A "Website with Shopify"
Discussion
Hello all.
My wife seems to have tasked me with helping her friend set up a website for their business. I'm comfortable with this kind of thing in general, but they want to use Shopify for the ecommerce bit, and I don't blame them.
Along with the Shopify bit they also want a "normal" website, where they can blog, have an "about us" page, chuck in photo galleries etc.. In other words they also want a Wordpress site.
I know that there's Woocommerce, but I don't fancy it, and there's no way I'm going to talk them out of Shopify.
The question then is if there's any alternative to just using a subdomain and making Wordpress match the chosen Spotify template?
If there isn't an alternative (which I doubt) then is the best choice to just have their shop at https://theirdomain.com and Wordpress at https://blog.theirdomain.com
Thanks all.
My wife seems to have tasked me with helping her friend set up a website for their business. I'm comfortable with this kind of thing in general, but they want to use Shopify for the ecommerce bit, and I don't blame them.
Along with the Shopify bit they also want a "normal" website, where they can blog, have an "about us" page, chuck in photo galleries etc.. In other words they also want a Wordpress site.
I know that there's Woocommerce, but I don't fancy it, and there's no way I'm going to talk them out of Shopify.
The question then is if there's any alternative to just using a subdomain and making Wordpress match the chosen Spotify template?
If there isn't an alternative (which I doubt) then is the best choice to just have their shop at https://theirdomain.com and Wordpress at https://blog.theirdomain.com
Thanks all.
There is no reason why you couldn't copy the style onto a separate subdomain. E.G. Main domain points to Shopify and Subdomain points to Wordpress. Just change the A records.
I wouldn't recommend it though, it's best to have them on the same platform and WooCommerce will allow far greater control and ownership of the store in the long run. Once everything is on Shopify you can't migrate away easily, you can't host where you like, you're effectively stuck with them.
There is a plugin called WP Shopify that allows for the embedding of Shopify products on WordPress however I've never tried it. If they seriously don't want to move away from Shopify I would bite the bullet and build the site there too... As horrible as it may be.
I wouldn't recommend it though, it's best to have them on the same platform and WooCommerce will allow far greater control and ownership of the store in the long run. Once everything is on Shopify you can't migrate away easily, you can't host where you like, you're effectively stuck with them.
There is a plugin called WP Shopify that allows for the embedding of Shopify products on WordPress however I've never tried it. If they seriously don't want to move away from Shopify I would bite the bullet and build the site there too... As horrible as it may be.
Thanks for that, and I do most certainly see the advantages of WooCommerce and everything in one place.
I've just had a play with Shopify though and it does have blogging features and you can create normal pages so it will probably do what I need. However it isn't free and as you say, you're locked into it.
Seems it's therefore a straightforward choice between open source, host anywhere, do what you want or locked in to a well established ecosystem that will just work and handle all of the payment/shipping stuff a bit easier.
Cheers
I've just had a play with Shopify though and it does have blogging features and you can create normal pages so it will probably do what I need. However it isn't free and as you say, you're locked into it.
Seems it's therefore a straightforward choice between open source, host anywhere, do what you want or locked in to a well established ecosystem that will just work and handle all of the payment/shipping stuff a bit easier.
Cheers
despite the negativity above - Shopify is very good, it is really one of the two main options for running eCommerce sites of a certain size and will allow you to scale the business as needed - by the time you outgrow Shopify you should be making enough money to be able to afford to build a new site etc.
Wordpress and WooCommerce allows you to 'migrate away' but you need to ask whether that is something that you will ever need to do - in a scenario where you use that type of open source software you may well have a hosting company from whom you might wish to migrate - they would have no skin in the game from your using free software, so less incentive to provide appropriate support on hosting - very often businesses who choose free / openSource software also choose their hosting based on price, so you end up with results which are far from optimal...
Shopify on the other hand have an incentive to make the hosting work as it is a part of the whole service they offer, so there is less need to be concerned about being able to move from them...
Despite the fact that we make our money by providing websites and supporting our customers - I would still point them at Shopify (or BigCommerce) rather than wordpress and wooCommerce - we make less money as a result, but in 99%+ of cases it is a better solution for the business concerned - ultimately the need for the business is to have a simple solution which doesn't get in the way of builiding the business - wordpress and WooCommerce is a far more resource heavy system to use and businesses using it have a higher tendency to spend their time on technical issues, than on growing the business... at this stage of a business it should be all about bringing in the customer and making sales - everything else has the single purpose of supporting that process - and Shopify is a far better solution for that than wordpress / WooCommerce
As you mention - you can do the normal pages and blogging as well...
Wordpress and WooCommerce allows you to 'migrate away' but you need to ask whether that is something that you will ever need to do - in a scenario where you use that type of open source software you may well have a hosting company from whom you might wish to migrate - they would have no skin in the game from your using free software, so less incentive to provide appropriate support on hosting - very often businesses who choose free / openSource software also choose their hosting based on price, so you end up with results which are far from optimal...
Shopify on the other hand have an incentive to make the hosting work as it is a part of the whole service they offer, so there is less need to be concerned about being able to move from them...
Despite the fact that we make our money by providing websites and supporting our customers - I would still point them at Shopify (or BigCommerce) rather than wordpress and wooCommerce - we make less money as a result, but in 99%+ of cases it is a better solution for the business concerned - ultimately the need for the business is to have a simple solution which doesn't get in the way of builiding the business - wordpress and WooCommerce is a far more resource heavy system to use and businesses using it have a higher tendency to spend their time on technical issues, than on growing the business... at this stage of a business it should be all about bringing in the customer and making sales - everything else has the single purpose of supporting that process - and Shopify is a far better solution for that than wordpress / WooCommerce
As you mention - you can do the normal pages and blogging as well...
DSLiverpool said:
Wordpress blog with Shopify buy buttons ?
doable, and withe shopify api, (as you will know!) lots of flexibility...but, why complicate it - why add an inherently insecure system (wordpress) into the mix...
keep the tech as simple as possible and focus time, money & energy on sales
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