If you're someone who has a wonderful idea for a product to sell online, or your current online (or offline) store could use a stronger presence, you are most likely in the market for a new ecommerce platform and website builder.
Lucky for you, some high-quality options exist (hence this Wix vs Shopify comparison), allowing for you to play around with each platform and decide which store builder is right for you.
Quick Verdict on Wix or Shopify as The Best Website Builder
Shopify is the clear leader in terms of builder popularity, but Wix also tends to come up in the conversation, since over 68 million users are utilizing the Wix platform as their website builder.
That's not to say that all Wix users are selling products online, but it's worth noting that WIX does indeed provide ecommerce tools that compete with Shopify.
Although both Shopify and Wix have various features designed to help you get started in the wonderful world of website building, Wix is more likely to be the go-to choice if you’re a website beginner, while Shopify will help you to expand your ecommerce store.
The Shopify platform is a dedicated heavyweight in the world of ecommerce, designed to give businesses everything that they need to sell products online.
More than 4,200,000 ecommerce businesses use Shopify globally as their website builder. On the other hand, Wix is all about drag-and-drop simplicity and easy site building for beginners.
If you’re looking for a website builder that can help you to get your store started in a hurry, then Wix is likely to be the best builder for you.
On the other hand, Shopify can handle much larger sales, with access to everything from social media integrations, to dropshipping fulfillment.
- Full solution from $29/month
- Limited time offer: first 3 months for $1/month
- SEO Friendly
- Offline Store
- App Store
- 24/7 Support
- Beautiful Templates
- Free Trial
- Starter plans from $8.08
- Simple dashboard
- SEO Friendly
Wix vs Shopify Pros and Cons
Sometimes, the easiest way to make a choice between two eCommerce website builder giants, is to create a list of pros and cons Wix vs Shopify.
Let’s start by looking at Shopify's features.
Shopify Pros 👍
- Exceptional range of eCommerce features, including abandoned cart recovery in each builder plan.
- Excellent support for customers in need of extra guidance
- Brilliant knowledge base with tons of Shopify community support
- 100s of payment options to choose from
- Endless integrations with everything from social media to inventory dropshipping tools
- Easy to use with a great platform interface
- SEO optimized Shopify store
Shopify Cons 👎
- Sometimes plans are a little expensive
- Premium website themes and advanced extras add up
Wix Pros 👍
- Very easy to use for website builder beginners
- Hundreds of website templates to choose from
- Immersive checkout experience for users
- Affordable platform pricing
- Access to apps and integrations like Ecwid
- Great customer support
Wix Cons 👎
- Only enough features for small businesses
- Not a lot of extensibility
Wix and Shopify at a Glance
| Shopify | Wix | |
|---|---|---|
| Free Trial | Yes | Yes |
| Free Plan | No | Yes |
| Paid Plans (Monthly) | $5 – $399 | $16 – $159 |
| Free Domain | No | With Annual Plans |
| Transaction Fees | 0 – 2% | 0 |
Wix vs Shopify: Ease of Use
This is where it gets interesting because Wix is absolutely built for non-developers who feel intimidated by messy platform interfaces and advanced website coding responsibilities.
Wix provides useful store templates, add-ons and a decent drag and drop editor for making your category pages look professional without much design experience.
However, part of this “ease of use” section also caters to builders or even users who want at least some sort of customization for their store.
Since Shopify is built just for online shops, you can't beat it in terms of ease of use. Uploading products, managing inventory and handling customers is all rather simple on Shopify.
So although Wix is pretty easy to use, it may be too rudimentary for your Store.
Wix vs Shopify: Pricing
| Shopify | Wix | |
|---|---|---|
| Free Trial | Yes | Yes |
| Free Plan | No | Yes |
| Paid Plans (Monthly) | $5 – $399 | $16 – $159 |
| Free Domain | No | With Annual Plans |
| Transaction Fees | 0 – 2% | 0 |
Wix Pricing
Shopify Pricing
One thing's for sure, the Wix pricing is more confusing than Shopify pricing. However, that shouldn't Wix out as your website builder.
Setup Fees
Neither WIX nor Shopify makes you pay any setup fees for your first online store built using their platform.
Monthly Fees
Although WIX offers yearly plans for decreased pricing, I'm not a huge fan of this price structure since you're stuck with one store for some time.
Therefore, let's stick to the monthly builder fees. It's impossible to start an online store with WIX unless you opt for the $17 per month ecommerce plan or the $25 per month VIP plan.
The Lite Plan from Shopify is $9 per month, and the Basic plan is $29 per month. I would argue that the Shopify Starter plan is best for those just getting started out with their store, and since the Basic Shopify plan and eCommerce Wix plans have no transaction fees and unlimited products, Shopify has more store templates, so it's a better deal.
However, the $17 WIX Ecommerce plan might serve you well if you're interested in a full online store (not available in the Shopify Starter Plan) for less than a Shopify Basic plan.
Bandwidth Charges
No bandwidth charges are implemented from either Wix or Shopify.
Transaction Fees
Transaction fees are never charged from Wix, but you will have to consider credit card processing fees. With Shopify, if you choose to utilize the Shopify Payments processor, you don't have to worry about Store processing fees.
