Advanced PHP Developer, Custom eCommerce, Custom WordPress

Our eCommerce System vs WooCommerce

April 19, 2021

The New Media Design System is a robust, highly-customizable eCommerce platform that's been used by various small- to medium-sized businesses since 2003. When compared to WooCommerce – a popular eCommerce system for WordPress websites – it offers superior customization, better flexibility integrating with existing sites, superior ease-of-use, and is more affordable.

NOTE: While we compare our NMD System to WooCommerce, the same comparisons below can be made to any eCommerce platform including Shopify, BigCommerce, Wix, Volusion, Squaresapce, Magento, etc.

Customization: With the NMD System, there are no limits to the customizations possible, both on the front- and back-ends. Our eCommerce solution can also be expanded exactly as you desire to meet your business and functionality requirements today and tomorrow. With WooCommerce, you must live within their "box" and devise often clumsy workarounds when it doesn't do what you want. Additional functionality can be added to WooCommerce, but this requires sorting through countless modules from various vendors to figure out what works best for your needs.

Integration: The NMD System not only integrates nicely with WordPress websites but can also be installed on any modern responsive framework including Bootstrap and Foundation, as well as any website running on an industry-standard LAMP configuration. This is not possible with WooCommerce which requires WordPress.

Costs: NMD System installation and configuration costs are one-time only, so there are never any yearly fees for add-ons or customizations, unlike WooCommerce. About half the add-ons offered by WooCommerce to add functionality will also add to your yearly costs, as well as the time to install and configure each module.

Easy To Use: Because WooCommerce is a one-size fits all eCommerce solution, ALL options are exposed to you whether you need them or not, creating a cluttered and confusing Admin interface. In contrast, the NMD System is simple and easy to use, exposing only the modules and options you need for your site.

Support: Unlike WooCommerce, our eCommerce system and additional modules are built and constantly updated by one developer, New Media Design. If you have a question, you can reach out via phone, email or text and generally receive a reply within the same business day. In contrast, WooCommerce offers no such direct support – that's not good when your sales require a quick response! 

Security / Dependability: WordPress core, theme, and plugins updates are known to break WooCommerce and/or expose security vulnerabilities, and vice versa. This means a WooCommerce install not only requires extra maintenance to be secure, but parts of your shopping system could go down if such a conflict arises. WordPress sites with WooCommerce also require additional security measures and more prevention steps than a standard install. The NMD eCommerce System, while integrated within your WordPress site, runs in its own container, so there's never a threat of WordPress incompatibility or security conflicts due to either our system or the WordPress install being upgraded. 

Costs: Comparing one-time costs with the same features and options reveals that WooCommerce is about 40% more to install and configure versus our NMD System. This does include the additional yearly average add-on costs of $410 that WooCommerce charges for modules like Product Search, multiple Shipping options, and Google Product Feed that is already built-in and included with our eCommerce solution. 

Design: Most eCommerce platforms offer limited templates from which to choose. Some allow you to make customizations but doing so can be time consuming, awkward and require platform experts. The NMD System integrates into any WordPress, Bootstrap or Foundation based site – or even an HTML website – using the same look and feel that already exists.

CMS: Most eCommerce systems are geared towards selling. That's fine, but if you have content that is as important as your products and you prefer a customer-focused "soft-sell" approach, other eComm platforms will leave you wanting. That's because they offer very limited content management, whereas any site using the NMD System has unlimited access to whatever content works best for you and your customers, including pages, blog posts, videos, files, photos, etc. This content can be static or dynamically managed through WordPress or our own CMS.

To summarize, the NMD System is custom-built for your specific needs and your desired work flow and is fully compatible with WordPress and more. It is easy to use and can be expanded in the future to accommodate whatever your business may require. In contrast, WooCommerce is a one-size fits all eCommerce system only compatible with WordPress that is often used as a basic, starter shopping cart system but hits significant limits when expansion is required. While it is "free", it requires costly configuration, setup and maintenance as well additional costs to get the functionality you may desire.

So, if you want a custom, easy-to-use eCommerce system built for the long-term, NMD System is a choice you'll be happy with for years to come.