a beautiful website can be tough for a novice, especially if you want to make a lot of changes to your website design.
- Plugin integrations are great, but they can bring trouble to your website.
- If you build an ecommerce WordPress website, you must protect sensitive client data by purchasing an SSL certificate.
- WordPress websites have more moving parts: hosting, SSL, domain, etc.
WordPress Cost
Your domain will most likely be only an annual cost and web hosting will be monthly cost. Depending on the size of your website, web hosting can start at $5 a month and grow to $100 a month. WordPress alone is free! You can build your website and get started for only the cost of your theme, web hosting, and domain name. It will use much more of your time getting setup though. In theory, it will take a novice up to 8 hours to setup a WordPress Woocommerce website. If costs are a concern, WordPress could very well be your solution though!
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