When it comes to creating an online store, choosing the right selling platform is crucial. Shopify vs Wix are two popular selling platforms offering various features for creating and managing an online store. While both platforms have their strengths and weaknesses, choosing between the two largely depends on your business needs and goals.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at Shopify and Wix by going over the following key points:
- An overall look at the two platforms
- A quick comparison between Shopify and Wix
- And key differences that differentiate Shopify from Wix.
By the end, you’ll have a better understanding of which platform is the best fit for your online business.
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Shopify vs Wix: An Overall Look
Before delving into the in-depth comparison, let’s take a broad view of Shopify vs Wix.
What is Shopify?
Shopify is a popular eCommerce platform that provides a hassle-free way for people to set up and run online stores. It is a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution that takes care of all the technical aspects of running an eCommerce business, so users can focus on managing their store and making sales. With over 4 million live stores, Shopify has become one of the world’s most popular shopping cart solutions.
Whether you’re a small business just starting out or a large enterprise with high-volume sales, Shopify can accommodate your needs. Its built-in features, including payment processing, inventory management, and shipping options, make it easy to sell on Shopify and manage all aspects of your online store from a single dashboard.
What is Wix?
Wix is a popular website builder that allows users to create custom websites without knowing how to code. While Wix was initially recognized as a top website builder, the company released a new version in 2020 called Wix eCommerce.
Wix eCommerce is a robust platform designed for online retailers, brands, and merchants of all sizes around the world. It offers optimized shopping and payment experiences for customers, as well as business and finance management tools to help manage the day-to-day operations of an online store. If you have any interest, check out our latest Wix tutorial right here!
Shopify vs Wix: Head-to-Head Battle
Before we go into the details, let’s check out a brief comparison of Shopify vs Wix.
Features | Shopify | Wix |
Ease of use | Moderate | Easy |
Pricing | • 3-day free trial • Basic Shopify ($39/month) • Shopify ($105/month) • Advanced Shopify ($399/month) | • Free plan available • Business Basic ($27/month) • Business Unlimited ($32/month) • Business VIP ($59/month) |
Theme & Customizability | 120+ templates and extensive customizability options | 800+ stunning templates available |
eCommerce features | Robust eCommerce features (built-in payment processing, inventory management, and shipping options, etc.) | Optimized shopping and payment experiences, along with business and financial management tools |
Apps Store | A large app store with thousands of integrations | Smaller app store with fewer integrations |
Security & Support | Advanced security features and 24/7 support (phone & live chat) | Comprehensive security features and 24/7 support (social media, email, phone) |
Wix or Shopify: Which One Meets Your Requirements?
Now we take a deeper look at the features and functionalities of Shopify vs Wix, helping you make an informed decision.
Ease of use
Shopify ease of use
Shopify is a user-friendly platform that simplifies the process of building an online store. The dashboard and editing system are separate, which enhances the editing experience by allowing users to preview their changes in real time.
Although this may take longer to perfect the site, Shopify offers a range of pre-made templates that enable users to create an eye-catching and professional storefront with ease. Once the storefront is set up, adding products and starting to sell is a simple process.
For medium-to-large businesses, these pre-made templates can make all the difference in establishing an online presence and attracting customers.
Wix ease of use
Wix is known for its excellent drag-and-drop editor, allowing merchants to create and customize their storefronts without any technical expertise. The Wix ADI and Wix Editor use artificial intelligence to guide users through the initial stages of setting up their online store. This makes it simple for even beginners to create a beautiful website that suits their brands.
Once the store is set up, online sellers can easily manage and customize every element of the front-end interface. All they need to do is simply click on features like images, titles, and logos, then drag them wherever they want. This level of flexibility makes it easy to create a unique and eye-catching storefront that stands out from the competition.
Verdict
Wix outperforms its competitor when it comes to ease of use. The platform’s strength lies in its user-friendly interface, making it easy to build an online store in the blink of an eye. Although it may lack some of the advanced eCommerce features, Wix’s simplicity minimizes complications and reduces frustration during the website-building process.
