Tip Tuesday Ask an Expert: How Do I Decide Which E-Commerce Platform is Right For Me?

The three main e-commerce platforms out there are Shopify, WooCommerce (operated off of WordPress’s platform), and Squarespace’s E-commerce function. You may be asking though, “How do I decide which e-commerce platform is right for my business?” All three have different pros and cons and knowing these, can help you choose the right platform for your business model.

1) Shopify

Shopify is the clear industry leader in e-commerce hosting platforms. They have a wide array of templates (free or paid) that you can utilize to choose the look and feel of your store functionality that you want for your brand and customer experience.

Pros:

• The best platform for moving products. With its built-in checkout solutions, payment methods, and included shipping and tax solutions, it really is a one-stop-shop for making it easy to sell and fulfill orders
• As stated above, it has included shipping (and label creation) and tax calculators as a part of its core platform
• Discounted shipping rates
• Configurable, multiple shipping profiles if your packages vary widely with sizes of products
• Robust discount codes
• Integrations for Facebook/IG, Google, Pinterest, and Amazon Marketplace
• Very little site down-time overall
• A large selection of free or paid theme templates
• A lot of customizable options for configuration

Cons:

• Difficult to make beautifully designed “subpages” (aside from your homepage) that you want to showcase information for
• Difficult to customize the visual look of a theme without knowing how to write code
• No email hosting (must utilize Google or other providers)
• Certain expanded functionalities require paid 3rd-party plugins, but the option is there (so not completely a con)

2) WooCommerce

WooCommerce was an industry leader when WordPress was the go-to for consumer site-building. It still is very powerful, but if you’re just looking into getting WordPress here are some pros and cons first.

Pros:

• WordPress is a powerful, low-cost option if you need features outside of the norm (most websites don’t)
• Has the highest level of customization possible aside from custom-developed, since it’s an open-source solution
• WooCommerce has a solid reputation

Cons:

• Security weaknesses (since everything is open-source)
• Site reliability issues
• Primarily Paypal payment methods, unless you pay extra for expanded processing
• Everything operates via 3rd party, so if you have an issue sometimes it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what is causing the issue and who to contact for support
• WordPress itself ends up having a lot of hidden costs, premium templates, premium plugins, premium widget packs, enhanced hosting, etc.

3) Squarespace

Squarespace has quickly become an industry-leading website builder that is low-cost, beautifully designed, and robust. They have a built-in e-commerce platform, but it’s not quite up to Shopify’s standard.

Pros:

• Great for creating content-rich subpages & beautifully designed websites
• Other than upgraded hosting, you don’t have to pay extra (outside of card processing fees)
• Nice store layouts, cart pages, and member account portals
• Services booking and scheduling are available

Cons:

• Shipping and sales tax are from 3rd party integrations (ShipStation & Tax Jar) so it requires multiple accounts and services to fulfill orders
• Discount codes are not as customizable as Shopify
• Does not report revenue and shopping history data to Mailchimp and other email campaign services
• Limited shipping profiles if you need to account for extra weight (packing materials) or obscure box sizes

Overall – if you want to move as much product as possible and have the easiest workflow available to fulfill orders, ship, and retarget marketing to your customers – Shopify is by far the best platform for e-commerce sites that we recommend.

Need Help?

If you need help getting your e-commerce platform designed and up and running – or maybe you’d like to switch platforms that your current store is running off of, we’re here to help! Contact us for pricing!

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