In the digital world, more and more sellers are shifting online to get noticed and increase reach. This has created a demand for companies that simplifies the process of shifting online. While there are many such companies, one of the most popular ones is WooCommerce.
Do you know that WordPress is an open-source content management system that almost 40% of people use to build their websites? However, the default installation of WordPress lacks some of the essential abilities, such as listing products, tracking inventory, accepting payment, and fulfilling orders.
Here content management systems, such as WooCommerce come to the rescue. They offer plugins that help to add all these features that a WordPress site lacks. But is WooCommerce the only option? Does it solve all the issues of a WordPress site? Are there good alternatives to WooCommerce? Why do we need to know the alternatives to WooCommerce? There might be some questions popping into your head.
Well, to answer all of them, this article will work as an overall guide. The article includes the advantages or features offered by WooCommerce and also why you need to know about WooCommerce alternatives. Finally, the article also includes a list of WooCommerce alternatives that could give wings to your business.
What is WooCommerce
Let us begin with understanding what exactly WooCommerce is? Established in 2008 as WooThemes, the company began focusing only on eCommerce after almost a decade. It is an open-source, flexible commerce solution built on WordPress.
Presently, the company enables large and small businesses to come up with sites that fulfil their needs and looks like the store they wanted to build. It is an all-remote company. The company began with three founders, in the United Kingdom, Norway, and South Africa.
Today the company has about 150 team members in 32 countries around the globe. The company is known to offer plugins to users that help them to add functions to their site.
Whether you want to sell furniture online or build an online bakery shop, it offers you every facility to do that. Now the question is, why do we need WooCommerce and its alternatives? The next section deals with it.
Features of WooCommerce
WooCommerce offers several features to its customers. Some of them are
A significant reason behind the popularity of WooCommerce is the
flexibility it offers to its customers. You can establish a store to
sell almost everything through this company, regardless of your niche.
Like many other companies, WooCommerce also offers customization
options. It allows you to come up with stores for specific products.
Moreover, it has many free plugins that help its customers to create a
website of their choice.
Every customer shops online only from trusted stores because they want
their credentials to be safe. So, WooCommerce offers that safe gateway
to its customers, who then offer this security to their consumers.
So, these are three key benefits offered by WooCommerce. Now the question is if a site offers the three significant features of a website, then why do you need Woocommerce alternatives? That is because of the gaps or loopholes of the sites on WooCommerce.
A significant reason why people look for alternatives to WooCommerce is
the themes offered by the company. Many people think that these themes
are outdated and useless for users. In simple terms, you can say that an
e-commerce website has several needs that this platform fails to cater
to.
One of the worst things that could happen with an e-commerce site is
configuration issues. WooCommerce takes up a lot of user space. This
sometimes creates a ruckus when you are arranging your hosting plans on
the platform. Because of this, many users are shifting to other
platforms to open an online store.
According to a blog titled How Loading Time Affects Your Bottom Line ,
by Neil Patel, co-founder of NP Digital and titled as top 10 marketer by
Forbes, almost 40% of users avoid a website that takes more than 3
seconds to show results or load.
The same blog mentions that a second delay in the loading time of a page
could lead to a 7% decrease in the conversion rate of users. Moreover,
if your site is making %100,000 per day and your site delays the loading
time by 1 second, you might lose $2.5 million in sales every year.
That is a lot to lose just because your site took 1 more second to load!
Although, earlier WooCommerce was known to give an excellent performance
to its sites. But in recent days, many users complain about the slow
performance of their site after using WooCommerce as their content
management system ( CMS).
For a small business owner, price is a significant factor when deciding
on their CMS. While most E-commerce sites make their website through a
paid platform only, WooCommerce is comparatively expensive. Moreover,
the plugins or add-ons offered by the company further accelerate the
price. While the consumers are not ready to sacrifice the price.
The coding of a site decides how the site will react to different
actions. Many consumers think that WooCommerce has ugly coding because
they face lots of issues while changing the settings. For people who
want to develop their site further through customization, this is a
serious issue.
Moreover, sites continuously require updates or a store might want to
grow according to its sales which might create an issue if they are
using WooCommerce as their CMS.
While security was one of the benefits of WooCommerce, it is now in
question. Nowadays, every website wants security so their site data
stays safe. With weak security, it is tough to prevent security risks
and manage productivity, disappointing the users.
This is happening with WooCommerce. The CMS, which was earlier strong
with security, is now considered comparatively more vulnerable and less
secure against hackers. So, you might need to compromise your website
data.
Plugins are a kind of feature or add-ons that enhance the functioning of
a site. You can enjoy various customization options and features because
of these plugins. The plugins are also known to enhance user experience,
making your site user-friendly.
Unfortunately, WooCommerce fails to offer updated or new plugins to its
users. Most of its plugins are outdated and might degrade the
performance of your site. This is a major reason why people avoid
plugins when they make a site through WooCommerce.
