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How to Add Express Checkout Buttons in WooCommerce

Are you looking to add an express checkout button to your online store?

Express checkout helps streamline the checkout process and improves the overall shopping experience for your customers. It can also boost conversions and reduce cart abandonment.

In this article, we will show you how to add express checkout buttons in WooCommerce.

How to add express checkout buttons in WooCommerce

Why Add Express Checkout in WooCommerce?

Adding express checkout to your WooCommerce store provides a better shopping experience for your customers.

It allows customers to go directly to the payment page and skip the shopping cart or checkout pages. They also won’t have to go to a payment provider page or fill out a checkout form to complete their purchases.

Express checkout buttons make the entire buying process quicker. Customers can simply click the buttons and log in to pay for the products they wish to buy in an instant. As a result, you may see a boost in conversions and fewer abandoned carts.

Adding express checkout also helps mobile users where their screen sizes are small. Customers will just tap the buttons to quickly purchase the products.

However, WooCommerce doesn’t offer an express checkout option by default. You will need to use a WooCommerce plugin to add the feature to your online store.

That said, let’s see how you can add express checkout buttons in WooCommerce.

Setting Up FunnelKit on Your WooCommerce Store

FunnelKit is the best WooCommerce sales funnel plugin on the market. It lets you add express checkout buttons and create different funnel pages for your online store.

The best thing about using the plugin is that it works with Stripe, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal Express, Amazon Pay, and other payment gateways for express checkout. This way, you don’t have to add each payment provider to your online store using third-party plugins or extensions.

FunnelKit also provides user-friendly templates and lets you do A/B testing. You can easily customize your funnels using different drag-and-drop page builders. Plus, there are multiple pre-built templates and automation features for your marketing campaigns.

FunnelKit

Note: For this tutorial, we will be using the FunnelKit Pro plugin because it includes premium templates and more customization options. You can also use the free Funnel Builder for WordPress by FunnelKit plugin to add express checkout buttons in WooCommerce.

First, you will need to install and activate the FunnelKit plugin. If you need help, then you can follow our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you will see the FunnelKit setup wizard. Go ahead and click the ‘Get Started’ button.

Start FunnelKit setup wizard

After that, you will need to enter your license key. You can find the key in the FunnelKit account area.

Simply click the ‘Activate’ button after entering the license key.

Enter FunnelKit license key

Next, FunnelKit will ask you to install essential plugins. These include WooCommerce, Stripe, FunnelKit Automations, and FunnelKit Cart.

The best part is that you just have to click the ‘Install and Activate’ button, and FunnelKit will take care of the rest.

Install essential plugins

After the plugins are active, the final step is to enter your email address.

Once that’s done, simply click the ‘Submit & Finish’ button.

Enter email and finish setup

You will now see a success message. You are ready to create funnels using the plugin and add express checkout buttons to your WooCommerce store.

Go ahead and click the ‘Go to Funnels’ button to continue.

Close the congratulations message

Enabling Payment Gateways in WooCommerce

Before moving forward, make sure you have set up at least one payment service in your WooCommerce store.

To do that, simply go to WooCommerce » Settings from your WordPress dashboard and click on the ‘Payments’ tab.

Enable payment services in WooCommerce

After that, you can click the toggle to enable the payment gateway of your choice and click the ‘Finish set up’ button to complete the configuration.

To learn more, you can follow our guide on how to allow users to choose payment methods in WooCommerce.

Adding Express Checkout Buttons to WooCommerce

Once you have enabled your preferred payment gateways, you can head to the FunnelKit » Store Checkout page from your WordPress admin panel.

From here, simply click the ‘Create Store Checkout’ button.

Create store checkout

On the next screen, FunnelKit will show you professionally-designed templates for your checkout page. It will also let you create a checkout page from scratch.

However, we recommend using a template and quickly customizing it according to your requirements.

Simply hover over a template you’d like to use and click the ‘Preview’ button.

Previewing FunnelKit's WooCommerce templates

For this tutorial, we will use the Livewire template.

Next, go ahead and click the ‘Import This Funnel’ button at the top.

Import the funnel template

Depending on the template you use, FunnelKit may ask you to install additional plugins like Elementor to edit the checkout page.

Next, you will need to enter a name for your store checkout and click the ‘Add’ button.

