Angry Creative vs Competitors
WooCommerce vs Shopify Plus
Angry Creative has extensive experience with WooCommerce and has for several years gathered the smartest solutions in one package, Qala. With the Qala package, you get thousands of hours of development and optimisation right from the start – everything you could possibly need to get started quickly or scale your current e-commerce.
In this article, we compare Shopify Plus & Angry Creative’s Qala WooCommerce solution, what the possibilities are with each option and what aspects to keep in mind when it comes to making the right choice of platform for your e-commerce.
Qala WooCommerce vs Shopify Plus vs WooCommerce: Overview
Shopify Plus
WooCommerce
Qala WooCommerce
Ease of use
Shopify Plus: Easy to get started with, suits smaller to medium sized businesses. Many third-party apps needed to get the main & basic features.
WooCommerce: Technical knowledge needed. But with the help of a partner, there are no limitations with WooCommerce.
Qala WooCommerce: Qala is a well-developed solution that offers ready-made modules for your site, you add and customise content just the way you want.
Editorial content
Shopify Plus: Offers basic content creation features. This gives you a limited range of options when it comes to creating different types of content on your site. Shopify’s editing capabilities are similar to WordPress 3.9 from 2019, so they are about 5 years behind WordPress.
WooCommerce: Is based on a custom management system (CMS) that offers advanced editorial work with pages, blog, and all other content on your site, using the Custom Page Types (CPT) feature. But without experience, it becomes difficult to manage.
Qala WooCommerce: Even in Qala’s initial project, there are enough modules to make your project a success. You can create and customise the content exactly as you want, which is an important capability for any business, but especially crucial for B2B companies that rely heavily on creating customised and relationship-building content.
Costs & fees
Shopify Plus: $23,800/month for additional apps and add-ons. Shopify also charges a fee based on how much you sell. If you want to buy more sites from Shopify, it costs $25,000 for 10 sites. The cost can therefore quickly escalate as your e-commerce grows and your sales volume increases.
WooCommerce: Free to get started with. But without prior knowledge, you need a partner to help you develop the site.
Qala WooCommerce: Involves a slightly higher start-up cost that then goes over to a monthly cost of SEK 18,300/month, where everything you will need to develop and scale your e-commerce is included. If you want to buy additional sites, it costs £3,000 for 10 sites, making it a cost-effective choice when scaling up your e-commerce.
Customisation & Flexibility
Shopify Plus: Offers apps and themes but is quickly limited when you want customised solutions.
WooCommerce: Highly customisable if you have experience working in an open-source environment. You get access to tens of thousands of plug-ins and themes that offer flexible solutions for your needs.
Qala WooCommerce: You get access to ready-made modules that allow you to get started quickly, while you can customise everything based on how you want it.
SEO & Marketing
Shopify Plus: Has built-in SEO & marketing tools for beginners but requires premium add-ons for more advanced needs.
WooCommerce: You have the option to use more advanced marketing tools, but it requires extra add-ons.
Qala WooCommerce: You get the ability to do all the customisation you can think of around SEO.
Scalability
Shopify Plus: The ability to scale with Shopify is available but this comes with large additional costs in the form of more advanced apps, themes, and extensions. This often leads to unexpected costs as the sum is large when all the different costs are added together.
WooCommerce: You get the opportunity to customise your e-commerce according to your needs, but it can be difficult to implement without experience.
Qala WooCommerce: Qala is customised to handle very high loads. Qala contains unique components that are only available from us. We are also constantly working to improve the performance of Qala, something that you as a customer will constantly benefit from.
Sell internationally
Shopify Plus: It is possible to sell internationally for B2C companies but not B2B. However, there are restrictions on localisation, currency conversions and translation.
WooCommerce: WooCommerce allows you to sell internationally, but it’s a cumbersome process that requires a lot of extra extensions and features.
Qala WooCommerce: Multisite allows you to reach visitors from all over the world and our Geo-ip features guide them to the right place, whether you’re a B2B or B2C company.
Support
Shopify Plus: Shopify offers 24/7 support through multiple channels.
