WooCommerce vs Shopify: when each one wins
A short framework for picking between the two before the project brief even finishes.
We get this question on every ecommerce kickoff call. The answer almost always falls out in the first ten minutes of conversation.
Pick Shopify when
The catalogue is under a few hundred SKUs, payment is the only complex flow, and the team wants to stop thinking about hosting. The Shopify trade-off is real - you rent your store - but for most brands the velocity is worth it.
Pick WooCommerce when
You already have a WordPress site doing real content work, the catalogue has unusual variants, you need bespoke checkout logic that Shopify Plus can't reach without a fight, or your margins literally can't absorb 2-3% in transaction fees forever.
What we don't say
"It depends" is the honest answer to a lot of stack questions. It is not the honest answer to this one. The two products solve different problems. We have moved several clients from Shopify to Woo and back the other way - the failure mode was always picking on price instead of fit.