Shopify VS Wix – A Comparison To Choose The Best

Shopify and Wix are both popular platforms in the marketplace for developing eCommerce stores. Both of them have their own pros and cons according to the type of audience they entertain. For example, the capabilities and features of Shopify make it suitable for businesses of all sizes. On the other hand, Wix is preferred to set up an online store for small businesses only. 

However, relying merely on a statement to conclude the result would not be fair. So, let’s dive into a number of features, capabilities, affordability, and other considerations for a better conclusion. 

Overall Comparison in A Glimpse

In-Depth Analysis of Shopify and Wix

When you have to choose a platform to start your own business, it might not be feasible to decide based on the above tick marks and figures. Many other factors and their understanding will influence your decision for the platform choice. 

Let’s Talk About Them One by One:

1. Ease of Use

Shopify and Wix both are very easy to use for their users. However, when the comparison is made, it goes like this. 

Shopify is a dedicated eCommerce website development platform that even develops and manages eCommerce stores for big businesses. For the same, it carries advanced capabilities and features which might seem a little complicated. Still, the user experience at Shopify is so well-designed that a couple of clicks can help you design your online store within minutes. The ease of use is maintained even when the inventory dealing is on a larger scale. 

Wix, on the other hand, is not a dedicated eCommerce website development platform. It is the tool that helps mark the online presence by creating rich content like blogs, descriptions, etc. However, setting up the store is very easy with Wix, as the drag-and-drop feature helps you add the templates, designs, and features in no time. But, handling the large inventory on the Wix store might cause some frustration for you as the platform is more suitable for small-size businesses.

2. Pricing

Shopify and Wix have their respective monetized models based on the features they offer to the users. Have a look at the price plan of both platforms. 

Shopify Starts its plan with Shopify Lite, which enables you to add eCommerce features and functions to your existing website. It will cost you $9 per month to add Buy Button and accept credit card payments by adding it to your device. Further, to build a fully-fledged eCommerce store with Shopify, you will have to choose from three available plans. Each of these plans comes with 24*7 support, unlimited product selling, the ability to sell products on online marketplaces, social media, shipping labels, gift cards, abandoned cart recovery, discount codes, Shopify POS Lite, fraud analysis, etc. 

The Three Plans Go Like This:

Now coming to Wix, the platform offers its services for free as well as paid plans. The free version comes with limited features carrying the branding of Wix. This version is not e-commerce-enabled. The four plans offered by Wix are meant for businesses that need professional websites but don’t care to accept online payments. The plans include the facilities like an SSL certificate, 3GB to 35 GB storage, a professional logo, an event calendar app, etc. The plans are- 

• Combo for $16 per month 
• Unlimited $22 per month 
• Pro $27 per month 
• VIP $45 per month 

To accept the payment online, you can opt for the following three plans- 

• Business Basic $27 per month 
• Business Unlimited $32 per month 
• Business VIP $59 per month.

3. Design Options 

Shopify gives you plenty of options to design and customize your store. To design the website, you can use 10 designed templates, each with 2-3 variations. At the same time, if you are willing to pay a sum between $150-$350, you can access 70+ premium Shopify themes to better represent the store. 

Shifting to Wix, it provides flexibility in more than 800 design templates to set up your online store. The user-friendly drag-and-drop feature helps you organize the store within minutes by adding new colors and buttons. Moreover, even if your taste in organizing things is not good enough, Wix offers you support for the Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) editor that collects your preference and presents an automatically built store for you.

4. Integration 

The ability to integrate external platforms into eCommerce stores transfigure the capabilities and functionality of the store. For example, the integration can add the functionalities like collecting leads, improving visitor engagement, analyzing traffic, enhancing the website design, selling more, etc. 

Here, Shopify carries over 6000 integrations related to operating and marketing the online store. Shopify integration includes QuickBooks Sync, Easy Digital Products, Facebook Channel, TikTok, Back in Stock, Trustpilot Reviews, and more.  

On the other hand, Wix provides support to mere 300 such integrations to transfigure the capabilities of their online store. Some of these integrations are free, while others charge a certain fee. 

5. Customer support 

Shopify definitely is a step ahead in providing customer support to its merchants. First, with the Shopify store, you will leverage 24*7 live support to your customers via chat, telephone, and email. Further, you will also have access to an extensive online help center featuring tutorials, FAQs, and guides. Moreover, the platform employs more than 900,000 members to solve your inquiries and doubts. 

