Shopify VS WordPress & WooCommerce - My Honest Review!

Hi guys, my name is Hogan and in this video, I'm going to be comparing Shopify with WordPress and WooCommerce So Shopify is primarily a e-commerce platform Whereas WordPress is a content management system mostly branded as a blogging and a small business platform But you can actually add WooCommerce, which is a plug-in that adds Ecommerce functionality onto your WordPress website to give you a e-commerce Website, okay, so you can start selling goods So in this video I'm gonna be giving you my honest thoughts because I have been using WordPress for years now and I've recently started a Shopify store For dropshipping for a few months. So I'm basically can give you my thoughts so you can make a good decision for yourself So if you're mainly focusing on like blogging you're like a blogger Then you definitely go with WordPress like there's no comparison with a better blogging platform Or if you're like primarily building a website for a small business, then you definitely go with WordPress Okay, but if you're deciding between you know, Shopify and WordPress and WooCommerce for your e-commerce store Or your dropshipping store then watch this video So you can still build a dropshipping store if you actually use WordPress and WooCommerce there are plugins such as Ali dropship and also we dropship which basically helps you integrate the products from Ali Express to your WooCommerce and WordPress store really easily and basically semi automate that process for you It's just that Shopify definitely has a lot more videos on it about dropshipping and it's definitely branded more as an e-commerce thing But you can definitely build a dropshipping store or e-commerce store on either platform Okay. So what I do want to talk about is maybe the pricing first. So with Shopify, there's a 14-day free trial Which is really awesome. And I think you should take advantage of that. I have a link down below But after that you do have to pay $29 per month for the basic version and $79 for the medium version and I think 200 plus for the enterprise version With WordPress and WooCommerce those things are actually free But what you actually do need is a hosting account and hosting is basically where you store your website files And such as your text and data and things like that So people can access your website 24 7 and then you install WordPress on top of that Right, so posting goes from you know, five to ten dollars a month including a SSL certificate and basically the SSL Certificate is the HTTPS in front of your website You'll see that on a lot of e-commerce websites because that adds the security layer So you're actually able to store your customers data and you know process payments and things like that so in terms of pricing Definitely Shopify is definitely a lot more expensive WordPress is definitely cheaper But I wouldn't base my decision on choosing either one based on price because over the long run You're gonna be making a lot more money than that. So it wouldn't really matter Anyway in terms of the fees and stuff like that. I think Shopify have something called Shopify payments and They charge zero fees For making a sale and that is really good I think for some countries such as United States, but if you're like me, I'm in Australia and they don't use Shopify payments here So I have to use PayPal anyway And with WordPress most of the time people just use PayPal because that's really easy and they charge like a two to three percent fee So that's pretty much even there. The other thing that you have to pay for is themes. Okay, so themes is basically like a Skin that you add on to your website that gives it specific look and appearance or like a color scheme With Shopify they have a little bit of free themes, which is pretty good. It's okay. It's not the best in terms of Things that you can actually customize They're actually also paid themes, which I haven't actually tried yet. It's a hundred and forty dollars to a hundred eighty dollars A one-time fee if you want to build out another store You have to get that, you know another theme and you have to pay that one time fee again Whereas WordPress you have to pay, you know, forty nine to seventy nine dollars for a paid theme Which I highly recommend and that is on a yearly basis, but you can actually install that on All websites even your clients websites as well So, you know the pricing there it's more it costs more one-time fee with WordPress here It's a little bit cheaper, but it's an annual fee and you can install unlimited websites In terms of the plugins plugins are basically things that you sort of like applications that you add on to your WordPress Or Shopify store for additional functionality, for example, so you might want to add like some kind of email pop email pop-up for your Shopify store, you know, that's a plug-in and You know for your WordPress website as well Which Shopify they have a lot more paid apps and it costs like $5.99 or like $9.99 and some apps Which even charge a percentage of your sales? So it's definitely more expensive with Shopify and with WordPress There's a lot of free things which are really great already and don't need to upgrade But the thing here is with WordPress and their plugins. Sometimes they might not play well together so for example they might conflict and sometimes the plug-in might not work because you've got the theme there and then from a different developer and then you got like plugins from different developers and Sometimes it just doesn't work well and you have to spend time updating it fixing it and troubleshooting it But with let's say Shopify, it's more like integrated. The experience is more seamless That's why you're paying for that premium there For me I can manage it for some people. You don't really want to manage that part and Shopify. It might be good, right and Now the next thing is security. So Shopify offers like an integrated security. You don't have to worry about it It's a hands-free Thing which is like included just don't think about it You just you know focus on branding focus on marketing whereas WordPress, you know The security is like for your hosting provider They provide like basic security and backups and things like that for additional security. You'll need to add like plugins and stuff like that So it takes more time to manage I would say so you're paying for that premium again in terms of the support Shopify offer 24-7 support for basic things But if you want to actually customize like your theme and the appearance of your website You'll need to pay, you know by the hour for that and The good thing is you actually get like 60 minutes of free theme customizations when you first start out with Shopify That is really good just to get your shop up and running because you might want to move like a headline or something like that Which I actually used but it does take a few days for them to actually edit that sometimes with WordPress here There's basically two to support things because you've got one support, which is the hosting so for example, if your website is down, then you need to contact your your hosting support but if you want to make customizations to your theme and stuff like that you contact the theme support and That's where you pay, you know your $49 a year and stuff like that. So with a theme support normally It's like a forum thing. So they'll answer your questions within, you know a few hours or the maximum I had to wait was like 24 hours. So it really depends on the theme that you pick So overall what I think is that you know picking either one is not going to make you more successful It's like picking the Nike shoe or maybe picking the adidas shoe. It's not gonna make you run any faster What's gonna make your business successful is yourself and your marketing strategies your product and your customer service Not the platform that you choose it on but overall I think Shopify is a good platform Which saves you time in terms of managing it and you can focus more time on marketing and branding Facebook ads or whatnot WordPress is more self-managed and You have to spend more time managing it, but you get more customizability In terms of like moving stuff and things like that, which I really really really like about WordPress But if you're like a blogger or if you're a small business and you want to add e-commerce functionality Then I'll probably go with WordPress because it's just definitely the best Platform to build your website and your blog on and then you can add new commerce functionality to it So ultimately I would say, you know, Shopify is more like a furnished apartment you just move into that apartment the furniture is like there already and All you need to do is get your luggage move in your luggage being your products move in and then you can just you know Live your life. Okay, whereas WordPress is more like, you know You're finding this piece of land and you're building that house by yourself and then you're going to Ikea you're building that furniture yourself So it's definitely more self-managed some people like that option. Some people like a more convenient option I'd recommend you try out Shopify 14 days and see what you like about the platform See what you don't and you can also try out the WordPress and WooCommerce option as well There's a link down below for one cent hosting so you can sign up for Hostgator for one cent only and then you can install WordPress and WooCommerce and you can follow my free tutorial on how to set up an e-commerce website and if you don't like it then what you can do is cancel that hosting before that month ends and Transfer that domain name to your Shopify account and basically build out your Shopify store and start your e-commerce journey So if you like this video, make sure to give it a thumbs up subscribe for more videos I'm gonna be making more videos on my Shopify journey and also WordPress tutorials as well as showing you guys how to make money online