Shopify vs WordPress I know what your thinking, which platform should I use right? Well, worry not I’ve already been through this stressful decision for you. These two platforms are great for a lot of things for different reasons. Let me give you some insight from a personal use perspective so you can make your choice easier. If you just sit tight I’ll give you the ins and outs of both.

Okay, now When it comes to using both of these platforms there are a lot of things to consider. What type of business do you have and what are you going to use it for? If you want a comparison you can better understand well, think of Shopify as an iPhone and think of WordPress as Android. The Apple iPhone is easy to use, apps seamlessly open and integrate with the iPad and Mac. Most people would say it’s arguably more convenient than Android.

Which Platform is best

Anyway, let’s start with Shopify. If you want to make a website for your business and that business is eCommerce, Shopify would be your best choice. I’m not saying you can’t use WordPress to do the same thing because you can. We are talking about having things easy and if you don’t know WordPress you will be lost on every level imaginable.

When you set up a website there are 3 things you need.

• Website name
• Hosting
• Theme

On Shopify’s platform, you can pick out a name, get hosting, and get a free theme all in one place. The good thing is that the eCommerce geared platform gives you a 14-day trial to tinker around with things to get you used to it. The name you pick out for the trial can be used temporarily but keep in mind during this trial the website name you pick out will be followed by shopify.com.

After the trial ends there is a fee and is has tiers check out the pic below.

Now most people starting out use the basic which is $29.00 a month. You will get a few things with that choice.

• eCommerce website and blog
• You can have unlimited products
• 2 staff accounts
• 24/7 support
• manual order creation
• free SSL certificate
• abandon cart recovery
• gift cards etc…..

If your sales begin to rise you can look into the other tiers, of course, they offer more options to fit your criteria. The eCommerce platform also has apps, yes….it has apps! The apps offer a wide range of eCommerce options that are specific to the platform for the most part. You can get an app for a hot product countdown or, one that shows how many purchases were made on a certain product. Maybe You want to print shirts and don’t have any means to make that happen. I got news for you, if you have a design there is a Print-on-Demand option available.

Shopify is a Dropshippers Heaven

If dropshipping is what you’re hoping to use it for then by all means have at it. This is of course where this Shopify shines. There is one app that lets you dropship items from Aliexpress straight to your customers. You can fulfill an order with just a few clicks of a button, everything happens automatically. Also to top things off the popular platform has an app you can install from the IOS or the Google Playstore. On the mobile app you can log-in, take mobile payments, fulfill orders, not to mention every time you get a sale, you will get a notification in the sound of a coin. Its like music to your ears.

Now let me tell you about WordPress. WordPress is one of the most well know and notable platforms that is used by huge websites like Disney, Star Wars, Tech Crunch, BBC America, and Facebook. Everyone who has built a website has at least heard of WordPress. If you want to use this platform for your site you have tons of endless ways and options to design. You can totally make an eCommerce store, Service business website, landing page, etc…. but there will be a learning curve.

WordPress also has something like apps called plug-ins. They can help you integrate with payment processors, aid with your SEO, track your Google rankings, and much more. I started on WP and at the time Shopify didn’t exist so I had to learn it. I will admit I was super lost when I first hit the back end of my website. I’m the type that opens new things and only look at the instructions when there is no way in hell I can make sense of it.

Navigating the Maze of WordPress

Face it, when it comes to this website builder your ass will definitely need help. There is no way around it, this is not something you can just turn on and figure out by yourself. If you can then guess what, your flipping amazing! All in all, you should be in a good place after watching a few videos for a few hours on YouTube. You may be thinking this is a bad choice no, you would be wrong its just a choice.

Using WordPress for your site could be a very good thing depending on how and what you want to use it for. Here are some upsides.

• It’s Free to use
• A lot of things integrate well with it
• Better for building different kinds of sites

The thing is after you learn WordPress, those skills can easily transfer to other things. Once you learn how to navigate and set up a website on WordPress you can navigate and set up a website on any platform. Editing things on your site can and will become really easy after you learn the back end layout.

WP is usually favored by website designers because of its huge range of design options. and uses. If you want to make a store you will have to check your site every day to see how many sales you did or didn’t get. It’s hard to judge whether it will or will not be too much for you that kind of has much to be desired. I’m sure you can find some plug-ins to help you out with how your store operates as well just like Shopify but you have to hunt for them.

There is a couple of other things to consider as well. You still need to buy a website name, that should run you about $11-$12 for the name of your site. One fee for the year. Also you need hosting which can be a separate fee. To make things easier you can get them both at one site, I use Bluehost here is a pic of the current prices below.

Go to Bluehost.com for website name and hosting.

Conclusion

If you are a complete noob at websites and you want to make an eCommerce site then Shopify is what you should be looking at. Its the best bang for your buck and can make your life easy when it comes to anything eCommerce. Further more you cxan learn it and hit the ground running fast with options that just work well with not much hasle. You can set up a website in an hour or less and start selling instantly with shopify payments. Its a partnered with stripe.

If you want a website of another kind like a blog, an affiliate site, personal profile site, landing page to collect leads, or anything else then WordPress is your go to. The downside to the easy sites like Shopify, Wix, and SquareSpace is that they can change anything they want and you will be subject to it. Shopify can stop your payments anytime they want if they think it violates any of their terms. Your site will be dead in the water with no payment processor or no credit until you learn to find your own.

Imagine your website starts to generate thousands in sales a day and then all of a sudden you can’t accept payments, that could be a potential nightmare. I hope this info gave you a good bit of insight before you make that plunge. All the links to what you will need are below, good luck and good day!