Sooner or later most small businesses that sell something ask the same question: should we build the online store on WooCommerce or on Shopify? It gets asked as if one of them must be the right answer and the other a mistake. It isn’t like that. They are both good, both widely used, and they suit different businesses for reasons that have very little to do with which one is “better”.
Why the question is coming up more
Because online spending keeps growing. Australia Post’s eCommerce Report put online spending in Australia at a record $69 billion in 2024, up 12% on the year before, with 9.8 million households – about 84% of Australian homes – shopping online. For a lot of regional businesses that used to treat a website as a brochure, a store has moved from “one day” to “this year”.
The real difference: who runs the plumbing
Almost everything else follows from this one distinction.
- WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin that sits on top of your own WordPress site. The software costs nothing; you arrange the hosting, the security, the backups and the updates – or pay someone to look after them for you.
- Shopify is a hosted subscription service. You pay a monthly fee and the hosting, security and updates are handled for you as part of the deal. Less to think about, less under your own control.
That is the honest core of it. WooCommerce gives you ownership and flexibility and hands you the responsibility that comes with them. Shopify takes the responsibility off your desk and asks you to work within its walls. Neither of those is a flaw.
Two different crowds
The usage figures tell you something useful about who each platform tends to attract. WordPress runs as the content management system on around 40% of all websites, and WooCommerce is the most-used store plugin on top of it, active on roughly one in five WordPress sites. Shopify’s strength is narrower and deeper: it accounts for close to a third of the ecommerce systems detected across the web. Those figures move around and are worth checking rather than treating as gospel, but the shape of them holds. WooCommerce tends to suit businesses whose website is a lot more than a store – pages, guides, galleries, a blog – with selling as one part of it. Shopify tends to suit businesses where the store is the point and an out-of-the-box checkout that just works is worth more than infinite flexibility.
What doesn’t change either way
This part gets forgotten, and it catches people out. Your obligations are the same whichever platform you choose:
- Australian Consumer Law still applies. Consumer guarantees, clear terms, accurate advertising and honest pricing are your responsibility, not the platform’s.
- The GST threshold still applies. Once your GST turnover reaches $75,000 in a 12-month period you must register, and it makes no difference whether the sales came over the counter or through a checkout.
No platform gets you out of either, and no platform handles either for you. Build them into your thinking from the start rather than after the first busy month.
Questions worth asking yourself
Rather than looking for a winner, answer these five. The right platform usually becomes obvious.
- How big is the catalogue, really? Twelve products and four hundred products are different problems.
- Is the store the whole website, or part of it? If you are also publishing articles, service pages and a portfolio, WordPress and WooCommerce keep it all in one place.
- Who maintains it? Be honest. If nobody in the business will ever log in to run an update, a hosted platform or a managed arrangement is safer than good intentions.
- How unusual are your products? Odd variations, bundles, made-to-order items and unusual shipping rules push you towards the more flexible option.
- What happens if you outgrow it? Both platforms can be moved away from, but neither move is free. Ask the question now, cheaply, rather than in two years.
A word on getting found
Both platforms can be optimised properly, and neither one wins you search results on its own. We have written separately about how Shopify handles SEO, and about choosing between payment gateways, which is its own decision once the platform is settled.
Want a hand deciding?
JezNorthWeb builds online stores on both platforms – there are pages here on WooCommerce website design and on Shopify website design if you want the detail on each – and the right choice depends far more on your business than on the software. Contact us to arrange a free consultation about your website.
