Ecwid by Lightspeed vs. Shopify Plus vs. WooCommerce

Ecwid is absolutely perfect for any business that is looking to start out with online sales and mobile point-of-sale. Many times, business owners may have limited experience in setting up a website or point-of-sale. Having to spend on this expertise with a limited budget can be frustrating. Ecwid allows you to have great results even if you are a novice.

Incentivized

Shopify Plus makes order management simple and less error prone. Connecting our ERP allows us to seamlessly manage our product listings, fulfill orders, and sync customer data. Limitations to the number of product variants requires attention from our staff to make sure our products sync without issue. Other than being arbitrary, there's really no need to limit the number of product variants.

Incentivized

WooCommerce is best suited to customers whose website is built on the WordPress platform, and whose development team has a good understanding of plug-in implementation. If your website is not built on WordPress, but on Laravel or React (or any other non WordPress technology), then WooCommerce is not for you. WooCommerce is also great for customers who just need a simple online shopping experience. If your needs involve more complex or immersive features such as timed discounts, pick up locations, delivery reminders, or post shopping feedback surveys, know that you will need to purchase additional add-ons to make to get these features using WooCommerce set up on WordPress.

Incentivized

• Clarity - there has been very little confusion and need to reach out to Customer Support for help
• Consistency - no big, crazy updates or changes have been made to the format of Ecwid during my time using it, so I know when I log in to preform my business tasks I can always locate what I need and accomplish what is at hand easily
• Simplicity - everything is so clear and straightforward. It's like e-commerce for dummies.

• Syncs directly with ShipBob WMS.
• Shopify Scripts and the Script Editors allows us to tailor our checkout screen.
• Gives us advanced sales reporting, showing trends, performance, year to year, and even projections.
• Scalable for high volume, handles spikes in traffic without downtime.

Incentivized

• Free base package means I can use it when I need to and not pay for it when I'm not using it
• I can customize the e-commerce options and integrate the calendar booking
• Payment processing is quick and easy and I can choose my provider

Incentivized

• Recurring billing - ability to bill subscription customers without having to go to my payment gateway
• Robust order management - very limited in managing orders, therefore I had to subscribe to a different software
• Expensive customization - if you want to customize anything, it is very expensive

• When linking to our communication service some customers have several emails with orders and only one email generates orders. It would be nice if we could combine all of this information into one account.
• If a customer has multiple accounts you are also unable to edit the email address as it is already used, another reason merging accounts would be helpful.
• Some of the processes in Shopify are too easy to complete. I’m certain scenarios a peony of “are you sure you would like to complete(this action)” would be extremely helpful and avoid mistakes that are not reversible.

Incentivized

• Because of how the Wordpress database is structured, WooCommerce isn't great for large or complex e-commerce sites.
• More out-of-the-box options would be nice within the base software.
• Because add-on plugins are developed by 3rd parties, sometimes you get conflicts that break things.

Incentivized

The value given by Ecwid is unmatched. When combined with the ease of use of the product, it is a no-brainer to continue to use the product. The only thing that could cause us to switch is if some feature we needed which is not available which is unlikely based on the feature list we reviewed when making the decision to go with them.

Incentivized

Despite very rare glitches, more connected to an excessive number of plugins, that affect the speed of the site, we are extremely satisfied with the platform, the ability to import and export products, even though we just export them, as we have our proprietary system for updating inventories. We love the ease of upgrading, enhancing, innovating, and the freedom we have to do whatever we want, which is a plus, when you consider Shopify can take down your whole store as they please, if they think you aren't abiding to their TOS or their ever changing set of rules.

Incentivized

I gave a 9 instead of a 10 only because I haven't figured out a function or two. I believe it has less to do with Ecwid's overall usability and more to do with my own understanding and skill level, but regardless, it may also have something to do with the limits of Ecwid's functions.

It is extremely easy for merchants to get to know how Shopify Plus works. Comparitive to other platforms such as Magento and WooCommerce it is extremely lean and easy to operate, meaning clients who migrate over to it find it very intuitive to use. There is also a lot of guides and up to date information online

Incentivized

It is built on the Wordpress platform, so there are some quirks compared to a dedicated e-commerce product, but it is very intuitive and easy to use, especially for anyone with Wordpress experience. There are numerous great support articles and learning resources available. Significant customization can be achieved with plugins vs other eCommerce platforms, which may require more custom code and have fewer plugin options.

Incentivized

Always available. Very reliable

Good overall performance both in desktop and mobile

I have always received the support I need in a timely manner. I enjoy receiving emails every week on trending business topics and new suggestions. They often serve as a reminder for me to include new e-commerce tools into our strategy. And I've always had great experiences with reaching out to the support team with specific questions.

Always are quick to answer our questions and help us find a solution

Incentivized

not muh support

Fast and simple implementation of Ecwid's solutions. Easy to learn and navigate

We sell a product that requires certain controls to sell and most of the companies we researched had specific policies preventing us from selling on their platform. We aren't selling anything dangerous, they are parts of ammunition (the shell casings) and not entire ammunition rounds. Most other vendors restrict the sales of firearms and ammunition, but even when just selling a part used to create ammunition, we were still restricted. I'm not really sure why they restrict sales of products like ours from different vendors. Ecwid had no such restrictions and were happy to confirm that for us.

Incentivized

Shopify had the quickest go-to-market and most robust API among the products we compared. CommerceCloud required a VERY LONG integration phase that we just didn't have time for. BigCommerce fell short on the number of features and API coverage that we needed. Overall Shopify gave us the most bang for the buck.

Incentivized

We were pretty sure we wanted a WordPress site so that we had more control over the site itself, having been burned by third-party vendor sites before. The fact that WooCommerce integrates so well with WordPress was a big selling point for us. Magento would have been too heavy of a lift for our small dev team and we didn't want to rely on Shopify or BigCommerce (though all of those products could have their merits for other projects or clients).

Incentivized

Good scalability. I use the second plan and there are 2 more plans that I could use if I needed other features or services

• We have not been able to measure the ROI as of yet, as we cannot get out of the gate with customization required.
• It can be implemented quickly for basic online stores.
• Once the system is configured, ROI will dramatically go up.

Incentivized

• The pricing of Shopify Plus over the regular Shopify Account solution is about 10x if not 20x the cost. But with this cost comes the increased reliability and trust you have in your eCommerce Software solution/website. We still have a great ROI with the Shopify Plus Pricing.
• With Shopify Plus, we have been able to drill deeper into a more robust eCommerce experience for our customers
• With Shopify Plus, we have been able to customize our Website further with recommended apps, features, and customizations based on our Dedicated Account Reps expertise.

Incentivized

• Positive: low cost to start up, and allowed us to start selling right away.
• Negative: better plug-ins have a high cost of entry. For example if you want to do subscriptions you need a paid plugin for it.
• Positive: easily integrates with PayPal and Stripe.

Incentivized