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As the CBD industry continues to grow, more and more businesses are looking to get involved by selling CBD products online. But before you can start selling, you need to choose which eCommerce platform to use for your website. In this article, we’ll compare two of the most popular options: Shopify and WooCommerce. There’s no getting around it: CBD is officially everywhere you’re looking, especially online. CBD’s popularity has skyrocketed, transforming from a niche alternative health treatment to a worldwide craze. There is a whole array of revolutionary CBD products, from lattes to makeup, bedsheets, pet treats, and even bath bombs.
Now, this industry’s growth shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. Quite the contrary, CBD sales are expected to reach $80 billion by 2030. So, with that much money on the table, it’s no wonder that CBD sellers are popping up everywhere online. Where online exactly? On popular CMSs like Shopify or WooCommerce.
This article explores the ins and outs of starting your own CBD shop on either of these two CMSs.
Shopify For CBD Explained
Shopify is a content management system (CMS) that allows you to start, grow, and manage your own online business. It’s a subscription-based software that enables you to sell CBD on Shopify and receive payments for your CBD products from anywhere in the world.
Now, Shopify makes it simple to enter the eCommerce world, even if you don’t have any experience selling online. The eCommerce platform allows you to manage products, inventory, payments, and shipping easily. You also don’t even have to worry about the hassle of hosting because the platform takes care of that. What’s more, Shopify even allows online sellers to use their own domain name and connect it to Shopify from their store’s admin or buy one through the platform if you don’t have one yet.
Simply put, Shopify makes it simple to start and manage your own online store and get your share from a thriving industry like CBD. No coding or development is needed, and there are many other pros.
Pros for CBD sellers
- Launching your own online shop is easy. There’s no need for developing skills or help to get our CBD business only as Shopify’s subscription comes with web hosting, store themes, and easy-to-integrate features.
- Shopify plans are customized, allowing you to scale your plan as your CBD business grows.
- CBD is linked to marijuana which can make online sales a bit tricky. Yet, Shopify is based in Canada, which means it is not subject to US federal law.
Cons for CBD sellers
- At the Shopify store, you may experience some payment restrictions. Even if the eCommerce platform is cannabis-friendly, some of the Shopify payments gateway provided are not. This includes PayPal and Stripe.
- Selling CBD products on Shopify comes with specific transaction fees. The platform takes up to 2.9% of each sale you make and $0.30 per credit card transaction.
- The biggest con of using Shopify for your own CBD online store is that you’re not really in control of your site. The platform can close down any site at any time, and you may not even get a warning before. Plus, Shopify sellers are subject to the platform’s results and regulations.
WooCommerce For CBD Explained
WooCommerce is a great alternative to Shopify for creating and managing your own CBD online store. WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin that allows sellers to transform their WordPress website into an eCommerce store that offers the same functionality as Shopify. More precisely, sellers get all the tools they need to sell their products from anywhere in the world and manage their brands.
Yet, there’s a big difference between having an online shop on Shopify and WordPress. More precisely, with WooCommerce, online shop owners have complete control of their websites. There’s no such thing as WooCommerce shutting your site down.
WooCommerce functions as a set of open-source files, meaning it can be installed on several hosting platforms. That’s one of the main reasons why WooCommerce is a full-featured Shopify alternative for setting up a CBD online store and beginning selling.
Pros for CBD sellers
- There are no subscription fees. WordPress is free for everyone.
- WordPress allows you to use cannabis-friendly payment gateways, as a few offer plugins for WP.
- WordPress supports all sorts of plugins and themes that allow online store owners to customize the appearance of their CBD sites as they like. Plus, WordPress also offers the possibility to customize the functionality of a website or even create a custom theme for it from scratch.
- WordPress offers a lot of flexibility through its code, plugin support, and themes. Sellers can constantly change their websites to meet the growing needs of their CBD online business.
Cons for CBD sellers
- Setting up an online shop on WordPress involves a few more steps than setting it up on Shopify. Sellers need to: buy a domain, sign up for hosting, install a default WordPress version, buy a theme and install all sorts of plugins to handle promotion practices, install WooCommerce plugin, and lastly, configure their eCommerce store from details to payment gateway integration and products.
- There’s no support offered for all the things mentioned above. CBD sellers who want to sell on WordPress need a website designer to help them with all the technical parts of setting up your online shop.
- WordPress plugins and themes require frequent updates.
Payment Gateway Integration
Whether you decide to use Shopify or WooCommerce as your eCommerce shop platform, it’s time to figure out a crucial aspect: how will you accept payments?
CBD is classified as “high-risk,” so using popular payment gateways like PayPal or Stripe is not a good option. In fact, many CBD sellers had their accounts closed without notice or their funds frozen.
Recently, it has become easier to sell CBD products on Shopify, but sellers are required to use a payment gateway other than the platform’s default payment processor. Shopify’s default payment merchant is underwritten by Stripe, a US-based company that does not support the processing of CBD products.
So, although Shopify supports stores that sell CBD products on the platform, the payments system still doesn’t support these products. To sell CBD on the eCommerce platform, you’ll need to use payment gateways from third-party payment processors. For WooCommerce, you’ll also need to use a third-party payment gateway processor, but the main benefit is that you’re in complete control of your website, so no one can shut it down for selling “high-risk” products.
What Makes WooCommerce Different From Shopify?
The main difference between WooCommerce and Shopify is that WooCommerce is self-hosted, while Shopify is a service. With WooCommerce, you must have a hosting account and domain name and manage your online store yourself. With Shopify, on the other hand, all of this is taken care of for you by the service.
