Choosing between Shopify, WooCommerce, or Squarespace for your Ecommerce Store

by | Apr 27, 2022

When it comes to building a website for your business, finding the right platform to build it on is crucial. You need to take a good look at what functionality you want your website to have and determine which platform can provide that for you.

Some things you want to think about when choosing a platform are:

  • Usability for your visitors
  • Scalability for your business 
  • Payment Gateway options available

Let’s take a look at some pros and cons of each platform to help you decide which platform is right for you: 

Shopify.

Pros:

  • It’s a dedicated eCommerce platform so it’s well built  
  • Completely cloud-based and hosted  
  • 70+ professional themes available 
  • Offers 3 different pricing levels to fit your needs
  • A very wide array of additional plugins and partner integrations
  • Has a built in site speed report

Cons:

  • You’re likely to have to pay extra for the additional plugins
  • Images are not automatically cut down to same size and shape

WooCommerce.

Pros:

  • Free plugin for the WordPress platform
  • 400+ extensions to add functions to your site (think MailChimp, PayPal, GoogleAds, etc.)
  • Has hundreds of themes to choose from

Cons:

  • Since it’s a plugin through WordPress you will have to pay for hosting + domain
  • Requires frequent updates

Squarespace.

Pros:

  • Offers three different pricing levels to fit your needs.
  • Has a mobile app that allows you to edit your site from your phone
  • Allows you to put out blog posts

Cons:

  • Has a 3% sales transaction fee in addition to the approx. 2.9% + $0.30/per transaction charge if a customer pays using Stripe or PayPal.
  • Templates score low ratings on Google Page Speed Tool 
  • Only one sub-navigation, making it less than ideal for a website that needs a deep menu hierarchy.

No matter the platform you choose, having high quality product images, great descriptions, a clear return policy and amazing customer service will help set you apart from the competition. 

Still not sure which platform you should build your website on?

No need to worry. The Volt Team has experts that can help you determine which is the right platform for you, including many others not listed above. We take your ecommerce store from design to launch, building a site equipped with all your needs: inventory control, retarget abandon carts, price management, and more.

Explore our portfolio and get inspired by what we can do together!

 

 

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