Enter a name for your checkout page

After that, you will see all the steps that are included in the template.

You can simply click the ‘Edit’ button for the Checkout page to continue.

Edit the checkout page

Next, you can switch to the ‘Optimizations’ tab. From here, simply enable the ‘Express Checkout Buttons’ option.

FunnelKit will also let you choose the position of the buttons from the following options:

  • Top of the checkout page
  • Before/after the product switcher
  • Before/after the order summary
  • Above the payment gateways
Enable express checkout

When you are done, simply click the ‘Save Changes’ button.

That’s it, you have successfully added express checkout buttons to your online store.

If you want to edit the appearance of the checkout page, then you can switch to the ‘Design’ tab and click the ‘Edit Template’ button.

Edit the template

You can learn more by following our guide on how to customize the WooCommerce checkout page.

Once you have made your changes, simply visit your online store to view the express checkout buttons in action.

Express checkout buttons preview

Additionally, FunnelKit helps you upsell products in WooCommerce. This way, you can boost sales by encouraging users to buy more products.

You can also set up automated emails in WooCommerce using FunnelKit Automations, a sister product of FunnelKit. This plugin lets you create automated workflows and send email campaigns to customers.

We hope this article helped you learn about how to add express checkout buttons in WooCommerce. You may also want to see our list of the best WooCommerce plugins for your store and how to create a WooCommerce popup to increase sales.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Add Express Checkout Buttons in WooCommerce first appeared on WPBeginner.

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8 Best Product Grid Plugins for WooCommerce (Free + Paid)

Are you looking for a WordPress plugin to show WooCommerce products in a grid?

Showing your products in a grid view provides a better user experience for customers. With the right plugin, you can easily customize and style your product category grid.

In this article, we will show you the best product grid plugins for WooCommerce.

Best product grid plugins for WooCommerce

Why Use a Product Grid Plugin for WooCommerce?

When you’re creating an online store, it is important to showcase your best products and make it easier for customers to view them.

With the right WooCommerce plugin, you can easily display multiple products or features from a single product in a grid view. This provides a better user experience and makes it easy for customers to interact with your products.

Besides that, a product grid plugin also offers more flexibility for customization. You can easily adjust the grid, choose the number of rows and columns, change the color, and more.

Some plugins will also let you add category filters. This way, users can simply search for a product and view them in a grid rather than explore each product in your WooCommerce store. It helps boost conversions and increase sales.

That said, let’s look at the best product category grid plugins for WooCommerce.

1. SeedProd

SeedProd page builder

SeedProd is the best WordPress website builder and landing page plugin. It is used by over 1 million professionals.

The plugin offers a drag-and-drop builder that lets you create custom themes and page layouts. You get prebuilt templates and lots of customization options.

In the page builder, SeedProd offers exclusive WooCommerce blocks to customize your product page. You simply drag and drop the products grid block on your template.

WooCommerce blocks in SeedProd

The plugin lets you choose the number of columns in the grid. It also offers options to filter products and show all products, best-selling products, top-rated products, and more. Besides that, you can select the order of the products based on date, title, rating, ID, and more.

Other than that, SeedProd offers other blocks for customization. For instance, you can add images, optin forms, countdown timers, contact forms, and more to your product pages.

It also easily integrates with email marketing tools to help you collect leads and grow your email list.

Pricing: SeedProd prices start from $39.50 per year. There is also a free SeedProd Lite version you use to get started.

2. MonsterInsights

The MonsterInsights Google Analytics plugin

MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. It lets you set up Google Analytics in WordPress without editing code or hiring a developer. Plus, it automatically sets up advanced tracking on your website.

MonsterInsights offers a Popular Posts feature that lets you show your best-selling products in a grid view. You get to choose from prebuilt themes for your product grid.

Popular products MonsterInsights

The plugin also shows a preview of your theme. Besides that, you get plenty of customization options.

For instance, you can change the color and size of the title, prices, and ratings. It also gives you the option to select a layout for your grid, choose product count to display, and more.

Other than that, you can also exclude certain products or product categories from appearing in the MonsterInsights popular post widget on the page.

Pricing: MonsterInsights premium plans start from $99.50 per year. There is also a MonsterInsights Lite version you use for free and set up Google Analytics in WordPress.

