Total cost of ownership (TCO) is high.

  • Sean

    (@sean-h)


    4 weeks ago

    Even though I have 10 years experience working with WordPress, after trying to build a shop with Woo as a first time user over the last few months, and after a few updates that broke things consequently wasting days of my time, and with Woo ‘support’ basically shrugging their shoulders and offering a half hearted band-aid workaround, I looked into other options.

    In short, Shopify looks cheaper to run in the long term, in both time and money spent. Out of the box Woo doesn’t actually do much, you need to add seemingly countless other 3rd party paid features to reach the same level of functionality as an entry level Shopify account.

    But to be clear, I can see how Woo is great if you yourself are or you have a team of experienced coders on hand who really know what they’re doing. Woo offering 100% control and open source flexibility. There are some very big companies using Woo.

    But, if you are just starting out with your first ever online shop and haven’t got time or money to spend fiddling, go for Shopify who will in turn take care of most of the heavy lifting for you such as hosting and updates, but particularly the handling of payment gateways. All Shopify stores being Level 1 PCI compliant by default. Hosting on Google Cloud Platform, all Shopify accounts also include unlimited products/bandwidth/storage and Fastly CDN. Your 1-stop….shop.

    So what are the key differences between Woo and Shopify?

    With Woo being just another WP plugin, you need to find the right hosting, install WordPress then Woo and a bunch of other plugins to make it really work. You then need to take the responsibility of maintaining it all. And when it breaks, and it will, who is accountable? Woo? WordPress? Your web host?

    With Shopify being a full service platform, you sign up and pay your monthly fees, then you can just concentrate mostly on design, adding products and marketing. If you really need help, they are available 24/7 via live chat. One of the things you pay for. This is what makes them accountable. If they push an update that breaks your shop, they will fix it. You will not be asked, days later, to install yet another plugin to add some extraneous php code to your site.

    I don’t actually care how many times Woo has been downloaded and how many sites are running it. I would instead be interested to know how many sites currently using Woo are successful. However, unless every Woo and Shopify store publicly and accurately declare their earnings, we will never know. So I take those kinds of stats with quite a big pinch of salt.

    In summary: While Woo itself is free, it’s for coders who really know what they’re doing and want complete flexibility. The 2 stars is for wasting my time and making it look easy. Shopify is for folks who want to run online shops. Instead of stars, they get paid.

    Being a snowboarder myself, maybe I relate better to Shopify because it was started by some snowboarders who just wanted to sell snowboards online.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • Plugin Support Sandip Mondal – a11n

    (@sandipmondal)

    Hi @sean-h,

    Thank you for sharing the detailed feedback and thoughts on WooCommerce. We appreciate you highlighting specific points that impacted your experience. To address some of your points:

    • Documentation and Support: We have extensive documentation available to guide one through setup and troubleshooting process. In addition, our team is available at WooCommerce forums where we offer free support, and provide insights and solutions based on your goals.
    • User-Friendly for All Experience Levels: While WooCommerce does offer flexibility that developers love, users who are new to online stores run successful stores with WooCommerce by following documentation and contacting support, if needed. WooCommerce allows users to grow their store at their own pace and integrate only the features they need using plugins/themes.
    • Hosting Flexibility: WooCommerce allows you to choose any hosting provider that suits your needs, if you are not sure, we recommend the hosting providers listed at: https://www.ads-software.com/hosting – this can help you find a solution that matches both your budget and needs.
    • Functionality and Customization: WooCommerce includes a range of features and essential product types that a wide variety of e-commerce sites rely on to operate effectively. For additional specialized features (eg. subscriptions), one can choose plugins aligned with their specific goals and requirements, enabling them to build a tailored e-commerce experience.

    We appreciate that Shopify offers an integrated solution, and we understand how that can be appealing. It ultimately depends on your goals and preferences.

    Thank you again for sharing your perspective. It’s feedback like this that helps us continue improving the WooCommerce experience for everyone!

    Shopify is a nightmare – They are the only one switching off your site in 10 seconds preventing you from doing business without notice for fallacious reasons – This is incredible.

    Which company would do that? This is the main reason not to choose shopify – all the others are better.

    Never trust them!

    • This reply was modified 3 weeks, 3 days ago by ovonel92.
    • This reply was modified 3 weeks, 3 days ago by ovonel92.
Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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