Building an Online Store: Shopify vs Google Stitch + Firebase
A quick comparison of the best options for building an online store without coding knowledge. From Shopify to Google's free tools.
This will be the shortest newsletter in my history. 😊
I thought I’d do a full analysis, but I simply ran out of time. You know how it is—work, then afternoons with kids and wife.
Evening is when my research time finally comes… 🙂
Now you’re probably wondering what I ran out of time for.
To write up everything I researched.
And what was I researching?
My wife and her good friend sell homemade play dough and a book. Warning, ad coming up 🙂:
https://www.facebook.com/gnetko
https://www.facebook.com/zmoreminteraktivnaknjiga
Well, some time ago they experienced a cyberattack and I had to temporarily shut down both online stores. Now we want to take this opportunity and redesign the online store.
Currently both are built on WordPress + WooCommerce.
That’s really the cheapest option, but let me tell you firsthand: a pain to maintain and upgrade.
So I went into action and looked at different options for how we could redesign the websites/stores ourselves (without coding knowledge) and make sure maintenance is manageable.
I set myself the following goal:
- Enable AI design in conversational form, like “replace this image,” “make the background color more kid-friendly,” etc.
OK, now I’ll skip the longer analysis. Let’s go straight to the conclusion:
I considered speed of development, security, reliability, and cost.
- If you’re ready to pay €27/month to test if sales will take off, I recommend Shopify Basic (https://www.shopify.com/pricing). It has a drag&drop builder as well as AI. Fastest route to a professional online store.
- If you just want to test whether the product will sell, I recommend Shopify Starter Plan (€5/month) (https://www.shopify.com/starter). It allows creating “buy” links or connection and sales through social media. No AI design, or rather, no design options at all.
- If you want more design freedom (AI) + security and payment processing for €5/month, I would test:
- https://stitch.withgoogle.com → