Ecwid or Shopify, which one is better for you in 2023?
Read this in-depth Ecwid vs Shopify comparison to make the best decision for your store.
If you want to sell your products online, you must know the importance of an eCommerce platform is paving the way to success for your business.
This is because an eCommerce platform helps you reach a greater audience and drive them to your store, increasing the store’s security, performance, speed, along with tons of essential eCommerce tools and features.
But the real hurdle to it, is a large pool of eCommerce platforms, each of them framing themselves as best. An eCommerce merchant, like you, gets confused and overwhelmed with this. Many eCommerce businesses now accept cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum which you can mine at Rollercoin, and Litecoin, as payment for goods and services. This provides customers with an alternative payment method beyond traditional fiat currencies. For this, you need to compare the platforms against numerous categories.
That is why, we have put together this comprehensive comparison between Ecwid and Shopify, comparing them along with different aspects including e eCommerce features, template library, ease of use and customizability, pricing, customer support, integrations, and much more.
So stick around, if you want to make a wise decision for your store and business.
In a rush? Read the summary of our in-depth Ecwid vs Shopify comparison.
Comparison At a Glance
Ecwid is a plug-in that can be seamlessly integrated with any website or social media platform, you already use to promote your business. It introduces eCommerce tools and features on an existing site allowing you to sell products, thanks to its ease of use, features, and affordable pricing.�?
Shopify is an all-in-one solution that lets you build a feature-laden website from scratch as it provides a wide range of strong features, affordable pricing, flexibility, a huge app market along with an impressive template library, tons of customizability options, and much more. All of it, so you can build an attractive storefront for any business type.
1) eCommerce Features:
Winner: Shopify. Shopify lets you build a feature-laden online store and business website while Ecwid is far behind Shopify in this aspect.
2) Template library:
Winner: Shopify. Shopify has an enchanting template library with tons of editing options while Ecwid offers no templates.
3) Ease of use and customizability:
Winner: Shopify. Although Ecwid is easier to use but does not even come near to customizability by Shopify. Shopify with its advanced functionality still proves to be intuitive.
4) Pricing
Winner: Tie. Ecwid is cheaper and has a free plan with no transaction fee whereas Shopify offers a much better feature-set, lesser payment processing fee, and twice the number of payment gateways.
5) Integrations
Winner: Shopify. Shopify provides an enormous app market containing thousands of apps compared to a limited number of apps by Ecwid.
6) Customer Support:
Winner: Shopify. Both provide various support options but Ecwid is limited in many aspects giving Shopify an upper edge.
Ecwid Vs Shopify: Short Verdict
Shopify clearly wins the Ecwid vs Shopify comparison as it takes the lead over its competitor in the majority of categories. Shopify provides much greater creative freedom and tons of customizability options, impressive customer support, reasonable pricing structure, intuitive dashboard, fascinating template library, and a huge app market.
On the other hand, Ecwid is easier to use and has a free plan, but its customizability options and features are limited and have no template library as well.
1. eCommerce Features
Features are the core of running an online business. Let’s see who encompasses better features between Ecwid and Shopify.
Ecwid’s Features
Ecwid, unlike most big eCommerce platforms like BigCommerce, Shopify, and others, does not let you create a complete business site, instead, you can integrate it with any website to introduce eCommerce features into your existing website in seconds.
Other than that, you can also integrate your store with several other sales channels like Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp, eBay, Amazon, etc.
A decent choice of eCommerce features can help you sell your products efficiently. You can, for instance, add 10 to unlimited products depending on your plan, sell digital, physical products as well as subscriptions for recurring income, set up product collection or categories, and set different variations of the product.
In addition to that, Ecwid also provides abandoned cart recovery to pull back customers, inventory management, dropshipping features through integrations, and enables you to set shipping rates.
Ecwid, however, turns out to be great when it allows you to sell files up to 25GB, as opposed to 5GB allowed at Shopify. Ecwid provides unlimited bandwidth and is Level 1 PCI DSS compliant as well.
