As the COVID-19 pandemic reshapes our world, most of us have begun shopping online in greater frequency. As new eCommerce business, it’s important for you to understand the relatively popular eCommerce platforms along with its specifications, advantages, and disadvantages.
If you are planning to start an online store and looking for an ecommerce development service or need to upgrade an existing one then you might have come across eCommerce platforms like Shopify, Woocommerce, Magento, Bigcommerce, etc., available in the market. Out of these, Shopify and Woocommerce are considered the world’s most popular and trusted eCommerce platform for creating a fully-fledged online store. Currently, if you look at the eCommerce market, over 3.3 million websites use the WooCommerce platform to create their online stores. The best part of Woocommerce? Well, you can modify anything you want, which makes it incredibly the most versatile eCommerce platform to tailor your design and meet customer needs.
Reasons Why You Should Choose Woocommerce:
1) Self Hosted: Even though Shopify is beginner-friendly, it is a hosted platform that means, Shopify hosts and manages the whole software for you. In this case, you are only limited to make changes that Shopify permits you to make. But things are much easier when it comes to Woocommerce because it is self-hosted. That means you control the whole thing, it is free to modify any changes and your files are located on your own server.
2) The Power of WordPress: Woocommerce is a plug-in for WordPress and this feature makes it an obvious reason to choose this platform. As we all know, WordPress is one of the most commonly used platforms that is well known for its built-in blog, ease of use, customizable web designs, and search engine visibility. Therefore, the power of WordPress is simply unmatched and it makes Woocommerce more preferable for sellers.
3) Pricing: Shopify offers three basic plans at $29, $79, and $299 in terms of pricing. WooCommerce, on the other hand, costs nothing upfront, but you will have to only pay to set up your own hosting and initial ecommerce development. Hosting costs may vary, depending on the scale of your eCommerce store but generally, it should cost you less than Shopify’s basic plan. Any Woocommerce extension that you purchase is sold as a one-time license and not a monthly subscription like in the case of Shopify.
4) Woocommerce is Modular: Just like WordPress, this platform includes a rich set of functionalities that can be also extended using additional plug-ins and extensions. In the case of Shopify, the changes are limited but in Woocommerce, you get access to thousands of themes as well as free and economic plugins making it a perfect eCommerce platform for every retailer.
5) Sell Anything and Everything: WooCommerce is incredibly flexible. You can sell anything with WooCommerce including physical products, digital products, subscriptions, appointments, and much more. Whether you intend to sell a single product or a variety of products, it can be all done within this platform.
6) Built on the World’s Best CMS: The WooCommerce platform built on WordPress, offer deep integration with the world’s best content management system and publishing tools. This framework is easy to learn, and likely more manageable for store owners and content creators.
7) Dropshipping is Easy: WooCommerce is a popular choice among drop shipping businesses as it allows installing various extensions that can instantly import products and fulfill the order in your site.
8) Good for SEO: With WooCommerce, you have access to a wide range of SEO plugins, and it also offers helpful SEO guides for the user. In the case of Shopify, it doesn’t have as many SEO apps, which may feel restrictive in the long run.
9) Great Customer Support: Managed Woocommerce hosting is provided by many vendors and they provide 24/7 support, and offers plenty of helpful guides for the user.
10) Comes with REST API: From product to orders, WooCommerce can manage everything. If you need to create an app you can easily integrate using the REST API.
11) User-friendly for Non-tech Entrepreneurs: Even a non-tech savvy can easily find detailed tutorials and guides on Woocommerce and learn it easily.
12) Built-in Analytics: Woocommerce has inbuilt analytics which helps the user to get data regarding total sales by date, average order value, individual customer shopping stats, etc., about your eCommerce store.
13) Highly Secure: Woocommerce is highly secure and the team of security experts within the community regularly works on updates and constantly monitors the code base for any vulnerabilities. Though it’s attacked by hackers more often, keeping your website updated with the latest version, latest plugins and firewall plugins will keep your website safe from hackers.
14) Fast: Among eCommerce platforms, Woocommerce provides one of the fastest and responsive experiences for online stores of all sizes.
Final Thoughts:
Though Woocommerce is an eCommerce plugin, it has the best features and marketing capabilities which make it the best eCommerce platform for small, mid-size, and large retailers in competition with the other eCommerce platforms like Shopify.
When you look for an eCommerce platform, don’t just go for the price and features but make sure you choose the one that is scalable to support your business growth. In short, WooCommerce provides a complete solution that is easy to use, adaptable, scalable, and fast for an online eCommerce business. Get in touch with us if you’re looking for an eCommerce website development service.
