Google Domains vs. Shopify

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Domains
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
N/A
$12
per year
Shopify
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Shopify is a commerce platform designed for both online stores and retail locations. Shopify offers a professional online storefront, a payment solution to accept credit cards, and the Shopify POS application to power retail sales.
$29
per month
Pricing
Google DomainsShopify
Editions & Modules
.com
$12.00
per year
.net
$12.00
per year
.org
$12.00
per year
Shopify Lite
$9
per month
Basic Shopify
$29
per month
Shopify
$79
per month
Advanced Shopify
$299
per month
Shopify Plus
2,000
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google DomainsShopify
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google DomainsShopify
Considered Both Products
Google Domains
Chose Google Domains
I didn't do a ton of research into the differences between the two, but Google Domains was a lot more simple and straightforward to set up. They also have a cheaper price and provided some services to walk you through setting it up much more quickly and logically. GoDaddy's …
Shopify
Chose Shopify
Shopify easily holds its own against some of the top eCommerce and web design sites on the market today. It's affordable and definitely worth the price. Set up is straight forward and easy to understand.
Chose Shopify
Shopify is superior to almost every other tool we've tried. The only downside would probably be the price is a little higher than other tools. Mojo was a very basic tool that looked terrible and delivered an archaic experience for our customers because all payments had to be …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Google DomainsShopify
Online Storefront
Comparison of Online Storefront features of Product A and Product B
Google Domains
-
Ratings
Shopify
7.4
131 Ratings
4% below category average
Product catalog & listings00 Ratings8.6131 Ratings
Product management00 Ratings7.2129 Ratings
Bulk product upload00 Ratings7.6110 Ratings
Branding00 Ratings8.4130 Ratings
Mobile storefront00 Ratings7.4126 Ratings
Product variations00 Ratings6.3123 Ratings
Website integration00 Ratings9.2124 Ratings
Visual customization00 Ratings7.5129 Ratings
CMS00 Ratings4.4105 Ratings
Online Shopping Cart
Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of Product A and Product B
Google Domains
-
Ratings
Shopify
8.1
125 Ratings
7% above category average
Abandoned cart recovery00 Ratings7.6116 Ratings
Checkout user experience00 Ratings8.5123 Ratings
Online Payment System
Comparison of Online Payment System features of Product A and Product B
Google Domains
-
Ratings
Shopify
9.0
127 Ratings
8% above category average
eCommerce security00 Ratings9.0127 Ratings
eCommerce Marketing
Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Google Domains
-
Ratings
Shopify
8.0
129 Ratings
7% above category average
Promotions & discounts00 Ratings7.2124 Ratings
Personalized recommendations00 Ratings8.432 Ratings
SEO00 Ratings8.5120 Ratings
eCommerce Business Management
Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Product A and Product B
Google Domains
-
Ratings
Shopify
8.0
130 Ratings
2% above category average
Multi-site management00 Ratings6.719 Ratings
Order processing00 Ratings9.1128 Ratings
Inventory management00 Ratings8.8127 Ratings
Shipping00 Ratings8.2120 Ratings
Custom functionality00 Ratings7.1120 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Google DomainsShopify
Small Businesses
Shopify
Shopify
Score 8.8 out of 10
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Shopify
Shopify
Score 8.8 out of 10
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google DomainsShopify
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(22 ratings)
9.0
(144 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.2
(15 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(3 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(3 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google DomainsShopify
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
[Google Domains is] very simplistic and easy to use, so it's very straightforward to register a new domain but it doesn't have some features that other services provide. Also, the integration with other Google Services and domain search tool is amazing.
Read full review
Shopify
Shopify is a great platform for small to medium-sized businesses looking to set up an online store. It's easy to use, offers a wide range of features and integrations, and is perfect for businesses in the retail and food industry. However, large enterprise businesses with complex and custom needs may find Shopify less suitable.
Read full review
Pros
Google
  • Process of buying a domain with Google Domains is easy
  • Payment was simple - can use Google Wallet and other forms of payment.
  • After purchase, you can quickly build a website with one of their partners.
  • Email forwarding add-on for free.
Read full review
Shopify
  • It is definitely easy to set up and get going. This does not take a lot of work or effort on the user end, especially if using templates.
  • Low code platform. You can. make customizations without code.
  • The integrations are diverse and increase functionality.
Read full review
Cons
Google
  • Google Domains is pretty good at pre-solving email faux pas such as reply all mishaps. Perhaps a built-in email monitoring tool such as knowing when a customer opens up an email would be good. You can get these features with integrations, but what if it was an internal Google product? Might be nice
  • Email masking was a bit difficult to figure out, but nothing you can't discover with a few Google sessions.
  • I wish I could see more insight into time zones that my customers are in, or scheduling calls on Gcal with timezone awareness. I know this is super hard to code around though.
