Shopify vs Wix: How Do the Beginner Friendly Ecommerce Platforms Compare?

In this Shopify vs Wix comparison, we’ll take an in-depth look at both platforms to see which is the best for launching and growing your eCommerce business.

You’ll get a complete breakdown of the pros and cons of each, see how they stack up head to head, and who will benefit the most from choosing each platform. Let’s get started.

Table of Contents

Wix and Shopify Overview

Shopify and Wix are two of the most popular eCommerce solutions used to build and manage online stores around the world. Both were founded in 2006 and are headquartered in Ontario, Canada and Tel Aviv, Israel, respectively.

While Shopify was designed as an eCommerce platform from the start, Wix was originally designed as a solution for building content-focused sites. While this still is the platform’s most popular use, it has since added eCommerce functionality for those looking to use the platform to sell products online.

With a longer history as a dedicated eCommerce platform, Shopify is a much more popular choice for online sellers. The platform powers 21% of online stores, second only to WooCommerce. Squarespace is used by 15% of online stores.

Shopify is growing at a rapid pace and the platform has a massive third-party development ecosystem, helping new eCommerce features arrive on Shopify before any other platform.

It is the platform of choice for some of the most popular brands in the world including:

• Bombas
• Bulletproof
• Fashion Nova
• Gymshark
• Hasbro
• Heinz
• Kylie Cosmetics
• MVMT Watches
• PuraVida
• Red Bull
• Sephora
• Tesla

Shopify vs Wix Pros and Cons

Before we take a look at the features of each platform, let’s go through a quick overview of the pros and cons of Shopify and Wix.

Shopify Pros

• Integrations with over 100 payment gateways
• Great support for multichannel selling
• Offers some of the best built-in features of any eCommerce platform
• Great customer support for customers needing extra assistance
• Easy to set up and use
• Robust built in order & inventory management
• Multi-currency support
• Thousands of eCommerce apps available

Shopify Cons

• Transaction fees for third-party payment gateways
• Slightly expensive (when compared to Wix)
• Limited flexibility for building pages

Wix Pros

• Extremely easy to use
• Low prices
• Tons of quality templates available

Wix Cons

• Not as feature-rich as other eCommerce platforms
• Doesn’t work as well for larger stores

Wix vs Shopify Performance

Both Wix and Shopify handle all aspects of hosting for you so you don’t need to worry yourself with the technical aspects of maintaining a server and optimizing your site speed.

Each takes security seriously and provides you a free SSL certificate for your website with every plan.

Comparing Ease of Use

Both Wix and Shopify have their advantages for user-friendliness.

As a dedicated eCommerce platform, Shopify makes it easier for merchants to get started taking orders and managing their product catalog.

As a CMS at its core, Wix offers much more flexibility for web design and customizing the front-end of your store.

Building Your Online Store

Wix prides itself on being easy to build attractive web pages and it doesn’t disappoint. It is designed for non-developers who are looking to use a simple interface without having to manage any coding responsibilities.

Wix provides three interface options for building websites including Wix ADI, Wix Editor, Corvid.

The Wix Editor allows you to pick a template, create a structure for your site, and then add your content. It is a simple approach to building websites and is the best option for most users.

Wix Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) automatically creates a customizable website for you by asking you a few questions about what the purpose of the site is and then populating the site with publicly-available information about your business. The quality of the content from Wix ADI can vary depending on what information it is able to find about your business online.

Wix’s Corvid provides access to the platform’s API to provide greater functionality and better control to the design of Wix sites.

The biggest difference between managing content in Shopify vs Wix is that with Wix you work through a front-end interface. This means that you are able to see the changes you make on the screen as you make them.

With Shopify, you edit content in the back-end and then preview or publish the changes before you can see them. The editing interface and dashboard are separate as you add products, manage sales, and inventory away from the editor.

It will take a little bit of effort to learn your way around the Shopify interface but once you do it is extremely easy to use.

Shopify vs Wix Pricing

While BigCommerce and Shopify share similar prices, there is a rather notable contrast in the prices of Shopify and Wix.

Let’s start by taking a look at the prices of Shopify plans:

Shopify Pricing

• Shopify Lite - $9 / month
• Basic Shopify - $29 / month
• Shopify - $79 / month
• Advanced Shopify - $299 / month
• Shopify Plus - Custom Pricing

Shopify Plus is a full-grade enterprise plan and you’ll have to contact Shopify directly for details on pricing.

Be aware that the Lite plan doesn’t allow you to build a fully-functional online store. Instead, you are only able to:

• Sell via your Facebook page
• Use Shopify to sell at a physical location and manage inventory
• Us the Shopify button to list and sell products on a different website

Shopify offers a 14-day free trial for all their plans (excluding Plus).

