Wix vs Shopify vs WooCommerce vs BigCommerce vs Magento vs Jimdo

THE FULL REVIEW COMPARISON:

Wix

PRICE

Based on plan: Free, $4.08, $9.25, $12.42, $16.17, $24.90 (per month).Wix presents prices in your local currency.

MAIN FEATURES

• Large selection of professionally designed templates.
• Store builder with built-in drag-and-drop.
• Photo galleries to showcase your products.
• Optimized for mobile use.
• Global shipping and tax management.
• Safe shopping cart.
• Easy tracking for every order.
• 100 fully customizable templates filtered by categories.
• Tons of additional apps and web services available.
• Hosting included.

PROFESSIONALS

• It comes with tons of templates filtered into many categories.Regardless of the purpose of your store, you will surely find a template that suits your website.
• It offers free hosting and the freedom to make your store exactly as you imagined it.In addition to that, Wix helps you by providing video tutorials on how to use the platform.
• It has integrated the HTML5 Wix editor to customize each page and a drag-and-drop builder.

CONS

• Having almost everything customizable can be a bit confusing because you literally have to create the site yourself and choose from many options (adding a template, text, images, buttons, menus etc.)
• It shows only two product attributes: size and color.

PREFERRED USER GROUP

People who want a functional website that they can build on their own and who also need an eCommerce component to support it.

EASE OF USE

All you have to do is sign up, choose a category of your design, and then choose a template. Wix guides you through all the offers and options.Overall, this is what every non-technical user needs!Every customization and modification is child's play.You can choose this alternative eCommerce tool (vs Magento or the others) if you are very new to the subject.

Shopify

PRICE Based on plan: $9, $29, $79, $179 (per month).

MAIN FEATURES

• More than 100 professional themes.
• The stores are mobile-friendly.
• You can edit HTML and CSS directly.
• You can link your domain name.
• Usable website builder.
• Comprehensive blogging platform available.
• Optimized marketing and SEO (integration with social media, product reviews, email marketing, discounts).
• Unlimited bandwidth.
• Site analysis.

PROFESSIONALS

• Shopify offers free hosting.This means all you have to do is get an account and create your products right away.
• It comes with many SEO options and social hookups.This will help you with the promotion of your product and website.
• The interface of the administration area looks modern and intuitive.It can be quite intuitive for every user.

CONS

• Shopify doesn't offer more than their three default product attributes.Each product in the store is defined by size, color and material.You can add many options for each of these parameters, but you can't create new ones.

PREFERRED

USER GROUP This tool is a good alternative for both eCommerce beginners and professionals.Beginners will appreciate the friendly design that walks you by the hand throughout the whole process of building a good-looking store.While professional users can take advantage of the multitude of options and settings that Shopify has to offer.

EASE OF USE

Shopify offers a simplified way of starting an online store that is feasible for everyone.All you have to do is create an account, select a free theme, easily customize the design, and you're done.Simply follow what's happening in the left menu, add the products and their details and select your preferred options.Making a store operational is really simple.Shopify does much better in this department than Magento or any other tool.

Magento

PRICE

Based on plan: free (downloadable software), $18,000 (per year).

MAIN FEATURES

• Responsive structure (available on iPhone, iPad, Android and mobile HTML5 is pre-integrated).
• Fully customizable design, using templates.
• Customer segmentation, targeted promotions and merchandising available.
• Automated reminder for email marketing.
• Private selling function (limit the catalog to specific customers).
• More wish lists.
• Integrated content management system.
• Surveys and customer groups.
• Unlimited product attributes.

PROFESSIONALS

• It comes with a professional look, with well-organized information and categories, covering every aspect that could help you build an ideal store.
• Magento comes with very detailed content and information.Each category offers many options that will surely lead to a professional and successful website.

CONS

• It doesn't have a very user-friendly layout, it takes a lot of steps to customize the settings and the design also has a classic old forum design.It can be a bit complicated and confusing users.
• The premium plan is extremely expensive.

PREFERRED

USER GROUP Magento certainly offers a number of complex settings and options for starting and growing a large company.If you need it for large companies and businesses, it will definitely help you develop a great store, with everything on the list.

EASE OF USE

In fact, it may take a while to familiarize yourself with Magento design.It was created in an old school.Access to the Magento admin area can be a bit difficult at first and a real burden for people who are not familiar with this type of work.Overall, compared to Shopify or other tools, Magento comes with a complex and not-so-friendly front-end, and it can take some time to find all its "secrets."But for more advanced users, it's an ecommerce alternative that offers a lot of necessary things when building a larger online store.

WooCommerce

PRICE

Plan-based: Free – it's a WordPress plugin.

