Wix vs Shopify

Wix has a store in it. Shopify has a site around it. That sounds like a small distinction and it decides almost everything, including which one you will still be using in three years.

Selling as a feature, or selling as the product

Wix scores 5 for ease against Shopify's 4, and the store is one thing among many — bookings, marketing email and a blog are all part of the product rather than add-ons. For a business that sells a few things alongside doing something else, that is exactly right, and paying Shopify's prices for it would be silly.

Shopify scores 5 for room to grow against Wix's 3, and the reason is unglamorous: tax, shipping and inventory are handled properly rather than approximated. The moment you are shipping to more than one tax jurisdiction, or holding stock in more than one place, that difference stops being theoretical. Its app market also covers trades the core product does not.

Shopify scores 2 for value against Wix's 3, and the two cautions are specific: the promotional starting rate rises steeply once it ends, and using an outside payment processor adds a percentage to every order.

What you cannot take with you

Wix has no export at all. There is no way to move a finished site to another platform — not the content, not the pages. Shopify exports.

That is worth sitting with before choosing Wix for anything you expect to outgrow, because the exit cost is not a fee, it is rebuilding. Squarespace, Webflow and WordPress.com all export; Wix is the outlier among the larger builders here.

Wix answers with support: round-the-clock help is included on the cheapest paid plan, and a domain comes with the first year. Shopify staffs support around the clock too, so neither leaves you reading a forum at midnight.

Which should you choose?

Choose Shopify if selling is the business rather than part of it, or if tax, shipping and stock are already complicated. Price the payment-processing percentage before you commit.

Choose Wix if the shop is one part of a wider site, you want bookings and marketing email in the same place, and you can accept that leaving means starting again.