The highlight of the show is the ability to turn your online store into a mobile app (only on the highest tier plan). Yes, Ecwid provides you with a native mobile app making it easy for your customers to buy from anywhere anytime. Ecwid mobile makes it easier for you to manage your store on the run with the help of a couple of features.
Furthermore, it gives you an opportunity to reach a global market by translating your store into 45 different languages. Once the store is set, marketing and SEO tools help grow your business.
Ecwid offers email marketing features in higher plans along with email templates and also has a built-in tool to send automated emails to customers. Additionally, you can offer discounts and gift cards to generate greater sales.
On top of all, Ecwid now also boasts an “Instant Site”, for those who already don’t have a website. It’s a one-page storefront featuring your products alongside your business info. But still, it’s not feature-rich nor an alternative to a proper business website, like the one at Shopify.
Commendably, both of these platforms provide POS features letting you sell in physical locations or retail outlets, however, Shopify has better well-rounded POS hardware including the Lite plan, while at Ecwid you get it only on the Unlimited plan. Moreover, at Ecwid, third-party services are required to access POS functionality.
Now let’s take a look at what Shopify brings to the table.
Shopify’s Features
Shopify is ranked as one of the top eCommerce platforms in the market. That is why it does not easily lag behind any platform in terms of features.
It is feature-laden providing you with all the eCommerce features needed for a successful eCommerce business. It not only allows the selling of physical, but also digital products, memberships, subscriptions, and videos.
Unlike at Ecwid, Shopify is generous by allowing unlimited product listing. It also lets you simply form product categories and set up three options for each product along with the ability to set different prices for different variations of the same product.
With even the Shopify Lite plan, you can access email abandoned cart recovery options, which at Ecwid comes with higher plans.
Amazingly, Shopify also lets you build a full-fledged Business website and even Blog, as it comes with a strong blogging functionality and CMS. It even comes up with a mobile app with plenty of impressive features to manage and run your online store.
If you are willing to sell on the international market, that would not be a problem at Shopify as it can translate your store into more than 50 languages and convert the prices into 133+ different currencies.
Furthermore, Shopify has great inventory management features, while it automates tax and import fee calculation, provides unlimited bandwidth, free SSL certificate, free shipping, ability to set shipping rates, 3D assets and videos on product pages, and even dropshipping on Shopify is simple through integrations like Oberlo.
Shopify also gives you an opportunity to sell your stuff on different well-known marketplaces and social media platforms like Amazon, eBay, and Facebook to boost your sales.
With that being said, it also provides dozens of marketing and SEO tools to promote your products. Shopify offers an in-house marketing system with email templates as well. You can generate sitemap.xml, and offer gift cards and discounts.
SEO features at Shopify offer greater flexibility where you can, for instance, edit alt text of images, set meta tags and titles, 301 redirects and much more.
If this wasn’t enough, Shopify also made sure that you can easily keep track of your business in detail. For that, it provides you with in-depth stats, analytics, and reports of your online store, which includes conversion rate, customers’ location, top pages and products, traffic, sales, and much more.
Furthermore, POS features at Shopify are praiseworthy which lets you handle multiple functions like facilitating exchanges, defining staff roles, working with an unlimited number of POS staff, etc.
To cut the long story short, Shopify is miles ahead of Ecwid as it provides all kinds of features whereas Ecwid is limited in this aspect. Moreover, Ecwid’s nicer features are mainly available at expensive plans.
Winner: Shopify
2. Ecwid Vs Shopify: Template Library
Templates make your storefront attractive and the store development process efficient and easier. So pay attention as we tell you whether Ecwid or Shopify offers better templates and editing options.
Ecwid works as a plugin, not a store builder, therefore it does not come up with a template library. It comes with a set theme that integrates with your existing website, automatically aligning itself with the theme of your original site. This means it will be consistent with your website like having the same colours as your existing website.
When it comes to editing, you will only get basic editing options like the ability to change the size of images to “Small, Medium, and Large” only instead of actual ratios.
