When it comes to ecommerce solutions, WooCommerce is a popular choice. In fact, they own as much as 28.18% of the market share! For years it's been a favorite with WordPress-lovers; however, there are plenty of other WooCommerce competitors out there…like Ecwid. If you haven't heard of them before, you'd be forgiven because not many people have. But, this doesn't mean they're not offering an excellent service. In light of this, we thought an Ecwid vs WooCommerce comparison would come in handy.
So, let's dive straight in!
Ecwid vs WooCommerce: A Brief Overview
As we've already alluded to, both Ecwid and WooCommerce empower website owners to sell physical products online.
You can embed Ecwid into both your websites and social media platforms, which makes multi-channel selling pretty easy.
Whereas, WooCommerce is an open source ecommerce solution that can only be used with WordPress.
As such, when it comes to the number of platforms these plugins are compatible with, Ecwid has a slight edge. Not only does it integrate with WordPress, but you can use it with virtually any CMS platform.
Although it isn't necessarily a bad thing that WooCommerce only integrates with WordPress; it's somewhat of a challenge if you want to switch CMS'. Plus, selling via Facebook is an extra cost for WooCommerce users – needless to say, this isn't ideal for those wanting to utilize this platform.
💡 For more info, read our WooCommerce review.
Ecwid vs WooCommerce: Coding
As we've just said, WooCommerce is an open source solution. By this, we mean web developers can customize the code to create an e-commerce store that's tailor-made to meet their needs. So, if you possess coding skills, WooCommerce is a fantastic plugin. Also, in the unfortunate event WooCommerce crashes, you should be able to resolve things quickly. Whereas, if you don't have any knowledge of coding, you might find WooCommerce a tad frustrating. If that sounds like you, Ecwid is probably the better option.
Ecwid's specially designed so you can launch online stores without writing a single line of code. In theory, you can get a site up and running and start selling within a matter of minutes – how awesome is that? Their interface is incredibly intuitive, so you should be able to get to grips with it pretty quickly.
💡 Don't forget to check out our Ecwid review.
Ecwid vs WooCommerce: The Free Plan
Ecwid vs WooCommerce: Customer Support
Ecwid has over 25 experts all around the world, so there's a good chance you'll be able to get help from someone working in your time zone. If you need assistance…and fast, you can enjoy near-on immediate responses from a customer support agent if you opt for Ecwid's ‘Venture' plan or higher. These payment packages entitle you to around the clock support, Monday to Friday.
You'll also be pleased to hear; telephone support is also available – however, you'll have to pay $100 for the privilege (which frankly isn't worth it when you consider their other support avenues are pretty good).
If you're using Ecwid's free plan, you're restricted to receiving customer support via e-mail – which apparently is still quite good. That's in addition to Ecwid's FAQ pages and user forum, which come in handy if you prefer using ‘self-help' routes.
Unfortunately, WooCommerce's customer support isn’t as accessible…
However, there are tons of informative resources out there on the internet; you just need to commit to finding them! Doing a simple Google search should populate an array of useful forums, FAQ pages, blogs posts, video tutorials, you name it – it's out there!
Alternatively, if you want in-person customer support, you'll have to submit an e-mail ticket or reach out to them via live chat – however, it's hit and miss whether someone from WooCommerce's team is available to operate their instant messenger service!
Ecwid vs WooCommerce: Upgrades
Ecwid automatically upgrades itself, whereas if you're a WooCommerce store owner, you'll have to install updates manually.
Ecwid vs WooCommerce: Installation
To get up and running with Ecwid, you'll need to register an account on their website and pick a plan that best suits your budget and business needs. From there, you’ll receive a snippet of HTML code to paste onto your site. Once you've successfully done that, Ecwid should form part of your website.
Yes, it really is as simple as that.
Whereas to use WooCommerce, you'll already need a WordPress site. Then just download the WooCommerce app from WordPress' plugin store, activate it, and you're good to go!
Ecwid vs WooCommerce: Features
Ecwid provides loads of features, so their users can sell merchandise from virtually any niche – including products with different variations. There's also a cross-selling function and plenty of payment methods to choose from, including:
- PayPal
- Stripe
- Sage
- A check
Just to name a few!
