Why Shopify is Better than Wix for Building an eCommerce Website

Last updated on April 24th, 2023

With everyone setting up their stores in the cloud, businesses are turning to a Web Development Company to Building an eCommerce Website. From the old code-driven websites to the uber new-age drag and drop web builder, the history of building eCommerce websites has come a long way in the past few years. Web builders can even help you with your SEO (search engine optimization) goals to give you a higher rank in Google, Bling, or other search engines.

Shopify is Better than Wix for Building an eCommerce Website

In this battle of eCommerce website builders, two names stand out in the arena, and they are Shopify and Wix. Both these eCommerce website builders have their pros and cons, and their battle is all about what kind of business you have and what kind of website you want to set up to rank on Google. Both of them possess the same basic features when it comes to selling online.

In a nutshell, Wix is primarily a website builder, whereas Shopify is a dedicated and heavyweight eCommerce builder. We feel Shopify is a clear leader in building eCommerce websites with its powerful store management features and immaculate and non-messy product pages. But before we show you why Shopify is the one you must choose and why you must hire Shopify developers for your website, let us dig into what each of these platforms has to offer, their pros and cons, along with unique features.

The Shopify World And Its Charm

Shopify is the Numero Uno choice if you want to build an eCommerce site that can handle thousands of products. A web development company that plans to increase its eCommerce product line and have a larger customer base must be on the lookout to Hire Shopify Developers as Shopify is the way to go for targeted eCommerce websites and apps.

You can create online stores without the need to code which helps store owners in not just easily launching and managing their store but also supports many crucial aspects, for example, the opening of additional channels (eBay, Amazon, FB, etc.), providing tools for customer support (live chats, etc.), and also taking care of technical issues. Below is a snapshot of its pros and cons:

• Pros

◦ There are many built-in features for eCommerce functionality, for instance, recovery of abandoned carts.
◦ It has a wide range of payment options to choose from, including Paypal and Stripe.
◦ The framework has live chat support 24 X 7.
◦ It is a highly scalable framework that can be used for small to large organizations’ eCommerce solutions.
◦ Its Shop Pay feature comes in handy for a new user as s/he doesn’t need to register if they have registered on any other Shopify store.
◦ There are many free and paid add-ons on Shopify like email marketing integration, etc.
◦ Shopify has a large community of experts and independent developers who are ready to help you at any time.
◦ You have complete access to the code, so customization and flexibility are straightforward and efficient. Moreover, mobile App development for eCommerce is easier than other Frameworks.

• Cons

◦ Shopify charges a transaction fee over and above the payment processor fee. Though Shopify payments are free of charge, they are not available everywhere.
◦ Using Shopify involves a bit of a learning curve.

What is Wix And Who Must Use It?

Wix is an ideal fit for small businesses with less than 300 products and do not have much coding experience or hire someone. It is a beginner-friendly free service that helps in building professional-looking websites with ease. It also has a premium plan where one of the plans is specifically for eCommerce providers. Wix USP lies in its simplicity of use and low pricing models with no transaction fees. Let us look at some of its pros and cons below:

• Pros

◦ It has an extremely user-friendly drag and drop interface, and even a novice in the technical department can easily create unique websites using its many templates and themes.
◦ The app offers a high level of customization to suit the needs of diverse business requirements.
◦ It has many cost-effective plans for eCommerce.
◦ There are several advanced eCommerce tools inbuilt in Wix, like emails for abandoned carts, global shipping payment options, etc.
◦ It has provisions for different languages.
◦ Wix has great customer service support, which is available 24 X 7.

• Cons

◦ It has the capacity to serve mostly small or medium-sized businesses.

◦ Lack of professional website look as compare to Shopify theme.

Time to Know Whether to hire Shopify developers or Go For a Wix Web Development Company

When it is time to decide who is the winner in the Shopify Vs Wix battle, Shopify comes out as an all-rounder and full package for a complete, versatile, and scalable eCommerce storefront. So, if you want to become and eCommerce Company, you might feel the need to hire Shopify Developers to garner customers and broaden your reach once you go through all the point by point comparisons of Shopify and Wix outlined below:

• Several useful eCommerce features – Shopify is specifically designed for eCommerce and is packed with many features to cover all aspects of the sales process. From inventory management tools to 3rd party platform integrations, shopping carts, and multiple payment gateways, Shopify takes care of every small element of an eCommerce website.

• Themes are fluid and have better flexibility – Shopify, with its more than 60 sleek, responsive, and modern themes, surely takes the cake in creating virtual storefronts. Their themes are made for both desktop and mobile users with their fun live editor. A little bit of HTML and CSS knowledge can help you further tweak the UI to your heart’s content. The flexibility and customization extend to even page elements so that you can modify, add, or resize page elements to be in sync with your brand image.

• Inventory management – Wix has a very clean inventory management system, but Shopify makes it even better by arranging all inventory management tools in one area. Using the same module, you can access the product creation page, an area for your gift card, and the inventory tab. There is also a search bar at the top of the dashboard where you can punch in anything (a piece of inventory, customer, discount, etc.) to get the results you need. There are tools for stock management, and you can upload single or multiple products at a time.

• Custom Domain Names – As a Shopify user, you will get your own custom domain name that allows you to efficiently and effectively brand your store and online business. Managing your domain is pretty easy as you can handle your domain and domain store from the same site location.