But to get access to significant editing, you have to delve into CSS. Through CSS, you can also create your own theme from scratch, which, however, requires a command over the coding.
Now let’s take a look at how Shopify stacks up against Ecwid in this category.
Shopify, on the contrary, provides a top-notch and elegant template library containing more than 70 eye-catching and professionally designed themes to help you create a storefront that appeals to your customers. But only 10 of these templates are free while others are premium, where you often get a free trial as well.
You can search for the theme easily and select the one you adore, as these are neatly arranged into numerous categories such as Sports, Health and Beauty, Arts and Photography, and many others.
Each template comes with different promising features depending on the industry to go for like dedicated features for restaurants. Moreover, you are provided with an option to preview the templates that go through their details before finally selecting them for your full-fledged eCommerce store. Commendably, these are even mobile responsive so they will automatically align themselves with different screen sizes.
When it comes to template editing, you can make use of its intuitive drag-and-drop editor to give it a unique and distinguished look. It gives you a lot of control over how your storefront looks with its editing options, as you can edit every part of your theme.
Moreover, each template comes up with different theme settings allowing you to customize the template without coding. Some of the editing options include changing typography, colours, logo, sections, slideshows, banners, homepage layout, and much more.
For a more granular level of control over editing, you are allowed access to HTML and CSS. In addition to that, You can even hire a Shopify professional designer to design a unique template for your store.
In reality, there is no match between the two in the aspect of templates as Shopify comes with an impressive template library and editing options and opposed to no template library at Ecwid.
3. Ecwid Vs Shopify: Ease of Use And Customizability
Ease of use is a common concern among eCommerce merchants while customizability is essential for an attractive and unique storefront.
Ecwid comes in one of the top priorities when looking for a simple and beginner-friendly interface that appeals to all user types.
The control panel is straightforward with not much to learn. Even a beginner, without a doubt, will have an easy time navigating through the control panel and its functions. The functions are arranged systematically on the left panel while the right side is allocated for their corresponding functions.
The main selling point of Ecwid is its quick and easy setup process letting your store up and running in just a few clicks. You can get started for free without worrying about hosting. Just entering the email and password would lead you to the backend interface.
Now you simply need to fully integrate Ecwid to the backend of the system you use for your website, like WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, or Joomla.
Ecwid also walks you through this flawless process so you can get on with adding products. Adding a new product is very simple, where you also get an option to import products from another eCommerce platform. Along with the image, you fill in the product name, description, SKU, price, and much more.
When it comes to customization, Ecwid store design mainly depends upon the theme of your existing website as it automatically adapts the site’s current theme. But still, you can make changes through its visual editor, but that is only capable of very basic tweaks on your storefront- and that’s it.
The changes are saved automatically and are instantly updated in your store. All the customization options are actually pre-determined so you are way too restricted.
The basic options allow you to change image size, product page layout, category name position, align your content, manage sidebar, enable or disable options like product card frame, colour adaptation, “Buy Now” button, footer menu, and others. And that’s about it; no more customization options.
To customize your storefront, you will need to dive into coding or rely on third-party editing apps. Coding CSS eventually becomes a necessity at Ecwid whereas at Shopify it’s a pleasant bonus feature.
Is Shopify going to win this round? Let’s find out.
Shopify, at first, may seem to be daunting, but the reality is quite different. It is also easy to use and user-friendly, as it deals with tons of features and lets you build a complete fully-functional online store or a business website, yet proves to be intuitive.
The onboarding process at Shopify is also a matter of a few clicks and you don’t need to worry about hosting or updates as Shopify is a hosted eCommerce solution.
Shopify does not leave you alone, rather chooses to guide you throughout the process. Moreover, you will find the Shopify dashboard is well structured and easy to understand. In addition to that, it automates multiple time-consuming tasks making your work pretty efficient.
The process of developing your online store is straightforward, starting with selecting an enchanting theme and then customizing it via dozens of designing and customization options. Amazingly, you won’t even need coding here to create a mesmerizing and unique storefront.