Almost every e-commerce platform needs to upload images. The images are
known to attract more traffic to the site, enhance user experience, and
bring more sales to the site. Most users avoid purchasing from a site
with poor-quality images.
Thus, e-commerce sites want premier quality images that add stars to their site. However, people using WooCommerce for their website building might fail to get good quality images as the size of images on WooCommerce is incorrect. This makes the uploaded image look weird.
So, these are some of the reasons why people look for WooCommerce alternatives. While the platform has garnered a good reputation, it fails to offer a smooth experience of maintaining and growing your business.
Sites made with WooCommerce feel dicey and stitched together. Also, you have to decide for yourself the plugins add. This sometimes leads to unsynced tools and many other challenges. If you are also trying to build a website with WooCommerce but fail to do so because of these challenges, here is a list of alternatives you might try.
List of WooCommerce Alternatives
While WooCommerce caters to the needs of almost every E-commerce site, there might be instances where it does not work as the best fit. So, in those situations, you can look for alternatives.
Here is a list of alternatives to WooCommerce.
1. Fynd Platform
Timeline
Event
Dec 2012
Shopsense came into existance in Diesel, Mumbai Which was an in-store customer engagement solution.
May 2013
Devoloped an agent-driven e-commerce platform, known as BigBazar Direct for future groups.
Aug 2013
Came up with monthly SAAS model and established Shopsense in Being human, Mumbai, Engaging 30%+ walk ins.
Jan 2014
Estabilished Shopsense in USPolo Assn, Flying machine, and Nike among others. Also, explanded Shopsense from being Human, Mumbai to Pan India.
March 2014
Beginning of Shopsense in Abu Dhabi and Dubai with Gioradno
Aug 2015
Shift from Shopsense, for in-store customer engagement solution, to Fynd, for Omnichannel store driven ecommerce
Jan 2016
Fynd launch, a store driven e-commerce in Mumbai
June 2016
Expansion of e-commerce channel of Fynd to Pan India, increasing store sales of top 20% brands
Jan 2017
Fynd Store Launched. It was an in-store Omnichannel platform, driving store sales of 12-15%
Sept 2017
Launch of Fynd open API in 120k retailers with Smartshop
Aug 2018
Jabong x Fynd launched with 10 brands for jabong luxe: Thomas Pink, Brooks Brothers, and Kate Spade among others
Sep 2018
Fynd powered web store launched with Bodyworks, Aldo, Bath, Roush, and Celio
Sep 2018
Uniket Pilot launched, Made place in 100+ cities of India
Jan 2019
Fynd x Amazon launched with Global Desi, Red Chief, AND, and Roush
May 2019
Fynd x Myntra Launched with Roush, Global Desi, AND, and Celio
Sept 2019
Fynd Platform launched with an e-commerce site for turtle
Jan 2020
Fynd x Tata CLiQ launched with Da Milano, AND, and Russo Brunello
Aug 2020
Fynd x Flipkart launched with Adidas, Globus, Killer, and Puma
One of the best overall website builder WooCommerce alternatives available in the market is the Fynd platform. Its story began in Dec 2012 with the name Shopsense. Here is a timeline to show the success story of Fynd Platform.
The key purpose of Fynd Platform is “to power delightful shopping experiences for everyone, everywhere”. Here are a few significant things to know about the Fynd Platform.
What is Fynd Platform?
It is a one-stop solution to help brands build an online store for their business, get access to economical or cost-effective delivery partners who can deliver products PAN India and globally, and take COD and online payments.
Features of Fynd Platform
Here are some of the features of Fynd Platform that make it one of the best WooCommerce alternatives.
For people who are amateurs in developing a mobile application, the Fynd
Platform is a blessing. It helps to build Android apps, websites with
custom pages, and IOS apps in less than 10 minutes.
This is a feature that makes it different from most other alternatives.
The platform supports multiple languages to cater for myriad audiences
globally.
The platform helps you to come up with unique solutions, generate ideas,
and build a user community of your own. You can also ask questions on
chat and forums.
The platform offers a quick help option that directs you to the training
videos of any feature present in the Fynd platform.
The development kits are easy to use and help to create custom themes
and pages.
For a successful business website, you need to offer multiple payment
options to your consumers. The fynd platform helps you to add various
payment modes to your application or site.
For an e-commerce site to grow, the most significant thing is to know
what your customer feels about you. The fynd platform enables you to
give multiple feedback options in your application.
Besides these, the Fynd platform offers a bundle of marketing tools in their offering. Some of them are email marketing, short-link generation, coupon creation, SMS marketing, influencer marketing, ratings and reviews, custom audience targeting, and NPS.
Ratings and Reviews of Fynd Platform
Here is a table that reviews Fynd Platform on different aspects.
