You want to start an online business and open an e-commerce site or you already manage a business and want to move to online sales?
Congratulations for this sensible decision. But you might be wondering which e-commerce platform to choose?
We have compared four popular solutions currently on the market to create an e-commerce site: Shopify, Wix, WooCommerce and Prestashop.
Thanks to this e-commerce comparison, you will learn how much it costs to create an e-commerce website, you will discover all the available e-commerce features and finally understand the difference between the different online store subscriptions.
Finally, we give you some professional advice to make your e-commerce site take off and work.
Follow the guide.
E-commerce website creation : comparison of the best solutions
With all the existing e-commerce features and the different prices charged, it is not easy to offer a relevant comparison. Especially since some market players sometimes lack transparency on their prices.
For more clarity in this comparison of the best e-commerce site, we relied on several themes:
The online store
The sale
The management
The marketing
The security
Finally, of course, we compare the prices of these different options for e-commerce sites.
In this case, Shopify and Wix work in much the same way: they are SaaS solutions that offer turnkey e-commerce sites (but not only), including hosting, in the form of subscription. They offer a similar subscription to start: the Basic Shopify and the Business Unlimited at Wix.
Woo Commerce is the e-commerce solution of WordPress. The extension is free, but not the e-commerce package of WordPress, which also works as a subscription.
Finally Prestashop is an open source software that you download and then have to host and run yourself. It is free to use, but a number of modules (plug-ins) are required to launch your e-commerce site.
These last two solutions are open source.
e-commerce site : the basic features
All e-commerce solutions offer a number of common features that we present here:
Online store features
Free themes :
Shopify : 9 free – 68 paying
Wix : more than 500, most of them free
WooCommerce: several dozen free themes
Prestashop : 1 free theme
Responsive and mobile optimized themes
Access to a marketplace of freelance experts for each solution
Blog
Theme customization
Beyond these common features, some solutions offer more or less flexibility.
On Shopify and WooCommerce you will have full access to the HTML and CSS code of your site and can make changes. It is also possible on Prestashop, but technically more complex. Wix offers the least freedom on this point.
Hosting and domain name
When it comes to hosting e-commerce sites, the services are different everywhere.
Shopify: If you keep a sitename.shopify.com address, hosting is included in your subscription. You can purchase a domain name through Shopify, but you’ll have to outsource the hosting. You benefit from forwarding email addresses that will work with the email connected to your domain.
Wix: Same operation, but hosting is free. If you subscribe to the Premium package, you also get your domain free for 1 year. The professional email address is not free.
WooCommerce : hosting is included in the WordPress subscription and is of excellent quality. You also get a free domain name for 1 year if you subscribe to the annual package.
Prestashop: everything is done manually, with a third-party host.
In cases where hosting services are included in your subscription, they all offer unlimited bandwidth.
On the other hand, the storage limits differ:
Shopify: unlimited
Wix: 35 gigs
WooCommerce: 200 gigs
Prestashop: depends on your host
Upgrades and updates are automatic only on Shopify and Wix.
e-commerce site : Marketing and SEO
Same situation as the previous point. Shopify includes the most features in the Basic package, followed closely by Wix. Here they are:
SEO optimization
Automatic sitemap registration
Discounts and gift card
Free $75 Google advertising credit (for $25 purchase)
Customer notification
Sales on Facebook
Social media integration
Free logo
Data analysis
These features are also available on Wix, but you will be limited to 1000 customer reviews.
In terms of email marketing, Wix offers 3 campaigns and 5000 emails maximum per month. On Shopify, you will have to use a third party service. Data analysis is not included in the Wix Unlimited subscription.
Security and support
On this point, all e-commerce solutions offer the same thing:
Customer service (different communication modes and priority levels)
Free SSL certificate
Security of customer data
Automatic backups (with plug-ins on WooCommerce and Prestashop)