Wix Pricing

Wix does offer a free plan, however, it does not include eCommerce functionality. If you want to sell products on Wix, you will have to upgrade to one of the premium plans.

The “Website” plans range from $13 to $39. Like the free plan, these plans focus on building a static website and do not allow you to sell products directly on your site.

• Business and Ecommerce
• Business Basic - $23 / month
• Business Unlimited - $27 / month
• Business VIP - $49 /month
• Enterprise - $500 / month

The main differences between the plans are:

• Storage: Higher priced plans offer more storage.
• Support: Premium support is available with the VIP and Enterprise plans.

You can see a complete breakdown of the plans below.

Like Shopify, Wix offers a 14-day free trial for their premium plans.

Shopify vs Wix Templates, Themes and Design Options

There are over 100 themes online sellers can use to design their Shopify stores. Of these themes, 11 of them are free, each containing three different choices of style.

All Shopify templates are 100% responsive, meaning that page elements such as images, text, and forms all automatically resize themselves to fit the user’s device.

As a result, your pages load quickly and look all on devices, particularly mobile devices. This is essential as more than half of all web traffic now comes from smartphones.

Shopify themes grant full access to the CSS and HTML code of your templates so you can customize the design of your site as much as you like.

Wix offers 60 completely free templates for eCommerce stores. This quantity is not as bountiful as the offering provided by Shopify but the selection of themes offered by Wix is stylish and modern and will work well for a variety of niches.

Instead of responsive themes, Wix uses a technique called absolute positioning which positions web elements by pixel.

Elements won’t automatically adapt to the user’s device so you essentially need to create two different versions of your Wix website, one for desktop and one for mobile.

One of the downsides to Wix’s design is that you are unable to change your template after you have chosen one. This can be a serious setback for anyone looking to redesign their website.

Ecommerce Features in Shopify and Wix

Analyzing the eCommerce features of the two platforms is where we start to see some notable differences.

As a dedicated eCommerce platform, Shopify comes with a robust set of sales and marketing features to help you build your online store. Any functionality that is not provided out of the box can be added through one of the many available applications.

Wix provides all the essential features needed to sell online however the platform does have some serious limitations when it comes to eCommerce functionality. The most notable center around native integration with platforms such as Google Shopping and Facebook to sell on multiple channels.

These won’t be a big factor if you’re looking to create a simple online store. However, if you want fully-integrated omnichannel selling you’ll have to keep these in mind.

Let’s examine the main eCommerce features and see how Shopify and Wix compare.

Order and Inventory Management

Shopify provides everything needed to manage your inventory. You can upload single and bulk products and use stock management tools to receive alerts of low stock levels.

The order management system allows you to easily track the status of any order. You can refund or cancel any order straight from your dashboard and customers will be credited within 10 business days.

Wix is designed for smaller stores but still allows you to manage your inventory effectively. Unlike Shopify it doesn’t send email notifications when your products are out of stock.

The order management system allows you to track the status of orders, mark orders as fulfilled, and add shipping tracking numbers to an order.

You can cancel and refund orders straight from the dashboard. The time for the refund will depend on the payment processor used for the order. Be aware that refunds may be subject to processing fees charged by the payment processor.

Payment Processing

Shopify offers support for over 100 payment gateways including popular options such Paypal, Stripe, and Skrill.

Wix doesn’t integrate with as many payment processors as Shopify but still offers support for the most popular gateways including Paypal.

Both Shopify and Wix provide their own native payment processing solution in the form of Shopify Payments and Wix Payments.

Both platforms charge similar transaction fees for purchases made using their built-in payment processors, Shopify Payments and Wix Payments at 2.4% to 2.9%.

Be aware that Shopify takes an additional transaction fee for sales made using a third-party gateway. The fees range from 0.5% to 2.0% based on your plan.

You can avoid these extra fees using Shopify Payments but it is only available in the following countries:

• Australia
• Austria
• Canada
• Denmark
• Germany
• Hong Kong
• Ireland
• Italy
• Japan
• The Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Singapore
• Spain
• Sweden
• United Kingdom
• United States

Product Types and Attributes

Both Shopify and Wix enable you to sell a variety of product types including physical products, digital products, and service products.

To sell digital products with Shopify you will need a third-party integration and to sell service products with Wix you’ll need to add an app.

Both platforms allow you to apply different attributes such as size and color to create different variants of your products.

Shopify has more limited product options and variants compared to Wix.

With Shopify you are only able to use 3 product options and 100 variations (for example, combinations of size and color) for each product.

Wix allows you to add six different options and up to 300 variations per product.

Abandoned Cart Recovery

Abandoned cart recovery can help you win back lost sales from those who leave your store without completing their purchase. It allows you to send follow-up emails to those visitors, often with an extra incentive to get them to come back and complete the purchase.