3. ProductX

ProductX

ProductX is another popular product grid plugin for WooCommerce. It lets you create WooCommerce stores using the drag-and-drop builder.

There are different blocks you can use to customize your store. Plus, the plugin offers a template toolkit, so you can quickly select a design and edit it according to your requirements.

ProductX offers different product category grid blocks. You can choose from 3 different variations to display products in a grid view. Besides that, there are multiple settings to edit the design of the product grid.

Other features offered by ProductX include advanced product filters, a progress bar, product comparison, whitelist items, and much more.

Pricing: ProductX is a paid WordPress plugin with prices starting from $49 per year for 1 site.

4. YITH WooCommerce Best Sellers

YITH WooCommerce best sellers

YITH WooCommerce Best Sellers is a great plugin to have on your online store and display top-selling products in a grid layout.

The plugin is easy to use and offers different options to customize your product category grid. For example, you can change the text, ratings, colors, and other details of any product in the grid. Plus, you can choose the number of rows and columns to display.

Using YITH WooCommerce Best Sellers, you can show your most popular products or top-selling product category. There is also a best-seller badge you can use to highlight a product and get more conversions.

Pricing: YITH WooCommerce Best Sellers will cost you $59.99 per year.

5. Smash Balloon Instagram Feed

Smash Balloon Instagram feed

Smash Balloon Instagram Feed is the best WordPress social media plugin. You can display content from different social media accounts on your WordPress website using the plugin.

If you’re using Instagram shopping to sell products online, then you can easily display items on your WordPress website using Smash Balloon’s Instagram Feeds plugin.

You can simply connect your Instagram account with the WooCommerce store. After that, display product feeds as grids, carousels, masonry, and other layouts.

The plugin also lets you link each Instagram post to a page on your WooCommere website. This way, users will land on the product page and easily make a purchase.

With Smash Balloon, you get full control over the appearance of your social media feeds. There are options to change the width, height, number of images, and more for your Instagram shoppable feed.

Pricing: You can get Smash Balloon Instagram Feed plugin for $49 per year.

6. Product Carousel Slider & Grid Ultimate for WooCommerce

Product carousel slider and grid ultimate

Product Carousel Slider & Grid Ultimate for WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin that lets you create attractive product grids, carousels, and sliders.

The plugin offers built-in themes for carousels and grids. Plus, it lets you customize the grid by choosing the number of products to display per page, showing a header title, and controlling the image sizes. The plugin also gives you settings for selecting columns and rows and enabling pagination.

You can then choose which products to show in the grid. There are multiple options to choose from, like the latest products, older products, and featured products. After creating the product grid, you can easily add them anywhere on your WooCommerce store using shortcodes.

Besides that, there are options to show different badges on products. For instance, you display a sales badge, featured badge, discount badge, and sold-out badge in your product grid. You can also edit the style settings and change the product title font, color, ratings, and more.

Pricing: You can use the Product Carousel Slider & Grid Ultimate for WooCommerce plugin for free.

7. Grid/List View for WooCommerce

Grid list view for WooCommerce

Grid/List View for WooCommerce is the next product category grid plugin on our list. The plugin is a great free solution for business owners looking to create simple product grids and lists.

You get to choose from 2 default styles, which include a grid or list layout. Besides that, there are basic options to customize your product grid. You can choose how many products to display and where to position the product count.

Sadly, there is no drag-and-drop customization option as you’d get in SeedProd. However, the plugin offers a wide variety of buttons to choose from for your WooCommerce product grid.

Pricing: Grid/List View for WooCommerce is a free-to-use plugin.

8. Product Categories Designs for WooCommerce

Product categories design

Product Categories Designs for WooCommerce is the most basic WordPress plugin for creating product grids and sliders.

If you have different product categories on your WooCommerce store, then all you have to do is install the plugin and use shortcodes to display the products.

There are no customization options or additional settings that you’ll find in your WordPress dashboard. Everything is controlled through shortcodes. You can use different shortcodes for choosing the number of columns, order of product categories, design of the product grid, and more.

However, if you’re looking for more customization features and ease of use, then you can use any other plugin on our list, like SeedProd or MonsterInsights.

Pricing: You can get started with Product Categories Designs for WooCommerce for free.

Which is the Best Product Grid Plugin for WooCommerce?

