You have a great product, inventory and are ready to sell it to the world.  You know exactly how you want your online store to look, but you have no idea which platform to use.You have spent a lot of time and energy making your brand great so which platform will help you convey this to the whole world on the Internet?In this post, I will attempt to compare the Squarespace to Woocommerce (Wordpress.Org open source plugin) and Shopify (Wordpress.org paid plugin).  Over the weekend I did quite a bit of research on them to help 2 different clients decide.

Squarespace

Pros: 

• All Site Templates are Responsive and Customizable
• Drag & Drop Builder
• Integrated Inventory Management
• Automatically Share Items to Social Media Accounts
• Coupon Codes & Customer Promotions
• SEO-friendly
• Blog Included
• Easy hand off of control from designer to client for maintenance
• 14-Day Free Trial with no credit card needed

Cons:

• Lacks advanced features for expansion.
• Pictures have to be of highest quality to get the same look and feel of template placeholders.

Woocommerce - Wordpress.org Free Open Source Plugin

Pros:

• Huge Selection of Themes
• Completely Customizable
• Huge selection plugins specifically for e-commerce (free and Paid)
• Includes features for expansion
  • Searchable areas
  • Membership page options
• SEO-Friendly
• Ability to change CSS files
• Social Media Plugins
• Blog Included

Cons:

• Need to know code to customize templates.
• Takes hours to set up website and customize template.
• Time spent sorting through templates and determining how much you would like to spend on it.
• Time to determine which SEO plugin to use.
• Hosting costs, template costs, plugin costs not included in monthly package
• SSL Expenses to prevent security risks
• Requires Updates
• No Tech Support

Shopify - Paid Wordpress.org Plugin

Pros:

• Free 14-Day Trial
• Easy Set Up
• Nice Themes
• Free plugins
• Good Tech Support

Cons:

• If you have more than 25+ products the monthly package is almost double the price of Squarespace and doesn't include the transaction fees.
• Free themes are limited, paid themes are $80+
• Limited Blog features
• Limited SEO

Final Thoughts

If you are just starting out and have less than 10 products then Squarespace is the best option for you.If you are comfortable with code and plan on offering several products and variations within a year of opening your store then Woocommerce is the right option for you.If you are short on time, are willing to invest a bit of money into the features and have several products that you are offering then Shopify is the right option for you.One of my customers wants to use Woocommerce and the other wants to use Shopify.  I'll let you know how it goes in future posts.Let me know in the comments below which one you prefer! :)Still confused about which platform is best for your e-commerce store needs?  I'm happy to help.  Contact me at hello@epartnersmarketing.com.