08/03/2022

Why You Should Migrate From Shopify to WooCommerce

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Do you think about moving your shop from Shopify to WooCommerce

Although it may seem like a daunting task, changing eCommerce platforms is much easier than you might believe to move products, customers, and orders to WooCommerce.

There is a way to make your migration easy and hands-free. No technical knowledge is required; simply connect the two platforms, and you’re good to go!

You’ll find out why WooCommerce is the best choice for your online shop and how to seamlessly transition from Shopify to WooCommerce.

Why is WooCommerce better than Shopify?

These are just a few of the reasons why you might consider switching from Shopify to WooCommerce.

You have more control over your store

WooCommerce gives you complete control over your website. You can customize your website as much or as little as you like because it’s open-source. You can make any store you like.

WooCommerce gives you complete control of:

Search engine optimization. Your search engine rankings are heavily influenced by the content and work that you have put into your website. WooCommerce lets you modify every aspect of your SEO.

It integrates seamlessly with WordPress, allowing you to publish consistent, high-quality material. The Coffee Bros have done a great job of integrating blog content into the online store. Customers can search for information on questions such as “What is the best temperature for coffee?” without leaving their site.

Integration of payment gateways. WooCommerce and Shopify both offer integration with major payment solutions. However, WooCommerce allows you to connect to niche payment gateways that may be required for international stores. See all payment gateways available with WooCommerce.

You can also choose WooCommerce payments for a seamless solution that streamlines the whole process. You can manage payments, disputes, and deposits as well as recurring revenue, from the same location you handle all your other site operations. Accepting payments on your website, as well as Apple Pay for one-click checkout, can reduce cart abandonment. You can also take advantage of instant deposits so that your money is in your account within minutes, rather than the two-day minimum required by Shopify. WooCommerce is your one-stop shop for everything money.

And unlike WooCommerce Shopify also charges additional transaction fees to all third-party gateways. You don’t want to reduce your profit margins after you have worked hard to create great products and market them effectively to new customers. Even small shops can lose thousands of dollars by charging extra transaction fees.

Backups. Shopify lets you export customer data and orders. However, you will need to pay a fee for website design and settings backups. WooCommerce offers several great, free backup options. Jetpack backup offers more functionality. You can store your files separately from your website and it can save all your order information in real time.

It is important to keep control of your online store as it grows. This will allow you to make the right decisions for your particular situation. You might need to upgrade your host to handle more traffic or offer advanced security options when scaling up your online store. WooCommerce allows you to choose any hosting provider you wish.

Unlimited flexibility and customization

WooCommerce’s flexibility is one of its greatest strengths. WordPress and WooCommerce both are open-source. This means anyone can modify, copy, or alter the source code in any way they like. Shopify, on the other hand, is closed-source. They retain complete ownership of their core code.

Open-source content management systems like WordPress allow for endless customization. Developers can create plugins and themes that serve specific functions. There are more than 54,000 WordPress plugins available that can be used to help you with design, functionality, and marketing. WooCommerce also offers an extension marketplace that contains over 300 add-ons specifically designed for online shops.

WooCommerce allows you to set up your store in any way you like, even if your products are complex or unique. These are just a few of the ways you can do it:

  • Take deposits from customers. Offer payment plans
  • Allow customers to mix and match products.
  • Selling your photos online visually pleasingly
  • On the Checkout page, you can add, edit and remove fields.
  • Offer product accessories such as upgrades, gift wrapping, and customization.

You can sell anything, from products and services to subscriptions, memberships, downloads, and bookings.

These are just a few of the WooCommerce-friendly businesses:

  • Phi Pirate Boat is a boat tour company that arranges themed trips on the Thai islands of Phi Phi.
  • PHLearn is a membership program that gives you access to a collection of tutorials and templates for the design.
  • TipoType is a font foundry that sells digital file licenses.

You can see more examples at the WooCommerce Showcase.

