SHOPIFY OR WOOCOMMERCE: WHICH ONE FOR YOUR STORE?

Both make stores that sell. The right answer depends on your catalogue, your current tools and who will run the store day to day.

Shopify: simplicity, by subscription

Hosting, payment, security and updates are included. You manage nothing technical. In exchange: a monthly subscription, commissions on some payments, paid apps for anything outside the standard, and limited freedom on the checkout. Ideal if you have fewer than 200 products, simple logistics, and nobody to look after a server.

WooCommerce: freedom, to maintain

It is WordPress with a store. Everything can be changed: checkout, VAT by country, connections to your POS or your accounting, precise delivery rules. You own everything. In exchange, it must be maintained: updates, backups, speed, security. Ideal if you have specific business rules, a brochure site already on WordPress, or connections to build.

And PrestaShop?

Excellent for large catalogues, multilingual and export, with more solid stock logic than WooCommerce. I run it for a fine grocery that sells across Europe. It needs a developer who knows it.

The comparison in five points

• Cost over three years. Shopify costs less at the start, more over time. WooCommerce the opposite.
• POS and accounting. WooCommerce and PrestaShop connect to almost everything. Shopify too, via paid apps.
• Speed. Shopify is fast by default. WooCommerce is if maintained.
• Local SEO. A tie, provided you work the product and category pages.
• Ownership. On Shopify you rent the store. On WooCommerce and PrestaShop it is yours.

My simple rule

Fewer than 200 products, no special rules, nobody for the technical side: Shopify. Connections, business rules, a site already on WordPress: WooCommerce. Large multilingual catalogue: PrestaShop. If in doubt, we decide in a thirty-minute call.

Frequently asked questions