But, if you go with an option like PayPal or Authorize.net, you can expect to pay a transaction fee that ranges from ranges from 0.5% to 2% depending on the Shopify plan you are on.
Free Trials
Wix offer a free 14 days trial, while Shopify has a special offer in place where, after a 3 day free trial, you pay $1 per month for the first month on the plan.
If you're still not sure which builder to go with, I would strongly encourage you to quickly open a free account with both Wix and Shopify to see which UX you like most.
Still not sure about Wix vs Shopify? You’re not alone. Choosing the right ecommerce platform can be tough.
That's why I'm going to give you an in-depth comparison of Shopify vs Wix, based on items like features, cost, and ease of use. Keep reading to find out whether Shopify or Wix is right for your online store.
Wix vs Shopify: The Main Features
The battle between Wix and Shopify is all about deciding what kind of store you want to build to rank on Google.
While Wix is first and foremost a website builder, like WordPress, Shopify is a dedicated heavyweight in the world of eCommerce marketing and integrations.
Shopify and Wix Features
| Shopify | Wix | |
|---|---|---|
| Analytics | Yes | Yes |
| Discount Codes | Yes | Yes |
| Collections | Yes | Yes |
| Related Products | Yes | Yes |
| Custom Product Filters | Yes | Yes |
| Product Reviews | Via 3rd-party apps | Yes |
| Integrated Checkout | Yes | Yes |
| Customer Accounts | Yes | Yes |
| Cookie Banner | Via 3rd-party apps | Yes |
| Automations | Yes | Partial |
| POS | Best (Available worldwide) | Good (Limited to USA and Canada) |
| Automatic Tax Calculation | Full | Partial |
| Real Time Shipping Rates | Yes | Via 3rd-party apps |
| Abandoned Cart Emails | Yes | Yes |
| Email Marketing | Yes | Yes |
| Marketing Websites | Via 3rd-party apps | Yes |
Basic online store functionality
While both Shopify and Wix have some quality basic features, in terms of selling online, Shopify is the clear leader with incredible store management features and super clean product pages.
Both Wix and Shopify come with a great range of free and paid website templates to get you started.
Wix and Shopify also excellent for ease of use, with easy-to-use builders that will help you to get your website launched in no time. However, Shopify is more geared towards helping you sell your products than Wix.
Inventory management
Wix is quite clean when it comes to store inventory management, but Shopify has it all so nicely organized in one area of the builder.
Access a product creation page, inventory tab and an area for your gift cards right from the same builder module.
A recent update has made it even easier to find store products, with a search bar at the top of the Wix dashboard.
You punch in whatever keywords you want (like for a collection, a piece of inventory, customer or discount,) and it delivers the results you need without having to search everywhere.
As you might imagine, Shopify is all about giving you the full package for store inventory management.
With Shopify, you’ll have everything you need to get customers to your shopping cart, including an inventory solution that allows you to upload multiple or single products, use platform tools for stock management and more.
Alternatively, Wix is intended for much smaller online stores.
This means that everything in Wix from the app market, to the inventory management is more limited than what you’d get with Shopify.
Try Shopify with $1 per month for the first month!
Shopify has begun offering a special deal for sellers who sign up for a new Shopify plan. That deal? Pay Shopify $1/month for the first month of full access to the platform! Learn more about the trial here.
This offer is is now available on all standard Shopify plans: Starter, Basic, Shopify, and Advanced.
Coupons and discount codes
Discounts and coupon codes are both included without any extra charge from Wix or Shopify.
It's tough to distinguish between the two since you can specify which products are available for discounts on each platform and there isn't much work involved for either. Shopify and Wix are pretty similar with these features.
Product types
Both Shopify and Wix allow you to sell plenty of products online, just like Amazon. You can create an inventory that’s packed full of everything from digital products, to physical items and service products.
The main difference is that with Wix, you will need an app to sell your service products. On the other hand, Shopify requires a third party integration so that you can sell digital products on your website.
The good news is that you can access apps for everything from email marketing to digital selling on Shopify with ease, thanks to the app market
Product Presentation
The more amazing and captivating your products look, the more your store sales figures will increase. Fortunately, Shopify gives you everything you need to make your store products look amazing.
You can add unlimited items to your ecommerce store in real-time, and even implement variants of different items with the Shopify app too. You will need to add some Shopify plugin options to get business basic tools like product zoom and video, however.
You can also make your products shine on your Wix store too. Like some of the other leading tools, like BigCommerce, you can use built-in video functionality to improve customer experience, and there’s access to various product zoom features.
This means in the battle of Wix vs Shopify, Wix has more out of the box features.
Wix also brought new checkout customization options into their tools in 2018, so you can design a distinct and user-friendly checkout for your ecommerce website.
Payment gateway options
Over 70 payment gateways are available through Shopify, including PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.net and PayMill. Wix has improved over the years, and now offers around 50 payment gateways including PayPal, Stripe, Square, Wirecard, Braintree, and Authorize.Net.
In the battle between Wix vs Shopify, Shopify covers almost all areas with store checkout solutions, with more than 100 different payment gateways to choose from.
You can even access more advanced Shopify features like Shopify payments, which eliminates platform transaction fees.