Pricing plans
A comparison of Shopify vs Wix would be incomplete without considering their pricing. Let’s see which one offers better value for money.
Shopify pricing
There are flexible Shopify pricing options for businesses of various sizes and needs. Here we provide a short Shopify plan comparison for your consideration.
Shopify pricing plans | Monthly subscriptions | Yearly subscriptions |
Basic Shopify | $39/month | $29/month |
Shopify | $105/month | $79/month |
Advanced Shopify | $399/month | $299/month |
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The Basic Shopify plan at $39 per month is a popular option for small businesses and offers more advanced features such as fraud analysis and abandoned cart recovery. For medium-sized businesses, the Shopify plan at $105 per month provides even more features, including gift cards and professional reports. Lastly, the Advanced Shopify plan at $399 per month offers the most advanced features, including real-time carrier shipping and advanced report building.
If you want to test the waters before making any purchase, Shopify free trial is at your service. The platform grants you full access to all pricing plans within 3 days, and you can even experience the platform for 3 more months with only $1/month.
Wix pricing
There are three Wix pricing plans for eCommerce & businesses.
Wix pricing plans | Monthly subscriptions | |
Business Basic Plan | $27/month | |
Business Unlimited Plan | $32/month | |
Business VIP Plan | $59/month |
The Business Basic plan costs $27 per month and provides essential features such as unlimited bandwidth, sales analytics, and a year of free domain. With $5 more, you will be accessible to the Business Unlimited plan with all the Basic plan’s features plus additional storage, Pro eCommerce features, and a professional logo.
For businesses requiring even more advanced features, the Business VIP plan is available at $59 per month. It includes all the features of the Unlimited plan and priority support, which means all your phone calls and queries will be attended to as quickly as possible. On top of that, this Wix pricing plan also provides detailed reports to help you make data-driven decisions for your business.
Verdict
Wix provides more value for your money compared to Shopify. While Shopify may be more suitable for advanced stores, Wix eCommerce offers excellent scalability at a lower cost.
Theme & Design
In the next section, we’ll explore how the store design options compare between Shopify vs Wix.
Shopify themes
There are over 120 professionally designed themes at the Shopify Theme Store that are specifically optimized for eCommerce businesses. These themes are classified into various categories based on industry, price, and functionality.
Besides the free Shopify themes that can help you build unique branding at no cost, the premium options range from $100 to $350 with customizable layouts, typography, and color schemes. They also feature artistic and functional elements, which make them well worth the investment, not to mention their advanced product filtering, zoom, and product reviews.
Wix templates
Wix offers an impressive collection of more than 800 free templates for users to choose from. While the abundance may make it challenging to choose a suitable option, the platform suggests a list of the best Wix templates for eStores based on specific business requirements and industries.
Each and every template is designed to cover various aspects and can be easily customed to your heart’s content, thanks to Wix Editor X, Wix ADI, and Editor. Additionally, Wix also offers Wix Velo – their own coding language that allows users to lift up their storefronts to a higher level.
Verdict
In terms of themes & design, Shopify is undeniably the winner. While Wix has a good selection of templates, Shopify templates are more sophisticated and tailored to each industry.
Marketing & SEO
In the next part, we’ll analyze Shopify vs Wix comparison in terms of email marketing and SEO features.
Email marketing
For email marketing, Shopify offers a built-in tool that allows you to promote your products and share updates using a variety of email templates. These templates are customizable, allowing you to add your own personal touch. From your admin panel, you can manage every step of your campaign, including tracking reports to gauge its effectiveness.
Meanwhile, Wix offers high-quality email marketing services with a range of customizable email templates to choose from. Additionally, you have the option to create your own templates from scratch to send to your customers.
SEO
Shopify takes care of some aspects of SEO automatically, such as adding auto-generated canonical tags to landing pages to prevent duplicate content from appearing in search results. Additionally, the themes available on Shopify provide social media linking and sharing options, making it easier to market your store.