In our experience, SeedProd is the best product grid plugin for WooCommerce. It is super easy to use because it offers a drag-and-drop builder with lots of template customization for your site and pages.

You can create stunning WooCommmerce pages with customized product grids that will help boost conversions. The plugin also offers tons of options to edit and change the appearance of your product category grids.

That’s not all, SeedProd also integrates with popular email marketing services, which helps grow your email list.

Bonus: If you’re looking to grow your WooCommerce store, then we also recommend that you try FunnelKit. It’s one of the best WooCommerce plugins to grow your store revenue.

We hope this article helped you pick the best product grid plugin for WooCommerce. You may also want to see our guide on WooCommerce SEO made easy and the best live chat software for small businesses.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 8 Best Product Grid Plugins for WooCommerce (Free + Paid) first appeared on WPBeginner.

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How to Add a Wishlist to Your WooCommerce Store

Do you want to add a wishlist feature to your WooCommerce store?

A wishlist allows visitors to save their favorite products, so they can quickly find them later in your store and complete their purchase. It also makes it easy for your visitors to share their favorite items with friends and family as part of their wedding registry or another gift registry.

In this article, we’ll show you how to add a wishlist to your WooCommerce store.

Add a wishlist to your WooCommerce store

What Are Wishlists and Why Add Them in WooCommerce?

A wishlist lets your customers and guests save their favorite products on a list. It helps them to remember which products they want to buy in the future, so they can quickly find them later on your WooCommerce store.

Plus, customers can share their wishlists with their friends and family. This helps build brand awareness and increases traffic to your online store so you can boost sales.

Another benefit is that you get to see which products people add the most to their wishlists. To increase sales, you can then run promotional offers and discounts on popular wishlist products.

That said, let’s see how you can easily add a wishlist to the WooCommerce store.

Adding a Wishlist to Your WooCommerce Store

The best way of adding a wishlist to your WooCommerce store is by using a WordPress plugin like YITH WooCommerce Wishlist.

It’s a free WooCommerce plugin that lets your visitors save their favorite products to a wishlist and share them with their friends and family.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the YITH WooCommerce Wishlist plugin. For more details, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you can head over to YITH » Wishlist from your WordPress dashboard and click on the ‘Add to wishlist options’ tab to configure the plugin.

After a product is added to your wishlist

The plugin will automatically add a ‘Add to wishlist’ link to each product that shoppers can click on to save items.

In the settings, you can select which link to show after a user adds a product to the wishlist. For instance, you can still display the ‘Add to wishlist’ button, or you can change the link to show the ‘View wishlist’ or ‘Remove from list’ options instead.

Next, you’ll see the Loop settings and Product page settings. You can choose where you’d like the ‘Add to wishlist’ button appear on the product page.

Wishlist loop settings

By default, it will be shown after the add to cart button. However, you can choose a different position by clicking the dropdown menu in front of the Position of “Add to wishlist” on product page option.

After that, simply scroll down and customize the text for your wishlist and edit the color and style of the add to wishlist button.

Change the text for add to wishlist button

Don’t forget to click the ‘Save Options’ button at the bottom of the page when you’re done.

Next, you can head to the ‘Wishlist page options’ tab.

The plugin will create a new page for wishlists on your WooCommerce store. If you prefer, you can select a different page from the Wishlist page dropdown menu instead or show wishlists on any page using the [yith_wcwl_wishlist] shortcode.

Wishlist page options

Next, you can now scroll down and select which details to show in the wishlist table.

For example, there are options to display product variations, the date on which the product was added to the wishlist, price, and more.

Details on wishlist page

You can even select social media channels on which people can share their wishlists, add custom text when the list is shared on social media, and more.

The plugin also offers settings to change the text and edit the style and color of the sharing button, social media channel buttons, and more.

Share on social media options

When you’ve customized the wishlist page settings, don’t forget to click the ‘Save Options’ button to store your changes.

You can now visit your WooCommerce store and see the ‘Add to wishlist’ option on the product page under the Add to cart button.

Preview of add to wishlist button

When a user clicks the Add to wishlist link, they can then browse their wishlist and remove items or add to cart products from the list.

Besides that, the plugin also shows options to share the wishlist on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest or send the list via email and WhatsApp.

