Shopify vs. my own website?

[Bellini]

<div class="bbWrapper"><span style="font-size: 15px">Hey everyone, <br /> <br /> I am getting ready to start building my website in order to sell my products when I get them in (I was planning to build it at 1&amp;1 which is where I have my domain.) I have built websites before on 1&amp;1 and other sites. <br /> <br /> But then I remembered people talking about Shopify. I went to their website but I still don&#039;t understand what the difference is between them and having your own website with a shopping cart?</span><br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: 15px">Would appreciate any input from those who are familiar with Shopify or are using it currently. <br /> <br /> <br /> P.S. I did search the threads already and read several but did not see the answers I was looking for.</span></div>

 

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[theag]

<div class="bbWrapper">Shopify is easier to handle. It is a hosted/managed shopping cart so you have to deal with a lot less technical stuff. Which is exactly whats best for you right now since you have to ask this question. <img src="/community/imgs/emoticons/em-wink.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-shortname=";)" /><br /> <br /> Also, don&#039;t host it at 1&amp;1 and move your domain to a proper registrar (I recommend namecheap) asap. They are shit.</div>

 

[AgainstAllOdds]

<div class="bbWrapper">If you know how to install a theme and use wordpress (woocommerce), then go with your own. If you don&#039;t, then go with Shopify or Squarespace.<br /> <br /> My newest site is built with woocommerce. Here&#039;s the theme I&#039;m using: <a href="http://savoy.nordicmade.com" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="noopener">http://savoy.nordicmade.com</a>.<br /> <br /> A lot cheaper, and has more functionality that a Shopify site.<br /> <br /> One again: if you don&#039;t know how to install everything, then go with Shopify.</div>

 

[AntEmpire]

<div class="bbWrapper">I&#039;m glad you asked this question, since I&#039;m also looking into web commerce. There are so many options, but shopify did jump out at me. If anything, it seems like a great platform for beginners. And of course, you could always move to your own website once you learn the ropes.</div>

 

[James Thornton]

<div class="bbWrapper">No complaints about Shopify. Never had an issue I didn&#039;t cause. No down time or problems. Simple to manage. You can use the template editor, or dig into the html/css just like a custom site.<br /> <br /> Tons of businesses use Wordpress too, so I&#039;m sure it&#039;s dependable.</div>

 

[biophase]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 27168" data-quote="James Thornton" data-source="post: 489870" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=489870" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-489870">James Thornton said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> No complaints about Shopify. Never had an issue I didn&#039;t cause. No down time or problems. Simple to manage. You can use the template editor, or dig into the html/css just like a custom site.<br /> <br /> Tons of businesses use Wordpress too, so I&#039;m sure it&#039;s dependable. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> I would go with Shopify and not a Wordpress based shopping cart. If you can&#039;t afford $30 a month in your ecommerce business you shouldn&#039;t be starting it. I don&#039;t think wordpress based ecommerce stores are as robust. And you will certainly need some good hosting for your store at some point vs the shared hosting I assume many wordpress stores are running on.</div>

 

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[AllenCrawley]

<div class="bbWrapper">I built wordpress sites for many, many years. For myself and for clients. I switched to Shopify and couldn&#039;t be happier. It just works. With wordpress I always had issues whenever wordpress updated because then the theme would have to update, woo commerce would have to update, all plugins would have to update. Never would the upgrading and updating process be easy. It was always a PITA. I had enough and switched.</div>

 

[ddzc]

<div class="bbWrapper">I&#039;ve built Wordpress sites with Woocommerce without any issues. I wanted to try out shopify at one point. Would anyone recommend it for high end and luxurious products which require a lot of detail and a high end design on the forefront? Another factor is the hidden transaction fees which shopify fails to mention on their pricing page. I believe they snatch 2% which is a deal breaker for me right away. If you use their payment processor, I believe that drops to .5% but I heard from many others that shopify delays payment issuing...can anyone confirm this? Thx.</div>

 

[ilrein]

<div class="bbWrapper">I work fulltime at an ecommerce agency. We leverage Shopify for many clients.<br /> <br /> <b>Shopify</b>:<br /> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><i>Pros</i></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Self-hosted (no deployment challenges, no scale issues)<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Secure (extremely low risk of getting hacked)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Premium marketplace (themes/app cost $ but are filtered heavily by a standards teams</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Very easy to setup</li> </ul><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><i>Cons</i></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Expensive to extend/modify (not a early-game concern)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dependence on premium marketplace - you will rely on 3rd party approved apps for many things (email marketing, currency/language swaps, etc)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">No backend code control/access</li> </ul><b>Wordpress/CMS:</b><br /> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><i>Pros</i></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Extremely cheap (if not totally free)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Massive support community online (due to immense popularity)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Open marketplace (many free, well rated options)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Very easy to setup</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Total access to backend</li> </ul><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><i>Cons</i></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Handling hostings/scaling (are you prepared for a large surge of traffic?)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Security (Keeping WP updated and being careful with which unfiltered plugins you allow into your code)</li> </ul>Note that there is a security correlation between owning the code and deploying yourself, versus letting the platform handle it. The ricochet there is the dependency on paid, platform specific solutions which would otherwise be freely available on an open marketplace.<br /> <br /> For someone working alone, with little technical experience, it would likely be cheaper to go with a Shopify solution, as you would need to pay someone for the costs of deployment, even if you had all the code already. Not to mention, it costs a monthly fee for 99% of deployment options, so you will still be stuck paying something per month. A WP solution couldn&#039;t eliminate that entirely. That said, by the time you get your theme and apps setup on the Shopify platform, you could have the same thing on WP for a fraction of the cost -- though not necessarily a fraction of the time (and again, security concerns go with that).</div>