Shopify comes up with a drag-and-drop editor which lets you drag different blocks, sections, forms, and place them on the canvas with ease.
Furthermore, you can also customize all the elements- such as header and footer, collage, headings – with detail, by simply selecting them, and editing them in real-time. Additionally, you can also customize colours, pages, shopping cart, layout, checkout, collections, typography, and much more.
Ecwid users can only dream of such customizability and creative freedom that Shopify provides without the need for any technical expertise. Shopify, additionally, even gives access to HTML/CSS for complete creative freedom, making it a system easy to use for both beginners and experts.
In summary, Shopify prevails over Ecwid as Ecwid does not even come close to customizability and creative freedom provided by Shopify while Shopify is also quite user-friendly considering the functionality it offers.
Winner: Shopify
4. Ecwid Vs Shopify: Pricing
Once you have discovered the features that you will get, it’s time to know how much you will have to pay in return.
Ecwid offers a forever-free plan, which is quite impressive. This will allow you to easily start selling online for free and explore the system before jumping into the premium versions.
However, it comes with several limitations which include the limitation to enlist 10 products, only email support, along with no product variations, advanced SEO tools, app market, gift cards, and inventory tracking.
Other than the free plan, Ecwid provides 3 premium plans (starting at 15/month). Each of these plans adds up to the features in the previous plans with the most expensive one unlocking the complete suite of Ecwid eCommerce features.
The details of Ecwid pricing plans are as follows;
<Ecwid pricing plan>
Ecwid supports around 40 payment solutions including PayPal, Square, and Stripe.
It does not charge you any transaction fee but Ecwid does not have built-in payment gateways, so the payment processors will charge processing fees which, fortunately, will get less with higher plans, thanks to the discounts by Eciwd. Additionally, you can also accept payments through cash on delivery or wire transfers.
There are two payment methods; monthly or annual. You can choose to go with any, but with the annual plan, you get a 17% discount on the total price, cutting down your total expense.
Now let’s plunge into the pricing structure of Shopify.
Shopify, on the other hand, does not provide a forever free plan, but it lets you start for free without entering the payment details. Once its 14-day trial is over, you can choose from its different pricing plans whichever you deem fit for your store and business. It offers 3 plans (starting at $29) along with 2 additional plans known as Shopify Lite and Shopify Plus.
Shopify Lite lets you sell your products at such a low price with access to plenty of eCommerce features and tools like Shopify interface, sell-in-person, etc. It actually allows the users to add a “Buy Button” to their existing website to make sales and accept payments.
Shopify Plus is geared towards the needs of large businesses and merchants and comes with advanced features like high security, a dedicated account manager, and much more.
Following is the detail of Shopify pricing plans;
<Shopify Pricing plans>
Shopify does not charge you the transaction fees until you use its in-house payment gateway. Otherwise, you will need to pay transaction fees in a range of 0.5-2% depending on the plan, on top of the processing fee when using other third-party payment processors.
But Processing fees at Shopify is comparatively lesser than at Ecwid. Moreover, you also need to factor in the credit card rates.
Shopify provides access to over 100 payment gateways to choose from making it easy for your customers. Furthermore, it also allows you to accept cryptocurrency and cash on delivery.
You have three ways to pay for your plans. You can either pay on a monthly, annual, or biennial basis. In the case of the yearly and 2-year plans, you will get a 10% or 20% discount respectively.
In conclusion, they both are affordable in their own ways. Ecwid offers free and cheaper plans with no transaction fee but does not provide the functionality of a fully-functional online store that Shopify does. Shopify provides a lesser payment processing rate and more payment gateways.
Winner: Tie
5. Ecwid Vs Shopify: Integrations
Integrations are essential to increase the functionality of your store by many folds.
Ecwid boasts an App Market where you can find dozens of apps, tools, and add-ons, to help extend the functionality of your store. These integrations are neatly organized and divided into various categories including Shipping, Accounting, analytics, dropshipping, marketing, etc.
