Shopify vs Cococart: Which is Best for Your Business?

If you’re an entrepreneur looking to launch a new ecommerce business, you’ve probably already heard of Shopify.

Shopify is one of the most popular platforms out there – powering more than 5 million stores worldwide. It’s also my favorite ecommerce platform of all.

Cococart is a somewhat lesser-known newcomer in the market, but it’s already making waves as a fantastic all-in-one solution for selling and store management.

Offering exceptional ease of use, and extremely low fees, Cococart is quickly becoming a favorite for small businesses.

So, how do the two platforms stack up side-by-side? I put them both to the test, to create this easy comparison guide.

We personally test and evaluate all of the platforms we compare and review. Learn more about our research methodology here.

Shopify vs Cococart: TL; DR Verdict

I found Shopify to be more robust and versatile than Cococart overall. It’s the more powerful platform, with a wider range of customizable themes, and more advanced inventory management tools. It also has a fantastic app market with thousands of integrations to choose from.

Cococart is the slightly more affordable and user-friendly options for small, local businesses, but it lacks a lot of the scalability offered by Shopify.

Shopify Pros and Cons

Cococart Pros and Cons

Shopify vs Cococart: The Core Features

In my opinion both Shopify and Cococart are excellent platforms, ideal for smaller businesses looking for an easy way to create and run an online store.

They actually have a lot of overlapping capabilities ideal for local businesses too, such as a built-in point of sale app.

Plus, they both offer access to email marketing tools, robust payment processors, and analytics.

However, Cococart seems to be better suited for extremely small businesses with limited needs, while Shopify has more flexibility for scaling companies.

Website Design Features

If you’re looking for the flexibility to create a “unique” online store with a lot of bespoke elements and features, Shopify is definitely the better option.

The platform comes with hundreds of highly flexible themes to choose from, and you can even dive into CSS and JavaScript to make more granular changes to store functionality.

Shopify’s store editor is also extremely easy to use, giving you the freedom to make plenty of changes with minimal effort.

With Cococart, you also get a very straightforward and convenient experience – in fact, it only took me a couple of seconds to set up a store with a custom domain.

However, Cococart gives every user the same basic theme, which means you are limited in how much you can customize your store’s appearance and functionality.

Although you can upload unique images and product descriptions, and make certain changes to colors, the customization options are limited.

You can also create custom themes on more expensive plans, but you’ll be limited again in how much you can really “change” on your store.

Ecommerce and Sales Features

Unsurprisingly, both Shopify and Cococart give users everything they need to run a successful store.

There are built-in payment processing solutions for both platforms, allowing you to accept a wide range of payment methods.

Plus, both platforms come with a built-in “Point of Sale” app, ideal for local stores who want to sell products in-person.

Both platforms support discount codes and similar solutions to help increase conversions.

Plus, they both allow companies to sell a wide range of products and services. However, with Shopify, you do need a separate app to enable “service sales”, whereas with Cococart you can automatically choose between selling products, bookings, or both.

However, Shopify is much better at enabling omnichannel selling, with connections for marketplaces like Amazon and social media platforms.

It also gives companies more advanced tools for managing inventory and orders in my opinion.

Plus, it’s worth noting that Cococart’s transaction fees (starting at 3.4% + $0.30) can be more expensive than those you get with Shopify, if you’re using Shopify Payments.

On the plus side, both platforms support a range of fulfillment options, and allow you to set availability on specific dates, and create order limits for certain dates.

Marketing and Business Growth

From a marketing perspective, both Shopify and Cococart have strengths and limitations. They both support email marketing – although I’d probably recommend using an alternative solution, like MailChimp and Klaviyo, if you want to create more advanced campaigns.

Both platforms are SEO-friendly too, with ultra-responsive themes that load quickly on any browser or device.

However, Shopify does give you more ways to stand out online, with integrations for social media platforms and other marketing tools.

It also gives you a blog, so you can boost your chances of ranking with high-quality content.

Cococart does include a “loyalty program” on its most expensive plan, but you can create loyalty plans with Shopify integrations on any plan too.

Plus, both solutions support abandoned cart recovery on some of the slightly more expensive subscription plans.

One really significant benefit of using Shopify over Cococart, is that you also get access to a huge range of powerful AI tools.

Tools like Shopify Magic make it easy to create SEO-ready product descriptions, ads, and FAQ pages. Shopify’s AI tools can even help you edit product photos, create new visual assets, and design email campaigns.

As far as I can tell, Cococart doesn’t have any AI tools yet.

Business Management and Integrations

As I mentioned above, I think Shopify’s business management tools are a lot more robust than what you’ll get from Cococart.

Although both platforms help you to manage and track orders, automate fulfillment processes, and keep an eye on inventory, Shopify’s tools are more flexible. You even get a wider range of custom reports so you can dive deeper into your store’s performance.

Plus, you’ll be able to create custom accounts for different team members with Shopify, whereas you’re limited on the number of people who can use Cococart on every plan.

Shopify is also definitely the better option if you want to connect your online store to other platforms and tools.

There’s a robust app market on Shopify that offers connections to thousands of different solutions for accounting, reporting, marketing, and more.

Cococart only offers a handful of integrations with things like fulfillment tools and proprietary solutions the company has built itself, such as its QR Menu ordering app.

Shopify vs Cococart: Pricing and Fees

If you’re looking for affordability, Cococart might by the slightly more “budget-friendly” option for smaller businesses.

You can get started for $11 per month (paid monthly) with the Personal plan, which supports either product or booking sales, bulk discounts and a custom domain (although you do have to buy the domain separately).

This plan doesn’t include the POS app, however, and only offers basic discount codes for marketing. Alternative plans include “Growth” for $36 per month, with basic POS functionality, customer lists, customer reviews, custom themes, and abandoned cart recovery.

There’s also the “Pro” plan for $99 per month which allows you to sell products and bookings, access a full range of POS features, and tap into email marketing and loyalty programs.

Shopify’s core plans start at $39 if you want the Basic subscription. The mid-tier Shopify plan starts at $105 per month, and the Advanced plan will cost around $399 per month.

There’s also an Enterprise option, Shopify Plus, which starts at $2,300 per month.

Although Shopify’s plans are more expensive, you get more functionality on virtually every option. The “Basic” plan, for instance, only costs $3 more than the “Growth” plan from Cococart, and gives you a lot more features, including 10 inventory locations, and localized global selling.

Notably, both companies charge payment processing fees, but the fees on Shopify reduce as you upgrade your plan. Cococart charges the same fees to everyone, regardless of their plan.

Shopify vs Cococart: The Verdict

I can definitely see the benefits of using Cococart for online and in-person selling if you’re running a small, local store.

It’s very easy to use, reliable, and convenient, but it lacks the scale you’ll get from a platform like Shopify.

Shopify is a little more expensive than Cococart, and may have a slightly higher learning curve depending on the features you want to use.

However, it gives you more room to create a powerful, memorable brand with your online store, experiment with different sales channels, and leverage a range of integrations.

Overall, I’d definitely recommend Shopify over Cococart for any company looking for rapid growth.