Shopify vs Wix
Wix is a genuinely good website builder that also sells things. Shopify is an ecommerce platform that also builds websites. That difference is the whole comparison.
Choose Wix if selling is secondary to the site itself, your catalogue is small and static, and design control with no developer matters most. Choose Shopify the moment ecommerce becomes the point — the ceiling arrives faster on Wix than people expect.
Side by side
| Shopify | Wix | |
|---|---|---|
| Best at | Selling. Everything is built around the catalogue and the checkout. | Building a site. Ecommerce is a capable add-on rather than the foundation. |
| Catalogue depth | Handles large catalogues, variants, metafields and complex merchandising. | Fine to a few hundred products. Variant and merchandising logic gets awkward beyond that. |
| Checkout | The most tested checkout in ecommerce, with Shop Pay's one-tap advantage. | Solid, but without the accelerated-checkout network effect. |
| App ecosystem | Very large, ecommerce-specific — subscriptions, reviews, loyalty, ERP, 3PL. | Smaller, and thinner for advanced ecommerce needs. |
| Multi-currency & markets | Shopify Markets handles pricing, currency and market catalogues natively. | More limited. International selling is possible but constrained. |
| Design freedom | Theme-based. Deep control with development, less drag-and-drop. | Genuinely excellent drag-and-drop control without touching code. |
| Cost at low volume | Higher floor. | Cheaper to start, which is a real advantage early on. |
| Migration out | Well-trodden path onto Shopify from anywhere. | Getting data out of Wix is more awkward than getting it in. |
Which one is actually right for you
Pick Shopify if…
- Ecommerce is the business, not a feature of the website
- Your catalogue is growing past a few hundred SKUs or has real variant complexity
- You are spending on paid acquisition and need checkout conversion optimised
- You want subscriptions, loyalty, advanced reviews or a 3PL integration
- You intend to sell across countries and currencies
Pick Wix if…
- The website is the product — a portfolio, a service business, a restaurant
- You sell a handful of items and expect that to stay true
- Nobody on the team will ever touch code and design control matters most
- Budget at launch is the binding constraint
- You need booking, events or membership more than you need a storefront
If your situation is in the right-hand column, we will tell you so on the call. We would rather lose the project than move you onto the wrong platform.
Moving from Wix to Shopify
Wix migrations are usually straightforward on the data side and awkward on the export side — Wix does not make it easy to leave. The design does not carry across, so this is effectively a rebuild with your content and catalogue moved. That is often a good thing, because the store is usually being outgrown rather than merely relocated.
How our migrations workQuestions we get asked
Is Wix bad for ecommerce?
No — it is good for a certain size and shape of ecommerce. For a small, stable catalogue attached to a site whose main job is something else, Wix is a perfectly sensible choice and cheaper than Shopify. The problem is not quality, it is ceiling. Brands typically hit it around the point where the catalogue grows, variants get complex, or paid acquisition starts and checkout conversion suddenly matters a great deal.
Is Shopify better for SEO than Wix?
Both are technically competent now, and the old claim that Wix cannot rank has not been true for years. Shopify's advantages are practical rather than fundamental: a stronger ecosystem of SEO apps, better structured data for products out of the box, and more control over international and multi-currency setups. For a straightforward catalogue, the platform is not what decides whether you rank — the content and the links are.
How hard is it to move from Wix to Shopify?
The catalogue and content move without much drama. The two things to plan for are the export itself, which Wix makes deliberately awkward, and the URL map — Wix's URL structure differs from Shopify's, so every product URL changes and needs a 301. The design does not transfer, so budget for a rebuild rather than a lift-and-shift.
We're on Wix and sales are growing. When should we move?
The signals we would act on: catalogue past a few hundred SKUs, variant or bundle logic you are working around rather than with, paid acquisition at a scale where a percentage point of checkout conversion is real money, or a need Wix's app ecosystem cannot meet — subscriptions and 3PL integration are the usual ones. If none of those apply, staying is a legitimate answer and we will say so.
Not sure which fits your business?
Send us your store URL or your brief. We will come back with a written view — including which platform we would actually put you on and why.