When it comes to shipping rates, you can charge either flat rate fees, or use real-time prices from the following services:
- UPS
- USPS
- FedEx
WooCommerce also has tons of features – most notably:
- A robust reporting system
- Inventory management tools
- The option of providing customers with coupons
- Integrations with: UPS, USPS, and FedEx
- A variety of payment methods: PayPal, BACS, or cash upon delivery
That's in addition to the hundreds of extensions you can download and utilize (both free and paid). So, if you want to extend WooCommerce's overall functionality, there's certainly the opportunity to do so.
Ecwid vs WooCommerce: SEO
Ecwid's pretty good when it comes to SEO; they use Google’s AJAX indexing specification. For those of you who aren't SEO-nerds, this spec is supported by all the major search engines including – Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Yandex.
So, each of your product pages is correctly structured using Google's SEO-friendly format (also known as microdata), which allows search engines to create rich snippets (these are pieces of copy that appear in search results which help entice readers to click through to your site).
Just like WordPress, WooCommerce is also excellent for SEO. As well as their standard SEO functions, you can also use their more sophisticated SEO tools, like Yoast. Just download these apps from WordPress' long list of powerful integrations.
Ecwid vs WooCommerce: Customization
Ecwid doesn't provide much leeway for customizing your online store. You can only make changes via API because you don't have access to the source code.
However, you can select the theme of your choice. Ecwid is compatible with virtually all WordPress themes.
Best of all, if you already have a blog and you add your Ecwid store to it, it'll automatically adopt the same colors, navigation, and typography of your blog! This is handy for keeping your branding consistent! You can also make minor modifications to the look of your e-commerce store if you have CSS knowledge.
Whereas, like we've said repeatedly throughout this review, WooCommerce is open-source. So, if you have any coding knowledge, you can customize your store as much or as little as you want – the extent of your programming skills only limits you!
There are also thousands of WooCommerce themes for you to choose from. You can peruse through hundreds of beautiful designs listed on WooThemes and Themeforest.com; there's plenty of wallet-friendly options, some of them are even free.
However, it's worth noting, WooCommerce doesn't always automatically match the aesthetic of your WordPress site – so there's a good a chance you'll have to spend a bit of time and effort manually making these adjustments.
Ecwid vs WooCommerce: Pricing
When making any kind of business investment, we need to be aware of the pounds shillings and pence involved. So, this is how both Eciwd and WooCommerce compare price-wise.
- The ‘Free' Plan: This plan is free forever.
- The ‘Venture' Plan: $15 per month or $12.50 a month if you pay annually (price excludes 20% VAT)
- The ‘Business' Plan: $35 per month or $29.17 a month when you pay annually (price excludes 20% VAT)
- The ‘Unlimited' Plan: $99 per month or $82.50 a month when you pay annually (price excludes 20% VAT).
Unsurprisingly, the more expensive the plan, the more features available to you.
Whereas WooCommerce is a free plugin. Yes, you heard right, free. However, you'll need to take into account the other necessary expenses to get a WooCommerce store up and running
- Web hosting: $5-$100+ a month
- An SSL certificate: $0-$100+ a year
- A top-level domain: $9+ a year
Ecwid vs. Woocommerce: Which is Better?
Both Ecwid and WooCommerce are top notch ecommerce solutions. So, deciding which one of these platforms is better is tough.
In short, if you already have a WordPress site and you have experience coding, then WooCommerce tends to be the better solution whereas Ecwid's usually the preferred choice for entrepreneurs wanting to get their store up and running quickly, without any experience of web developing.
Have you used either Ecwid or WooCommerce before? If so, we'd love to hear the kind of experience you had in the comments box below. Let's kickstart the conversation!
This was very helpful for the project I’m currently working on. Thanks very much for doing the comparison.
You’re welcome Joelle! 🙂
Rosie, thank you for such an in-depth comparison of Ecwid vs Woocommerce. It is a tough pick as the two of them offer a lot of advantages.
When I needed to choose between them, I chose Woocommerce as I already had my WordPress website. Also, what I love about Woocommerce is that it allows to customize my website however I want.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Olha!