Wix also supports a range of traditional payment options on the backend, including PayPal and Stripe. However Wix is missing some options compared to Shopify.
Additionally, Shopify allows you to set tax rules and shipping rates for each store product, while Wix doesn’t offer these features. You also don’t get global shipping payments with Wix.
Themes and templates
Since Shopify is targeted only towards ecommerce businesses, the platform themes are all built to cater to you.
Shopify themes are also very flexible, since you can hide certain sections within the theme editor without having to remove them, opening up the possibility to customize certain sections without having to duplicate the theme, say, on a staging server).
Although Wix has quite a few online store themes, the quantity hasn't quite reached that of Shopify. However, the company is making some rather beautiful online store themes that focus on certain store niches like jewelry and furniture.
Shopify has a bunch of themes created by independent store designers, making the ecommerce functionality and appearance of these templates incredibly impressive.
You can even make sure that all of your Shopify themes are responsive on mobile phones.
The downside with Shopify designs is that compared to options like Wix and Squarespace, the store themes are quite expensive in some cases.
On the other hand, Wix has a lot of templates to offer in its own rights. There’s even a dedicated Wix section for online stores.
However, after you’ve chosen a template with Wix, you’re stuck with it. You can’t simply rebrand your store whenever you choose like you can with Shopify.
Abandoned Cart and Tax
Fortunately, both Shopify and Wix do offer industry-specific features with each store template, which means designing your online store is a lot quicker and easier.
Shopify also comes with a bunch of extra features. Every plan, including the free plan trial comes with tools to update your Shopify POS, including discount code creation, abandoned cart recovery, and multi-channel platform integration.
The Shopify tools available make you feel like a true Business VIP with your ecommerce site.
On the other hand, Wix only offers things like abandoned carts through a third party application. It’s much easier to get a high-quality tool from Shopify.
You can also use Shopify plus to access tools like automated tax calculations and filing processes, whereas Wix doesn’t make it as easy to manage your store taxes.
With Wix, you can enable and disable taxes, include tax in your product prices, and more. However, it’s best if you install an extra app like the Avalara app to help with your taxes.
Apps, tools, and add-ons
The Wix app store is packed with cool integrations, but once again, they aren't all catered towards online stores, so you have to sift through the features that may be more useful for brick and mortar shops.
Shopify is the way to go if you're looking for targeted ecommerce apps.
It takes more than a basic domain name and point-of-sale technology to run a successful online store. Integrating apps with your store builder can make it easier for you to drive more sales from your target audience.
Shopify’s App Store comes with all pricing plans, and gives you the freedom to grow your store however you choose. You can add dropshipping, product reviews, and customer conversions to your store.
On the other hand, Wix can’t match Shopify when it comes to ecommerce specific apps. Although the Wix Adi is a great tool, and it gives you a lot of building options, your extensibility is limited with platform apps.
Multilingual capabilities
Wix has a powerful multilingual app which turns your site into any language you want. Shopify struggles in this area, but a few themes are designed to support two languages. Wix is the clear website builder winner here.
Shopify vs Wix: Marketing Features
Shopify relies very heavily on apps from third parties for marketing. Although this provides businesses with a lot of marketing flexibility, it’s difficult to compare Wix and Shopify when you consider all the extra apps in the conversation.
On the other hand, Wix has something that takes it beyond other affordable marketing tools like Weebly. Wix Ascend is an all-in-one marketing solution that’s available on subscription to help you manage all your store marketing in the same place.
Social media integration
One thing that Shopify does do better than Wix, is that it allows you to sell your products on multiple channels. This means that you can combine your Shopify store with things like Facebook, Instagram, eBay and Amazon.
Email Campaigns
For email marketing campaigns intended to support your sales and customer nurturing, Wix Ascend gives you control over all the marketing solutions that you need, with three campaigns a month in email without an Ascend subscription.
Shopify allows you to create email campaigns from your admin page, but if you want the best range of features you should probably consider integrating a third-party app into your store.
SEO Tools
SEO settings are built into both Wix and Shopify, so it's tough to find a winner. Basically, you can let the systems automatically create SEO metadata for you, or you can type it in yourself. Each of these platforms ping the search engines when new content is created.
Search engine optimization is a pretty essential tool for any website builder. Fortunately, both Shopify and Wix make it easy to add SEO to your site.
You can add and edit different SEO meta titles and descriptions with both tools, and customize your URL slugs for ranking.
Wix and Shopify also allow for adding alt text to images, so Google can understand what your images are all about. You can also get further support with best practice SEO prompts.
Blogging Features
Even though I think Shopify has a cleaner content management area for your blog, both Wix and Shopify have integrated solutions for your marketing blog needs.
The main benefit to blogging in Wix is that it offers a true drag and drop design area.
Wix makes creating beautiful store blogs as easy as possible. However, it’s hard to make the most of the archive functionality with Wix, which is a massive downside.
Shopify doesn’t do very well in the store blogging area, with no built-in analytics, or search feature.
Analytics and Reporting
Keeping track of website performance is crucial. It helps you to see what is and isn’t working on your website, so you can set the path for consistent store growth. With Wix, you need an eCommerce level plan to use things like Google analytics.
However, Shopify gives you analytics on all paltform plans.
