Shopify vs Wix 2023 (Don't choose WRONG!)

So I've been using both Shopify and wigs to build multiple e-commerce stores .

Over the past years , I've even created complete beginner tutorials on how to set up online stores using both Shopify and Wix .

So in this video , I'm going to compare both for these e-commerce platforms .

Side by side , this video is not sponsored by any of these platforms .

I'm simply going to give you my honest opinion based on my own experience and based on some further research that I've done for this specific video .

So let's get started .

Now , I want to make clear that I'm going to compare Shopify and wigs as ecommerce platforms to a place where you can build an online store and sell things because this is already where we can spot a big difference between wigs and Shopify .

Both companies started out in 2006 , but wig started out as a website builder .

Whereas Shopify from the beginning focused on being an Ecommerce platform only in the recent years , wig started rolling out ecommerce features allowing us to sell products on a wig web website .

So just based on that fact , it's clear that Shopify has a lot more experience in the ecommerce space .

However , that doesn't mean that we should immediately go and build our store on Shopify .

So let's go ahead and take a deeper look into both of these platforms , starting with plans and pricing with Shopify .

You can choose between three different plans , basic Shopify and advanced .

When you're starting out , the basic plan should be more than enough for you .

So that would be $29 per month plus transaction fees for every sale that your store makes .

You already get a lot .

With the basic plan like being able to sell an unlimited amount of products .

24 7 support and features like discount codes , abandoned car recovery , marketing , automation and a lot more .

The main difference between the basic plan and the other plans are the transaction fees .

So if you go for one of the more expensive plans , you're going to have lower transaction fees for every sale that your store makes .

So when you reach a certain number of revenue per month , it certainly makes sense to upgrade to a higher plan to reduce those transaction fees .

We will take a closer look into payment providers and transaction fees later in this video because obviously this is a very important deciding factor .

Now , let's look at the pricing of wigs on the pricing page .

We first have to switch from regular website plans to business and e commerce plans because these are the ones we need to go for .

If you want to sell products on our website here , we also get three plans , business , basic business , unlimited and business .

And by the way , these prices apply .

If you pay yearly , if you want to pay on a monthly basis , then these are the prices for the respective plans .

With the basic plan for $34 per month , you get everything you need for a basic online store .

However , if you want your international customers to see prices in their local currency or if you want to sell subscription products , then you need to go at least for the business unlimited plan at $38 per month .

Now , looking at the wigs and Shopify plans side by side , we can see that the basic plan off Shopify is actually a bit cheaper compared to Wix basic plan .

If you pay monthly , then the higher tier plans off Shopify are much more expensive compared to Wix at least when you first look at them because one of the main differences here is that Wix doesn't reduce their transaction fees for the higher tier plans .

So even though you pay more in a monthly subscription fee for a higher tier Shopify plan , the overall cost in a month can still be lower compared to Wix .

For every sale that you make , you're going to pay less in transaction fees .

So in my opinion , the plans of Shopify are a bit more attractive because with the basic plan , you pretty much get everything you need for your online store .

And I also like the fact that you can reduce your transaction fees once you start making more money with your store , by simply upgrading to a higher tier plan .

Shopify does have a 14 day free trial so you can test out everything before choosing a pay plan .

You're going to find a link to that trial down below in the video description .

However , if you want to launch your store and make it available to visitors , you do need to be on a paid plan .

Wix doesn't have a limited free trial .

You can basically just create a free account , take your time to build your store .

But then once you want to start selling , you also need to be on a paid plan .

Let's move on and compare the website themes of Wix and Shopify .

Both platforms have a lot of beautiful themes for all types of online stores .

Wix literally has hundreds of free online store themes that you can choose from .

So the chances are very high that you're going to find one that you really like and that is already optimized for the kind of online store that you want to build .

Shopify .

On the other hand , only has nine free online store themes .

So if you don't like any of these nine themes for your store , you have the possibility to browse their premium theme library .

However , those themes cost you around $300 as a one time fee .

So Wix definitely gets a big point here for having a lot of free themes for online stores .

However , one of the key differences between Wix and Shopify themes is that Wix themes aren't always fully responsive .

Meaning that when you look at your website on a mobile device , it won't always be perfectly optimized .

So you need to make sure to rearrange all the elements that are out of place for smaller screen sizes .

Wix does have the so called editor X that you can use to build fully responsive designs .

However , that is more geared towards the advanced designer and agent rather than the average user Shopify themes .

On the other hand , are fully responsive meaning that you can just build everything on desktop view and it'll automatically look good on mobile as well .

Now , let's talk a bit more about design customization options for wigs and Shopify .

Generally , you'll be more flexible using wigs to design your online store .

You can simply use drag and drop to add any element to your website and customize it as you like this kind of drag and drop does to work on Shopify here , everything has its predefined position and you get some customization options on the side menu .

So you definitely do get more flexibility when it comes to website design using Wix in terms of ease of use .

I have to say that I find both platforms fairly easy to use for beginners Wix really tries to make it as simple as possible for absolute beginners to build a beautiful website .

If you want to get your website up and running as quick as possible .

With minimum design work , you can use their ad I website builder here .

You can simply answer some questions , pick some favorite designs and then Wix will automatically design your online store based on your answers .

Shopify doesn't have something like that , but I still think it's fairly straightforward to build your first online store , especially if you use my shop .

I tutorial to guide you through step by step in terms of managing everything else that comes with running an online store , like fulfilling orders , managing inventory handling , custom support or sending out marketing emails .