Browse your wishlist

Going Beyond Wishlists to Grow WooCommerce Sales

Now that you have added the wishlist feature to your WooCommerce store, you may want to further optimize it to boost sales and conversions.

We recommend using the WooFunnels plugin to optimize your WooCommerce checkout, add one-click upsells, and other marketing automation features.

WooFunnels Template Library

For more details, see our step by step guide on how to create high converting funnels in WooCommerce.

Aside from that, here are five other plugins that we recommend to help grow your WooCommerce store:

  • Advanced Coupons for WooCommerce – helps you add smart coupons to offer free shipping discounts above certain $ amount, buy one get one free offers, and more.
  • WooCommerce Gift Cards – lets you sell gift cards for your WooCommerce store. This is a great addition alongside wishlist to boost revenue.
  • PushEngage – helps you stay connected with visitors after they leave your website. This technology is used by many smart eCommerce retailers like 1800-flowers, Harrys and Davids, and others to boost sales.
  • Uncanny Automator – this tool helps you automate your routine workflows to save you time. Simply the best task automation plugin for WooCommerce.
  • WP Mail SMTP – ensures that your WooCommerce emails actually get delivered in your user’s inbox. This is an absolute must have tool for all WordPress sites. See more details in our guide on how to fix WordPress not sending email issue.

We hope this article helped you learn how to add a wishlist to your WooCommerce store. You may also want to see our expert pick of the best WooCommerce plugins to grow your store, and the best WooCommerce hosting companies that scales with your growth.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Add a Wishlist to Your WooCommerce Store first appeared on WPBeginner.

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Shopify vs WooCommerce – Which is the Better Platform? (Comparison)

Are you thinking of starting an online store? Not sure whether you should use Shopify or WooCommerce?

Shopify and WooCommerce are the two top eCommerce platforms in the world each with their own pros and cons.

As a business owner, choosing the right eCommerce platform that fits your business needs is crucial for your success.

In this guide, we will show you a detailed comparison of Shopify vs WooCommerce. The goal is to break down their advantages and disadvantages to help you choose the best option for your eCommerce store.

Shopify vs WooCommerce

Since this is a detailed comparison of Shopify vs WooCommerce, here’s a quick table of content:

Overview: Shopify vs WooCommerce

Before we start with our in-depth comparison of the two most popular eCommerce platforms on the web, it’s important that we cover the basics and highlight what makes these platform stand out.

What is Shopify?

Shopify is an all-in-one eCommerce platform that makes it easy for you to create an online store, accept payments, and manage your inventory all from a single platform without ever worrying about the technical aspects of managing a website such as web hosting, security, caching, etc.

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce plugin built for WordPress. It allows you to leverage the most powerful content management system (CMS) and use it to run an online store. Because of the open-source nature, you can customize every aspect of your store and easily build custom extensions.

The decision to choose between the two platforms depend entirely on your needs and skill level.

What to Look for in Your eCommerce Platform?

There are few things that you absolutely need to keep in mind when starting an online store. These key factors will help you decide which platform is better suited for your needs.

  • Budget – The initial cost of starting a fully functional ecommerce store.
  • Ease of use – It should be easy to use even for absolute beginners.
  • Payment Methods – It should have support for multiple payment methods (e.g. PayPal, Stripe, other merchant processors).
  • Integrations – Number of services and third party tools you can integrate to grow your business.
  • Scalability – The platform should be able to scale as your business grows.

These are the very basic requirements that all online store owners must consider. However, depending on your needs, you may also want to look at other options like shipping, inventory management, invoicing, taxes, dropshipping, etc.

Our goal with this article is to take an in-depth look at how Shopify and WooCommerce stand on these basic requirements, and which one of them is best suited for your needs.

Cost: Shopify vs WooCommerce

Cost is often the most important consideration for eCommerce website owners. You need to evaluate the cost of getting started while also keeping in mind the variable costs for add-on services and software.

The true cost of using Shopify

Shopify makes it super easy to start your online store. Their basic plan starts at $29 per month, and you can upgrade to the Shopify plan for $79 or the Advanced Shopify plan for $299 per month.

Shopify pricing

Each of these plans includes domain name, SSL certificate, and web hosting.

The basic plan comes with enough features to set up a new online store. You can add unlimited products, 2 user accounts, unlimited file storage, and more.