 

[RazorCut]

<div class="bbWrapper">Don&#039;t forget there are dedicated shopping carts outside of Woocommerce and Shopify.<br /> <br /> I used ClickCartPro for many years with no complaints. <br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.kryptronic.com" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="noopener">http://www.kryptronic.com</a><br /> <br /> Their inbuilt SEO was so good I owned my top search term for years on Google with not only #1 position but #2 as well. Saved me a fortune in adword fee&#039;s.<br /> <br /> Not saying you will get the same result, just that there are more alternatives out there.</div>

 

[biophase]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 10406" data-quote="ddzc" data-source="post: 490353" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=490353" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-490353">ddzc said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> I believe they snatch 2% which is a deal breaker for me right away. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> I believe that they got rid of this. In fact, Bigcommerce added this in their cheapest plan.</div>

 

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[ilrein]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 23" data-quote="biophase" data-source="post: 490421" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=490421" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-490421">biophase said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> I believe that they got rid of this. In fact, Bigcommerce added this in their cheapest plan. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> This is the credit card processing fee. Any competitive PCI-compliant credit card processor will charge a markup. Looks like Shopify built their own solution, so they could capture the 2.9% + 30 cents, but they don&#039;t force you to use them (you can swap out to other payment merchants).<br /> <br /> If a platform desires to eliminate credit card markup, they will need to their own legally validated credit card processor, and offer those savings to their customers. I believe Shopify offers this at the premium level (Shopify Plus). For those interested in using a WooCommerce solution, all <u>you&#039;re doing is getting the code to launch the webapp</u>. You will still need to configure credentials after choosing a payment provider, and all payment providers charge a markup for their services. PayPal/Stripe are examples of platform agnostic payment providers.</div>

 

[biophase]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 12247" data-quote="ilrein" data-source="post: 490428" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=490428" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-490428">ilrein said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> This is the credit card processing fee. Any competitive PCI-compliant credit card processor will charge a markup. Looks like Shopify built their own solution, so they could capture the 2.9% + 30 cents, but they don&#039;t force you to use them (you can swap out to other payment merchants).<br /> <br /> If a platform desires to eliminate credit card markup, they will need to their own legally validated credit card processor, and offer those savings to their customers. I believe Shopify offers this at the premium level (Shopify Plus). For those interested in using a WooCommerce solution, all <u>you&#039;re doing is getting the code to launch the webapp</u>. You will still need to configure credentials after choosing a payment provider, and all payment providers charge a markup for their services. PayPal/Stripe are examples of platform agnostic payment providers. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> No, we are talking about a 2% transaction fee. Shopify used to have a 2% fee taken from every order. Bigcommerce now has it on their standard plan. This is not the CC processing fee.<br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.bigcommerce.com/pricing" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="noopener">https://www.bigcommerce.com/pricing</a></div>

 

[ddzc]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 23" data-quote="biophase" data-source="post: 490439" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=490439" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-490439">biophase said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> No, we are talking about a 2% transaction fee. Shopify used to have a 2% fee taken from every order. Bigcommerce now has it on their standard plan. This is not the CC processing fee.<br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.bigcommerce.com/pricing" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">https://www.bigcommerce.com/pricing</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>If they got rid of it then that&#039;s great! But I did read some reviews that shopify doesn&#039;t announce the 2% deduction from all sales on their sales page or anywhere on their website and many users were furious when they got whacked with the fees unexpectedly. <br /> <br /> Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk</div>

 

[ilrein]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 23" data-quote="biophase" data-source="post: 490439" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=490439" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-490439">biophase said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> No, we are talking about a 2% transaction fee. Shopify used to have a 2% fee taken from every order. Bigcommerce now has it on their standard plan. This is not the CC processing fee.<br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.bigcommerce.com/pricing" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">https://www.bigcommerce.com/pricing</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> There is a hidden transaction fee, but it&#039;s waived if you use their credit card processor. It&#039;s definitely an angle for a competitor like Bigcommerce to differentiate.<br /> <br /> On a side note, from an entrepreneurial marketing perspective, isn&#039;t it interesting how Bigcommerce so heavily references how they are better than Shopify, right on their page? While to Shopify, Bigcommerce doesn&#039;t even exist. I&#039;m surprised a company with at least an appearance of size (like Bigcommerce) would resort to such aggressive forms of marketing, to so heavily advertise your biggest competition.</div>