Read full review
Shopify
  • The main drawback that I am facing in Shopify for a long time is that their sales analytics system is not up to mark. As I am using Shopify to run different stores for my organization it does not get updated after-sales and does not provide the right analytics about the product strength and number of sales.
  • Secondly, Shopify has different apps which are best to run the store on max strength but they are very much costly like inventory management, generating multiple discount codes, and more robust customizable editing.
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Likelihood to Renew
Google
Unless the product goes away, I'll continue using it.
Read full review
Shopify
Nothing we have used in the past or have seen thus far even comes close to offering what we get with Shopify Plus, especially for the price. You cannot even come close to getting what we are getting at the price we pay. We are beyond thrilled and Shopify Plus meets and exceeds all of our needs and expectations. We love it!
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Usability
Google
When on desktop or mobile, the minimalist design and functionality of Google Domains is welcome. Because we use Google Workplace, the integration is simple. Management is fast and easy, and it offers on-the-go ease. Google is very consistent in its user interfaces and usability, so there’s no wasted time in a new learning curve. And the price is right
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Shopify
I think most people are able to suer Shopify that have used a computer. There are some features that take a bit longer to learn. If you are not a creative person it may be a bit more difficult to learn the website customization, but with a help guide or tutorial it will only take a few tries to understand how to work the interface
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Support Rating
Google
I've never actually had to use support because everything has been very straightforward and I have not had a glitch. I have used Google's support for other items so I can only imagine that it's probably the same support which is decent. They do take a while to get back to you.
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Shopify
In terms of support I give Shopify a 9 out of 10 because they're always very friendly and thorough, and they personally can't solve my problem for me they always point me in the proper direction with the proper information I need to move forward
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Implementation Rating
Google
No answers on this topic
Shopify
Just start now and make the switch, the sooner the better. You will love it and it is really a simple process
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Google
GoDaddy is great, but what I really like about Google Domains when compared to GoDaddy is the ease of centralization. Our email, calendar, accounts, domain, etc was all handled in one place and that made things really easy. You could also access domains easily and quickly by being logged into your email, instead of worrying about yet another log in.
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Shopify
The old platform that I used could not help us to meet our requirements. It was not helping us properly, then I got to know about Shopify and started using it. After 1 month [of] usage of Shopify we could understand that this is the best platform [for E-commerce] to make better sales and goodwill. Shopify helped us to get a proper idea of the analytics of the website. Shopify [supports] most of the [applications] and helps us to make better results.
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Return on Investment
Google
  • Being able to host my URL with Google Domains is one less thing I have to worry about in my writing career.
  • I'm sure having my URL, which is my name, with Google Domains also helps people find me via Google's search engine.
  • Its ease of integration with other Google products, especially Google Apps for Business, is a huge plus for marketing and day-to-day work.
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Shopify
  • It got the store up quickly so the client could start selling. She was previously selling products on Etsy and Facebook and wanted to consolidate everything onto one website, so the main thing Shopify solved was to reduce the store owner's time in managing all her products on multiple sites. Also, we had previously built a website on Wix with all the custom functionality and branding she needed - a truly great, high-end website - but it performed so slowly that it was unusable. So the speed at which Shopify can be set up and then works on the page is appreciable.
  • The website was manageable by the client - she could figure the system out herself after a while so she saved money on costs for hiring developers. She did have to hire developers to customize some of the plug-ins but costs are all relative; it wasn't a high investment compared to building a full e-commerce website. With the complexity and size of her product base and the functionality and branding she wanted to have in a website, and the potential of her business, she would have needed to invest well over $10,000 to get to where she really needs to be. In the end she kept the budget under $5000.00.
  • Costs kept climbing with plug-ins having to be added with everything. My client became more involved in building the website and began to try multiple plugins, and she did not have the skill base to evaluate the plugins functionalities so she chose plugins that did not do everything she needed, and then ended up paying the plugin developers to customize the plugins. So on one hand, it's pretty amazing to be able to bring up an e-commerce website as quickly as a week or so, but on the other hand if you need anything customized or deeper functionality in regards to product searching and filtering on the web page, and management on the backend, it quickly goes beyond the skills of the average person to manage, and above their expected budget as well. In the end my client really did not get anything close to the functionality for the website we had originally envisioned.
  • Shopify was the easiest way we could find to bring the client's products to a global market. We evaluated several other platforms and the functionality simple did not seem to be adequate, so Shopify seemed like the only solution that could do enough of what we needed and still stay within this client's budget. Really the problem in this project was not platform per se but that the budget wasn't large enough. Shopify managed to provide a solution for an ecommerce store with thousands of products on a tiny budget, so in the sense of pure functionality it provided the best value of all the platforms we evaluated. The solution still isn't big enough for this client's business though so, without having insights into this client's post-build sales results, my guess is that because her new website did not make her products easier to sort through, and she likely didn't have much more budget left to invest in SEO and other marketing of the website, her sales probably didn't increase substantially as a result of having built the website. So I think this project all in all did not likely have a high ROI.
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ScreenShots