In the battle of Shopify vs Wix, Shopify goes a little further with built-in analytics tools. You can track everything from stock levels, to customer behavior and conversions.
Customization capabilities
Shopify has always been friendly to developers who want to get in there and implement their own code. The only problem is that you need to learn Shopify's Liquid programming language.
So, basic HTML and CSS won't help you on Shopify here. Most people end up hiring a Liquid developer.
Wix, on the other hand, is designed primarily for basic webmasters who don't have much design experience. This means that the platform themes are cookie-cutter and you shouldn't expect much in terms of store customization.
Wix, on the other hand, is designed primarily for basic webmasters who don't have much design experience. This means that the themes are cookie-cutter and you shouldn't expect anything too advanced in terms of customization on Wix.
Wix vs Shopify: Customer Support
Remember, one important thing to consider when investing in any new website builder tool, is how much support you need. Both Wix and Shopify deliver phone and email support, dedicated social media assistance, forums and help centers and more.
Shopify delivers 24/7 support, with live chat support — something you can’t get from Wix. On the plus side, Wix does offer a lot of in-editor help which can give you guidance when you’re building your store.
When you hover your mouse over a question mark, you’ll get speech bubbles that allow you to access useful information when using the builder tools.
Wix’s in-built help is great for getting answers to your questions immediately. This means that Wix does deliver slightly better customer support than Shopify in some areas. While Shopify does provide consistent help and support, Wix makes it easier to help yourself.
Wix vs Shopify: The Winner Between the Two
The Wix Ecommerce plan is a pleasant surprise, but it's still difficult to recommend it over Shopify since the Shopify brand has been around for so long and they are focused directly on helping online stores.
The store themes are much better, and it's rather simple for a first-time developer to make a professional site on the Shopify platform. Not to mention, you don't save much money by going with Wix over Shopify.
Let us know in the comments section if you have any questions about this Shopify vs Wix website buildercomparison.
Just before you go, you might want to take a look at our Shopify review and Shopify Pricing guide.
Btw, I've done a video version of the comparison for you in case you want to hear my voice 🙂
Good afternoon, we want to set up a site supposedly with shopify but we have doubts if they take care of collecting the product and sending it to the client and how would the client pay? is it us or shopify? Ultimately we want information on drop shipping, if it is included in the rates shown in your article.
Thank you very much for your time
Hello Gabriela,
Check out our article on how to start a droshipping business and this roundup featuring the best dropshipping apps for Shopify. You will find all the info here. 🙏
Estoy indeciso, he tenido mi tienda en línea desde hace 2 años en wix, pero creo que estoy estancado en ventas, quiero cambiar a shopify pero no se si sea buena opcion. que me recomiendan? saludos y excelente post
It really depends on the size of your business, and what features you are looking for.
I like very much for this article….
I was torn between Shopify and Wix until reading this article. Thanks a lot!
Besides, those store owners hesitating between which eCommerce platform to choose can make use of the Cart2Cart’s Migration Preview option. With the help of its test stores you can preview for free how each platform works. It helped me great to make the right choice.
Thanks a lot for such a great comparation, I cureently use wix and looking to migrate to shopify, can we export all pictures, size data, and inventory or we need to start from 0?
Also I love the fact of having an app were I can do everything from my phone
1 add products
2. Answer customers
3.make shipments and add tracking numbers by scanning the label
4. I get to see any time that people is browsing thru our on line store
Do get this same flexibility with Shopify?
Hi there!
Great information and very helpful! I am launching a business that encompasses physical products and services, a portfolio, and a blog. I love the design options and ease of use with laying out templates and “customizing” as only a person w/o coding experience can do in Wix , but from what I’ve gathered from your comparison and the comments, the Wix store isn’t the best option for selling or managing items. 1. You mentioned the blogging capabilities of both, but does Shopify offer apps/templates that can encompass everything mentioned above (portfolio, blog, services, products)? Or will that require some coding? 2. Though this article is a little dated and things may have improved on Wix’s side, I see a lot of complaints about load times. Could I still experience that issue even if I integrate a Shopify ecommerce link/button? At this point, I’m leaning toward building the website in Wix and linking Shopify Lite (if I’m understanding correctly). Would be grateful for any feedback/insight on best practices for my particular situation.
Thanks for all the great info!
You’re welcome P,
PS: In the meantime, the article was completely updated.
One thing I believe you failed to mention regarding the Wix blogs is that you cannot reply to any comments. I wish I were kidding. I just spent all sorts of time building exactly what I wanted for my online store (total newbie to websites LOVED using Wix), wrote my first blog post and cannot reply. Someone has a question about a recipe, nope. Once I googled my problem, I found that this has apparently been an issue for years, and that Wix has chosen to ignore thousands of complaints. I sure hope I can make a blog work on Shopify, b/c this is INFURIATING.
Hey Jamie, it looks like this is fixed now.
When you talk about Transaction Fees and Credit Cards charges, are those about paying to Shopify/ Wix for their service, or are they about the customers payments for the goods and services bought in the online shop?
Hello Jana, if you’re not using Shopify Payments, then Shopify will charge a transation fee on top of the credit card rate.
Hello!
I am a WIX user but am thinking of switching to shopify after many recommendations. Is this something that will be simple to do?
