Which is the Best CMS for My E-Commerce Store? (Part II: WooCommerce)
Part 2: WOOCOMMERCE
Everyone knows or at least has heard about Wordpress. Wordpress (www.wordpress.com) is an open-source platform for blogging. It’s a CMS that really made blogging popular during the early growth of the internet. Wordpress I think was among the pioneer in CMS platforms when the internet was young. With the advent of e-commerce websites, Wordpress rolled up its own version which is called, WooCommerce (www.woocommerce.com). However, in comparing Wordpress with today’s competitive CMS in the market available today, I highly discourage anyone from using it for many reasons below. In this article, we talk about specifically WooCommerce, which is the e-commerce CMS within the parent Wordpress CMS environment.
Ease of Use (6/10):
It is very difficult to use. It has a steep technical learning curve. You would need to understand and be comfortable with working with evolving technology and codes and be able to update and troubleshoot the many random issues that may come up after every new core platform and plugin updates, including updating your database versions on an even more technical side of things. Having built several websites in Wordpress or to be specific, WooCommerce, I found myself wasting valuable time figuring out how and why parts of my website broke down after core updates when it was working before. For example, every update of WooCommerce would affect some plugin I use for my site, and I would need to figure out which one is the culprit causing the issue. A plugin would generally break because the author is no longer updating them after each WooCommerce core updates. Yikes to security! If you fail to update your WooCommerce site with the latest updates, this includes the plugins you use, you can find yourself getting hacked by bots that would affect your data, and rename your user customer list as an example. Who knows what other security risks and havoc these malicious programs do. I just think that as an entrepreneur with limited time, resources and budget, I would prefer spending more time doing marketing and sales, than figuring out how to fix your online website because a plugin or update caused something on your website to break. Even with a technical person at your disposal, they will find themselves continually troubleshooting technical issues that come apparent in Wordpress / WooCommerce. If this happens a lot, generally it does, be ready for a huge bill! I also would like to stress out to anyone to avoid Wordpress especiallyif you are a non-technical person.
Design (7/10):
Wordpress / WooCommerce design is great. It’s built to be customizable like Shopify so you can select the service plugins you want and need for your e-commerce website. Additionally, you can customize and activate specific paid plugin service features as needed. This was the reason why I chose WooCommerce from the beginning. It’s got a huge library of plugins that does just about anything. However, be warned, the more plugins you use, the more your site slows down and the more the chances of plugin conflict issues occurring that will break your website. Customization can easily be done if you have a developer on hand. But this proves troublesome I think because, after every WooCommerce / Wordpress update, the code we used would break at some point after every core platform update. Complete headache!
Features (8/10):
The best feature I can think of for Wordpress / WooCommerce is that it’s free! However, don’t forget you also need a web host for it, so you’ll have to pay for that. Another big feature I like about it is the many plugins you have at your disposal which I mentioned above. Although WooCommerce is free, I’d rather pay extra for the ability to talk to a support person online like Shopify, than have me talking to developer Wordpress / WooCommerce forums for assistance.
Scalability (9/10):
Like I said before, Wordpress / WooCommerce is an amazing CMS with a plethora of plugins that you’ll find to do just about anything. You’ll just need to find them online and if there’s any need for more customization, you can simply hire a developer to do this. The drawback of course with working from any complex customized programming is that it may eventually break with new updates and releases of Wordpress and WooCommerce, and you’d need to reach out to the programmer again for them to update it. Small customizations should be fine, but anything complex, expect that to break soon in the next CMS update. You’ll also find it more difficult to continually update codes if the original developer becomes unavailable, and you’ll need to be able to communicate issues and iterate them to the next developer you work with. This is a lot of work and is highly inconvenient.
Support (5/10):
Support is terrible when it comes to open-source software. There isn’t a person you can talk to over the phone when it comes to troubleshooting issues about your website. (Unlike Shopify that has 24/7 Phone support.) You’ll need to find a developer to be able to pinpoint and fix issues for you which can cost you money. Support from open-source programs generally happens in public community forums that are moderated by volunteers. It is this place where you’ll need to post your issues and concerns and hope someone with the same experience and answers will step in to help you. Be careful not to post your domain name and contact information because once it’s posted, it’s up there on the internet. And you don’t want your customers to discover your website issues of course as it looks unprofessional. Again, it’s just easier to hire a developer to troubleshoot and fix issues for you but this will cost you money, and even way more money when the website breaks again which it often does for Wordpress. Now if you happen to figure out that the issue is plugin-specific, then, of course, you’d contact the developer of the said plugin. Generally, the purchase of a plugin entitles you to their support team, but I’ve often found myself playing cat and mouse whereby the developers of the said plugin will tell you to check the plugin first and turn them off to make sure the issue is not on their end. So you can imagine how frustrating this is especially if you don’t have the patience and skills to perform all this technical investigation. All in all, just hire a developer and let them worry about fixing any website issues as it happens. Expect a lot of money burned in this area.
Pricing (9/10):
Pricing is great for Wordpress/ WooCommerce because it’s totally free as open-source software. The only thing you’ll need to pay for is the hosting of your website which can range from $3 to $50+. Now as someone new to creating e-commerce websites, of course you don’t need to pay for the state of the art web hosting, especially if you’re a totally new or unrecognized brand. You won’t be making any sales as much if not at all, so you’ll be focusing more on brand building. The only time you’ll also need to pay is when you scale up your web hosting service features like paying for more bandwidth, or storage space, and also when you feel upgrading your plugins to paid features become necessary. Really there is hardly any cost to using Wordpress / WooCommerce if you know where to look for free plugins. Web Hosting is really the monthly expense you’ll need to worry about at the beginning.
FINAL SCORE: 73%
Woocommerce
This open source (free) e-commerce platform is ideal for tight budget and technical savvy entrepreneurs. It’s definitely scale-able and it offers a huge selection of apps that can be added to expand your business instantly. Being an open source software - its biggest downside is its Support service. If you need help, you’ll need to do some manual research and/or reach out to the community for answers. It relies heavily on volunteers and active community members to provide solutions to platform issues and bugs reported by the community. So don’t expect high quality support. Finally, free as it may sound, it is really not, because you’ll need to find a good web host provider to host your Woocommerce online store, and if you’re not careful, your free apps can stack up on cost.
About the Author:
Allen Ray Sales is an e-commerce consultant for E-Com Fashion (www.e-comfashion.com). He brings in over 7 years of e-commerce experience working in the fashion, accessories, and luxury industry. He brings in e-commerce and technology experience from working for several high profile retail brands. Additionally, his multi-disciplines in fine arts, graphic design, evolving internet technologies, and digital marketing, gives him a unique creative edge and talent for building businesses and luxury brands in the e-commerce space.
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