While there are some limitations to Shopify’s SEO options, such as mandatory strings in certain URLs, there are also many Shopify SEO apps available such as SEO King, Smart SEO, or SearchPie, to help you improve your website’s search rankings and attract more traffic.
On the other hand, Wix comes with a robust SEO toolkit that is integrated into every Wix site, providing merchants with the ability to optimize their SEO workflow effectively. Also, Wix provides greater flexibility and freedom to merchants in customizing meta tags, URL slugs, canonical tags, structured data, and more, allowing you to enhance your site’s visibility and rank higher in search engine results.
Verdict
Shopify outperforms Wix in SEO and marketing capabilities, providing comprehensive SEO tools and advanced marketing features such as abandoned cart recovery and email campaigns.
App Stores
By integrating apps, you can enhance your online store’s resources and features to enhance its performance. Let’s see, between Shopify vs Wix, which selling channel outperforms in terms of apps.
Shopify App Store
Shopify App Store offers a vast selection of over 8000 apps to help merchants expand and optimize their online stores. Both paid and free Shopify apps cover a wide range of functions, from file uploading to customized push notifications, making it easy to find the right tools for selling online.
Wix App Market
Wix supports a range of more than 300 apps and add-ons, which are divided into six main categories. These include marketing, selling online, services and events, media and content, design elements, and communication.
These apps cater to a wide range of needs, such as integrating your site with social media platforms, adding live chat support, creating and managing email campaigns, and much more. Wix’s app market is continually expanding, and developers can even build and publish their apps to the Wix App Market to sell and market them to other Wix users.
Verdict
Shopify’s app store outperforms Wix with a wider range of eCommerce integrations available. Wix is not an ideal option when it comes to bigger and better eCommerce features.
Security
Shopify
Shopify takes security seriously and offers a range of features to keep its merchants’ data and transactions safe. As a hosted platform, Shopify handles updates and security in the background, including running on a Level 1 PCI-compliant server. SSL encryption is also available for every Shopify store, providing an extra layer of protection for visitors’ data.
In addition, Shopify provides SOC (System and Organization Controls) reports and Transparency reports, which are assessments of the company’s information systems by third-party auditors. These reports demonstrate that Shopify meets independent standards related to the security and availability of its services.
Wix
Wix strongly emphasizes website security, offering users peace of mind when it comes to protecting their data and transactions. Every Wix website comes with SSL web security, which ensures that connections are secure and private over an HTTPS connection.
Additionally, the platform runs on Level 1 PCI Compliant and TLS 1.2, which are the highest standards for payment security. Wix also provides DDoS protection and reliable web hosting to ensure that websites are always up and running, even during high-traffic periods.
Verdict
It’s a draw. Both Wix and Shopify offer ample security measures to safeguard your online store, ensuring that you can trust either platform you select.
Shopify vs Wix: FAQs
Shopify vs Wix has its own strengths and weaknesses. Shopify is specifically designed for eCommerce and has a wider range of features tailored to online businesses. It is also more scalable, secure, and has better SEO options than Wix. On the other hand, Wix, a Shopify competitor, is easier to use, has more design options, and is more affordable, making it a better option for small businesses or beginners. Yes, it is possible to switch from Wix to Shopify. However, you will need to migrate your website’s content, products, and other data to Shopify manually or using a migration tool. You may also need to recreate your website’s design on Shopify or choose from its available templates. Shopify and Wix are not compatible with each other, as they are two different platforms with different systems and infrastructures.
Is selling on both Shopify and Wix possible?
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Shopify vs Wix: Final Words
Ultimately, the choice between Shopify vs Wix depends on the specific needs of your business. You need to analyze Shopify pros and cons, as well as look at both sides of Wix review before making any decision.
If you prioritize eCommerce functionality and are willing to pay a higher monthly fee, Shopify may be the better option. However, if you prioritize design flexibility and a lower cost of entry, Wix may be the way to go.
Regardless of which platform, it is important to evaluate your options and consider your long-term business goals carefully. With the right strategy and tools in place, Shopify or Wix can help you create a successful online presence.
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