A client approached us after years of using Shopify wanting to know if they should stick with it.

Shopify is a very good platform. It has millions of users. It is easy enough for just about anyone to use.

And that is the big reason why we recommend against it.

Yes, for the sake of full disclosure, we develop and manage some Shopify-based websites. But it is not the best. The best is a WooCommerce based store on the WordPress platform.

How can we make such a statement?

We’re not just developers, we’re merchants. We sell stuff online too. We deal with orders, customers, shipping and making everything we sell findable online.

And we rescue a lot of businesses who fall for what Shopify, GoDaddy and other “do-it-yourself” web builders are selling.

What’s worse is that most of these platforms are now selling AI solutions, deepening the belief that a successful store can be built with simple clicks.

No. Save yourself time and aggravation by resisting this. We wouldn’t have clients if this was even remotely true.

The fact of the matter is this: if you want to be into serious sales you need to invest beyond the money, time and easy solutions so many offer out there. They can build just about anything. But because they do does not mean that YOU customers are going to go to it and buy from it.

Once the reality that a ready-made templated based store doesn’t converts sets in that is when a real business learns quickly that they have wasted their time.

It begins with the customer. It ends with the customer. Nothing that GoDaddy or Shopify offers is focused on your customers. It is focused on selling you.

Does that mean we or other experienced developers can’t get a Shopify site to convert.

Of course we can. We just have to go undo what the creators and users of these sites have set up.

What’s the secret of making a Shopify or GoDaddy site convert?

It’s Google. The secret is the same no matter what platform or builder you are using.

But Shopify isn’t engineered to satisfy Google. It is engineered to sell YOU. And once they soak you for $200+ per month for a site you have to set up you’re in it so deep you never get to Google yourself.

Google has been telling us all along how to build a website.

Google doesn’t do this because they love you. They do it out of self-preservation.

The way Google stays in business is by relentlessly chasing good and accurate information on the Internet. If they don’t provide their users with accurate results they lose business.

That’s one reason why I’m predicting AI is going to take market share away from traditional search like Google – and hand it right back to them again.

ChatGPT, Claude and a now endless selection of AI-driven search is changing the way people look for things. And the sad reality lost in the hype is that AI is not producing accurate search results. It’s hurting Google now as the fad peaks, but Google is going to eventually win because they are zealous about accuracy.

The four pillars of online presence, as Google has for years taught us are experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness.

Those four pillars have ratings attached to them through Google algorithms that every website chases. And frankly, a slap-together template-driven world by Shopify and GoDaddy just doesn’t play that game.

Why?

Because they are designed to sell websites and services – not YOUR products and services. That is something Shopify and GoDaddy and Elementor and countless other website vendors just cannot offer.

They can’t because that’s your job.

Many businesses we work with are businesses that were successful long before the Internet came around. Most avoided the Internet and then jumped to only when they found out they were losing sales to it.

That same cycle repeats as businesses fall the cheaper and easier options of GoDaddy. Just get it done cheap and because it’s the Internet, it’s going to “go viral”.

What does a business do once they realize nobody is coming to their website and it’s not turning sales?

They turn to the same kind of solutions in marketing that they fell for in building the website. Whatever is cheap or free, quick and self-sustaining is what they want.

Kids, that doesn’t exist. Stop the cycle. Get real help. Get someone who listens to what Google has long told us about experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness.

What is needed to succeed in those pillars of Google?

You need time, understanding, lots of competitive research and a structured approach based upon your existing business footprint, your growth projections for new customers and your plan to overcome competition.

Translation? It takes work and it take money. There are no cheap, easy solutions.

What does a Shopify user pay to do this versus a WooCommerce site user?

It’s the same, kids. The platform, at the end of the day, is going to lead to costs that are similar. The difference is how and what was is done in the details.

Most of the time, we will recommend to companies building their websites to start with WordPress and WooCommerce. It powers better than 40% of the web and an even bigger percentage of ecommerce. Major brands use it. Go ahead, Google it. We don’t have any skin in this game. Nobody is paying us to endorse one or the other. This is coming from decades of using WordPress.

If a client comes to us with a Shopify site we’ll still recommend they convert it to WordPress. But, if they feel that is too big a shock for their existing customers, or for whatever reason they don’t want to do it, we’re fine with that. At the end of the day, we’re going to steer towards Google’s pillars.

Selling online is hard. It’s a fight. It’s just like selling offline.

What did you do you get your present selling physical location? What do you have to do to get customers to walk in the door? How many thousands of customer interactions and transactions did it take to build your business offline? What do you have to do to keep those customers coming back?

All those questions and more you need to ask for business online. It’s not going to happen online if you do less than a do-it-yourself solution.

Just like your offline business you need to learn how business online. That takes time, that takes developing some street smarts and it means pretty constant investment.

Most businesses find that to be hard because they have their hands full just trying to be the best they can at what they do.

Doing your website right is part of that.