There has always been a strong competition between Shopify vs Wix, two website builders that are well-liked by ecommerce users. While Shopify can handle far larger transactions, Wix is perfect for small businesses. Because of this, many retailers decide to switch their Wix-based stores to Shopify when they need additional space for expansion. In this article, we will make comparisons between two websites to help you get an overview about this.
A Deeper Look At Shopify vs Wix
What is Shopify vs Wix?
1. Shopify
Shopify is an ecommerce SaaS (software-as-a-service) solution that is designed to make it simple for people to launch online stores. One of the most widely used shopping cart solutions worldwide, Shopify today has over 4 million live stores.
No matter how big your company is, Shopify is always a choice to take into account. Users’ trust and reputation in it are boosted by its built-in features and scalability.
Learn more about how to build a Shopify ecommerce website here.
2. Wix
According to Shop Leads, Wix is a drag-and-drop website builder with over 830,025 active websites. Despite being widely acknowledged as one of the top builders of online storefronts, Wix formally unveiled a new version named Wix ecommerce in 2020. The new edition is targeted at online merchants, brands, and retailers of all sizes worldwide.
In addition to offering clients enhanced shopping and payment experiences, Wix ecommerce also offers tools for managing finances and businesses.
Shopify vs Wix: Important Distinctions to Take into Account
Pricing
Shopify Pricing
Shopify’s pricing levels appear to be somewhat expensive when compared to some other platforms.
The least expensive package is Basic Shopify, which costs $25 per month. It has many features that small business owners may find helpful. If you pay yearly, this pricing plan only costs you $19 per month. You also have access to tools like manual order generation, discount codes, abandoned cart recovery emails, basic performance report and a free SSL certificate with the Shopify Basic account.
The most popular package, Shopify, costs $65 per month. Although it costs significantly more than the $25 Basic Shopify plan, it includes practically all of Shopify’s capabilities. If you pay monthly, this pricing plan only requires $49 per month.
For large-inventory enterprise ecommerce firms, the Advanced Shopify plan is the best option. It costs $399 per month if you pay monthly, and $299 per month if you pay yearly.
All of the features from the Basic and Shopify plans are included in this plan. Also, you get to take advantage of reduced transaction costs, fantastic shipping services like third-party determined rates, and reporting that is even more sophisticated than what is provided by Shopify’s lower-tier products.
With the $5/month Shopify Starter plan, you may market your goods by sending out links via email, SMS, and social media. In particular, you can manage your business success using the Shopify dashboard without having to invest time establishing a whole store.
Wix pricing
Basic ($10 per month), Professional ($24 per month), and Unlimited ($49 per month) are the three Ascend plans that Wix offers. The other plans have a restriction on the number of campaigns, forms, automations, and social posts you may schedule, however the Unlimited plan lets you schedule an unlimited number of them.
Technically speaking, your Wix site already comes with a free Ascend plan. To access any of the premium features, you must switch to a paid Ascend plan.
2. Usability
Shopify usability
Shopify, meanwhile, separates the dashboard and editing platform. To examine the outcome and the front-end interface, you will switch back and forth between the preview and the back-end.
You might need more time to divide the space up exactly as you want. But, Shopify provides a number of pre-made layouts so you may quickly and expertly create and optimize the eye-catching storefront. You can easily start selling and adding things later. For medium- to large-sized businesses, these templates really do make a difference over the long term.
Wix usability
With Wix’s drag-and-drop creator, business owners can manage every piece of content on the front-end interface by clicking and dragging a particular element (such as an image, title, logo, etc.). It appears to be really easy and convenient for people with little to no technological experience.
The drag and drop editor in Wix makes it simple to change the look and feel of your website.
To assist you with the initial stages of developing your online store, Wix also provides you with artificial intelligence technologies called Wix ADI and Wix Editor.
3. Templates & Customizability
Shopify templates
Wix provides all of its templates for free, whereas Shopify creates 95 premium and 11 free themes specifically for online stores. The cost is between $140 and $180.
Despite appearances, every paid theme is both artistically and practically affordable.
Shopify Liquid is a powerful tool for changing the core code in case you want to add some components or maybe you have an idea for a new feature that you think would make your website appear more attractive. As a result, you can choose from a variety of styles that can be easily modified to meet your needs.
Wix templates
You can choose from more than 800 attractive free templates from Wix. These appealing templates cover a variety of topics and are simple to alter for marketing reasons.
Wix has three built-in design tools, Wix Editor X, Wix ADI, and Editor, to enable store owners swiftly design their stores (you may find out more about the differences by paying a visit to Wix Editor X review and Wix ADI vs Wix Editor).
Using Wix’s own code language, Wix Velo, you can definitely take your storefront to the next level.