On the other hand, Wix offers email and call-back support to their paid plan users. The support is available for customers from Monday to Friday between 5 AM to 5 PM. Leaving the weekends and holidays, customer inquiries are mainly addressed within 24 hours. 

6. Product & Inventory

Undoubtedly, the product and inventory are the backbones of business. Inventory management is the area where Shopify marks its dominance. How well you represent your product determines the customer experience in your store. Both Shopify and Wix give their users a bulk of features and accessibility. 

With Shopify, you can add 3 variants of any product to your store for size, color, or material. You can add titles, descriptions, and image galleries and equip the pictures with zoom effects to enhance your users’ experience. Further, Shopify takes inventory presentation and management to the next level with its external apps. A range of free and paying add-ons of Shopify will help you collect reviews, set up Facebook stores, and enable eBay item importers with many more features. At the same time, Augmented Reality is another unique and scenario-changing feature of Shopify that helps the customer see the product’s minute detail. 

Talking about Wix, you can add the 6 variants of any product to provide options for size, color, or material. Even Wix allows you to add content, description, and photos of products with zoom-in and zoom-out capabilities. Wix ensures the support of 300 external apps to boost the store’s capabilities. However, these apps can never perform better than the support of 6000 apps of Shopify to bring customization. 

7. Point of Sale (POS) Capabilities 

If you already own an offline store to sell the products, it is gladful news for you that both Shopify and Wix have their own POS solutions that integrate offline and online selling experiences. 

With Shopify POS, you can sell in-store with your iPad and iPhone. If you are starting a business in the US, UK, Ireland, or Canada, getting the hardware is even easier as you can purchase it directly from Shopify. Shopify POS lets you sell products, accept payments, customize the checkout screens, track the inventory, set up the customer profiles, send digital receipts and also allows the customers to browse in-store and then buy online just by sharing the carts via mail. 

The POS lite plan at Shopify is entirely free. However, if you seek access to facilities like in-store pickup, intelligent inventory management, and staff logins, you will have to invest $89 monthly. 

Wix POS also offers similar capabilities to their users with additional functionalities like local delivery, unlimited staff account, curbside pickup, etc. But, the Wix POS is available only for US businesses with a particular type of business. Moreover, purchasing Wix’s hardware with POS kits is compulsory, starting at $550. A considerable amount, isn’t it?

8. Sales Channels

Relying just on your store is not going to be sufficient to earn a handsome income. With increased competition, the more platforms you sell on, the bigger is going to be your revenue. 

Have a Look at The Following Integrated Platforms that Will Boost Your Sales:

By turning to the Shopify app store, you can get support for additional sales channels via Google, Walmart, Pinterest, TikTok, Etsy, LYST, and much more. Coming to Wix, it doesn’t support external platforms as efficiently as Shopify.

9. Customer Logins and Checkout Options 

Unlike other considerations, customer logins and checkout options are similar in both Shopify as well as Wix. The platforms ensure that the store customer login or registers before completing the Checkout. Here, store owners can choose whether the registration should be mandatory or optional. Further, customers can access the order history, order statuses, payment information, delivery details, and other insight during the time of Checkout. Orders are associated with users’ email so they can be merged with the user’s account in the future. 

10. Working with The Team 

Both platforms have the capability to support multiple editors simultaneously. 

Shopify has three plans. Shopify basically allows 2 collaborators at the same time. Shopify Plan allows 5, while Shopify advanced allows 15. At the same time, if multiple editors are working on the same project simultaneously, it will be locked for nobody. Instead, the user will see a small profile badge of another editor at the top right corner. 

Coming to Wix, you don’t have to worry about the number of employees or editors working on the project, as there is no limit. Furthermore, users also get a warning when any other editor is working on the same project. The number of editors can be unlimited; however, the platform’s backend goes slower with an increasing number of editors. 

So, it is one of the pitfalls for Wix users.