Thanks!
Hello Ana, this would be quite easy to to using a migration app like Cart2Cart.
Do you know if you can integrate the Shopify Lite ($9/mo) onto a Wix website that is hosted on a combo plan? Or will I still need to upgrade to an e-commerce/VIP hosting plan to host an online shop? Thanks!
Hello Bee,
You can add a buy button to your Wix website using the Wix Website Editor.
Best,
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hi Bogdan,
I’ve started a Wix site for a friend’s business – a dance school. She now wants to sell some items (eg uniforms) therefore it won’t be a big e-commerce venture – more of a side interest supporting the main business. She wants to go ahead with Shopify, however I’m thinking of the Wix online shop would be the better option as the site is Wix already and it’s a small business. What do you advise?
Hello Juliet,
If the website is already build on Wix, it would be easier to upgrade and just add a shop section, rather than building the site from teh ground up on another platform.
loved the comparison, thank you so much! however, I think there’s a VERY important piece of information missing from this article – you can’t print shipping labels directly from wix. I love wix so much, but not having this is a deal breaker! I can’t type up every single label through a different site (e.g. paypal) to make a label. It doesn’t make much sense to have an online store for physical products and without the ability to print labels. so disappointed right now.
We’re really glad you liked our comparison!
Did you manage to solve the shipping labels issue?
Shipstation is a beast! Combine it with Wix and you’re off to the races
hello sir………..I am using wix. but they are not allowing adding a seller or reseller page in our site.
can we use this option or service in shopify……or if we can add a seller or reseller page in wix then please help me with any tutorial steps or link.
thank you
Hello Piyush,
Creating a multi-vendor marketplatce using Wix is not possible at the moment but you can use Shopify with the Multi Vendor Marketplace app.
Best,
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hello Piyush –
My friend says she uses a password protected page for her resellers. This is one of the main reasons why I’m going to head over to WIX from Shopify – despite Shopify’s Handshake wholesale side. Hope this helps!
I have spent a over a year working on an Ecommerce website, so now I getting ready to launch website and WIX shipping is killing the deal. It doesn’t calculate shipping over zones. The shipping is based on weight, or order cost, flat rate, USPS or Free shipping.
So if I’m in PA and ship something to CA its the same price as shipping it to my neighbor. UGHHH
They don’t offer integration with UPS/ FEDEX
Anyone have any ideas?
I need to launch this site, and the shipping seems to be the only hold-up.
You need to move out of PA
Do you know if Shopify has a gallery option? I make custom quilts and am currently on wix which offers great gallery options. Thanks
Hello Kathleen,
You can use an app like Photo Gallery Feel free to browse additional choices in Shopify’s app store.
Hope this helps,
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hey there
At checkout just below the product & shipping line you will see the option of which state the buyer lives in. Using the USPS option, as I do, the buyer inputs their state and live calculations are given for sending to that state.
I’m not a developer but if you use flat rate shipping, yes, it will be the same cost as if next door.
It took me a while to figure out shipping
BTW thanks to this writer who seems to share this unbiased rating. Sooooo hard to find these days, independent companies for this
Hi,
Does Shopify allow goods to be sold as pre-orders? I have seasonal items that are only available during certain times of year, but I want to lock in the order in advance and ship it once available. I understand that Wix does not offer this feature.
Hello, you can use a Shopify app like Pre-Order Now for this.
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Can Wix Code be used to assist bringing the eCommerce on Wix to enterprise level like Shopify?
Hello Stephen, you will be able to edit the source code but with some limitations. See more info here.
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
I have my online store with shopify and it’s been great, whenever you need any help their customer service is awesome! im very happy with it!
Happy to hear that!
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Bonjour,
Merci pour cette article! Avez vous toujours le même avis en 2018?
Cordialement
Avec plaisir 🙂
Oui, Oui, nous avons toujours le même avis en 2019.
I use Shopify for my online e-commerce shop and have been very happy with their service. Additionally, another upside to shopify vs. Wix is that shopify offers shipping discounts with USPS, UPS & Fedex so depending on how many sales your store is generating this savings could essentially pay for the monthly $29 fee, plus when fulfilling orders it shows how much shipping will be for all three shipping couriers which helps me in selecting the right shipping for me (my profits) and my customer (transit time). 🙂
Thanks for making this clear to a newbies like me. xx
Great article. Needed this read as I’m beginning my fashion online business and needed some guidance on which was the best platform. You made it easier for me to decide. Thank you!
You’re welcome Pam!
I have to say out of all the online platforms I have worked with Shopify’s Customer Service rocks like no other! I have run into several issues due to my lack of HTML coding experience and also just do to being a first time user of ecommerce platforms and everytime I’m stumped I reach out to Shopify via echat (27/7) and they are there with a very friendly response and work with me until the issue is solved! I can also send them a screen shot of whatever issue I want them to help right on the chat with me! Basically again, they flat our ROCK for their customers. My website is hosted through Wix and I do have a download page for customers that I link through my Shopify store BUT as soon as I can take the time to learn how to use Shopfiy’s ecommerce section for my downloads I will take that page down but for now it works nicely.
Hello this is very insightful. But just to be clear you created your ecommerce page on wix.com and your actual store is on Shopify? How do you link them?