Wix’s design flexibility does, however, have a drawback in the form of unchangeable Wix templates. It would be annoying to want to rebrand your store because whatever you choose in the beginning will follow you through to the finish.
4. Apps store
By giving you access to extra tools and features to boost your site’s functionality, integrating applications can enrich your online store. Both Wix and Shopify have app stores that offer a wide variety of both free and paid apps to enable ecommerce worldwide.
Shopify apps
The Shopify App Store, on the other hand, gives you the ability to expand the scope of your store thanks to its variety of functions. Merchants can find practically everything for online selling, including apps for no-code file uploading and those for sending personalized push alerts, in the 6000+ apps total (including third-party applications).
With a wide range of options, Shopify splits these applications into 12 categories and 9 collections to make it easier for users to identify the ones that are right for them.
You can start dropshipping with Dsers, add product reviews with Loox, and import customers and orders to Shopify with Easy Importer—and that’s just the start of many fantastic apps you haven’t yet discovered! The following is a selection of carefully chosen Shopify apps for a fresh website you shouldn’t miss.
Learn more about top best Shopify apps here.
Wix apps
At the moment, Wix offers more than 200 apps and add-ons, divided into 6 major categories. Marketing, online sales, services and events, media and content, design components, and communication are among them.
There are various free apps available among the Wix Apps. Additionally, the premium ones, which cost between $5 and $30, are rather reasonable.
5. Loading speed
According to research, a website’s loading time should ideally be under 3 seconds to prevent online desertion. To determine which platform performs better, let’s compare the loading speeds of Wix and Shopify in more detail.
Shopify page speed
Shopify is among the top Wix substitutes in terms of performance. It is frequently tested because it is the second-fastest platform.
Mobile websites load quickly, which helps to keep visitors’ attention where you want it—on your website.
Shopify loads in an average of 1.3 seconds, per the results of the Darren performance test! When it comes to loading speed, which is essential for any website, especially an e-commerce one, Shopify clearly prevails over Wix in this contest.
Wix page speed
But Wix can always find a solution. Wix also gives particular recommendations on how to optimize the homepage and aspects like text, animation, and graphics in order to enhance the structure and functionality of your site.
Your website will be able to sustain a speed of 85% to 90% if you adhere to Wix’s recommendations for site loading times. You can also look at Wix’s best practices to enhance the functionality of your website.
6. Ecommerce features
A crucial factor in this head-to-head comparison of Wix and Shopify is the eCommerce tools that can boost your company’s sales. The features we’ll examine are:
– Inventory Management
– Report and Analytics
– Payment Methods
– Shipping Options
– Dropshipping Support
– POS
– Mobile App
Inventory Management
Shopify inventory management
Adopting Shopify will allow you to track your inventory and use features like automated purchase orders, year-end inventory reports, user permissions, and accounts, as well as stock notifications.
Shopify’s inventory monitoring system allows you total control and visibility into your business, much like Wix’s does. You can see firsthand how merchandise is transferred from supplier to customer and everything in between.
If you use Shopify POS, you can install Stocky, which gives you access to these cutting-edge inventory management tools and syncs in real time with your Shopify store. The best thing is that with a software stack that can manage your stock both today and in the future, you can scale your firm.
Importantly, Shopify offers a selection of inventory tools as well as setup instructions to help retailers manage the work more easily.
Wix inventory management
With Wix, you can integrate your preferred inventory management systems with your store via open APIs. Afterwards, everything will be seamlessly and continuously synchronized. As a result, you can manually configure the inventory status for each product as well as automatically track the quantity of a specific product in stock. Currently, Wix Shops provides two options for inventory control:
Inventory management: Keep track of how many of a certain product or product variant you currently have on hand. The inventory count is immediately updated when you make a sale.
Out of Stock / In Stock: Give goods or variants a status of “In Stock” or “Out of Stock” manually.
More crucially, if you add multiple SKU numbers to each of the variants of a product, you may manage inventory separately. Examples of product alternatives include color and size. In summary, Wix can help you manage your inventory more effectively by providing a variety of tools or setup tutorials that make it simple and accurate for you to keep an eye on your supply.
Report & Analytics
With the use of analytics tools and report figures, many judgments are frequently taken. Hence, before selecting the best eCommerce platform, you must look into how your shopping cart handles and displays numbers.
Shopify analytics
Many reporting options are available on Shopify and can be improved with more expensive subscriptions. In addition to the basic analysis from Basic Shopify, further upgrades like Advanced Shopify or Shopify Plus can offer detailed analysis with the use of filters.
Overall, Shopify’s analytics and reports give business owners the tools to examine recent activities, learn more about visitors, assess store speed, and even examine transactions.
Also, if your store is on a Shopify plan other than Basic, you can select your reports to display only the data you require. Moreover, you can add or remove columns from your reports.