Notably, for store Design, you get Looka Logo Maker, template monster, Store Designer, and many others. Likewise, ShipStation, Easyship etc are available for Shipping while the likes of Printful and Spocket are for dropshipping. Most importantly, Zapier is also available for access to tons of other integrations.
Like in Shopify, some of these are paid while others are free. With the paid ones you also get a free trial to check them out before buying. The Ecwid App Market is great, but it only provides around 150 apps, which is quite laughable when compared to Shopify’s enormous App Market.
Now it’s time to jump to integrations of Shopify.
Shopify provides a huge app market brimming with integrations, apps, add-ons, and extensions. The integrations sum of over 3000 which are perfectly divided into numerous categories such as store management, marketing, merchandising, conversion, store design, etc.
Not only this, but these are also then categorized into subcategories and further sections making it easy for you to find the right one.
In such a diverse store, you can find any integration you can think of. Some of these are developed by Shopify as well, while others are offered by third parties.
For example, you can have Oberlo, Sprocket, etc for dropshipping, Facebook channel, Booster SEO, Privy, MailChimp, for marketing and SEO, or Quickbooks for accounting, and likes of Printful and Printy for print-on-demand. Furthermore, it even allows you to integrate with eBay, Amazon, Walmart, WordPress, and even Zapier.
In brief, Shopify prevails over Ecwid as it offers thousands of apps in integrations while Ecwid only offers a limited number of integrations.
Winner: Shopify
6. Ecwid Vs Shopify: Customer Support
Now is the time to see who wins the Ecwid vs Shopify customer support comparison round.
Ecwid comes with a large Help Centre that contains numerous comprehensive articles meant to solve the problems you face and to guide you through the store development process. The articles even contain videos and pictures for your better understanding. Moreover, these are divided into several categories for ease of browsing.
Besides the Help Centre, Ecwid also provides access to blogs, Ecwid 101 guide for beginners, community forum, video tutorials, FAQs, guides, and Ecwid Academy for you to learn and enhance your knowledge on a few more topics through its free courses. That’s all about the self-help resources.
But if you want to reach out to their support team; email, live chat, and call-back services are available. However, these are limited to Monday to Friday, while ensuring the team gets back to you quickly (within 24 hours to even email).
Let’s take a look at how Shopify is going to face Ecwid in this category.
Shopify lets you access its huge Help Centre that contains tons of articles neatly divided into various categories. This knowledge base is the largest resource and the first thing you should turn to when facing a problem, as it’s most likely that you will get your answers right there.
But it does not end here. Shopify also dispenses video tutorials, FAQs, webinars, blogs, podcasts, business courses, guides, different social media platforms, and a business encyclopedia. All of these self-help resources not only solve any issue you may face but also provide you with invaluable information on a wide range of business and eCommerce topics.
Additionally, access to an incredible community forum is also granted so you can ask your product experts and fellow sellers to help you out.
Moreover, Shopify also comes up with numerous technical support options that are 24/7 email, live chat, and a call-back service. Furthermore, Shopify’s technical support is available in many different languages, whereas Ecwid is limited in this aspect.
In short, Shopify wins the round. Both provide whatever you need, but Shopify has more and better self-help resources, whereas Ecwid is limited in support timings, languages, and support options are also limited in lower plans.
Winner: Shopify
Final Verdict
Both Ecwid and Shopify are eCommerce giants with a wide range of eCommerce features, but they differ in many ways. If you already have a running website and you just wish to add some eCommerce flair to it without coding, then Ecwid, without a doubt, turns out to be a better option. It is easier to use, comes up with free and other cheaper plans, amazing customer support, along plenty of basic eCommerce tools and customizability.
On the contrary, Shopify is an all-in-one eCommerce platform, best for those who want to create a full-featured online store from scratch. It comes up with tons of robust and advanced features, affordable pricing, an intuitive dashboard, enchanting template library and outstanding customizability options, impressive customer support along with an enormous App market. In conclusion, Shopify is the indisputable winner of the Ecwid vs Shopify comparison.