I’ve been having this issue of what platform to use. I like the wix themes but the store aspect is more of what I’m looking for when it comes to shipping.
I think Shopify is great for selling multiple items, whereas, Wix has been great for my service company clients and self-published children’s book. In my opinion, Shopify is for the “hey let’s get the selling going” and Wix is for the “okay let’s build a website and get our name out in the web world.” It’s always wise to start with your overall costs vs. net profits–no one wants to start a business and end up in the dark hole of NO money made.
Cheers to business life!
Misty
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Misty!
Aloha,
Thanks for this awesome review! Lets also not forget that Shopify has 24/7 customer service!!! I’ve done enough research to now know that Shopify is clearly the winner here in terms of eCommerce.
Namaste
Great write up, thanks!
You’re welcome 🙂
Thank you so much for this. You have made my decision so much easier.
Much love!
We’re glad we could help Tayler!
Dear Catalin,
This is such a helpful article that I wish I have read before I started building my website! However I have now just finished building and launched my website on wix platform, and found some features / issues I in particular dislike but the platform leaves little room to customise. I am now seriously considering migrating my website to Shopify, do you know if this is easy to do? Do I have to rebuild the whole website again on Shopify? Greatly appreciated your response!
Hi there,
You can only import your products from Wix to Shopify but you will have to find a designer to help you create a similar design for Shopify. Another option would be to find a Shopify template which looks similar to your current Wix template.
Best,
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
I am having the same exact issue… Everything that is supposed to be easy with Wix, isn’t or just can’t be done (i.e.- changing color of a product banner to match your brand colors). No one wants a huge puke green banner across their products!
That requires a bit of coding. When you go to choose your colour it will offer many preset colours which you can just click on. But if you have a specific colour in mind that is not represented you just need to find the code for that colour then input it into the box beneath the colour options. I hope that makes sense. SO if you are looking for red, google HTML colour codes, select your desired colour and it will tell you the code, which you can then input into your wix website. Hope this makes sense, and helps. Like you though, I may consider moving my wix site. It just doesn’t look commercial enough. I looks a bit ‘homemade’.
Thank you for this useful article.
Claire
Hi there, this is a wonderful article! I have been searching for this exact comparison.
I am brand new at starting a business and ecommerce site. I have thought of a domain name and product/business idea that I would like to get set up with the ability to sell my product online. I’m a complete beginner at building a website- so I’d like both the design and ecommerce to be simple but beautiful. I’m also slightly budget conscious as this is brand new to me…
Which site should I go with? It seems like there’s so many options- Wix which is drag/drop, Shopify which is the ecommerce king, and Wix with a Shopify Lite button. Help for a new joiner??
Hi Emma, if you’re on a budget you can start small with a basic Wix website + Shopify Lite. Cheers!
Hi, upon searching for information on swapping from Wix to Shopify I’ve discovered your review. I’d like to know, if anyone has the answer! How does Shopify compare versus Wix for overselling a product? We recently had a product launch on our Wix website where we had 83 orders complete in 2 minutes. Unfortunately Wix allowed lots of products to over sell, by a lot! For example, one variation of the product had 10 inputted into the inventory and Wix allowed 24 to sell! Luckily I had held back some of the stock as a precaution but I still had to refund 4 unhappy people. Our website isn’t particularly busy most of the time but every so often we will have launches, I’d obviously like to avoid this happening again. Wix blame Paypal, they say the inventory will only update once the sale is completed at Paypal, is Shopify the same?
Thank you
Overselling can be prevented with Shopify. Check out this guide for more info: https://help.shopify.com/themes/customization/cart/prevent-orders-for-out-of-stock-items
Cheers!
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Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Does anyone know if Shopify has more optimized pages than wix?
Finding that all speed test sites tell me that my site is slow while I’m using the e-commerce plan through wix.
Hoping that Shopify might be faster on load times. I’m seeing a lot of traffic dropping off before they even get to my page due to inconsistent page load times. I’m also finding really slow load times via my Android phone as well.
Shopify should be faster. Wix is 100% client-side script (the HTML tag is literally empty). That means they push code onto your machine, then refetch all the content for your site and compute the layout using your phone or desktop processor. I have very small pages, and load times are terrible. It’s the delay between my browser and the server holding your site page data, and potentially a slow processor on your client machine.
Shopify appears to do the html rendering on the server (I randomly found a shopify company and checked the page). yes, they obviously use client-side script so the page is dynamic, but the browser can present page elements fast since the first fetch contains all the necessary HTML to present content immediately.
This is one reason I’m working on migrating out of Wix. I haven’t decided yet if I’ll go with Shopify or nopCommerce or another, but performance is clearly a drag with Wix.
Hi. My question is, if I have 1 or 2 products to sell (I do not need an online store) can I advertised and sell them with a “normal” Wix website? If I can do that, is it free or I need to buy some extra app? How is it works?
Thanks,
Hi Balazs, You will have to use an app. One option would be the $9/mo Shopify Lite Plan: https://www.shopify.com/buy-button/wix
You can read our Shopify review here.
Best,
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Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Nice comprehensive review. We changed from Wix to Shopify and found that Shopify loads the site much faster. That and working with Google merchant are worth it alone.