However, this pricing doesn’t include third-party tools and add-ons that you will need to take your Shopify store to the next level. As your business grows, these costs will start adding up, and you’ll soon be paying a lot more than the basic plan.

Payments are another factor that affects your costs. Shopify offers their own Shopify Payments solution which costs 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction.

If you want to use third-party payment gateways or your own merchant account, then you will be charged a flat fee of 2.0% for all transactions. You can reduce this fee to 0.5% by using the Shopify Advanced plan which costs $299 per month.

These payment processing fees are fairly steep when using external payment gateways. However, if you’re just starting out and want to use the Shopify payment solution, then the fees are fairly comparable to popular platforms like Stripe and Braintree.

The true cost of using WooCommerce

WooCommerce is an eCommerce plugin for WordPress.org (also known as self-hosted WordPress). It is open source and freely available as a WordPress plugin.

However, you’ll need a domain name, SSL Certificate, and a WordPress hosting account to start a WooCommerce store.

Typically, a domain name costs $14.99, SSL Certificate costs $69.99, and web hosting around $7.99 / month. This is not cheap, particularly when you are just starting out.

Thankfully, there are several hosting companies who are now offering specialized WooCommerce hosting plans which significantly reduces the cost.

Getting started with WooCommerce

Bluehost, an official WordPress and WooCommerce recommended hosting provider, has agreed to offer our users a free domain name, free SSL certificate, and a discount on web hosting.

This will help you start your online store for as low as $6.95 / month.

→ Click here to Claim this Exclusive Bluehost offer ←

As you can see, the cost of starting a basic WooCommerce store is significantly lower than Shopify. WooCommerce also doesn’t charge you a percentage fee of your transactions which is a very nice perk.

But the WooCommerce costs start adding up as you purchase paid extensions. Your hosting costs will also increase as your online store grows.

However, one clear advantage of using WooCommerce is that you can often find free alternatives to the paid extensions. You can also keep your costs in control by only purchasing the tools and plugins as you need them.

With the number of free themes and free add-ons available for WooCommerce, it’s definitely the winner when it comes to cost.

Winner: WooCommerce

Ease of Use: Shopify vs WooCommerce

Most users starting an online store are not web designers or developers. Even users who are familiar with basic concepts need a platform that is easy to use and gets out of their way.

Let’s see how Shopify and WooCommerce stack up in terms of user-friendliness.

Shopify – Ease of Use

Shopify is a fully hosted platform which means you don’t need to install, manage, or update any software. You also don’t need to worry about security, performance, backups, and compatibility issues.

As soon as you sign up, it helps you pick a design for your website. After that, they walk you through customization and then help you add products.

Shopify customization

Shopify comes with an intuitive drag and drop interface. Managing your products, sales, and inventory inside Shopify is a breeze.

One downside of this guided, polished, and highly optimized user experience is that it limits your control. You can only use the design and development tools provided by Shopify or add-ons available in their marketplace.

However, this is not as bad as it sounds. For most users, the large selection of extensions and themes available in Shopify, is more than enough to get started and grow your online store.

WooCommerce – Ease of Use

WooCommerce is not a hosted platform like Shopify. This means you will need to install WooCommerce, manage updates, keep backups, and make sure that your website is secure. There are plenty of free and paid plugins that can automate most of these tasks for you.

WooCommerce setup wizard

WooCommerce is super flexible when it comes to customizations. You have full control of the whole platform. You can add any functionality imaginable to your website with the help of more than 55,000+ WordPress plugins.

However, there is no built-in drag & drop design builder. You can use one of the WordPress page builders like Beaver Builder, but it adds to your cost.

The biggest downside of the flexibility is that it comes with a learning curve and requires a more hands-on management of your website. You also have to signup for a merchant account or similar service like Stripe / PayPal.

While the WooCommerce guided setup wizard is helpful, it does not come close to the onboarding and ease of use of Shopify.

Winner: Shopify

Payment Methods: Shopify vs WooCommerce

There are many payment gateways that you can use to accept payments online. Some payment methods may not be suitable for you, and others may not be available to your customers.

This is why it’s important that the platform you choose offers multiple payment options. Let’s take a look at how Shopify and WooCommerce compare when it comes to payment integrations.

Payment Options in Shopify

Shopify offers plenty of payment options that you can use to receive payments from customers. It has its own payments solution called Shopify Payments (powered by Stripe) as well as all popular third-party payment gateways.

