Wix and Shopify are two extremely well-liked e-commerce website builders. Even if you’ve never built an ecommerce store before, they’re simple to use thanks to their intuitive designs and extensive features. Shopify is a fantastic option for business owners looking for extra assistance along the way thanks to its top-notch customer support and cutting-edge features. Wix is a slightly more straightforward choice that’s very user-friendly for novice website owners creating more compact ecommerce stores.
Shopify vs Wix
Easy-to-use ecommerce store builder Shopify is renowned for its top-notch customer service. You’ll have peace of mind knowing that assistance is always available when you need it with support offered 24/7 by phone, chat, and email. For the professional-grade store you require, Shopify even gives you the choice of working with one of their experts in design, marketing, copywriting, and other areas. Shopify offers a free, three-day trial period without requiring a credit card.
Hundreds of templates and Wix’s simple drag-and-drop editor make it simple to build a polished online store. While Wix doesn’t offer the same level of customer service as Shopify, it does offer other advantages like no transaction fees and a free domain name. Wix is a great option for novice site builders thanks to additional features like automated sales tax and incredibly simple product upload options. A money-back guarantee is available from Wix for the first 14 days of your plan.
Pros and cons of Shopify vs Wix
To show you everything that each web hosting platform has to offer, we dug deep into Shopify and Wix. Compare their advantages and disadvantages so you can choose which is best for your business.
Pros of Shopify
- Multiple customization options: You can quickly personalize templates with Shopify to create a distinctive storefront. Additionally, you’ll have access to the HTML and CSS codes for your store, allowing you to further customize it if you know how to code.
- Mobile app: Even when you’re on the go, managing your store is simple with the Shopify Mobile app. When running a business, a high-quality app is crucial, and things require your attention even when you’re not at the office.
- Drag and drop editor: You don’t need any design or coding experience thanks to Shopify’s drag-and-drop editor. Shopify can help you get started quickly by providing more than 70 store themes. Even if you’ve never designed a storefront before, the outcome is a tidy and expert-looking one.
- Mobile friendly themes: All of the Shopify themes are responsive and mobile-friendly. Due to the lack of compatibility and user experience concerns, there is a higher chance that phone users will successfully navigate your website and make purchases.
- Versatile app store: More than 6,000 apps are available in the Shopify App Store that can help you grow your business. Drop shipping, calendars, email marketing, upselling apps, and other services are among the apps. These apps can increase the adaptability of your store and let you customize it to operate exactly how you want.
- Customer support availability: Shopify offers round-the-clock customer service. You can contact support via phone, live chat, or email to address any issues you may have right away. If you want more assistance with your store, you can also decide to work with a Shopify expert designer, developer, or marketer.
- Automatic sales taxes: You won’t need to manually keep track of the country and state tax rates thanks to Shopify. This may save you a lot of time. Before setting up your store, you should make sure that this feature is available because the tax calculations are based on your location.
- Unlimited bandwidth: The more customers your store receives, the less Shopify will charge you. This makes Shopify a sensible option for larger businesses that intend to generate sizable amounts of sales. Additionally, it is advantageous if your store receives media attention or takes part in activities that quickly increase web traffic.
Areas of Shopify need to be improved(Cons)
- Transaction fees: When you use an external payment gateway, the Basic Shopify, Shopify, and Advanced Shopify plans charge transaction fees. These charges, which are in addition to your payment processor fee and range from 0.5% to 2%, are made. You’ll receive different bills every month for transaction fees depending on the amount of your overall sales. These costs must be included in your business expenses.
- Higher pricing: The Advanced Shopify plan is required if you want access to all Shopify features, including the advanced report builder and up to 15 staff accounts. This plan’s steep price of $399 per month may make it unaffordable for smaller businesses that want to expand.
- No included domain: Although a domain is not included in Shopify plans, you can use your own or purchase one from Shopify. In addition to the costs associated with Shopify, you must purchase one.
- Limited product options: You can only create a maximum of three options per product in your store. Size, color, finish, material, and other attributes are all options. Use a Shopify app to get this option if you want to increase the number of variants or options available.