Both Shopify and Wix provide abandoned cart functionality with all their plans (eCommerce plans for Wix).

Shopify’s automated follow-up will send one message to visitors while Wix allows you to send two follow-up messages.

You can extend the abandoned cart functionality of Shopify even further by using one of the many third-party apps available.

Tax Settings

Shopify provides you a great level of control over your tax settings. This includes the ability to have Shopify automatically handle tax calculations for you.

With Wix, you have the option to disable and enable taxes, include tax in the product price, and employ other tax settings.

A helpful way to handle your taxes in Wix is to use the Avalara app which will automatically calculate tax rates in real-time.

Point-of-Sale Integration

Point-of-sale (POS) functionality allows you to sell products at a physical location while having your inventory and order management systems synced to your eCommerce platform.

Both Shopify and Wix provide POS functionality with their platforms.

Wix POS is only available in the US and requires integration with the Square platform.

Shopify uses its own integrated POS solutions and is available in most countries.

Be aware that to get the most out of your Shopify POS system you’ll have to pay for a “POS Pro” add-on which will cost $89 per month.

The built-in POS features cover the basics of selling in a physical store and will be fine if you only have simple needs. However, upgrading to the add-on will allow you to do the following:

• Provide buy online, collect in-store
• Sell in multiple locations
• Provide printed receipts
• Accept exchanges
• Attribute sales to team members

Dropshipping

Dropshipping is an order fulfillment method where you don’t hold inventory for the products you are selling. Instead, you partner with a supplier who stores the products. You list the products on your store and when a customer places an order you pass the order information on to the supplier and they deliver the product straight to the customer.

It’s an attractive business model for eCommerce entrepreneurs as you don’t have to pay for products upfront.

Shopify is the best of any eCommerce platform for running a dropshipping store. There are dozens of dropshipping apps available on the Shopify App store allowing you to easily find suppliers and ass products to your site.

Until recently, dropshipping with Wix was not possible. Fortunately, the company has added integrations with platforms that support dropshipping including Printful, Spocket, Modalyst, and Printify.

Wix vs Shopify Integrations and Apps

Integrations and apps help you extend the functionality of your online store. This includes useful tools to help boost conversions, run marketing campaigns, integrate social media channels, improve SEO, and much more.

Both Shopify and Wix each have their own app stores with an extensive catalog.

Shopify’s App Store provides more than 2,500 apps to give you a greater ability to grow your online store. You’ll find apps to set up dropshipping, add a customer wishlist, manage shipping rates, and many others.

The Wix App Store contains over 300 apps to add additional functionality to your website. Many of the apps aren’t geared towards eCommerce sites so you’ll have to dig through the catalog to find one’s relevant to your store.

While Wix’s App Store is helpful, it doesn’t provide the same level of eCommerce specific apps as Shopify. If you choose to use Wix as your eCommerce, we recommend adding the Ecwid app as it will allow you to sell globally and easily integrate your store with other sales channels.

Wix vs Shopify Marketing Features

Email Marketing

Both Shopify and Wix come with built-in email marketing capabilities to send newsletters to your list of subscribers.

Shopify recently introduced its email marketing tool, “Shopify Email” which allows you to mail up to 2,5000 subscribers per month for free.

Wix allows you to send three newsletters to 5,000 subscribers per month for free. If you need to send more messages you can upgrade to a paid plan to extend the limit.

Be aware that the email marketing functionality for both platforms isn’t going to be anywhere near what you receive from a dedicated email marketing service such as Klaviyo or Mailchimp.

If you want to unleash the full power of email marketing you’ll need to integrate one of these tools into your eCommerce platform.

SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) helps your business reach a highly-targeted audience.

Both Shopify and Wix come with SEO features built-in to the platform. They make it easy to edit meta titles and descriptions and attach alt text to images.

They will also provide further guidance with SEO best practices to help optimize your store even more.

One important thing to note is that both platforms don’t give you full control over your URL structure.

Shopify adds /page to pages, /collections to catalogs, and /product to product pages.

Wix adds /product-page to product pages.

At first glance, this may seem like a trivial matter however, URLs play a role in SEO as it has been shown that Google prefers shorter, cleaner URLs.

Ideally, your category and product pages would simply have the name of the page after the domain such as www.onlinestore/product-name.

This likely won’t be a deal-breaker for most, but if your business relies heavily on SEO, it’s something you’ll need to keep in mind.

Social Media Integration

If you’re looking to implement an omnichannel strategy it’s important to be able to integrate your eCommerce store with social media platforms and other online marketplaces.

Shopify has the edge over Wix in this regard as it makes it easier to connect your store to Amazon, eBay, Facebook, and Instagram.

Blogging

Blogs make a nice addition to eCommerce stores and allow you to reach a larger audience by using content marketing to provide valuable content to your potential customers.

