Do you run a shop on WooCommerce and are wondering whether to switch to Shopify? Or perhaps you’re just starting out and don’t know where to begin? Both questions lead to the same conclusion – you need to compare the two platforms calmly, without all the marketing hype, and see what will actually change in your day-to-day work.
In this article, we’ll first highlight the differences between Shopify and WooCommerce. Then, if you decide to make the switch, we’ll guide you step by step through the migration process itself – so that you don’t lose traffic from Google or end up missing half your products along the way.
Shopify vs WooCommerce – key differences
WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin. Shopify is a ready-to-use cloud-based platform. This one difference leads to all the others, so let’s start with that.
Total cost
WooCommerce itself is free, but there’s a catch when it comes to the pricing. You have to pay for hosting, a domain, an SSL certificate, and often also for paid plugins – for payments, shipping and invoicing. The more features you need, the more paid add-ons you end up with. The monthly cost may be low at first, but it rises over time and is difficult to estimate in advance.
Shopify works differently. You pay a fixed monthly subscription fee, which covers hosting, security and basic shop features. Additional costs mainly arise from paid apps from the App Store and a possible transaction fee if you don’t use Shopify Payments. The cost is more predictable, although it’s often higher to start with than a basic WooCommerce setup.
Ease of use
In WooCommerce, it all depends on how the shop has been set up. A well-built shop can be managed independently. A poorly set-up shop, on the other hand, requires a developer for every change, as plugins clash with one another and updates can sometimes cause problems.
Shopify has a single, consistent admin panel, which is the same for every shop on the platform. Adding a product, changing a price, viewing orders – you can do all of this yourself, without having to touch the code. For a shop owner without a technical background, this makes a big difference to the ease of day-to-day work.
Security and updates
WooCommerce requires regular updates – to WordPress itself, the WooCommerce plugin and all other plugins. Failing to keep things up to date often leaves the door open to attacks. Responsibility for security lies with you or with the company that handles this on your behalf.
On Shopify, the platform provider takes care of all of this. Updates, compliance with payment security standards, protection against attacks – these are no longer your concern. You pay so that you don’t have to worry about them.
Flexibility and customisation options
This is where WooCommerce has the edge. You have access to the full source code, so you can change absolutely everything – the database structure, order logic, and bespoke integrations. If your business has highly unusual processes, WooCommerce offers greater flexibility.
Shopify also offers a lot of flexibility – templates can be edited using Liquid, and the App Store has thousands of ready-made extensions. But the core of the system is closed-source. Very unusual business processes sometimes simply cannot be implemented the way you’d like, or require the more expensive Shopify Plus plan.
Performance during periods of higher traffic
This is where WooCommerce most often fails if the hosting isn’t chosen carefully. High traffic on Black Friday can bring a shop down if the server hasn’t been prepared for such a surge.
Shopify uses infrastructure that is specifically designed to handle such sales peaks. Your shop doesn’t slow down during periods of high traffic, because it isn’t your server – it’s the platform’s infrastructure, which is shared and scales automatically.
Which shop to choose, depending on the situation
Instead of a dry list, let’s look at some specific situations – perhaps one of them will ring a bell.
Do you run a small brand and is this your first shop? Go with Shopify. You can get started quickly, without having to worry about hosting and without needing any technical knowledge.
Your business is growing, but you don’t have anyone on your team who specialises in IT? Shopify too. Stability and technical support are included in the price, without having to hire a developer on a permanent basis.
Does your business have very unusual sales processes? WooCommerce is a better option here – you get full control over the shop’s code and logic, which is sometimes just what you need.
Do you sell B2B with a bespoke price list for your customers? Shopify has ready-made B2B features that you can enable without having to build them from scratch.
Are you expanding into foreign markets and need multiple currencies? Shopify again – the ability to manage multiple marketplaces from a single dashboard is one of its key strengths.
Do you have a very tight budget to start with? WooCommerce is cheaper to set up initially, although bear in mind that the cost increases as the number of plugins you need grows.
There isn’t just one right answer here. There’s an answer that suits where your business is now and where it’s heading.
A step-by-step guide to migrating from WooCommerce to Shopify
If, after the comparison above, Shopify comes out on top in your mind, the next question is: how can you make sure everything goes smoothly? Migrating a platform isn’t just a case of copy and paste – it’s a specific process that we go through with our clients every time we build Shopify shop based on the existing WooCommerce platform. Below, we show you how this process works for us.
Audit of the current shop
Before any migration begins, you need to check carefully exactly what needs to be transferred. How many products do you have, how many variants, what is the category structure like, and how many historical orders do you want to retain? We also check which plugins are active in WooCommerce – as each one may have added a feature that’s easy to forget about until it’s suddenly no longer available.
Mapping of categories and URLs, and the 301 redirect plan
This is the point at which most shops lose traffic from Google following a migration – and most often because someone has overlooked this step or done it half-heartedly. The URL structure on Shopify differs from that on WooCommerce, so you need to plan in advance which old URL leads to which new one. Only then should you set up 301 redirects. Without this, a customer returning via an old link will encounter a 404 error, and Google will treat this as a lost page.
Export and import of products and customers
This is where the actual data migration comes in – products, photos, descriptions, prices, variants, as well as the customer database, if you wish to retain it. It is crucial to check whether product variants (size, colour, capacity) have been mapped correctly. This is one of those elements which, if the migration is carried out hastily, often requires manual correction of the entire catalogue later on.
Restoring integration
Payments, shipping, ERP, loyalty scheme, newsletter – each of these integrations that worked in WooCommerce needs to be set up from scratch on Shopify. This isn’t an automatic one-to-one transfer, as Shopify uses a different method for connecting such tools. You need to plan this in advance so that, once the new shop goes live, nothing stops working overnight.
Tests prior to domain migration
Before the domain starts pointing to the new shop, we test the entire checkout process from start to finish – adding items to the basket, payment, dispatch, and how it displays on mobile and desktop. Only when everything is working as it should do we switch traffic over to the new platform. The shop goes live the moment we’re certain it’s working – not a moment sooner.
The most common mistakes made during migration
There are a few things that come up so often during migrations that it’s worth being aware of them in advance:
- Migration just before the peak of the sales season – e.g. a week before Black Friday. Even a well-planned migration takes time to go live, and the risk during the peak sales period is simply too great.
- No data backup before launch – if something goes wrong during the export, it’s good to be able to go back to square one without panicking.
- Omitting information pages during redirects – The terms and conditions, privacy policy and FAQs all have their own URLs, and it’s easy to focus solely on products and categories.
- Testing marketing permissions and the newsletter too late – The mailing list and GDPR consents are also being migrated, and an error at this stage could result in the loss of part of the database or regulatory issues.
Each of these mistakes can be avoided if the migration is planned properly, rather than rushed through at the weekend.
If you’re reading this because you’re actually considering switching from WooCommerce to Shopify – we’ll take care of it for you. We’ll audit your current shop, plan redirects, migrate your product catalogue and integrations, and test everything before launch. Drop us a line, and we’ll discuss your situation.