Pros of Wix
- No transaction fees: You only need to be concerned about your monthly plan costs because there are no transaction fees to worry about. In order to increase the value of each plan, a custom domain and a free domain for a year are also included.
- High grade security: Wix works hard to maintain the security of your online store at all times. The 24/7 monitoring and optimization by Wix’s security experts is the first step. With fully managed security like that, it’s much simpler to get some sleep. With built-in SSL certificates and DDoS protection, Wix web stores come standard with PCI DSS compliance for secure payment gateways for all 50+ payment providers.
- Logo maker: Wix offers you all the tools you need, including the ability to create a logo, to launch your online store. It’s free to use the Wix Logo Maker to create a unique company logo. You can upload social media files, print the logo on branded merchandise, and incorporate it into your website. It is a one-stop shop for all of your startup and branding requirements.
- Drag and drop design: With Wix, you can create a website that looks professional without having to be a trained designer. Wix’s drag-and-drop site editor, which is user-friendly, is its strongest suit. The Wix editor will assist you in achieving the clean, polished site look that can increase sales without the need for any coding or sophisticated design skills. Use one of the more than 500 templates available if you don’t want to create your website from scratch to save time.
- High grade security: Wix works hard to maintain the security of your online store at all times. The 24/7 monitoring and optimization by Wix’s security experts is the first step. With fully managed security like that, it’s much simpler to get some sleep. With built-in SSL certificates and DDoS protection, Wix web stores come standard with PCI DSS compliance for secure payment gateways for all 50+ payment providers.
- Tax automation: You can receive automated sales tax calculations for every transaction thanks to Wix’s integration with Avalara. By doing this, you can avoid making expensive tax mistakes and spend less time computing and tracking sales tax.
- Reliability: What use is an e-commerce website if it can’t be accessed when a customer wants to make a purchase? Wix provides you with even more security in this regard by automatically backing up the data on your website and scaling back resources during traffic peaks. Wix handles nearly 4 billion requests daily and maintains at least 99.98% uptime, so you’ll never have to worry about your website going down.
- Owner app: You can easily manage your website while on the go with the Wix Owner app. Nearly all of the features you enjoy with the web-based site editor are available in the app, including the ability to manage inventory, create unique discounts, and accept payments as well as live chat with website visitors.
Areas of Wix need to be improved
- Slow loading speed: Wix is infamous for its sluggish loading times, which may cost your company potential customers. Prior to uploading, images can be optimized and resized to increase speed, but be ready to deal with some slower speeds than you might experience with other platforms.
- Limited support: Although there are many how-to articles available in the Wix Support Center, live support is scarce. Live chat is not a feature of Wix. In response to a ticket request, the platform does provide a callback service that is available in English around-the-clock. Other language callback availability is more constrained.
- Limited storage space: Storage restrictions apply to all Wix ecommerce plans, with the Business Basic plan having a 20 GB storage cap. Smaller stores can probably get by with this amount of storage, but you might find that you outgrow it and need to upgrade your plan. Wix isn’t the best option for big businesses with lots of products because the Business VIP plan’s 50 GB storage cap.
- Limited customization: Wix has a drag-and-drop editor, which makes it simple to use but has few customization options. Web designers and entrepreneurs with a strong background in coding might find the editor constraining.
- No hosting choices: You must host your website on Wix in addition to using the platform. As a result, you will have less control over your website and be subject to any Wix platform speed or downtime problems.
Bottom Line
Even if you don’t have any design or coding experience, both Shopify and Wix make it simple to set up and maintain an online store. The platforms are both adaptable and suitable for both new and experienced business owners. While both Shopify and Wix have tools that let you build a polished online storefront, there are some significant differences that make each platform better suited for particular uses.
Both Shopify and Wix are user-friendly, but they work best in certain circumstances. Shopify is a top option for medium-sized or larger businesses looking to scale up because it provides more robust reporting and analysis tools.
Wix is easier to use than Shopify. It works best for startup business owners who want to open more modest online shops. Although Wix does provide customization options, these are more limited than those that Shopify offers. This makes it easier for store owners to manage their workload as they develop their websites, but a more ambitious owner of a larger website might find this to be limiting.