The integration between WordPress eCommerce and WooCommerce is a huge advantage when it comes to designing an eCommerce site. is a free WordPress block editor that allows you to create any type of design for landing pages or blog posts. In just a few clicks, you can add elements such as text, images, and videos to your site.

You can also find endless website templates, which range from customizable designs to drag-and-drop layouts for niche shops. Block Shop is a WooCommerce-specific theme that helps you align your online shop with your brand’s style.

Your site design can be as simple or complex as you like. These are just a few examples where WooCommerce has been used to create stunning designs.

  • AeroPress integrates custom animations into its homepage.
  • Flwr makes a statement with beautiful typography.
  • ShadowTrader offers clear, efficient landing pages that explain each trading option.
  • Magna Tiles displays product images in a fun and unique way.

Pricing can be more controlled 

WordPress and WooCommerce both come with a free domain name. You’ll only need to pay for hosting and any extensions. You can choose any provider, and you can mix and match extensions according to your needs. You won’t have to pay for functionality you don’t need.

For a detailed look at the costs of running a WooCommerce store, please read our WooCommerce Pricing Post.

Shopify charges you for the following:

  • Monthly plans. You could pay between $29.99 to $299 per month depending on the Shopify plan that you choose. You pay more for more features. If you want to live ship rates, the Advanced Shopify plan is for you.
  • Add-ons. Shopify add-ons can be purchased monthly. You would pay $14.99 per month ($179.88 annually) to have waitlists available for your products. These fees can quickly add up. This can quickly add up! While many WooCommerce extensions come free of charge, paid extensions may cost a yearly fee. For example, waitlist functionality costs only $49.00 per year.
  • Transactions. Shopify charges 0.5% to 2% per transaction if you use an external payment portal and any fees your payment gateway charges. These fees can quickly add up. Even if you only process a few transactions per day, this could mean that your store loses thousands of dollars each year. WooCommerce doesn’t charge any transaction fees. This allows you to keep more money in your pockets.

Shipping costs and Tools

Shopify allows merchants to charge shipping costs and print labels from their accounts. This includes discounts from USPS, UPS, and DHL. You will need an Advanced plan to be able to show live rates from carriers. This comes at a steep $299 per month.

WooCommerce has an extension called WooCommerce shipping. This extension allows you to print labels from your dashboard, and negotiate discounts with USPS or DHL. WooCommerce also allows you to show real-time shipping rates from carriers. This extension costs $79 per year.

The most important difference is that WooCommerce is focused on supporting small business owners and entrepreneurs. Although their core platform is free, they offer additional resources and tools such as WooCommerce Shipping at no charge.

It is important to keep as much money as you can when you start or scale your eCommerce business. WooCommerce allows you to invest your money in areas that will grow your eCommerce business and make it more successful.

There are many variations

Variations are the choices that customers have for each product. If you sell t-shirts you might offer red and blue in sizes XS to 3XL. Combining colors and sizes could create 28 variations.

Variations can quickly multiply depending on the products. You want your customers to be able to choose the best product for them!

Shopify restricts variations to 100 per product. You would have 153 variations if you sold men’s shoes in three widths (narrow and regular), standard sizes 6-15 (including the half sizes), and three colors. This would be more than Shopify can handle. WooCommerce allows you to offer as many product variants as you want.

Access to a tight-knit community

WooCommerce is a way to join a community of people who are eager to learn and grow. Each year, thousands of developers and site owners meet virtually in more than 400 cities across the globe. 

Hundreds of volunteers volunteer their time to create great software that powers the web. Contributor Day is an online and in-person event where developers and users come together to improve the platform.

This community also provides excellent support forums for WordPress as well as WooCommerce. You can post a question there and receive responses from many perspectives. No matter how simple or complex your situation is, someone is there to help!

WordPress is all about community and competition — everyone wants to see each other succeed. Welcome to the WordPress family! It’s a wonderful place to be!

How to migrate from Shopify to WooCommerce 

You might feel overwhelmed if you have an existing Shopify store and wish to migrate to WooCommerce. You don’t want any orders or customer data to be lost, so you want it to be seamless.

