Why Not Shopify As Your eCommerce Platform

It is a Hosted Platform

If you were to go ahead with Shopify, you would not have to worry about the additional technicalities such as hosting and SSL certificates as Shopify is an eCommerce platform that is hosted. As benefiting as it may sound, this very same inspiration also gives rise to vendor lock-in: this brings about quite a disadvantage as you would be exposed to the threat of having to shut down your online business in case Shopify is no more.

But even worse is the fact that you would find it extremely difficult and complicated to shift from Shopify to another eCommerce platform when and if the need arises. Worst case scenario, during a transition you would have to start from the very beginning in order to host your eCommerce website on a different platform.

Costly Packages

On the face of it, Shopify may look to be extremely affordable as its price range starts from a really low number of $9 per month and varies to $299 per month based on the features you opt for. However, once you begin to actually delve deeper, you may notice the additional expenses you have to incur in order to establish a powerful eCommerce platform.

The following are few such unexpected costs that you come across on Shopify platforms:

Overpriced Themes

The outlook of eCommerce website solutions does play a major role when attracting and retaining customers to your eCommerce website. This is because, with the evolving technology, users expect more advanced and creative web designs instead of the generic ones you find off the shelf.

When it comes to Shopify, it does offer amazing themes that are really attractive and appealing. But unfortunately, their themes do have quite a few drawbacks.

• Shopify’s official theme store offers only a limited number of themes as of now. Due to the limited number of options, chances are that there are many other eCommerce stores out there that use the same theme as you. This becomes even worse if you were to go ahead with the most catchy and effective theme as then the theme would be even more commonly used.
• However, do note that there are few external parties that do offer themes for Shopify eCommerce platforms. Therefore, if you are not satisfied with the official theme store, you can consider one of these outside parties for your eCommerce theme.
• Shopify themes are quite expensive. Although there are few free themes in their store, these do not consist of the premium features you get with the paid packages. Unfortunately, these paid packages are quite expensive: ranging from $140 to a whopping $180. The cost becomes even more evident when compared to WordPress themes that could be obtained at an amazing price of $80.

Expensive Third-Party Apps

Similar to WordPress’s plugins, Shopify also does have third-party applications that are extremely useful in enhancing your eCommerce store. These apps may be used for a broad range of necessities such as automating several parts of your online store or even enhancing the operations themselves.

While some of these additional applications are offered for free, the others are quite pricey. For instance, it would cost you an extra $39.99 per month for you to allow subscriptions and add recurring charges. If you were to add the pre-order function for your eCommerce store so that your customers can enjoy a better experience, then that is another $24.95 per month for you. Hence, Shopify might not be the ideal option for those eCommerce platforms that are just getting started with their business.

Limited Possibilities For Customization

In Shopify, the options for customization are limited to changing the fonts and color to your preference and updating your eCommerce store logo. But, if you want to do something more, you either need to hire the services of Shopify eCommerce website designers or do it yourself - which is going to be extremely complicated if you are not someone with the required knowledge and skills.

In addition to this, if the need arises to customize your Shopify theme, then you need to be aware of their programming language - Liquid. Not surprisingly, Liquid does not have a strong online support community such as the other popular programming languages like Java do. So this customization might consume way more time and resources than expected.

Owing to the above factors, if you were to still go ahead with Shopify your best bet would be to hire a developer skilled and experienced in working with Shopify. However, this is not as easy as it sounds either. This is because Shopify developers charge a more expensive hourly rate and are also very rare to find compared to the availability and charges of other eCommerce website developers.

A Time-Consuming Learning Process

Shopify uses quite different terms and standards when compared to the other eCommerce website solutions in the market. One of the best examples for this is their use of the word “Collections” instead of the word “Categories”. Moreover, the different customization options available on Shopify are distributed between both the front-end and back-end. As a result, you would have to continuously move in between in order to accomplish your preferences. Hence, the learning curve of Shopify is denser compared to the other eCommerce platforms that are currently in use.

The Best Option For Your eCommerce Platform: WooCommerce

If Shopify is not your best bet, then what is? Well, WooCommerce is. It is the ideal solution to get started with an effective eCommerce website for your business. WooCommerce is an entirely FREE plugin for WordPress that lets you implement an all-inclusive eCommerce platform with a broad range of wonderful features. Ergo, let us take a look at what makes WooCommerce better than Shopify?

Zero Exposure To Vendor Lock-in

WooCommerce is a plugin that you can download and integrate with your WordPress website at zero costs. You can make your own changes to the plugin as it is an open-source platform with many capabilities. Hence, you no longer have to worry about the repercussions of your hosting service provider going out of business, because you can easily choose your own hosting company and migrate to others as you wish.

Stunning Themes At Extremely Affordable Rates

WooCommerce offers several thousands of stunning themes for free, and they could be obtained from both the official repository for Shopify themes as well as other external theme markets. However, WooCommerce also has premium themes that are carefully designed with the intention of bringing about more sales for effective eCommerce websites. These premium themes include powerful features such as the captivating call to actions, advanced filtering options, one-page checkouts and so much more.
But what is simply amazing is that WooCommerce offers these themes at an astonishing price of $70 to $80 a month. This is a significant reduction compared to the exorbitant prices of Shopify themes, not to forget that you need to spend extra on Shopify for the added features.

Powerful Add-ons At Reasonable Prices

WooCommerce has a large collection of powerful add-ons that could be very useful in enhancing the performance and functionalities of your eCommerce platform. These add-ons can be found for free, but you can also find premium add-ons at reasonable prices. Some of these premium add-ons include those that let you facilitate different payment gateways, bitcoin transactions, and user subscriptions. But what differentiates these add-ons from those on Shopify is that these could be obtained at really affordable prices that are either a one-off payment or an annual subscription. Hence, you would not have to incur large cash outflows in order to integrate differentiated features on your eCommerce platform.

Absolute Control Over Your Ecommerce Platform

As mentioned previously, WooCommerce is an open-source platform and thus, you can make modifications and changes to your heart’s desire. But even better, you can actually design and develop your very own features and plugins that you think would better your eCommerce platform.

Not to forget, you would not be under the control of any host, therefore, you have absolute control over your content and can easily switch between hosting providers if and when the need arises.

Zero Transaction Charges

Another great thing about WooCommerce is that you do not have to pay an extra transaction fee whenever a customer makes a purchase from your online store. This is one of the greatest advantages provided by WooCommerce over Shopify. But, do note that you still have to incur the processing fee charged by the payment gateways for processing credit cards. This additional charge is usually seen in payment gateways such as PayPal and Stripe.

To Take Away

Shopify is an eCommerce platform that was ideated with the intention of offering user-friendly and effective eCommerce websites at reasonable prices. Although it is well sought-after in the market, Shopify does have several drawbacks that make it not the best of choices to set up an eCommerce platform. These drawbacks include the expensive packages, costly themes, vendor lock-in, and the complications in learning the ins and outs of Shopify.

This is where WooCommerce comes into place. WooCommerce is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms in the market that bring about effective solutions for the drawbacks brought about by Shopify. It also should be noted that WooCommerce offers services at extremely affordable rates, has no vendor lock-in, is easy to customize, and also has a broad array of powerful add-ons and plugins that significantly enhances the eCommerce experience.

Therefore, if you are looking to get started with your very own eCommerce website with responsive web design, WooCommerce is an ideal option. The amazing features and the valuable benefits offered at amazing rates makes it clear that WooCommerce is the place to start for your online business. Hence, make no further delays and kickstart your online business with an exquisite WooCommerce online platform.