Is Shift4Shop the Best Zoovy Alternative for Your Business?
Compare Shift4Shop and Zoovy to discover which is the right eCommerce software for your needs
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Zoovy, Inc. was founded in 2000 by Brian Horahk, and based in Carlsbad, California. Over the course of the next 10 years Zoovy grew to include features for product management, marketing, multichannel sales, and more. Development of Zoovy stopped shortly after 2010 and the platform faded into obscurity, with no updates to their social media and no news. CEO Brian Horahk moved on to other ventures, but the Zoovy website is live, so the platform's current status is not known.
Shift4Shop is a feature-rich eCommerce platform serving businesses of all sizes in a wide range of industries across the globe. Offering an unmatched free eCommerce solution, the company provides everything you need to start — and grow — your business. This turnkey eCommerce experience includes powerful tools to help businesses succeed — a robust website builder, product and order management, customer marketing tools, and more. Customers can choose from dozens of professionally designed, industry-specific templates, all of which are mobile-friendly, SEO optimized, and highly customizable.
A smart business owner always looks at all their options before starting a new endeavor. When you're going into eCommerce, this can be a stressful time for decision-making since there are so many platforms available. In fact, between online marketplaces, open-source eCommerce software, and hosted eCommerce platforms, there are hundreds of potential solutions to choose from. When your budget is tight, or you have a very specific business plan in mind, you can find yourself wanting to compare as many platforms as possible — even the most obscure ones.
If you've come across Zoovy in your search (or perhaps once used it during its heyday circa 2010), you may be wondering if it's the best solution to build your online store. It's true that Zoovy was once an innovative platform, with multichannel sales and inventory tools, among other features that were rare at the time. Unfortunately, Zoovy has fallen behind with a complete lack of updates since then. In fact, Zoovy has shown so little activity that it's uncertain whether the platform has a future at all. Their social media has been dormant since the early 2010s, and their website was down for a significant period of time. It's unclear as to whether Zoovy is even available for the creation of new accounts.
Today, you're best off going with Shift4Shop. Shift4Shop has all the features of Zoovy and more, including robust inventory management, multichannel sales tools, a full suite of eCommerce marketing and SEO features, and much more. As your business grows, you can tap into powerful eCommerce automation tools to help you manage and optimize your day-to-day operations, along with hundreds of other features to streamline your workflow and build your brand into the successful business you've always envisioned. While Zoovy may have been left in the past, Shift4Shop represents the future of eCommerce.
FeaturesWhile Zoovy's range of features were impressive in 2010, the platform hasn't updated since around that time, meaning it's missed out on over 10 years' worth of new eCommerce technology. But Shift4Shop is constantly keeping an eye on all emerging eCommerce trends, new advancements, and the evolving demands of online business owners. Shift4Shop now has hundreds of built-in, enterprise-grade features, far outshining everything Zoovy has to offer.
PricingZoovy does not offer any pricing information on its website, so you can't browse and compare plans or get any idea as to whether Zoovy will fit your budget. However, Shift4Shop makes all this information readily available, including complete lists of features. But that's not the only way Shift4Shop comes out on top: we also offer a completely free, unlimited plan with all our features included! To access this End-to-End eCommerce plan, you simply need to use Shift4 Payments as your payment provider. This free plan is unique in the industry and fully scalable for any size of business.
"I ran an online store with Zoovy back in the day but had to close that business for unrelated reasons. This year, I decided to start another online business and I remembered Zoovy, so I looked them up. What I found was really discouraging. Their website is still up but it looks like nothing's been updated in years and I couldn't even tell if they were operational. I looked for another platform with the same features and found Shift4Shop. It's perfect for what I need and it's very actively updated. Goodbye, Zoovy."
- Former Zoovy Store Owner
SupportZoovy offers only a single support channel: an email address with an unknown response time. There's no phone number, no live chat, and their social media hasn't been updated in years. If you need to get in touch with Zoovy, you're in for a challenge — but Shift4Shop is always available to help you via phone call, email, live chat, Facebook message, Twitter, and more. Our team is fully based in the US and can be reached 24/7, every day of the year including holidays.
The design of your online store serves multiple purposes: it must reflect your brand through colors and other design choices, it must work perfectly on all devices from desktop to smartphones, and it needs to provide customers with an easy and pleasurable shopping experience. Let's compare Zoovy's web design with that of Shift4Shop to determine which platform is best for reaching these design goals.
It's hard to judge the quality of Zoovy's web design since there is no gallery of default themes available to choose from, but the age of the platform (and the quality of their own website) suggests that Zoovy's web design is behind the times. Their site is not mobile-responsive and uses design conventions that are over 10 years old. Zoovy does offer custom web design on their site, but there's no pricing information or examples.
Shift4Shop offers a huge (and still growing) selection of eCommerce website templates, suitable for a huge variety of industries. All Shift4Shop themes are fully responsive to mobile devices, and built for speed and convenience so customers will be enticed to return. Best yet, Shift4Shop themes are fully customizable through our HTML Builder and our Theme Editor, and advanced users can jump right into the code with full access to all theme files.
Shift4Shop is powered by Shift4 Payments, an industry-leading payment processor that sets up in minutes and allows you to accept credit cards and several alternate payment types. We also integrate with more payment processors than any other eCommerce platform in the industry, so you can accept PayPal, eChecks, digital wallets like Amazon Pay, and much more. Plus, we're constantly adding new payment integrations to meet evolving customer demand, such as risk-free financing through Sezzle and Klarna. Shift4Shop also supports high-risk payment processors, which are required for businesses in industries under strong regulation.
Zoovy had an impressive list of integrated payment types at the time, including versatile methods like Amazon Pay and more. However, Zoovy hasn't expanded its payment integrations in years, meaning it's missed out on emerging payment types like customer financing. Additionally, many of Zoovy's payment integrations use older versions of existing payment platforms, which would need to be updated in order to work today. In today's eCommerce world, Zoovy simply doesn't cut it.
Shift4Shop maintains a full-time support staff via our Client Success Team, which is ready to help you via phone call, live chat, or email, and we can also be reached on social media. Our team is available 24/7/365 and is based in the US.
Zoovy only offers a single support channel in the form of an email address, which also appears to be the single point of contact for the company as a whole. If you're able to create a Zoovy account and start building a store, there's no guarantee anyone can help you.
