Wix vs Shopify — which is better for ecommerce?

Wix or Shopify — which is better for your ecommerce project? I’ve built lots of stores with both, and in this post, I’m going to share my take on which is better for online selling. Read on as I spell out the key pros and cons of both platforms — and reveal a hidden limitation of one of these tools that makes it much harder to scale your business internationally.

I’ll start with the reasons to use Wix over Shopify.

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Reasons to use Wix over Shopify

1. Wix gives you more templates

Wix gives you over 2,000 free templates to choose from. But Shopify only gives you access to 24. Although more templates for Shopify are available from the platform’s theme store, these can be quite expensive.

2. Wix gives you more website building features

Because Wix started life as a website building tool rather than an ecommerce solution, it gives you a lot more features than Shopify for laying out content. Its drag-and-drop editor gives you much more fine-grained control over the appearance of web pages, galleries, and forms than the Shopify equivalent.

Wix also gives you built-in autosave features and revision histories — neither of which you’ll find in Shopify.

3. Wix lets you use more product options

Product options let you sell products in lots of different colors, shapes, and sizes. And while Shopify currently limits you to just three product options, Wix lets you work with six.

Shopify does let you add apps to your store that increase or remove these limits, but these involve extra fees.

4. Wix doesn’t charge transaction fees

A payment gateway is the software you use to process credit card payments on your store. With Shopify, if you don’t use its built-in payment gateway, you’ll get charged transaction fees.

But Wix doesn’t apply any charges for using third-party payment gateways, and this can save you a lot of money, particularly if you’re a high-volume seller.

5. Wix lets you translate your site into more languages.

Both Wix and Shopify let you translate your website into different languages. But while Shopify restricts you to just 20 translations, Wix lets you create 180.

6. Wix gives you phone support

Wix gives you access to phone support on all its plans. But on all its non-enterprise plans, Shopify only lets you use live chat support.

OK — so those are the key things that Wix does better than Shopify. If you have any thoughts so far, do drop them in the comments. And if you’d like to try either platform out, you can start a free Wix site here, or grab an extended Shopify trial here.

Now let’s take a look at the reasons why you might want to use Shopify over Wix.

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Reasons to use Shopify over Wix

1. It’s much better for international selling

The biggest divide between these two platforms probably boils down to international selling. While Shopify lets your customers check out in their own local currency, Wix doesn’t.

This, for me, is a massive dealbreaker. When a customer sees a ‘foreign’ currency at the final step, they often abandon their cart. Shopify’s multi-currency approach instills a lot more trust.

Additionally, Shopify handles the ‘boring’ but critical aspects of international ecommerce — like duties and import taxes — far more effectively than Wix.

So, if you want to scale internationally, Shopify is the much better choice.

2. Shopify’s ecommerce features are much more powerful

Shopify is a dedicated store builder, rather than a general website building tool. So, as you might expect, its ecommerce features are much stronger than the Wix equivalents.

It gives you more ways to set up a dropshipping or print-on-demand business; its automatic tax calculation features are more sophisticated than Wix’s; and it gives you access to a more powerful point-of-sale system.

3. Shopify templates are responsive

With responsive templates, your website’s layout automatically adjusts itself to suit the device it’s being viewed on — mobile, tablet, or desktop computer.

While Wix does let you create mobile-friendly sites, they are not 100% responsive — Wix users have to create separate versions of their sites for mobile and desktop devices.

Shopify’s templates, by contrast, are all responsive.

And significantly, responsive design is preferred by Google — building fully responsive websites can lead to better performance in search results.

Another thing worth noting about Wix and Shopify’s templates is that unlike Wix, Shopify lets you change your templates really easily — in just a couple of clicks, in fact.

Switching templates isn’t possible in Wix, however — if you want to apply a new one to your site, you’ll have to completely rebuild it.

4. Shopify lets you sell on other sites

While both Wix and Shopify let you sell products on your own site, Shopify lets you sell on other sites too. This is thanks to its ‘buy button’ feature that lets you embed products and catalogs on other websites.

There’s no equivalent feature available from Wix.

5. Shopify’s app ecosystem is much bigger

Shopify gives you access to a much wider range of apps and integrations than Wix — there are over 13,000 apps available for Shopify, but just 1,700 for Wix.

This larger app selection lets you extend a Shopify store’s functionality in ways that are simply not possible with Wix.

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Wix vs Shopify: the verdict

So that’s our take on the key areas where Wix and Shopify beat each other. So which platform is better?

Ultimately, if you’re serious about ecommerce, Shopify wins hands down. Its multi-currency, dropshipping and point-of-sale features are all much stronger than the Wix equivalents, and its huge app ecosystem lets you extend your store’s functionality in ways that are simply not possible in Wix.

If you want to create an attractive content site and do some simple selling on the side, Wix can work — its template range is larger and it does give you more flexibility over site design.

But if you’re building an online store, Shopify is definitely the more powerful and professional choice.

Of course, a great way to discover which platform is the right one for you is to try them out — so a quick reminder that you’ll find links to a forever free Wix plan and a special three-month Shopify trial below:

• Wix free plan
• Shopify trial

And finally, if you have any questions about Wix or Shopify, do leave them in the comments. We read them all and will do our best to help.