You can keep your filtered and altered reports or build custom reports from start if your store is on the Advanced Shopify plan or higher. Any filters or adjustments you make are only temporary if your store is on the Shopify plan.
With the exception of the Financial reports, all reports can only be filtered and edited. Furthermore, Shopify App Store can assist you with reporting apps if you wish to filter a custom report based on tags.
Wix analytics
Wix, on the other hand, gives you the option to edit your business statistics based on metrics like conversion rate, revenue breakdowns, client shopping patterns, and website traffic. You have control over how your data is shown, can focus your reports on the data that interests you, and can design brand-new reports from beginning.
The disclosure of your most crucial data can assist you in identifying your best-selling and least successful products and in developing a more strategic plan to increase your sales.
Your Wix store reports contain different categories to make it easier for you to identify the kind of information you want to view. For instance:
Reports on site revenues and sales are provided in sales reports. You may uncover all kinds of helpful information, including weekly or monthly sales figures, invoice details, and more.
You may learn how visitors move across your site and to other websites by looking at traffic data. Your traffic is shown in this report over time, by device, by nation and city, and by landing page.
Behavior reports look at how users engage with your website, including which pages are most frequently viewed and how users move about the site.
Payment methods
Shopify payment
Shopify Payments, which it offers on its own, is a complementary payment option (you can read the full Shopify Payments review here). With this approach, retailers can stop worrying about transaction costs.
By using Shopify Payments, Shopify continues to apply different credit card rates for each plan.
Wix payments
Wix supports all of the established payment processors, including PayPal, Stripe, and Square, with the most stringent standards and cutting-edge internet encryption.
This platform also offers “Buy now pay later” options to give customers financial flexibility. Businesses can provide pay-later alternatives to their consumers using Wix without incurring additional integration fees.
To put it another way, Wix Payments offers you:
• Easy and cost-free setup
• Online payments are secure
• Accept payment methods including iDeal, Affirm, Afterpay, and Sezzle as well as credit and debit cards.
• Chargebacks, refunds, and payouts all appear on one dashboard
• No requirement for an outside payment gateway
• 24/7 devoted customer service
Shipping options
One of the crucial steps in the fulfillment process, which involves delivering things to your clients, is shipping. If you’re new to this, read the Short guide to eCommerce shipping before comparing the shipping choices for Wix vs. Shopify.
Shopify shipping options
Shopify is there for you at every stage of the convoluted shipping process, from free delivery to coordinating with several shipping companies. You can set up your shipping costs (free shipping, flat rate, depending on region, etc).
You can offer consumers the most recent courier prices at checkout by unlocking the third-party determined shipping rates with the Advanced Shopify plan. In other words, you’re never stranded when you arrange shipment with Shopify.
Wix shipping options
On the other hand, Wix is a little inconvenient in that you could need shipping tools to help you with international shipping payments.
In addition, Wix offers a comprehensive setup instruction for shipping, delivery, and pickup. When you track purchases and define tax regulations for each product, Wix does not provide printable shipping labels.
Dropshipping support
Dropshipping has become a growing trend in recent years. Due to the extraordinary advantages of its warehouses, capital, and fulfillment, thousands of e-merchants selected this type of company.
Shopify and Wix both assist store owners in starting a dropshipping business. Let’s compare Wix and Shopify to see which platform is superior for dropshipping.
Learn more about dropshipping in Singapore here.
Shopify dropshipping
You have access to dropshipping options with Shopify regardless of your plan. With third-party dropshipping tools like Dsers, Spocket, and Dropified, users can source and sell things from marketplaces.
Wix dropshipping
You must upgrade to the Business Unlimited or Business VIP subscription in order to use any third-party apps, which greases the wheels of dropshipping, before you can access further capabilities and apps.
Please remember that the Business Unlimited plan only allows you to sell a maximum of 250 products. Because you can provide as many things as you can, Business VIP can be a good choice.
POS
You need to take point-of-sale (POS) systems more seriously if you want to run both online and offline stores and increase sales. To compare the POS support offered by Wix vs. Shopify, scroll down.
Shopify POS
Except for Shopify Starter, you can purchase the POS system on any pricing plan. With Shopify POS Lite (included in your Shopify plan) and Shopify POS Pro, Shopify actually makes it easier to conduct in-person transactions. It offers a limitless array of advantages as well as thorough reporting and analytics. Explore Shopify POS’s features and costs right away.
Wix POS
Wix provides its own POS platform, Wix. Yet it seems like Wix is not particularly good with POS. A certain amount of US-based retailers can use Wix POS. Because of this, the majority of Wix users must configure POS integration rather than using Wix POS. Presumably, another service provider is involved in this integration.
Mobile apps
Any merchant’s dream feature would be the ability to manage their online store, modify pages, process orders, track company analytics, etc. from anywhere at any time. Wix and Shopify have mobile apps available as a result. Both provide you access to practically all of the same features as the internet version.