• Product Presentation – You want to make your products look captivating to increase your sales figures. Shopify aces this part with the facility to add unlimited items (real-time) to your eCommerce store. Initially, you might feel that Shopify has much fewer options (only 3 variants for size, material, or color) than Wix (has 6 variants and close to 100 options) for presenting your ware. Also, Shopify does not support carousel videos in many of its themes, and it doesn’t easily allow customization of products with respect to size charts, ribbons, wish lists, etc. (which Wix does allow).

But when you start digging into the extra apps that Shopify provides, you can find a range of free (and paid) add ons that will open up a world of treasure like FB stores, reviews feature, eBay item importers, and the list goes on.

• Unique Augmented Reality Feature – This exciting feature is unique to Shopify, where you can see every little detail of a product by navigating around on your Smartphones.

• Payment gateway options – In this area, Shopify scores way above Wix with its more than 70 payment gateways (Paypal, Stripe, Paymill, Authorize.net, Braintree, Square, Wirecard, etc.). With its support for 3PL order fulfillment, and Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon), Shopify users can sell their products anywhere in the world. It has support for multiple currencies (not available in Wix, you can only view the amount in various currencies but can’t sell) which Shopify has achieved through a complex hack consisting of non-supported HTML, Javascript, and CSS. It also has provision for Apple App Store or Google Play store payments which are not available in Wix.

• Shopify goes the extra mile with its superb built-in analytics – It is important to know how your store is doing once you have it up and running. With Shopify, it is quite easy to do that as it has many built-in functionalities like Google analytics to know customer behaviors, gauge stock levels, and track conversions. This way, you can tweak your store to get the desired results. Few other useful analytics that Shopify can obtain are; total sales, online store sessions, rate of returning customers, top-selling products, behavior reports, and average order value.

• Shopify’s popularity and its app market – Most of the eCommerce plug-ins are made, keeping the functionality of Shopify in mind owing to the vast popularity of Shopify. From free to premium add-ons for content management or marketing, you have access to various kinds of unique features with Shopify. Other marketplaces like Oberlo and Alibaba provide you with compatible apps for easy management of your stores.

• Abandoned Cart Feature – Both Shopify and Wix provide industry-specific features like abandoned cart recovery, but with Shopify, you would feel like a business VIP. Shopify offers a hoard of extra features like tools to update your Shopify POS, multi-channel integration, discount code creations, etc. Wix only offers abandoned cart recovery features through 3rd party applications. You can also avail of tools for automated tax calculations and filing with Shopify plus. It is not as easy to manage taxes with Wix.

• POS (Point of Sale) Capabilities – POS is available on both frameworks, but you can sell in-store by using just your iPad or iPhone with the Shopify POS app. In countries such as the USA, UK, Canada, and Ireland, you can purchase hardware like receipt printers and card readers directly from Shopify. The Shopify POS can be used in any country where there is support for Shopify credit card providers. Wix POS works only in the US and works only for a few supported business types.

• Shopify enables faster checkouts – Login and checkouts are a breeze with Shopify as they are designed by prioritizing customer preference. Shopify owners can make registering users optional, mandatory, or prohibited. Registration is an incredibly easy process with Shopify as users need to fill in the only basic information. Sellers can add users either manually or import through a CSV file and sort users with a tag system.

• Better Shipping cost settings and integration with carriers – While both these platforms provide similar decent shipping options, Shopify betters it with its in-house Shopify shipping services. Shopify’s partnership with many carriers such as UPS, USPS, DHL Express, Sendle, and Canada Post allows store owners in the US, Australia, and Canada to buy discounted shipping labels and offer calculated shipping rates.

Shopify takes it even further with its Shopify Fulfillment Network, allowing retailers in the US and Canada to pack and ship their products from the various fulfillment centers around the US. Advantages of this delivery system include same-day delivery, discounted shipping rates, and free packaging.

• Social Media Integration – Shopify allows you to sell your products on multiple social media channels. While Wix enables selling on Instagram and FB, Shopify allows you on FB, Instagram, Pinterest, Etsy, and Amazon.

• Multilingual capabilities – This used to be a pain area for Shopify users earlier as you needed to buy expensive multilingual themes or costly 3rd party apps to support multilingual features. But this has changed recently, and you can now enable additional languages with Shopify. Visitors of your site can even select their preferred language (most free themes are compatible with this). Wix also has multilingual features, but unfortunately, it is not SEO-friendly as it uses the same URL for all different languages.

• Page Speed – When tested for speed, Shopify scored way better than Wix. The Pingdom results of Shopify showed a loading time between 1 to 4 secs, while Wix had a loading time of around 9 secs in the Pingdom test. Shopify scored an A with 92% and a score of 85 on the GTmetrix test, while Wix stood at 65% and D ranking with a score of 82. Some parts may be more technical, but you may find difficultly for building an eCommerce Store, so you should need professional assistance and want to hire Shopify developer on hourly basis. iTechnolabs provides you dedicated team of web developers and mobile app developers for your ease. So, you can hire dedicated developers in affordable prices.

Conclusion

The message here is clear that Wix needs to do a lot of catching up to compete with the rich features of Shopify. If you are still sitting on the edge on deciding which technology stack and Web Development Company must you lean towards, then we are sure this article has given enough information for you to hire shopify developers to building an ecommerce website that can help you win the race in the digital market.