When talking about the best eCommerce platform in Singapore, there are two names that stand out from the rest: Shopify and WooCommerce are two of the most popular used by most businesses today. Unlike other options available in the market, both Shopify and WooCommerce make it a lot easier for beginners and experts alike to create a powerful online website for almost all kinds of products and services. While both of these platforms provide users with the most essential functionalities, they have tons of major differences.
Which one is best for your business? The answer to this question depends mostly on various factors such as your long-term goals, your budget and your technical knowledge.
What to Look For in an eCommerce Platform in Singapore?
When choosing which eCommerce platform to use for creating your online website, it is best to look for some basic features. For instance, it is essential to find an eCommerce platform in Singapore that will allow you to easily showcase your products or services, offer different payment gateways, manage orders and provide efficient customer support. An excellent eCommerce platform can also provide you with a customisable online storefront that can help represent your business and boost your brand image. For entrepreneurs without advanced technical skills, it is best to choose an online platform that’s easy to use and highly customisable.
Another essential factor to consider when choosing an eCommerce platform is your plans for growing your business. While some entrepreneurs prefer to have a basic digital storefront to showcase only a few of their products, others are planning to expand their business in a global market through an eCommerce website.
What is Shopify?
Shopify is an easy-to-use, reliable hosted solution for creating and running a fully-functional online store with no technical expertise required. It is a hosted eCommerce platform in Singapore that provides users with an array of features, tools and templates that can be easily used and customised to fit the needs of every business. Shopify offers 24/7 user support to help ensure that all issues will be resolved the fastest way possible.
Shopify is an all-in-one solution that enables entrepreneurs to create an online store, manage products and handle payments in a single platform. What’s more, it allows integration with popular social media sites, allowing customers to purchase your products directly from their preferred site.
What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce platform in Singapore that can be installed on any website built in WordPress website. It is free to install yet it comes with the source code needed for creating a functional online store. It comes with a list of essential tools required for creating an online shop including product pages, shopping carts and product portals. Furthermore, WooCommerce users can also take advantage of free themes available in the WordPress theme directory and from a list of online developers.
Difference Between Shopify and WooCommerce
Ease of Use
Although both Shopify and WooCommerce provide users with tools to help them easily and seamlessly set up an eCommerce site, it’s safe to say that Shopify is a lot easier to use than WooCommerce. Since WooCommerce is technically a plugin built to work with an existing WordPress website, it requires to be installed and configured for it to function. On the contrary, Shopify, being a fully-hosted eCommerce platform in Singapore, offers you easy-to-use functionalities, from the domain name to an SSL certificate. With Shopify, users won’t have to deal with the installation or the software update,
Plugins and Integration
Plugins enable you to make the most out of an eCommerce platform in Singapore. Fortunately, both Shopify and WooCommerce allow integration of apps and plugins to add more functionality to help improve your business.
WooComerce, being an open-source platform, depends mostly on plugins. Thus, it isn’t surprising to know that there are over 50,000 WooCommerce plugins for you to choose from. With such a huge number, this platform can surely help every entrepreneur to create a powerful website without much limitation.
Shopify, on the other hand, comes with a powerful API and App Store that offer over 1,200 free and premium apps. They have every possible feature you will need including apps for lead generation, SEO, product reviews and more.
Pricing
Shopify offers a variety of pricing plans for its users, providing different features and levels of service. In Singapore, Shopify allows its users to try their product for free in 14 days or they can choose from a list of plans starting from US$13 to US$107. With basic to advanced packages that can be paid monthly, Shopify makes it a lot easier for businesses to choose the plan that will work best for their budget.
WooCommerce, on the contrary, is a free service. However, setting up an online store on WooCommerce requires a WordPress website which involves buying a domain name and a web hosting account. Also, users may need to spend on various extensions, plugins and themes to make the site run smoothly.
Payment Gateways
Both Shopify and WooCommerce provide users with over 100 payment gateways where customers can pay. These payment options are either built-in or can be added through integrations. Some of the leading payment gateways include PayPal and Stripe.
Shopify, however, charges 2% every time a sale has been made through a third-party gateway. Fortunately, this can be eliminated completely by using Shopify Payment.
Security
Successful online transaction doesn’t only mean fast and smooth arrangement. It also has to be safe and secured, ensuring that customer’s personal data won’t be accessed and used improperly. For instance, adding an SSL certificate is essential to protect every transaction either on Shopify or on WooCommerce. Good thing, most SSL certificates are included on Shopify’s tools. For WooCommerce users, however, they will still need to purchase and install their own SSL certificate.
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Chris Anne
Smmile is a Digital Marketing Agency in Singapore with over 10 years of experience in the industry.