After digging into Shopify I felt compelled to do the same for WooCommerce.
Right off the bat you can see the benefit of Shopify being a publicly traded company. They had a highly produced video with an official explainer for 2021. For WooCommerce I found something similar but from an independent Youtuber.
Craylor Made has a good video I’ve seen before published 4/13/2021
Darrel Wilson’s “The Complete WooCommerce Tutorial 2021” Published 2/20/2021
Bailed at the 20:30 minute mark
Hosting
Example used Namehero.com for hosting but SiteGround is better.
Theme
Starter e-commerce Theme, (blocksy). Blocksy good for e-commerce and used “Modern Shop” template. Can choose between Brizy or Elementor editors.
Has WooCommerce plugin already installed.
Types of Products
Single, Variable, Digital Download Product, Affiliate
Payment Gateways
PayPal, Bitcoin, Credit Card
Watched a WPCrafter video to make the default WooCommerce Cart Page to look more like Shopify’s. Modern looking CC input configured with Stripe. Uses WooCommerce blocks plugin by Automatic. Wow, brings up a big custom block.
I like WP with my own custom theme and no-page-builder. What’s the process of using WooCommerce for this.
RaddytheBrand has a good video from 3/25/2021
Flexibility. Integration with CRM, or Accounting Software, Bulk Updates.
Use Postman to see product routes.
Can assign a particular user an API key with custom CRUD access.
Checkout the docs at docs.woocommerce.com
wp-json/sc/v3
Imran Sayed with Codeytek has Series that started two years ago and has video as recently as a day ago. Here is a good video of his.
The stripe checkout looks great! Uses a web hook to redirect to a stripe checkout page. The stripe checkout page can allow you to use Google and Apple Pay? and credit card. After submitting this page you get outed back to your website with a thank you and order details and shop more button.
Sounds pretty technical.
Save card info for future use, combined with a custom theme seems like higher risk than Shopify.
Started with Shopify was $60 in after two months, it was awesome but need Shopify developer account. Can’t make shop private after you have made it live.
Also, people that sell on Shopify still have major logistics on top of Shopify.
Shopify is not open source, you are a paying customer. Need a contact form with WP, likely need to pay for a premium plugin.
Security seems like a win for Shopify.
Works with WP, cheaper, flexibility. API. Free. Developer Control. Can start with WooCommerce and always move to Shopify later. WP Blocks by Automattic has brought WooCommerce up to speed. Easily test out on a WP Site and if I don’t like it then pay for Shopify. WooCommerce implementation makes Monolithic WP the better option than a front-end built in React/Next although we see that this possible albeit very complex. Cupcake trainings brought up some good points in the case for Woo.
Security, reliability, you are a paying customer with access to support. E-commerce Pros. UI is much cleaner. Can start with Shopify and move to WooCommerce, (You cannot pack up your shopify site and move to WP). Yes Shopify is a little more pricey but it just works. But if you need that $300 tier, that’s pricey. Craylor Made video brings up some good points on shopify.