I would say that both of them are equally easy to use .

I personally like Shopify a bit better in terms of user experience .

I just feel like when I use Shopify , I really notice that everything is specifically made for selling online and everything is optimized for that specific purpose .

So there's no unnecessary features that distract you from what's actually important .

However , I did read a lot of comments from similar videos like this one and saw a lot of people saying that they found wigs a lot easier to use and a lot less complex .

So probably the best way would be to sign up for both of these platforms and see for yourself which one comes easier to you .

And by the way , if you need some help in the beginning , getting started with either Shopify or wigs , definitely make sure to watch my beginner tutorials here on youtube .

They already helped out a lot of people to create their first online store .

You'll find links to those videos down below in the video description .

Now , let's look at the variety of apps or plug ins that you can use on your online store on Wigs or Shopify .

So whenever you want to do something with your online store , that isn't included in the basic features of Shopify wigs .

The first thing you would do is look for an app that can do that specific thing just like the Apple App Store or Google Play Store for your smartphone , Wix and Shopify also have so called app stores where you can find tons of apps for your online store .

Shopify has over 7000 apps , their app store , most of which are free to use on Wix App Store , there's only around 300 apps you can choose from .

And that's because there are a lot more stores built on Shopify compared to Wix .

So of course , it does make sense for the app developers to build their apps for Shopify first because there's just a lot more customers with Shopify stores .

So the amount of apps available in the app store is definitely a big reason why many people would choose Shopify over Wix .

Just imagine buying a smartphone and then realizing that you can't use 95% of apps on that specific smartphone .

You probably wouldn't buy that phone .

I leave the links to both the Shopify and the Wix app store down below in the description .

So you can check out for yourself what apps they have available as well as a link to the most popular Shopify apps .

When it comes to shipping and fulfillment .

Both platforms have many options including different ways on how to calculate your shipping rate based on weight price , product or even display real time shipping rates based on the actual prices of carriers for wigs .

This feature is limited to shipping with U SPS and for Shopify , you also get real time shipping rates with U SPS , fedex and UPS .

However , that option is only available if you go for the advanced Shopify plan at 2 99 per month , what you get with any plan on Shopify are discounted shipping rates for DH L Express ups , Canada Post and , and that's because Shopify has partnerships with those carriers so they can offer their users a discounted shipping rate of up to 88% .

What's also very cool with Shopify is that they have their own fulfillment network , so you can actually send your products to one of their fulfillment centers and then when somebody orders on your store , they will take care of the fulfillment of the order and also take care of the returns this can definitely make running your business a lot easier .

However , this is only available for stores that sell in the US and that make at least one sale per day .

And then the product you're selling also needs to meet these criteria here as well .

So when it comes to shipping and fulfillment , you definitely get a lot more features and benefits with Shopify .

Something that is always really hard to judge before buying a product is how responsive and helpful the customer support actually is I always find it very frustrating when there's a problem , but you're not able to reach the customer support or you can reach them , but they're not helpful at all .

I'm sure you've all been there .

So let's talk about that for Shopify and Wix .

The availability of both platforms is very good with 24 7 customer support via email chat or phone .

So what about the quality of answers that you get from those support teams ?

And here I can only tell you what my own experience was .

And to be completely honest , the answers that I got from Shopify were overall a bit more helpful compared to wigs .

I just felt that they immediately understood what my problem was and they were able to solve it for me very quickly .

Often times with wigs , I felt that the support agents weren't as knowledgeable as I'd like them to be .

And the last topic I want to definitely discuss here is payment providers and transaction fees .

Both platforms have their own integrated payment systems .

Shopify payments and wigs payments .

These payment options allow your customers to pay directly on your website using a credit card , using Google pay , apple pay shop pay or even meta pay for the US .

The transaction fee of both platforms is 2.9% of the sales price plus 30 cents , which is pretty standard in the industry .

The difference between Shopify and wigs payments is that Shopify reduces their transaction fees to 2.6 or 2.4% .

When you upgrade to the Shopify or the advanced Shopify plan , if you can't or don't want to use Shopify or weeks payments , both platforms also offer the possibility to use a third party payment provider , something like Stripe .

For example , what's annoying with Shopify is that on top of the fee that you have to pay to the third party provider , you also have to pay a 0.5% to 2% fee directly to Shopify for using a third party payment option .

So for example , if you were to use Stripe and you're on the basic Shopify plan , you would have to pay 2.9% to Stripe and then another 2% to Shopify , which is totally crazy .

So if Shopify payments is not available in your country , this might be a good reason to choose wigs over Shopify because they don't charge any additional fees for using a third party payment provider .

You can find an updated list of all the countries for Shopify payments is available down below in the video description .

So what e-commerce platform should you go for ?

In my opinion , Shopify is definitely the way to go if you're serious about building an online store .

Really , the only reason why I would choose wigs over Shopify for e-commerce is if I already had an established site on Wix , And now I would also want to sell some products on that website .

And like I've mentioned before , another reason might be that when Shopify Payments is not available in your country and you don't want to pay the extra fee that you're going to have to pay with Shopify for using a third party provider .

If there's any deals or discounts going on in the time of you watching this video , I always leave them down below in the video description as well as a link to a free trial for Shopify and wigs .

So you can totally try out both of these platforms for yourself before making your final decision .

And when you do , I highly recommend to watch my beginner tutorials for either of these platforms to help you set everything up , step by step .

Thank you very much for watching and I look forward to seeing you in the next video .