WooCommerce and Shopify are two of many eCommerce options available to web developers. Both platforms provide essential eCommerce options, like product sales, inventory management, payment processing, and shipping options. Both also have their advantages and drawbacks.

WooCommerce

• Only requires payment for whatever features you need
• Fully customizable checkout
• Allows any payment gateway

Shopify

• Larger site infrastructure leaves sellers less vulnerable to cybersecurity threats
• Complete data security and 99.99% uptime
• More eCommerce capabilities

Shopify is overall more expensive than WooCommerce, and also feature transaction fees of 2.5 – 30 cents per transaction. It is also generally easier to implement WooCommerce on an existing WordPress site than to integrate a separate Shopify store page, which requires setting up another platform. That said, Shopify is fairly simple to set up, and the entire process is guided for first-time users. WooCommerce is more customizable, and is open-source. Shopify’s main competitive edge is their widespread use and large support base, though they are better suited for large-scale vendors than smaller businesses or artists.