You can easily discover and download the Wix or Shopify app from the App Store on iOS or Google Play for Android.
Shopify CMS
Although having blogging features, Shopify only provides you with the minimal capability needed to create posts. As a result, the features you might miss the most are integrated searching, social bookmarking, and blogging statistics. Basically, if you are used to CMS like WordPress, its blogging functions are very gloomy.
Wix CMS
Wix makes it simple to create beautiful blogs. The only obstacle it actually encounters is the archive feature, which saves older posts for visitors to peruse. Use a blogging-specific platform like WordPress if you’re genuinely interested in experiencing this special feature.
8. Multilingual capabilities
You want to contact more clients, especially those who are overseas, for the purpose of generating more orders, visitors, and sales. The ability to speak multiple languages in Wix vs. Shopify is important.
Languages
Shopify languages
The same multilingual features are provided by Shopify. Except for Shopify Lite, all Shopify standard plans include the choice of multilanguage selling.
With Basic Shopify, Shopify, and Advanced Shopify, you can show your store in up to 5 different languages on separate URLs, whilst Shopify Plus enables up to 20 languages.
By deploying a third-party program to translate the website or importing CSV files, you may simply add the translation to Shopify.
Wix multilingual
Wix makes it simpler than ever to add more languages. Also, this website builder supports over 100 languages, which makes the process of localization much more comfortable.
Tax calculation
You undoubtedly desire an ecommerce platform that eliminates all tax calculation hassles.
Shopify tax calculation
Shopify gives you a ton of control over your settings, as you might anticipate. The default sales tax rates that Shopify uses are frequently modified. To save a ton of work, you may configure Shopify to handle routine tax calculations automatically.
Nevertheless, Shopify doesn’t submit or file your sales taxes on your behalf. To manage your sales tax, you might need to register your firm with your local or federal tax authority. Fortunately, Shopify includes a ton of tax paperwork to assist you in setting up tax.
Wix tax calculation
Wix makes it easy for you to enable and disable taxes, including tax rates on commodities and more. It would be fantastic if you used Avalara, an integrated piece of software that can assist in real-time tax rate measurement. Check out this tutorial to learn more about how the tax setting in your Wix online store actually functions.
9. Customer support
Shopify support
You may reach the Shopify support staff by phone and email whenever you need them. Shopify offers live chat, which is one feature that sets it apart. Your store will undoubtedly fast turn into a cash cow if the wait time is reduced to the absolute minimum and the problem is quickly remedied.
Via the Shopify Forum, users may either seek advice from professionals or converse with other international retailers about their experiences.
Wix support
Wix is renowned for its wealth of entertaining how-to videos. Simply move your mouse over the editor’s exclamation points to trigger the little bubbles to show up. They can respond to your frequent inquiries quickly.
With Wix, you can send tickets and ask for a callback in relation to live assistance. The support line is always open for English, but only during business hours for languages like French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
10. Security
Shopify security
Shopify entirely handles upgrades and security issues in the background because it is a hosted platform. In order to accept credit card or debit card information, Shopify’s system must also run on a Level 1 PCI certified server. Every Shopify store has access to SSL encryption (at 156-bit), which can protect the information of your customers.
Moreover, Shopify gives retailers access to SOC (Service Organization Control) and Transparency reports, which are evaluations of an organization’s information systems made by outside auditors.
As a result, Shopify merchants adhere to a unique set of standards, which include requirements for the security and accessibility of their services.
Wix security
Wix platform are confident in the high level of security that is integrated into each Wix website. By using SSL web security to keep connections private and safe over an HTTPS connection, merchants can win the trust of their customers.
Additionally, having Level 1 PCI Compliant and TLS 1.2 (Transport Layer Security) ensures that your website satisfies the highest payment requirements, ensuring the complete security of all visitor transactions.
Also, Wix specialists have undergone rigorous hacker testing to guarantee that your website is constantly operational using DDoS Protection – a dependable web hosting. In addition, all security updates are automatically deployed to your website because Wix is a centralized SaaS solution.
Shopify vs Wix – conclusion
It is certainly difficult to choose a winner in every facet of the Wix vs. Shopify conflict.
Due to its affordability, simplicity of use, SEO capabilities, and variety of templates, Wix is generally better ideal for people looking to create “general-purpose” websites.
Shopify is significantly more powerful in terms of eCommerce apps, though. This is because Shopify has many integrations with other important apps, completely responsive designs, support for AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) product pages, and multi-currency selling capabilities. Shopify can make an internet store more acceptable and expert for each retailer who wishes to create one.
Remember that Shopify and Wix are both on the list of the best eommerce platforms for 2023, so you can rely on any platform at any time depending on your company’s needs!
If you want to find out how to build a Shopify ecommerce website, learn more here.