11. Shipping Cost Settings and Carrie Integration 

Both platforms provide support for decent shipping and carrier options to deliver the orders. However, Shopify has established a more efficient, smooth, and comprehensive network for delivery. First of all, Shopify has partnerships with carriers like USPS, DHL Express, UPS, Sendle, Canada Post, etc. On top of that, Shopify also has Shopify Fulfillment Network. Kudos to this network, retailers in the US and Canada can ship their products from fulfillment centers around the market. The practice contributes significantly to enabling same-day delivery, discounted rates, free packaging, and much more. 

On the other hand, Wix has carrier integration via mediums like USPS and external providers like Shippo or ShipStation.

12. Tax Settings

Another factor where both platforms have the upper hand for the users. 

Shopify allows you to display the price of the products with or without taxes. Further, Shopify will make the practice even more feasible by setting automated tax rates per country and market. The feature will save a lot of time for you so you can focus on other areas of your business. 

Similarly, you can tag the prices of your product with the inclusion or exclusion of taxes in the Wix Store. The tax calculation is similar to that of Shopify. You can even leverage special tax rates by defining the product type, so you don’t have to pay taxes on products with tax relaxation from the government side. However, the feature is included in the Business Limited plan and above only.

13. Linguistic Support 

We hope your business gets recognition overseas. But, for that, your online presence should have multilingual support. 

Shopify also wishes the same, so they provide support to multiple languages for your store. Visitors can also leverage the native experience with their preferred language. However, you will have to rely on a third-party app which will cost you around $20 a month. You can add up to 20 languages to make the store more accessible.

Coming to Wix, even they offer support for different languages. However, your URL will be the same for all languages, making it less SEO-friendly for the users.

14. SSL and Checkout on Own Domain 

SSL encryption is offered by Shopify as well as Wix in all the plans for their users. With both platforms, your customers will Checkout the products on your domain to strengthen their trust. 

15. SEO – Which Platforms Helps You Perform Better on Serp 

Both platforms enable you to add titles, headings, descriptions, redirects, alt texts, and Sitemaps under your domains and sitemaps; Shopify and Wix offer the same flexes. However, some adding are automatic in both platforms that you can not control. For example, Shopify will add  “/collections/” or “/products/” to your URL. Similarly, Wix will add “/product-page/” in your URL to surf the product page. 

Shopify Analytics and Wix Analytics are the tools that will help you to read the outcomes of your SEO efforts.

Shopify vs Wix- Deciding Factors at A Glance

Before jumping to the extraction, it is necessary for you to understand that just like an Apple and Orange can not be compared, the same is the case with Shopify and Wix. Both platforms have similar working principles but feature availability per their target audience and use case. 

>> Consider Shopify If >>

• Online business is going to be your bread and butter for the upcoming years, and your vision is to entirely rely on it, undoubtedly, you must opt for Shopify without a second thought. The platform is meant for large-scale businesses and bigger merchants. 
• The addition of product range is not going to bother you. Further, you need not worry about the platform’s performance when opting for a large inventory. 
• Moreover, the linguistic support provided by Shopify will ensure no bothering if you are planning to expand your store overseas.
• Further, you will leverage the range delivery service both from the external vendors as well as the internal service of the platform. The delivery support will ensure that you provide a seamless experience to your audience to convert them into a loyal customer base for your business. 
• Along with the delivery option, payment gateways also make entry by providing a range of choices available to you.

>> Consider Wix If >>

• You are focusing on making an online presence only for your store. Planning to expand overseas with a Wix store might not be realistic, but you can attract a big audience base to your store with the content generation flex of Wix. 
• You can generate blogs, journals, guides, and other attractive content to inform the audience about your product or services. 
• You need no coding skills to customize your online store and add the products. 
• Drag and drop feature is going to ensure a friendly experience to you. 
• Design flexibility is another advantage of Wix that will help you design your store the way you prefer. 
• Further, setting up the store on Wix is going to be budget-friendly for your store in the initial stages. 

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We have been working in the eCommerce industry for several years now. The projects we encountered throughout the journey have helped us get familiar with the overall process, needs, competitive edges, strategies, and mitigation plans. This experience makes us one of the best eCommerce development solution providers in the market. 

Our focus point remains on understanding your needs, preferences, and vision to suggest the right solution. Furthermore, we encourage our professional relationship not only during the project but before and after the project as well. We offer you an hour of free consultation to discuss the idea. Once we have delivered the solution to you, ample post-service support will also be ensured.