Shopify vs. Woocommerce - Best Ecommerce Platform in 2018? (+ Oberlo vs. AliDropship!)

In this video, we compare Shopify vs Woocommerce (and look at Oberlo vs. AliDropship!).
►► Free Ebook - 6 Steps of a 6 Figure Dropshipping Store: http://wholesaleted.com/4-step
►► Shopify Dropshipping Step-By-Step Tutorial: https://youtu.be/bXczHKgPdrw

***OTHER LINKS REFERENCED IN THE VIDEO***

►► Woocommerce Dropshipping Step-By-Step Tutorial: https://youtu.be/3yamuri8czM
►► Get Shopify: http://wholesaleted.com/go/shopify (aff link)
►► Get AliDropship: http://wholesaleted.com/go/alidropship (aff link)
►► Get SiteGround http://wholesaleted.com/go/siteground (aff link)

In this video, we’re going to answer the following questions:

1) Which requires the least start-up money: Shopify or Woocommerce?
2) Which will cost the most money in the long-term: Shopify or Woocommerce?
3) Which is cheaper, Shopify or Woocommerce, for opening multiple stores?
4) Which is the easiest for beginners to use, Woocommerce or Shopify?
5) And which has the best dropshipping plugin, Oberlo or AliDropship?

#1: Which Requires the Least Start-Up Money?

With Shopify, to get started, you need $29 for the monthly Basic subscription, which is perfect for most people. You can also purchase a domain name with Shopify which costs $14. In total, that means that you will need $43 to open a store with Shopify.

Now let’s compare this to Woocommerce. On the surface it seems like it would be free, because Woocommerce is a free plugin for Wordpress. However, you still need to purchase hosting and a domain name. For hosting, we recommend SiteGround as it is low-cost yet still has an SSL certificate (a requirement for all ecommerce stores). You need to purchase a 1-year subscription which will cost $47.40. And you can purchase a domain name through SiteGround for $15.95. That means to get started you need $63.35. So, clearly, Shopify is the winner here.

NOTE: You can purchase a cheaper domain through a site like Namecheap, but for beginners we recommend buying it through your hosting provider as it’ll make the setup process easier.

#2: Which is the Cheapest in the Long-Term?

While Shopify is cheaper to get started with, Woocommerce is easiest the cheaper in the long-term. With Woocommerce, your hosting is likely to be a 1-year plan. SiteGround’s basic plan is $47.40 for an entire year.

On the other hand, Shopify’s $29 plan is a monthly charge. That means for 1-year with Shopify, you will pay $348. You can choose to pay upfront for 1-year for a 10% discount, which will bring the price down to $313.20 - but that is still substantially more than a Woocommerce store!

#3: Which is the Cheapest for Multiple Stores?

With Shopify, each store plan covers just 1 store. So to open up a new store, you will need to purchase an additional plan.

With Woocommerce & SiteGround, while the smallest $3.95/month plan will only host a single website, you can instead choose their GrowBig plan which will let you host multiple websites on a single account. The GrowBig plan will cost $5.95 billed annually, which means that for 1-year you’ll pay just $71.40 to host as many websites as you like. Starting multiple stores with Woocommerce is definitely cheaper.

#4: Which is the Easiest for Beginners to Use?

Shopify revolutionized the world of ecommerce by creating an extremely streamlined, easy-to-use platform to build a store with. A big part of why it’s so easy to use is that Shopify was designed with the single purpose of making ecommerce stores easy to create - Shopify does nothing else, so the UI is designed around that sole purpose. It also means that it is largely glitch-free.

On the other hand, Woocommerce is far more clunky. The reason for this is that it’s a plugin for Wordpress, a software platform that was designed to make blogs: not ecommerce stores. When you install Woocommerce on a Wordpress site, you are adding ecommerce functionality that was not intended to be there. What this means is that not only do you have additional blog-functionality bloating the UI (which could also be potentially confusing for beginners) but Woocommerce is more likely to be glitchy and not integrate well with Wordpress/other plugins/themes because its an add-on.

#5: Which Has the Best Aliexpress Dropshipping App: Oberlo or AliDropship?

While we think that AliDropship is a remarkable plugin for Wordpress/Woocommerce stores, our preference is definitely Oberlo for Shopify. The reason for this is that Shopify actually acquired Oberlo in 2017 which means that it’s now an official, support app for Shopify. As a result, Oberlo is virtually glitch-free and integrated extremely smoothly.

On the other hand, AliDropship is a plugin for a plugin for Wordpress. What that means is that Wordpress is not designed with AliDropship in mind, and so you are adding additional functionality to it. This means that you are far more likely to encounter glitches/AliDropship not working or integrating with other plugins/themes.