Learn Why Your Online Store Should Not Run on WordPress
Your eCommerce platform choice strongly affects your business
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WordPress is one of the most popular website platforms in the world. While its primary feature is a set of blogging tools, users can also create regular website pages. WordPress has thousands of themes and plugins available to customize the look and function of a site. Of course, since WordPress is so popular and versatile, people often choose it when opening an online store for the first time. Unfortunately, this is where it starts to fail. Real success in eCommerce requires a large set of purpose-built tools that fully integrate with each other and with the platform the site is built on, and WordPress doesn't have that advantage — instead, its eCommerce features are spread across hundreds of third-party plugins that don't always work well with each other.
Unlike WordPress, Shift4Shop was created solely for eCommerce websites and comes with hundreds of built-in features for building an online store and selling to customers everywhere. With Shift4Shop, you'll never have to page through thousands of plugins to hunt for one that will do what you need without breaking anything else. A blogging module is included so you can still keep your customers informed without sacrificing your online store's potential by sticking to WordPress. As your business grows, Shift4Shop grows with you, supporting all levels of business far above what a WordPress-based online store can accomplish. Sell online, in person, and everywhere with the ultimate online store builder.
Crucial eCommerce featuresWordPress is a blogging platform first, and everything else is secondary. To get the features you need to support a growing business, you'll need to find a shopping cart plugin, analytics plugins, accounting plugins, and so on — all of which are developed by third parties that could disappear at any time, crippling your online store. You'll have to spend days choosing the plugins that work well and are compatible with each other. But Shift4Shop brings all the most-needed eCommerce tools together right out of the box, and offers far more selling power than WordPress ever could.
Online store design made to sellWordPress may have a huge theme selection, but you'll run into the same problems you do with plugins: which themes are compatible with the plugins you need to use? Which include extra features? Can your favorite theme even be used with the online store plugins you've installed? It's extremely common for WordPress users to need to backtrack, replacing themes and plugins when an incompatibility suddenly wreaks havoc. With Shift4Shop, store design is much easier: choose from a large and growing selection of free store templates that work for you and for your customers.
"I wanted to use WordPress for my online store because it looked easy, and I'm not that tech-knowledgeable. I installed a popular eCommerce plugin and it seemed fine. But I didn't even know what features I was missing out on, I've never sold online before, so I wasn't aware of the missing pieces. Every time I found out about a feature I wanted, I had to search for plugins for hours and I had no idea which to use. Waste of energy! Just use something like Shift4Shop where all the eCommerce stuff is included. It has a blog too!"
– Ex-WordPress User
Hosting and securityWordPress is free software, which is another reason why so many people gravitate to it. But when it comes to website creation software, "free" often has hidden meanings. If you use WordPress, you'll need your own web hosting where you can install the software, and you'll need an SSL certificate, both of which carry fees. You'll also need to choose powerful hosting that can withstand the traffic your store gets, or risk your website going down during its busiest shopping periods. But with Shift4Shop, your hosting, software updates, and security are all taken care of behind the scenes. All you need to do is build your store and run your business, and our free plan really is free — it's all included and powered by Shift4 Payments.
Shift4Shop's infrastructure has the strength to support as many products as you need, and as many visitors as you can get, without your store slowing down or even going offline at a crucial time.
The resilience of your WordPress site depends on both your hosting and the plugins you use. Even with a high-powered web host, WordPress stores simply can't handle a large number of products.
Build and manage every aspect of your eCommerce business in Shift4Shop's dashboard, from web design to inventory tracking to returns and customer interaction. Everything you need is included in an intuitive, understandable layout.
Most WordPress plugins, and even some themes, have their own setting panels that can be completely different from the layout you're used to working with — and you may not even know a plugin won't work until after it's installed.