Shopify Payments

The problem is that Shopify charges an extra 2% fees on each transaction made through third party payment gateways. This is on top of the transaction fees charged by the payment gateway. You can reduce the fee to 0.5% by paying $299 per month for Advanced Shopify plan.

Shopify Payments has flat credit card fees, but no other transaction fees. Credit card rates start from 2.9% + 30¢ for the basic plan and get lower for other plans.

Payment Options in WooCommerce

WooCommerce offers PayPal and Stripe payments by default. It also supports all other popular payment service providers through add-ons.

WooCommerce payment methods

For payment gateways, WooCommerce even has support for many regional and less popular payment services. Since there is no barrier to entry, any payments company can create add-ons for WooCommerce and provide support for it.

As a self-hosted platform, you are only charged transaction fees by your payment gateway or your bank. WooCommerce never charges you a % fee on your store transactions which is a major plus.

If choosing your own merchant account and using a third-party gateway is important for you, then you will save A LOT of money by using WooCommerce. But if you’re a small store and willing to use Shopify Payments which has the same credit card rates as Stripe / Paypal, then it makes no difference.

Winner: Tie

Integrations and Add-ons: Shopify vs WooCommerce

No matter how robust an e-commerce platform is, you’ll always need third-party tools and services to grow your store. For example, an email marketing software, lead generation tool, analytics tools, outreach services, etc.

Both Shopify and WooCommerce have a massive extensions directory, and they integrate with many third-party services.

Shopify Add-ons and Integrations

Shopify comes with a powerful API and an App Store where you can buy third-party add-ons for your Shopify store. They have hundreds of apps in the store covering every feature you’ll want to add to your store.

Shopify App Store

For lead generation, they have integrations with software like OptinMonster which helps you grow your email list and reduce cart abandonment. They have apps for SEO, product reviews, discounts, countdowns, and more.

Shopify’s app store contains both free and paid apps. Free apps are usually created by third-party services that have their own pricing, and the app only integrates your store to their APIs. Pricing for paid add-ons varies and most apps offer monthly subscriptions.

WooCommerce Add-ons and Integrations

WooCommerce extensions

WooCommerce is open source and built on top of WordPress. This gives you access to more than 55,000 free WordPress plugins and many more paid plugins.

You can use these add-ons to add payment gateways, lead generation, SEO, performance optimization, and almost any feature you can think of.

Due to the low barrier of entry, there are a lot more integrations and add-ons available for WooCommerce than Shopify. Almost all third-party tools and service providers have their own plugins to seamlessly integrate with your WooCommerce store.

You can also hire a developer to create an integration or plugin just for your own website. However it’s important to keep in mind that WooCommerce is a lot easier to customize. Having personally gone through the process of submitting a plugin for WordPress and submitting an app to the Shopify store, we can say that the process is extremely harder on Shopify vs WooCommerce.

Winner: WooCommerce

Shopify vs WooCommerce Dropshipping

Shopify vs WooCommerce dropshipping

Dropshipping is an online business where an eCommerce store doesn’t keep the products in stock. Instead, it fullfills order by purchasing products from vendors and then shipping them directly to the customers.

Due to its low overhead, dropshipping has become popular around the world. Many of our users asked us to compare WooCommerce vs Shopify for dropshipping and which one of them is better for a dropshipping business.

Dropshipping with Shopify

When building a dropshipping business, the front-end of your website will look just like any online store. Your users will be able to browse the products, add them to cart, and make payment, just like they would do on any other eCommerce store.

Depending on the vendors you choose, you will then have to place user’s order for shipping.

Shopify also has integration apps for several popular dropshipping marketplaces like AliExpress, Oberlo, Printify, and more. However, each of these product marketplaces has their own membership fees, shipping, and other charges that you need to keep in mind when building your dropshipping website with Shopify.

Dropshipping with WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a popular choice among dropshipping businesses. Mainly because WooCommerce allows you to install extensions that make order fulfillment a breeze.

You can easily find extensions that allow you to instantly import products, fulfill orders from your website, and more. You can even create your own eCommerce marketplace allowing other vendors to sell on your website.

Keep in mind, that your supplier and vendor may have minimum order requirements, membership fees, and other charges. You need to keep those in mind when adding products to your WooCommerce dropshipping store.