WooCommerce: There is no direct support from WooCommerce.
Qala WooCommerce: Offers ongoing support and a certain number of maintenance hours each month, depending on the package you choose.
Brief summary
Shopify Plus
Suitable for new and small businesses. You can start cheap with their entry-level plans, but the running costs quickly add up as your ecommerce business grows and you need to upgrade to Shopify Plus.
WooCommerce
You can get started on the cheap with WooCommerce, but as your e-commerce grows and more advanced features are required, you’ll need to enlist the help of an experienced partner.
Qala WooCommerce
With Qala WooCommerce, you don’t have to spend a lot of money on learning and growing pains. You get a ready-made framework with all the smartest solutions you could possibly need for your e-commerce.
Ease of use & content
Shopify Plus
Shopify is known for its simplicity, making it a popular choice for new users. However, this simplicity also means fewer customisation options, limiting businesses that want complete control over their website’s appearance and features.
Shopify offers a basic “pages” feature, where you can create simple pages with information that almost never needs to be changed, such as “About Us” or “Contact Us” pages. The only way to update your customers is by posting articles.
With Shopify, you have a limited space to move in when it comes to creating content in an agile way.
Qala WooCommerce
The Qala solution offers ready-made modules that allow you to get started quickly but also have the opportunity to customise the page exactly as you want. Even in the smallest Qala package, there are enough modules to make your project a success. With Qala WooCommerce, you also get access to the Custom Post Types (CPT) feature, a crucial feature that makes creating and structuring content on your site much easier. Here are the main benefits of CPT:
Organise and structure: The CPT feature allows you to structure your content, whether it’s a product catalogue, calendar or any specialised content, and present it in a simple and user-friendly way.
Custom fields: Custom posts allow you to define fields specific to your content. This allows you to capture and display additional information relevant to each post, such as a table of reviews.
Flexible content management: Custom posts offer flexibility in managing your content. You can create templates and archive pages tailored to each post, giving you more control over how your content is displayed and organised on your website.
Rank higher: With more customised and user-friendly content, your site is more likely to rank higher in search engines.
Better structure: It will be easier for you to create and structure content on your site, especially if there are several people publishing content at different times.
Crucial for B2B
The CPT feature is important for all types of businesses, but it’s crucial if you’re a B2B company where building good, long-lasting customer relationships is crucial.
Even if you don’t sell products directly from your website, it’s important that you optimise it with relationship-building content such as helpful product information, self-service, insights and automations. This type of content is easy to create with the CPT feature, which is not possible with Shopify.
Selling internationally
Shopify Plus
Shopify’s Market Pro is a feature that’s supposed to ease the process of setting up your ecommerce store to start selling internationally. While it’s a great option for some, it has several significant drawbacks.
For starters, you have limited translation features. You can translate your texts and product descriptions but not your slugs in all URLs.
When setting prices in the new currency, you have to use Shopify’s own conversion tool, which means Shopify charges a conversion fee of 2.5%. On top of this fee, Shopify also charges 6.5% on every international payment.
Market pro also does not support B2B orders. As a B2B business, you need to act as your own merchant agent, which means you need to register and pay taxes, arrange to accept local payment methods, and organise shipping and order fulfilment.
Qala WooCommerce
With Qala, you get access to multisite that helps you access visitors from all over the world, while the Geo-ip features guide them right.
Unlike several other platforms that may restrict users with fixed fees and limited functionality, Qala WooCommerce provides an open and customisable platform designed for global expansion.
Here are the main benefits of Qala when it comes to international sales:
Multiple domains, languages & currencies: You get access to multisite which allows you to create a large WordPress-based network of individual websites, where each site is customised according to the country you’re selling in.
Support for B2C & B2B sales: Qala WooCommerce is equipped to support both B2C and B2B sales with the option to customise the buying experience for enterprise customers. This includes custom pricing, volume discounts, and private stores.
