Frequently asked questions

• What makes ShopWired better than Shopify?

  The main reason customers migrate from Shopify to ShopWired is that we are a UK company, with a platform built and developed in the UK and supported by a UK based support team. We're proud to be British.

• Shopify is a bigger company, doesn't that mean it's safer to use them?

  Shopify have over 1 million customers, so they're a massive company compared to ShopWired. But we believe bigger isn't always better, in fact we'd say our smaller size (hosting around 10,000 websites in the UK) makes us an ideal choice for any UK company because we value each and every customer that we have.

• You don't have to pay Shopify a transaction charge if you use their gateway, so is it fair to say they charge transaction fees?

  Shopify charge a transaction fee ontop of the fee you pay to your payment gateway for every sale you make on their store. If you use Shopify's lowest package then the transaction fee is 2.0%. Whilst you don't have to pay this transaction fee if you use the Shopify Payments gateway, this gateway is actually just Stripe but branded as Shopify and is more expensive than Stripe. No matter how you work it out, you'll always pay more to receive a payment from your customers using Shopify than you would with ShopWired.

• How does Shopify compare on price with ShopWired?

  Shopify's basic package is $29 a month, compared with ShopWired's charge of £34.95 + VAT per month. Looking at the monthly fee alone, Shopify is slightly cheaper. You should however also look at other factors like the cost of any theme you might use (on ShopWired all themes are free), the additional fees you have to pay to process payments from your customers, and Shopify's expensive app charges.

• Can I use a Shopify theme on ShopWired?

  Unfortunately Shopify themes can't be used on other platforms like ShopWired so instead you'll need to pick a new theme from ShopWired's collection and customise its look and feel. If you want something a little more bespoke please contact us and we can discuss your requirements.

• Shopify has a POS system, what solution does ShopWired offer?

  ShopWired doesn't provide its own POS system, instead we'd recommend that you use Vend which is one of the largest POS systems in the world. Your ShopWired account can connect seamlessly with Vend to sync products, stock and orders.

• Will I lose my search engine rankings when my ShopWired website goes live?

  No, there is no reason for you to lose any search engine rankings. If you have a good position in search results then we have some guidance for you to follow when migrating to make sure the process is as smooth as it can be and that your rankings are not disrupted. For more details see here.

• Will customers who have accounts on my website be able to keep those accounts?

  You can use ShopWired's migration system to copy your customer accounts across from your current website. All the customer information will be preserved but they'll need to use a new password to access their account information. We can place a notification on the account login page giving customers an easy way to create a new password.

• Will my site load at the same speed it did before?

  Absolutely. In fact many users migrating from Shopify report a slightly quicker download time for their website because of our server locations and overall platform architecture.