Winner: WooCommerce

Scalability and Growth: Shopify vs WooCommerce

You have probably heard the term “growth-pains” from various CEOs. As your business grows, you will need more resources to handle new challenges and goals.

Shopify and WooCommerce can both be scaled to handle large amount of traffic and orders, but they’re not created equal. Let’s take a look at how these two eCommerce platform compare when it comes to scalability.

Scalability on Shopify

Shopify enterprise

Shopify handles the technical parts of your store which means you don’t ever have to worry about performance, security, and scalability. Once your business starts growing, you can simply upgrade your Shopify plans.

Their infrastructure can easily handle your growing business without you having to worry about downtimes, backups, updates, or security. They also offer enterprise services as part of the Shopify Plus plan.

This takes out the painful part of the growth, but it also adds to your cost of business. Your expenses will grow, and you’ll have to plan accordingly.

The good part is that your costs will be offset by you not having to hire / manage a technical team in-house.

Scalability on WooCommerce

WooCommerce Scalability

WooCommerce is a self-hosted platform which makes you responsible for maintaining updates, backups, and security of your website.

Your starter WooCommerce hosting plan would run out of resources as your store starts getting more traffic.

The good part is that you have plenty of options to manage growth as you are in full control of your website. Starting with better management of resources with caching to upgrading your hosting plan to more powerful servers.

Your WooCommerce hosting costs will increase, but you will have better control on resources, and you can make sure that you are not paying for resources that you don’t need. You can use a managed WordPress hosting provider like WP Engine or LiquidWeb to help scale your WooCommerce store.

Despite the control that WooCommerce offers, some business owners simply prefer a hassle-free solution.

Winner: Shopify

Support Options for WooCommerce vs Shopify

Both WooCommerce and Shopify are quite easy to use. However, sometimes you may need help to learn how to do something new on your store.

Let’s see how WooCommerce and Shopify handle support and what are your options to get help when needed.

Support Options on Shopify

Shopify is a fully hosted platform, which means they control the software and they are the ones who know their platform the best.

Shopify provides 24/7 support via live chat, phone, email, and Twitter. For users who want to fix things on their own, Shopify offers extensive documentation, how-to guides, knowledge base, video tutorials, and forums.

Shopify support options

It also maintains a directory of Shopify Experts that you can hire if you need extra help or if you want to integrate a third-party solution.

Shopify doesn’t provide support for any third-party apps or themes that you are using.

Support Options for WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the world’s most popular eCommerce platform, which means there are tons of support options that you can utilize when needed.

The official website has extensive documentation, tutorials, and guides that allow you to help yourself. They also have support forums where you can get help from other WooCommerce users and experts.

WooCommerce is a self-hosted platform, which means your hosting provider is responsible for providing support for issues with your server.

For your WooCommerce theme and extensions, those developers are responsible for answering support questions regarding their products.

Due to its immense popularity, it is quite easier and often cheaper to find developers to help you fix issues with your WooCommerce store. You can find developers on freelancing websites to fix WooCommerce issues.

Winner: Shopify

WooCommerce vs Shopify: Which is the Best eCommerce Platform?

Shopify and WooCommerce are both powerful platforms to start your eCommerce store. It truly comes down to your personal skills and preferences.

Shopify is a lot easier to use. It doesn’t require you to install anything, and you can get started quickly. Setting up payments is easier, and they have easy to understand pricing plans.

The disadvantage of Shopify is that you don’t have full control over everything. Your costs can go high with transaction fees, add-ons, and integrations. Your upgrade options are limited to select plans, and you cannot manage costs on a pay-as-you-grow basis.

WooCommerce is open source and gives you full control of your website. It costs a lot lower to start an online store with WooCommerce specially with these WooCommerce hosting companies.

The disadvantage is that you’ll have to maintain the software. It comes with a bit of learning curve. However, millions of beginners are already using it, and they get over the learning phase quite quickly.

If you are looking for a cost-effective solution, and you want to have full control of your online store, then WooCommerce is the best platform for you.

If you want something that’s completely hassle-free that has infinite scalability, then Shopify is the better platform for you.

We hope this article helped you compare pros and cons of Shopify vs WooCommerce. You may also want to see our guide on how to choose the best website builder.

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