To Switch Or Not To Switch

Something you may not know about us is that we own and run three dedicated eCommerce businesses of our own – yep we really are gluttons for punishment sometimes. This is one of the reasons why we are super practical in the advice we give you, it is also another reason why we LOVE systems and things being as simple and automated as possible.

Originally two of our stores were on WooCommerce. We LOVE WooCommerce and Shopify. I hear you asking why did we switch? Before I take you through our why we made the switch, which ultimately led us to becoming Site Unicorn, I really want to convey that BOTH platforms have advantages, both have disadvantages. Both Shopify and WooCommerce have things we love and things that drive us a little crazy. Each one has a place and is perfect for different setups and systems. We love working on both too.

That being said it brings us to the actual question. What are the things that lead us to switch from WooCommerce to Shopify? It literally wasn’t one single thing it was a few things the biggest one for us when running multiple stores was the cost of each at the end of the day. We like to have each store running on it's own steam - so to speak.

Other factors that influenced our decision were:

• The ability to manage, update and keep secure multiple stores without huge overheads (Shopify has all of this awesome included for our WooCommerce stores we had to do each one separately and run our own firewalls and caching for peace of mind)
• SSL certificates ease of use and application (Shopify has this included as part of your subscription. The options to enable this for WooCommerce can be overwhelming)
• Tech issues were starting to creep in. We were noticing issues with how the sites were behaving and displaying. Our site stats were showing similar stories too - See more info on the numbers you should be tracking HERE
• Ease of integration with other systems- things like Klaviyo (best tool ever!), Clickup, Analytics, Memberships, Bundles the list goes on and on!
• Ability to get transparent help when needed. We struggled to find this with WooCommerce - we found that each person we asked for help had a tendancy to blame another providor - eg hosting often blamed the sucurity software and vice versa. To date the few problems we have had with Shopify have been resolved super quickly with the help of Shopify directly
• Ability to change plugins/apps monthly or regularly as needed instead of being locked into a yearly charge after your 30 day trial. Something might not be exactly what you need for a couple of months but might be perfect for another few months over the silly season (for example gift wrapping options)
• Decreasing the number of add ons/plugins or apps needed to make our site look the way we want it too - I emphasise here that chosing the RIGHT theme is a HUGE factor in this!
• Simplicity of things – not wanting to worry about conflicts between page builders and themes
• Ease of budgeting

These are just some of the reasons behind us making the switch. The final decider was the cost analysis on our smaller site staying on WooCommerce versus switching over to Shopify.

All amounts you see below are in US$ and the WooCommerce charges are annual charges (including apps) that we have divided by 12 to get the "monthly" charge.

For us on ONE store that was a HUGE saving! Keep in mind this was our smallest eCommerce store and the least expensive for us to run. Our other store was and is larger and much more complicated. Switching our second eCommerce store from WooCommerce to Shopify saved us even more each month. Each month we are saving AU$2500!!! That's just in website costs alone! Think what else you can do with that money (advertising, software to help grow your brand etc!!).

Again I want to stress that each platform has its advantages and disadvantages and ultimately we are stoked that we made the switch and are now Shopify Partners as well - this means you really can trust us when you work with us to give you a real world perspective on all things Shopify and day to day eCommerce.

Remember any questions about this - just ask us!!

Want to set up own Shopify Store? Make sure you register HERE.

Or want to chat to us about moving your own store over to Shopify? Reach out to us HERE.