Web Design & Development Blog

Both WooCommerce and Shopify are excellent eCommerce solutions and in many cases either will work just as well for you. But there are some differences. I admit that I’m biased in favor of WooCommerce due to the many available plugins that extend its functions and how WooCommerce is designed to allow customization. So I’ll balance my bias with some comparisons quoted from a few online sources.

There are a few ways in which you can customize the look of your theme. First of all, there’s the WordPress Customizer. The Customizer is found in the site admin’s left menu in Appearance > Customize and it, depending on your theme, allows you to change colors, widgets and other options. Secondly, framework type themes like Divi along with page builders allow for extended customizations.

Listed below are a few things you may want to consider when choosing a theme. Things like ease-of-use, backend skill level requirements, available design elements and plugin compatibility need to be considered. But the first and most important step is to decide what features you’ll need on your site.

Like WordPress itself, WooCommerce requires regular new feature and security updates. Those updates overwrite all the previous coding and that any changes you have made directly to WooCommerce are lost after the update. But there is a way to go about code customization without losing everything when you update.

Page builders are plugins that take the place of the default WordPress editor. They allow for a greater design control than the default editor. Page builders contain a variety of useful design elements like, quote sections, counters, accordions, flip cards, sharing, etc.. The also give you the ability to fine tune CSS elements either across the entire site or page by page.

WordPress itself and its plugins often require new feature updates and security updates. Those updates overwrite all the previous coding and that means any previous changes you may have made to WordPress and plugin coding are lost during the update.