Additionally, WooCommerce is a bit more customizable than Shopify. This means that if you want to make changes to the design or functionality of your online store, you will likely be able to do so with WooCommerce, while this may not be as easy with Shopify. In general, both WooCommerce and Shopify make it simple for anyone to sell CBD products through an online store, accept payments, manage inventory, and more.
Several factors must be considered when deciding which platform is best for you based on your needs and requirements.
What are your options?
Getting paid for your online CBD products can be tricky on both Shopify and WooCommerce. Yet, don’t despair. You can use a very viable payment solution to get paid: Viva Wallet.
The leading CBD-oil-friendly payment gateway for selling CBD products is Viva Wallet, and you can use it whether you set up your online CBD store on Shopify or WooCommerce:
Using Viva Wallet on Shopify
If you’ve decided to start your own Shopify CBD store, Viva Wallet can be the payment gateway solution you’ve been looking for. One of the key benefits of using Shopify and Viva Wallet for the CBD payment processor is the recent partnership with PayPal, allowing CBD sellers to integrate PayPal via the Viva Wallet for their Shopify CBD stores. Yet, this option isn’t available for WooCommerce stores.
All you have to do is to enable PayPal as the payment option by linking your PayPal account with your Viva Wallet account. Remember that all customer CBD transaction payments using this option will be deposited to the PayPal account, not the Viva Wallet account.
Using Viva Wallet on WooCommerce
CBD stores on WooCommerce can also use Viva Wallet as a payment gateway solution to get their money for their products. The partnership between WooCommerce and Viva Wallet has led to an extension that allows CBD merchants to accept payments instantly. While, unlike Shopify, you are yet to be able to connect to PayPal, you can, however, set up a subscription model for accepting payments. This you cannot do if you use Shopify.
To set up subscriptions, you must purchase the ‘WooCommerce Subscription plugin to enable this feature.
6 Things Consider When Selecting an eCommerce Platform
While Shopify and WordPress are both excellent platforms for selling CBD products online, there are important distinctions to consider when deciding which one to use. When you want to customize the design of your own new CBD store website, both cost more, but WordPress offers several CBD Oil website templates.
1. Cost
Both Shopify and WordPress are great platforms, but they do come with different price tags. Shopify is expensive to get started, but it does have more features and is easier to use. You can use WordPress for free, but you have to pay for hosting and any extra features or themes you want to use.
2. Ease of Use
Shopify is more user-friendly than WordPress, especially for those unfamiliar with coding or website design. However, WordPress has many plugins and themes that can make it easy to customize your website without needing any coding knowledge.
3. Features
Shopify has more features than WordPress, including built-in payment processing, shipping calculators, and a wide range of themes, plugins, and templates to choose from. WordPress does have some features that Shopify doesn’t have, such as the ability to create custom post types and taxonomies.
4. Customization
Both Shopify and WordPress allow for a high level of customization, but Shopify is a bit easier to use if you want to change the look and feel of your website. With WordPress, you will need some coding knowledge to make changes to your site.
5. SEO
Both platforms are good for SEO, but Shopify may have an edge because it was built for eCommerce websites. Make sure to do your research and use the correct keywords when setting up your website so that you can rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
6. Support
If you encounter problems with your CBD website, both Shopify and WordPress offer support options. With Shopify, you can contact their customer service team via phone or email, while WordPress provides support through their forums and extensive documentation.
Is Shopify more SEO friendly than WooCommerce?
While both Shopify and WooCommerce are popular eCommerce platforms, there may be some advantages to using Shopify over WooCommerce. For one, Shopify is built on the WordPress platform, which is known for its high level of SEO compatibility.
This means you can easily create custom pages and posts for your website to improve your search engine rankings. Though Shopify offers a wide range of features that can help you to streamline your business process, including multilingual support, Shopify CBD payment processors or automatic shipping calculations, or configurable checkout processes.
WooCommerce also has many appealing features such as an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface, user profiles with role-based permissions management, import/export capabilities for PST files (or any other file format), automated marketing campaigns via email or social media channels, and more. Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference regarding which eCommerce platform best suits your needs.
But Which is Better?
Both Shopify and WooCommerce offer a range of features that can help set up and run your business. But, when it comes to ease of use, Shopify may be the better option. It is widely accepted among merchants and praised for its intuitive design and user-friendly interface. Additionally, Shopify offers more customization options than WooCommerce, which means you have greater control over your website’s appearance and function.
WooCommerce also has a broader array of plugins that can enhance your site’s functionality. So, suppose one feature is lacking, or you need to make an extensive modification to your website. In that case, WooCommerce should be your first choice, as there is likely to be a compatible plugin available on the market.
Ultimately, it becomes important to choose the platform that best meets your needs before investing any time or money into it!
Can You Sell CBD On Shopify?
Before you start selling CBD products on Shopify, you must ensure that CBD is legal to sell in your state.
You can do it by checking the state laws for CBD. If CBD is legal to sell in your state, then you need to ensure that you follow the regulations for selling CBD online products. You can find these regulations by checking the state laws for CBD and the FDA’s guidelines for CBD products.
If you do not follow the regulations for selling CBD products, you could get in trouble with the law.
Wrapping Up
While both Shopify and WordPress are great options for selling your CBD products online, there are specific differences between the two you should consider before deciding which one is right for your online business.
While Shopify offers a simpler alternative to starting an online store (Technically speaking), WordPress doesn’t have additional fees and provides more cannabis-friendly payment gateway options.