 

[biophase]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 12247" data-quote="ilrein" data-source="post: 490448" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=490448" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-490448">ilrein said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> There is a hidden transaction fee, but it&#039;s waived if you use their credit card processor. It&#039;s definitely an angle for a competitor like Bigcommerce to differentiate. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> I see it now. Bastards. Guess I won&#039;t be going with them. Their Shopify payments is about .5% higher than norm in CC fees.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/attachments/untitled-webp.10724/" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/data/attachments/7/7354-b7c1df7589f22339a83c856f62f70311.jpg?hash=jhdSwwsGW8" class="bbImage " style="" alt="Untitled.webp" title="Untitled.webp" width="384" height="200" loading="lazy" /></a></div>

 

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[BrianPM]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 23" data-quote="biophase" data-source="post: 490455" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=490455" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-490455">biophase said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> I see it now. Bastards. Guess I won&#039;t be going with them. Their Shopify payments is about .5% higher than norm in CC fees.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/attachments/10724/" target="_blank">View attachment 10724</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> I&#039;ve been in the credit card industry for just shy of 2 years and could help shed some light on this discussion. Most of these e-commerce vendors push their partnered processing for a kick back in form of residuals or profit sharing. When companies offer you a flat or tiered rate (paypal, stripe, square, etc), they&#039;re essentially gouging you; you want interchange plus pricing. Also, the transaction fee is a hugely hidden basis point fee, especially true in smaller ticket items. Cost is roughly no more than $0.03 a transaction. Anything above is a mark-up.<br /> <br /> PCI compliance, batch fees, statement fees = all junk fees. Now auth.net, one of the most trusted for online transactions does charge a batch fee, but you&#039;re credit card processor should not.<br /> <br /> Look for a locked discount rate, swipe rate, and true interchange/cost (some companies mark up their interchange to hide additional fees in a sneaky way).<br /> <br /> Feel free to PM if any more detailed questions.</div>

 

[Niptuck MD]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 12247" data-quote="ilrein" data-source="post: 490392" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=490392" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-490392">ilrein said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> I work fulltime at an ecommerce agency. We leverage Shopify for many clients.<br /> <br /> <b>Shopify</b>:<br /> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><i>Pros</i></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Self-hosted (no deployment challenges, no scale issues)<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Secure (extremely low risk of getting hacked)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Premium marketplace (themes/app cost $ but are filtered heavily by a standards teams</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Very easy to setup</li> </ul><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><i>Cons</i></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Expensive to extend/modify (not a early-game concern)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dependence on premium marketplace - you will rely on 3rd party approved apps for many things (email marketing, currency/language swaps, etc)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">No backend code control/access</li> </ul><b>Wordpress/CMS:</b><br /> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><i>Pros</i></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Extremely cheap (if not totally free)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Massive support community online (due to immense popularity)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Open marketplace (many free, well rated options)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Very easy to setup</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Total access to backend</li> </ul><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><i>Cons</i></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Handling hostings/scaling (are you prepared for a large surge of traffic?)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Security (Keeping WP updated and being careful with which unfiltered plugins you allow into your code)</li> </ul>Note that there is a security correlation between owning the code and deploying yourself, versus letting the platform handle it. The ricochet there is the dependency on paid, platform specific solutions which would otherwise be freely available on an open marketplace.<br /> <br /> For someone working alone, with little technical experience, it would likely be cheaper to go with a Shopify solution, as you would need to pay someone for the costs of deployment, even if you had all the code already. Not to mention, it costs a monthly fee for 99% of deployment options, so you will still be stuck paying something per month. A WP solution couldn&#039;t eliminate that entirely. That said, by the time you get your theme and apps setup on the Shopify platform, you could have the same thing on WP for a fraction of the cost -- though not necessarily a fraction of the time (and again, security concerns go with that). </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> <a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/members/44891/" class="username" data-xf-init="member-tooltip" data-user-id="44891" data-username="@Shreyas Nampalli">@Shreyas Nampalli</a></div>

 

[biophase]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 42209" data-quote="Arun Siva" data-source="post: 581765" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=581765" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-581765">Arun Siva said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> <a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/members/44891/" class="username" data-xf-init="member-tooltip" data-user-id="44891" data-username="@Shreyas Nampalli">@Shreyas Nampalli</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> What is up with this tagging? If you want to share a thread with someone just email them a link.</div>

 

[Niptuck MD]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 23" data-quote="biophase" data-source="post: 581777" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=581777" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-581777">biophase said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> What is up with this tagging? If you want to share a thread with someone just email them a link. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> ok will do</div>

 

[martintony]

<div class="bbWrapper">I personally recommend WooCommerce because it is free and easy to use. And there are many various types of WooCommerc plugins and themes available on the internet which we can use and make our store batter and smarter. Also to know more you can go through the <a href="https://www.cloudways.com/blog/woocommerce-vs-shopify/" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">WooCommerce vs Shopify</a> comparison.</div>

 

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