Choosing between two ecommerce platforms is often difficult and comes with certain considerations. This includes hosting, ease of use, customization, cost, and support among other factors. For ecommerce websites in the UAE and Dubai specifically, there are a few platforms that excel with features which are crucial for business locally, providing RTL support, multilingual support and more. This article explores the nuance of ecommerce platforms and how it is best suited for Dubai businesses.
Before we delve any further, let’s understand the basic difference between WooCommerce and Shopify.
Shopify vs WooCommerce Key Differences
Hosting: Shopify is hosted on the Shopify server with Shopify handling everything on their server. You pay for the entire package of your website + hosting and often the domain name too. WooCommerce, on the other hand, is self-hosted. You manage the hosting, emails, and everything involved with your ecommerce store. While this gives you more control, this is also a problem, especially with small stores who do not want to get involved in hosting issues, slow servers and downtime.
Ease of Use: Shopify offers an easy-to-use interface with drag and drop components. The platform requires minimal coding expertise and is perfect for beginners and intermediate level programming knowledge to achieve most tasks which are required. While the interface requires coding expertise for more complicated tasks, most tasks are easily achieved by the easy-to-use interface. WooCommerce, on the other hand, is flexible but needs a bit of technical knowledge and know-how of programming to implement features.
Customization: Shopify is more restrained and limited by the platform itself. There are extensive app options but customization is challenging unless you are a programmer and understand the Shopify platform. WooCommerce, on the other hand, is open source and has unlimited customization options with full code access. This makes WooCommerce a more preferred option among coders who are looking to tailor an application precisely to client needs.
Cost: Shopify comes with a monthly subscription plan. Themes cost extra and there is an app option available. Over time, Shopify does become more expensive but this could vary based on the benefits Shopify provides, which includes hosting provided by the platform. On the contrary, WooCommerce is a plugin which is free and can be integrated with WordPress. Hosting is often a very small fraction of the cost and themes and plugins may come free or at a price, depending on the plugin itself. Most plugins by WooCommerce itself cost anywhere between 30 and 100 dollars. While this can be coded if your programmers have expertise in the platform.
Apps and Plugins: Shopify has a repository of 8000+ ecommerce-focused plugins and apps which are ready to use and can be integrated with your store effortlessly. WooCommerce, on the other hand, has over 900 extensions and over 59,000 plugins which come with WordPress. Both of them are robust enough. While Shopify focuses more on the ecommerce platform, WooCommerce is more a blogging platform with an ecommerce interface providing more flexibility.
Support: Shopify surpasses WooCommerce when it comes to support. A 24/7 support team is always available to you in case of any problems. Just a call or email away, Shopify provides excellent customer service and support you require for technical problems. WooCommerce, on the other end, relies solely on community support with no official agents. In most cases, you will be left to search for solutions (which are abundant) by your own. Replies and support time may vary with WooCommerce but in the case of Shopify, support is reliable.
Scalability: Shopify stores are scalable. You can grow your store seamlessly with zero efforts from your side. All the features which are required are managed by Shopify itself, making it very resourceful and reliable. You don’t have to worry about shifting servers, adding memory, or disk space. All is done by Shopify. In the case of WooCommerce, it is self-hosted and you are required to manage your application yourself. This could be limited to the skillset of your developer and administrators. If you do have a good team, you could scale WooCommerce stores to host 100, 1000, or even more products, add features and there is no limit. But with a poor setup, you may be restricting yourself to less than 20 or 30 products in most cases.
Security: Shopify ensures your websites are secure with SSL and automatic updates. You do not have to worry about security when it comes to Shopify. This is completely managed by Shopify itself. WooCommerce, on the other hand, is not hands-free. You are responsible for the SSL certificates and renewing them in time. You need to install the updates and ensure the security of your website yourself. This may come with some support from the web host company.
SEO: One of the biggest drawbacks to Shopify is the limitations it has when it comes to customization which affects SEO. Though the platform is SEO-friendly, it provides very little control over the SEO features itself, making it difficult for SEO professionals to work on the platform. WooCommerce, on the other hand, provides extensive support with SEO plugins and hosting, making it a preferred platform for people who look to do their own SEO.
Local UAE Support: When it comes to localising your web store, you need to consider payment gateway support, language support and a lot more. Shopify has a good base in UAE, providing a great amount of support for UAE stores. WooCommerce is on par with Shopify when it comes to localisation and it is very flexible. On the downside, you need to localise your stores yourself, which may require expertise.
Why Shopify for Stores in UAE
Shopify has a good presence in the UAE with over 11,000 stores already running on Shopify. The customisation is easy and already standardized. Businesses in the UAE prefer Shopify due to the ease of setup, secure hosting, local payment options and scalability. Shopify has an active customer base of over 11,000 businesses running on the platform, making it a go-to option for most businesses. Setting up a Shopify store in Dubai usually takes a day or a week depending on the complexity of the website. The local payments supported include Telr, PayTabs and a lot more. With 24/7 support, businesses prefer Shopify in Dubai, especially those looking to scale rapidly.
Why WooCommerce for Businesses in Dubai
WooCommerce is a more cost-effective solution. The open-source platform allows unlimited customization options for those with technical skills. Being a part of WordPress integration ensures seamless integration to manage your website and store in one place. The platform also allows free SEO control with plugins which are free and paid. Though the support is community-based, most problems already have a documented solution. WooCommerce, in most cases, is best suited for people who have a developers team handy and can handle technical issues related to hosting. While WooCommerce allows a lot of space for improvement and customization, it is completely dependent on the team of developers and admins in your organization.