The blogging functionality for Wix and Shopify is quite similar. Each allows you to create simple blog posts and RSS feeds are available for each platform.

Comparing Analytics and Reporting

Keeping track of your store’s performance is essential to meeting your business objectives. It allows you to see what is and isn’t working so you can make any necessary adjustments.

Both platforms provide easy access to Google Analytics to provide valuable insights into the actions customers are taking on your website.

Shopify offers even more built-in analytics features including:

• Stock levels
• Customer behavior
• Conversion tracking
• Live tracking

Wix provides a range of customizable reports to analyze the performance of your eCommerce store. This includes:

• Sales Reports: Details about your revenue and sales such as sales over time, sales by item, item sales over time, sales by coupon, sales by billing location, sales by transaction source, average order value, and more.
• Traffic Reports: See how people navigate around your site. Your reports display your traffic over time, by device, by country and city, and by landing page.
• Behavior Reports: How visitors are interacting with your site, what page they visited first, and what pages are viewed the most.
• People Reports: Who your site visitors, contacts, members and clients are. If they are new to your store and if they have placed an order.

Shopify vs Wix Customer Support

Good customer support is an important component of any eCommerce platform as it helps you quickly resolve any issues that arise when building or maintaining your store.

Both Shopify and Wix provide phone and email support, social media assistance, help centers, forums, and more.

One big difference between the two is that Shopify offers 24/7 support while Wix does not.

While Wix doesn’t offer round-the-clock assistance, you are able to get help in the editor. This means you can get support while building your store without having to go back and forth to a help center page.

Alternatives to Shopify and Wix

Shopify and Wix are both great options for building your eCommerce store but if neither is to your liking there are plenty of alternatives available. Here are are some of our favorites:

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a robust eCommerce platform providing the same extensive set of eCommerce features you’ll find with Shopify.

The platform comes with a few distinct benefits including more out of the box functionality, better SEO features, and easier integration with external sales channels.

If you need a scalable eCommerce solution for an established or growing business, it is worth checking out.

We have created a detailed review comparing BigCommerce vs Shopify so you can look at the platforms head to head.

SquareSpace

If design quality is an important factor for you, Squarespace is a platform worth checking out. It has award-winning designs that will help your online store stand out from your competitors. It also comes with a good amount of helpful built-in features.

The platform is a little harder to use than other eCommerce website builders as it requires a bit more creative skills.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is an open source eCommerce platform designed for WordPress.

The benefit of using WordPress for your eCommerce store is that you will have truly unlimited customization and the ideal CMS for blogging and content marketing.

There is a downside, however, as you won’t get the same dedicated support you receive when using a hosted solution such as Shopify or Wix.

If you have the skills to handle more of the technical aspects on your own, WooCommerce can be a good option for you.

Shopify vs Wix: Overall Winner

Wix’s Ecommerce plan provides some helpful features for those looking to create a simple store. It’s eCommerce features are not as rich as Shopify’s but it has a big advantage in being able to design custom pages with ease.

Shopify provides a more robust set of built-in eCommerce features to manage your product catalog and sell on multiple channels. It also provides a much larger selection of apps and integrations.

Ultimately, the right platform for you will depend on your particular needs.

Here are the primary reasons to choose one platform over the other:

Why Choose Shopify Over Wix

• Much larger selection of apps and integrations.
• Better dropshipping features.
• Easier to switch between themes (with Wix you need to rebuild the site from scratch).
• Better point-of-sale functionality
• Wider range of payment gateways.
• Fully responsive themes

Why Choose Wix Over Shopify

• Wix is less expensive than Shopify.
• The drag and drop builder makes it easy to build pages.
• Wix allows you to add more attributes to your products.
• Wix has less rigid URL structures.

Shopify and Wix each offer free trials of all their plans so you can test drive either platform and see if it works for you.

Start a free trial of Shopify. Start a free trial of Wix.

Shopify vs Wix: FAQs

Is Shopify better than Wix?

Shopify offers a more robust set of eCommerce features than Wix. If you’re looking to maximize the functionality of your eCommerce store, Shopify is a more viable option than Wix.

Is Wix Cheaper than Shopify?

When comparing plans head to head, Wix is cheaper than Shopify with their minimum eCommerce plan costing $23 per month compared to $29 per month for Shopify’s Basic plan.

Can I sell products on Wix?

Yes, you can sell products on Wix if you have a Business and Ecommerce plan. When you upgrade to a premium plan you gain access to built-in eCommerce features that allow you to list products and accept payments through your Wix website.

Can Wix use Shopify?

If you want to have the best of both worlds, you can use Shopify and Wix together. By adding the Shopify Buy Button to your Wix site, customers will be able to purchase products directly from your Wix website while you are able to handle all orders using Shopify. For this, you will need a Shopify Lite plan.