MAIN FEATURES

• Bundled with payment gateways… PayPal, BACS and Cash on delivery.
• Options to offer free shipping or flat rate shipping.
• Reports on incoming sales, reviews, inventory levels, and overall store performance.
• Configure tax settings with local tax classes and tax rates.
• Marketing campaigns (discount options, usage limits, product/user restrictions, etc.).
• Built as a plugin for WordPress and available from your site's wp-admin.

PROFESSIONALS

• It comes with user reviews and ratings.Customers can easily rate each product by adding ratings to their comments.
• It comes with well-organized reports.They are carefully filtered into specific categories: sales by date, by product, by category, coupons by date etc.
• WooCommerce is a free plugin.All you have to do is download it and start adding products directly from your WordPress dashboard.

CONS

• Even though WordPress is free, it doesn't come with free hosting.Then you will have to pay for it separately.
• While it's simple, you still have to take care of the setup yourself, which involves downloading and installing the plugin on your WordPress site.If you don't have a WordPress site, it's even more work.A WooCommerce-friendly theme helps too.

PREFERRED

USER GROUP The people who can benefit most from this plugin are those who work with the WordPress platform.If you already own a WordPress website, have your own hosting and everything is going well, you just need to install WooCommerce and you're done.Otherwise, you need to create a new site from scratch.

EASE OF USE

This plugin is a pretty simple alternative once installed on your WordPress site.You can customize everything from your dashboard, test it, and change all options until you're satisfied with the result.As long as you know a little about WordPress, it shouldn't be a problem.Overall, WooCommerce makes WordPress' lives easier when they need an eCommerce store installed.The plugin itself runs smoothly, offers useful features, and is easy to use.Vs Shopify or other tools on this list, WooCommerce seems like a nice alternative.

BigCommerce

PRICE

Based on plan: $29.95, $79.95, $199.95.

MAIN FEATURES

• The stores are mobile-friendly.
• SEO-friendly.
• Built-in marketing capabilities.
• Design options: themes, point-and-click tools, customizable CSS/HTML.
• Integration with hundreds of leading accounting, marketing, and inventory management systems.
• You can link your domain name.
• Integrated payment gateways and reports.

PROFESSIONALS

• The admin page is very intuitive and can guide you very well at every stage.It has a built-in drag-and-drop builder, which makes it even easier.
• BigCommerce also comes with free hosting and with a variety of themes, both premium and free.Plus, it gives you the ability to code your theme directly on the site in a special HTML/CSS editor.So, if you're good at coding, you can customize your own design.
• The customer database provides a lot of information about each customer.This way you can get to know your audience very well.

CONS

• Despite its great features and friendly layout, BigCommerce doesn't offer a free plan or a cheap entry-level plan.

PREFERRED USER GROUP

This can be a good choice for large companies because the platform works efficiently on large installations.

EASE OF USE

Is has the complexity of Magento when we talk about settings and features, but they are shown in a friendlier way.It has a modern design and a very friendly administration page.Creating a store with BigCommerce should be relatively simple, which makes it a viable global alternative to Shopify or other tools on the list.

Jimdo People's Day

PRICE

Based on plan: Free, $7.50, $20.00 (per month).

MAIN FEATURES

• Models of modern design, covering many niches.
• Possibility to use your own domain name.
• Customizable themes.
• PayPal integration (including credit cards).
• Allows test orders.
• No transaction fees.
• SEO-friendly.
• Mobile responsive.
• Mobile apps available.
• HTML5 compatible.
• Drag and drop content edits.

PROFESSIONALS

• Easy installation.It helps you by asking you the purpose of your website.
• Really intuitive interface.
• It allows you to launch a new eCommerce store in minutes.

CONS

• Only up to 5 products in your store in the free version.
• Changing product details is not so simple.

PREFERRED USER GROUP

Jimdo seems like a really great solution for people who want to start an ecommerce store quickly and would prefer the platform to suggest them the best possible settings.

EASE OF USE

Jimdo is really effective when it allows you to quickly launch a basic ecommerce store.There is only a minimal configuration and all the settings are quite easy to understand (only the modification of the product is not perfect).In the end, Jimdo can save you if you need an online store ASAP.

The winner?

For me, after all the experiments with each platform on this list, it's Wix  (previously, it was BigCommerce).

The main advantage of Wix over BigCommerce is the availability of a free plan.In addition, I found myself very comfortable setting up the store and then doing various experiments with it.

WordPress lovers would say that it's easier to use WooCommerce because all you have to do is install the free plugin and everything is set up and done.But a normal user would have many steps to take to create an online store from scratch.They would need to get a hosting account, install WordPress, and only then install WooCommerce.However, if you already have a WordPress site, WooCommerce is a great solution.

In other cases, Wix, Shopify, and BigCommerce might be better alternatives if you don't need a complicated store with advanced features and customizations.  

By the way, do you have any hands-on experience with one of these ecommerce solutions?Feel free to share.