Great article thanks for review. We have a custom built site but no support from developer which makes it very challenging , as a non tech person, to make any additions or adjustments. We’ve been tossing up the transition for months. Wondering what advice you can give for the transition period?? Challenges I might face; time expected?? Also wondering if email is included with shopify?
Hi Simone,
I would suggest hiring an expert to help you with transition to avoid any problems. With Shopify you will have to buy email hosting separately.
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Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
I have never attempted Wix to Shopify transition but I would expect it comes down to how large your store is. If its large there is likely a fee from Shopify tech support. Also, what I do for free email that looks business professional is use zoho email. I believe you get 5 free emails. You will need to configure zoho email with whomever host your domain.
Hi there,
Lots of useful comparisons.
Can anyone advise how I would go about doing a large stock update? I use dropshipping method for some of our products and would need to update my suppliers stock levels daily.
A bit stuck on deciding between the two, currently using open cart.
Thanks
Use the Oberlo app if your products are coming from Aliexpress
Thanks for this article, very useful for me!
I have been using SIX for 4 years now and built many great sites on it. I currently have 5. Rather than start from scratch with Shopify, which I Love, fyi, I use the Shopify Buy Button to create product on my WIX site. It upgrades automatically each time I add a product to my collection. I also Love how it updates my POS app. We own a brick and mortar and do tradeshows and festivals as well as online sales. Total for both per month is $22 ($9 Shopify and 12.99 for one WIX site). I can add discount coupons, etc…as well. I have best of both worlds using both. I dropped both PayPal and Square once I found Shopify. I dropped webs.com and Go Daddy once I found WIX. Neither WIX nor Shopify outsource their calls, however Shopify takes calls on a Saturday, while WIX does not.
I’m curious how you are doing this. I know virtually zero about *either* platform, but the non-technical friend for whom I am setting this up was thinking of doing exactly what you’ve described, building out her site on Wix, and using a Shopify Buy Button. However, it appears from what I saw on Shopify regarding Wix that they are no longer providing the app they apparently *used* to make available for that purpose. Any info that you (or anyone else!) can provide would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
Wix currently has a 50% off deal & free domain. Is that a good deal? And is the site loading speed still an issue?
Great article. I have been using wix for about six months now and at first I really liked it because it was super easy to create a good looking website. But recently, I have found that Wix sites typically have 6-8 second load times. Mine is about 7 seconds right now and because of this Google doesn’t recognize my site as a valid URL. So I don’t show up in Google searches and can’t run Google ads. Obviously, this is an absolute deal breaker for me and anyone that wants people to visit their site.
Hi Jeremy,
High quality images, animations, external applications or videos can have a huge impact on load times.
Here are a couple of articles that might help:
https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/optimizing-site-increase-conversions
https://kinsta.com/learn/page-speed/
Cheers!
Hi bogdan,
To be more precise, I would like to manage my online store in English but my market will be Chinese speaker. So which one of these two has better features and simple to use. And I how do I manage it?
Well you have done a great review. Much appreciated.
Thank you.
Hi Jordan,
Both services offer apps for multi lingual support, for Wix there’s the Language Menu app and for Shopify you can use langify.
These apps have similar features so they should not affect your decision on whether to use Shopify or Wix.
Cheers!
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Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
I can tell you that shopify is not good for multi-language. They will attempt to push you toward using apps but we found them buggy and not professional enough to use. They then suggested creating a 2nd website and have it translated into other language. That would be alot of work and more expensive as you would have to pay tech to do work and pay month subscription on two sites.
Hi, I want to create a website which has multilingual (Chinese and English). Which one is better? And how?
Thanks.
Hiya, thanks so much for the review! I’d like to make the switch but I’ve just started making some sales on my website….is there a way of transferring over to shopify without ruining your seo?
Migrating to Shopify will change your URL structure but you have the option to setup redirects in order to maintaining your ranking in search.
Best,
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
I’m interested in how to do this! I’m planning on switching to Shopify from Wix in the next week, so any insight on how to do that would be extremely helpful.
Thanks!
Kristin
Hi Kristin,
Check out this guide for more info: https://help.shopify.com/manual/migrating-to-shopify/url-redirect
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Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
If I may ask why are you switching?
Great review. Any thoughts on between these 2 platforms which is better for mobile? I want to create an ecommerce website but then build a hybrid app and get listed on iOS and Android – any pointers and thoughts in that direction will be much appreciated.
Both platforms offer templates optimized for mobile. Shopify offers built-in mobile commerce shopping cart features and Apps like Mobile App Creator will allow you to create a mobile app from your shop, so Shopify it’s definitely the winner here.
Best,
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Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Great review. After doubts your article convinced me to migrate to Shopify.
Hi Ido, we hope it will work out well for you.
Best,
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Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hello,
Your article was very helpful, thank you. I need to know if I can use code baby or site pal software with the Shopify website?
Hi Shon,
Don’t know for sure. Have you tried contacting their support?
Best,
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Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
wix does not support linking with Google merchant, which makes it pretty useless, in my opinion. Does shopify support linking with Google merchant?
Hi Karen,
There’s an app on the Shopify app store called Google Shoppping. This will help you connect with Google Merchant Center.
