Wix Ecommerce vs WooCommerce: The Definitive Guide

When weighing the pros and cons of Wix Ecommerce vs WooCommerce, consider how their respective features and specifications can benefit your business directly, both now and in the future. Bells and whistles are useless if you’re not ringing and tooting them! 

Here’s a side-by-side breakdown to help you make an informed decision. As always, we’re just a phone call away if you need personalized guidance.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Wix good for ecommerce?

Wix can absolutely be a great platform for an ecommerce website. It is an all-in-one, subscription-based, fully hosted website builder. Its noob-friendly drag-and-drop interface allows even casual users to create an ecommerce site with relative ease. However, its ability to facilitate robust, full-featured websites that can scale with your business is limited. Scalability is a crucial factor to keep in mind when comparing Wix Ecommerce vs WooCommerce.

Is WooCommerce a strong platform for an ecommerce site?

Yes, WooCommerce basically turns your WordPress site into a completely customizable ecommerce platform. It’s a free-to-use, self-hosted, open-source plugin for WordPress. The deep platform requires technical know-how to take advantage of the full scope of its extensive capabilities. It’s a comprehensive solution that’s famously scalable, but setup, configuration, and management are best left to professionals due to the platform’s steep learning curve. 

Should I choose WooCommerce or Wix for my ecommerce website?

Both platforms have their own unique pros and cons that we’ll explore below. Neither is better than the other, as they both cater to different types of users. When comparing Wix Ecommerce vs WooCommerce, context is everything.

The quick answer is that WooCommerce is a better option for businesses that prioritize customization and scalability. Wix is a great choice for individuals who want to create a basic website quickly and easily.

Wix vs WooCommerce: Ease of Use

Ease of use is the key differentiating factor between the two platforms. The main reason why people choose Wix is that they want a streamlined, intuitive, hassle-free experience from start to finish. The tradeoff is that you typically end up with a no-frills website that may not cut it when your business takes off.

When choosing between Wix Ecommerce vs WooCommerce, start by deciding if you want to build your own website or have a developer build it for you. If you’re 100% committed to the DIY approach, Wix is a solid pick, thanks to its drag-and-drop interface and guided setup. Just make sure you’re aware of the inherent limitations. 

If you do end up needing to migrate away from Wix, the process will be extremely tedious and time-consuming. At that point, you may realize that WooCommerce or another more scalable platform like Shopify, BigCommerce, or Magento was a better option. Think long-term.

Wix Ecommerce vs WooCommerce: Plugins and Extensions

Both platforms have in-house and third-party plugins and extensions that allow you to customize your site. 

The Wix App Market has a good selection of 500+ user-friendly plugins.

However, it’s not nearly as comprehensive as the WooCommerce Marketplace, which has 6,000+ plugins. 

WooCommerce is also part of the WordPress ecosystem, which boasts nearly 60,000 plugins.

In the realm of plugins, WooCommerce is the undeniable winner. Not only are there thousands more, but WooCommerce’s open-source nature means you can tweak them at the code level, making it possible to bring your specific vision to life in ways that may not be possible on Wix. 

For example, we customized the YITH WooCommerce Compare plugin for our client, LaserCap, so visitors can easily compare and contrast LaserCap products.

Wix Ecommerce vs WooCommerce: Themes and Templates

When comparing the design side of Wix vs WooCommerce, consider what you want your site to look like and whether you’ll be handling the design yourself or outsourcing to a pro. 

Wix has over 900 free and paid templates. Many of them are designed for specific types of businesses. For example, there are templates designed for beauty salons, construction companies, and real estate agents, just to name a few. If your goal is to get up and running as fast as possible, these templates will fast-track the design.

WooCommerce and WordPress have tens of thousands of various templates and themes, many also catered to specific industries. The code can be customized to really fine-tune your site’s layout and design to your exact specifications.

Although Wix’s design capabilities are more limited, they do allow non-technical users to get creative and hands-on, which is a core difference between Wix Ecommerce vs WooCommerce. 

For example, this website for New York handcrafted jewelry designer Isshi was built with Wix. As you can see, it has a very unusual, avant-garde design 

Wix’s drag-and-drop interface lets you experiment with and implement nontraditional layouts that can be difficult to achieve through coding. While a skilled website designer could code something similar, being able to mess with the site’s design in real time is super useful and convenient, even for advanced devs who don’t want to spend hours coding a prototype.

Beyond the site’s core design and layout, Wix’s drag-and-drop interface also lets you add animation and other eye-catching effects without coding. Of course, you’ll still lack the in-depth customization capabilities you get with custom code.

Wix Ecommerce vs WooCommerce: SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is another very important factor to consider when choosing between Wix vs WooCommerce. After all, that fancy new website isn’t going to do much good if nobody sees it! SEO ensures that people who search for relevant queries find your website on search engine results pages (SERPs), ideally at the top of the page.

Unsurprisingly, WooCommerce is the superior platform for optimization. WordPress websites have a search volume of around 2.6 million searches every month. Beyond the platform’s magnetic appeal, WooCommerce/WordPress gives you deep control over critical SEO elements, such as meta descriptions, permalinks, and URLs, among many others.

It’s worth mentioning that the SEO gap between Wix Ecommerce vs WooCommerce is decreasing. Common complaints about bloated code and difficulty customizing URLs are being addressed, but Wix’s SEO capabilities are still surface-level compared to what’s possible on WooCommerce and WordPress.

It’s worth mentioning that while platform does matter, partnering with a skilled SEO agency is the only way to stay ahead of the competition. Using SEO plugins and basic strategies might give your site a short-term boost (if you get lucky), but you need comprehensive, ongoing SEO to reach the top of SERPs and stay there. 

Our experience and expertise are unparalleled. Whatever platform you go with, we’re the only ecommerce SEO agency that consistently delivers game-changing results. Check our case studies and client reviews!

Wix Ecommerce vs WooCommerce: Security and Protection

Safeguarding sensitive data and preventing online attacks is vital to the longevity of any ecommerce business. Because Wix is fully hosted, your site will already have essential security features like data encryption and SSL certificates in place.

Although WooCommerce is a secure platform, you or a developer may need to implement specific security elements. Fortunately, WordPress offers a robust suite of security plugins. WooCommerce is also self-hosted, so make sure you choose a secure host and look into security measures that may not be included.

Wix vs WooCommerce: Cost

The cost of Wix Ecommerce vs WooCommerce varies widely depending on your needs. Wix is an all-in-one platform, so many expenses are already baked in. WooCommerce is self-hosted, so the majority of your expenses will be from external sources.

Wix uses a tier-based subscription model that allows you to pay monthly or annually.

WooCommerce is free, but you’ll need to pay for hosting and a domain name. If you’re not an experienced developer, you’ll also need to factor in the cost of outsourcing the site’s setup, design, configuration, and ongoing management and maintenance.

Contact Us for a Free Consultation

If you’re still stuck choosing between Wix Ecommerce vs WooCommerce, get in touch. We’ll be happy to provide personalized guidance as you navigate the next steps. We’re leagues ahead of every other web design agency, so don’t waste your valuable time shopping around! We can bring your unique vision to life on any platform. Partner with us, and prepare for success!