Full control over your website: As an open-source platform, WooCommerce gives you complete control over your website’s appearance and function. This means you can customise
Costs
Shopify Plus
Monthly plan: $23,800/month
Cost of 10 additional sites: $25,000
Fees: Depending on your sales volume, the monthly cost can go up. If you sell more than $847,000, you’ll be forced to pay a portion of that through a revenue share model.
App and theme costs: Although Shopify offers a selection of free themes and apps, most businesses need to upgrade to premium themes and apps to customise their store and extend its functionality. These costs can add up, making it difficult for businesses with smaller budgets to carry out the customisation required as their ecommerce business grows.
Qala WooCommerce
Although Qala WooCommerce has a higher initial cost, you get a reasonable running cost. Then, as you scale your ecommerce, you get predictable costs that are also cost-effective compared to competitors.
Monthly plan: $18,300/month
Cost of 10 extra sites: $3,000
Fees: 1.1% transaction fee, following examples from our customers.
Scalability: As your business grows, Qala WooCommerce grows with you. Although the costs of hosting, more sites, and premium features increase as you scale up, these tend to level out
Predictable cost with Qala
The graph shows a cost comparison between Angry Creative’s WooCommerce solution, Qala premium, and Shopify plus.
The cost of the first 10 sites is pretty similar on both platforms. However, as you scale up and need more sites, the cost on Shopify increases significantly. Each increase of 10 sites costs $25,000 with Shopify, while with Qala WooCommerce it costs $3,000.
While the initial costs are similar, Shopify’s price quickly skyrockets and it can be difficult to predict the costs when you start to grow and want to scale your ecommerce business.
If you also compare Qala with a regular WooCommerce solution, it takes many hours to create a well-functioning and optimised e-commerce, which means that the cost quickly goes up. Qala means a fixed price, then you have everything you need.
Selling features and add-ons
Shopify Plus
While Shopify offers an intuitive setup and easy management for e-commerce stores, businesses that need to implement advanced features or specific integrations may be limited.
The platform’s marketplace offers a wide range of apps for extended functionalities, such as advanced reporting tools, marketing tools, and specialised checkout processes.
Qala WooCommerce
Qala WooCommerce equips your website with advanced selling features and flexible extensions. It offers innovative filtering and intelligent search functionality that makes it easier for customers to find products.
In addition, Qala provides customised modules that adapt your site to your unique needs, as well as a wide range of payment options to facilitate smooth transactions
Shopify Support
Shopify Plus
Support: Shopify offers 24/7 support through multiple channels, including phone, email, and live chat, ensuring help is available when you need it.
Community: An online community of both users and developers who share tips and advice. Shopify also has a comprehensive help centre and forum.
Shopify Academy: Free educational resources and courses to help business owners grow their online presence and sales.
Qala WooCommerce
Support: We’re constantly on the lookout for potential issues and optimisation opportunities. We also handle the maintenance of your site every month and make sure everything is working properly. As a customer, you can make ongoing suggestions for things you want to improve or fix.
Constant innovation: We are constantly innovating to make Qala better. As a Qala customer, you will continuously benefit from the innovation that has become our hallmark.
Scalability
Shopify Plus
Shopify offers a scalable platform, but in some cases it can be limiting depending on your needs and budget. The platform allows for quick updates and easy addition of new functionality through an extensive system of apps and integrations.
A significant barrier to scaling with Shopify is the lack of a multi-site architecture, which limits the ability to effectively manage multiple brands or international stores under one platform. This limitation can make managing assortments and promotions across multiple stores time-consuming and intensive, which is a disadvantage for businesses aiming to grow and expand globally.
Qala WooCommerce
Qala offers a range of features that enable expansion and streamlining, including multi-site architecture.
Since WooCommerce 8.2 was released in 2023, you now also get access to HPOS (High-Performance Order Storage), a feature that offers a more efficient database structure optimised for e-commerce needs, making it easier for stores of all sizes to handle an increased volume of customer orders without compromising performance.
For businesses planning to expand by either increasing their product offering, entering new markets, or offering more complex customer experiences, Qala WooCommerce’s scalability is a key factor.
If you are interested to know more
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