First, choose a hosting plan. Next, install WordPress and then set up WooCommerce. This guide explains how to do it in five steps.

These methods will not recreate your website’s design or content. Many premium and free themes can help you create any website you wish. The Storefront template is intuitive and flexible and has a variety of child themes to suit specific niches.

Hire one of our experts if you don’t have the time or desire to design your website.

You can safely and securely migrate your store data from Shopify into WooCommerce in several ways.

1. Manual import/export

Manually migrating products is easy and free, even though it can seem time-consuming.

  1. Shopify allows you to export and download product data.
  2. Navigate to WooCommerce Products in your WordPress dashboard.
  3. Select and click Import. You’ll see a built-in product importer which will simplify the process.
  4. Select File to select the CSV file you wish to import. Click Continue.
  5. The Column Mapping screen will appear. WooCommerce attempts to match the column names in your Shopify CSV file with WooCommerce product fields. Some of these may be necessary to map on your own. To do this, use the dropdown menus at the right of each row.
  6. Choose and run the Importer. Wait until the process is complete.

If you’d also like to import your customer and order data from Shopify, we recommend using either the Migrate & Import Shopify to WooCommerce or Customer/Order/Coupon CSV Import Suite extensions.

2. Hiring an expert

You can always hire someone to help you migrate your data.

We have compiled a list of WooExperts. All of them are highly-selected developers who work with WooCommerce frequently. You can filter your search by country to view profiles for each expert. Here you will find sample work as well as information about their pricing and previous experience.

3. Cart2Cart

With just three simple steps, the Cart2Cart extension allows you to migrate your store from Magento to WooCommerce. Demo Migration is available for free, so you can see exactly how it works.

The migration is done without the need for technical knowledge. Your Shopify store can continue to run in the background. You don’t have to worry about missing any revenue.

Here are some examples of data that can easily be moved:

  • Data about products, such as names, SKUs and descriptions, prices, weights, and variants.
  • Information about product categories, including descriptions and URLs.
  • Email addresses, names, and emails of customers
  • Information about your order, including dates, IDs and statuses, quantities, shipping details, and discounts.
  • Discount codes and coupon names
  • Information about blog posts, including titles, descriptions and dates, URLs, content, and images.
  • Titles, dates, URLs, and statuses for page titles.

Cart2Cart will create 301 redirects to all your URLs for an additional fee. This is extremely helpful in maintaining search engine rankings.

Cart2Cart

In just a few easy steps, you can complete your data transfer

  1. Connect your Source Cart, which in this instance would be Shopify. Just provide your URL and API details.
  2. Connect your Target Cart to WooCommerce. The required Connection Bridge can be installed manually or automatically on your WordPress website.
  3. Select the data that you wish to migrate. Match the data types you wish to move to the WooCommerce fields.

You can simply launch your migration and wait for it to complete. This period will vary depending on how large your website is. It’s that simple.

Security?

You want to protect your customer and order data. Cart2Cart does everything possible to make the process as safe as possible. To protect your data, the migrations are done on a dedicated server that uses SSL encryption.

Only Cart2Cart employees are authorized to view your login details. No data is kept after the migration is complete. They also guarantee that your data will not be disclosed to any third parties or used for other purposes.

What does it cost?

Pricing depends on how big your store is and what data you wish to migrate. The starting price for migrating up 1000 products, 500 customers, and 500 orders is $69.00. The price of your store may vary.

Upgrades are available to add any functionality, such as 301 redirects or blog post-migration.

Start the process of migration

You can move your shop from Shopify to WooCommerce quickly and easily, whether you do it yourself or hire an expert. This is a smart choice that will be appreciated by both your customers and your wallet.

WooCommerce is open to those who have completed the migration. We are excited to help grow your online shop and offer seamless customer service.

About the author

Kobe Digital is a unified team of performance marketing, design, and video production experts. Our mastery of these disciplines is what makes us effective. Our ability to integrate them seamlessly is what makes us unique.