Best,
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
I am sorry but Wix sucks, i have spent all the time to improve my site for the speed but nothing time charge alwais 13 seconds… And customer care they do only copy and paste and didnt help me to solve some issue…
Wix is empty of some of the most features requested in e-commerce.
I would have lot of critiques for them but is early in the morning here and i dont want to get angry.
Hi,
many thanks for a great article! I have wix since February, and have been thinking of changing. Their load speed on mobile devices is too slow. I have contacted wix support (who i also find slow to respond!) and spent the entire day reprocessing all my images, but it has not made much difference.
There is quite a difference in price between shopify and wix so I am still weighing up the odds! I have lost so many customers because wix was taking over 10 seconds to load so am wary of choosing something that is only a little better than wix. Would you recommend Shopify as leader for upload speed?
Hi Angleina,
You should see an improvment after swithing to Shopify, including faster load times. The support team is pretty responsive.
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Thank you for this great review. I used Wix for about 4 years and was happy with its functionality for my business. I wanted to upgrade my store so I switched to Shopify about 3 months ago. I have not made a sale yet and traffic has significantly decreased. Is this normal? I’m seriously considering switching back to Wix. I used to get 2-3 sales per week, about 10 mailing list signups, and several contact forms requesting more information. Crickets on Shopify. I’m curious if anyone else has had these results. Thanks so much!
Hi Lisa,
It depends on how the migration was made. Any change to a website’s structure (especially to URL structure) can affect your SEO.
Have you checked to see if your traffic has dropped as well?
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Our website is wix based and we are not happy with the performance of our online store in terms of page loadings, general site performance etc… When I check the store and product pages I see error messages like “wix is experiencing issues try again later” and we can not find a solution to for these issues. Wix has performance issues. We plan to transfer our site to shopify platform. Do you think it would be worth switching into shopify?
Hi Burak,
Considering the fact that Shopify are focused directly on online stores, switching from Wix to Shopify would definitely be a good idea.
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Thanks for the info. Wix has a wide variety of pricing depending on … not sure what. I tried searching for the reason the prices (not to mention varying storage) would be different but I couldn’t find any info on it. Can you shed some light?
In case you’re not familiar to what I am referring here is an example:
Today, 9/15/16 is the last day of a 50% Wix sale on the ecommerce and unlimited plans so the $numbers for those plans are as listed on the Wix site – it only shows the 50% price.
In descending plan order the prices and storage are:
1) your example above $29.90 20GB, $19.50 20GB, $15.95 10GB, $12.95 3GB , $6.90 500mb
2) Signed in to my account: $27.08 50GB, $9.17 ($18.34) 25GB, $7.29 ($14.58) 25GB, $10.42 3GB , $4.08 500mb
3) Not signed in to any account: $25.00 20GB, $8.50 ($17.00) 20GB, $7.00 ($14.00) 10GB, $10.00 3GB , $5.00 500mb
I am uncomfortable with different pricing depending on an unknown variable but perhaps you can identify the differences?
Also, Wix shows some features on the comparison page but not on others. I was playing around with a band website so one of my features listed is Wix Music. However, when not signed in this isn’t listed as a feature at all. I suppose they are trying to customize what each user sees but it would be smarter of them to feature all of their (ahem) features.
Hi there. Thanks for the review. I have been using WIX for my online store for few months and I’m more and more convinced to gradually build a store on Shopify and evetually quit WIX. The reason is that WIX is way behind even in basic functionality. Especially for multilingual website, as well as customization which you already mentioned in the article.
Although you mentioned that WIX “has a powerful multilingual app”, I don’t agree with this. Yes, it gives you the option to choose between language versions of your page, but the amount of manual workarounds you have to apply to have it all worked is devastating (e.g. you have to remove your built-in menu from the header and you have to build it manually using buttons one by one, which then you link to certain subpages etc… And then the same for your footer!). And that’s not the end. Pages like “product page” or “checkout page” cannot be separately translated so you have to make sure that each text in the body of the page is written in both languages (assuming you have two languages). What if I decide to have my store in 4 different languages? I would probably run out of space in product description. And imagine client’s experience who has to search for his translation through the text body.
Maybe Shopify doesn’t have fully developed multilingual functionalities as you mentioned in the review, but at least one can support himself with coding, which is not possible in WIX at all.
WIX is not a bad platform and it offers more and more nice features and functionalities (especially visual experience through animated graphics or short video capabilities is developed nicely, which I like a lot). I would recommend it for a NON-online shop website, but not for any webshop at this stage. I have a feeling that they focus more on developing new, cool, fancy features instead of basic online store usability which is necessary to manage your business properly in the first place.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Maciej 🙂
Great review, we opted for shopify over wix purely because of the upgrade option, I think wix offers a lot in terms of ecommerce but shopify themes are so easy to customize to your brand, it’s the winner for us.
Glad to hear that Warren! And thanks for the kind words.
Dear Catalin,
You have got great reviews here. I have been following many of them. Could you please let me know if you happen to know any good off-the-shelf marketplace creation platforms specifically for online selling? What we are looking for is a more simple and intuitive interface for the vendors. I know there are add-ons on Shopify but most of them are not user-friendly at all.
Best regards,
Raju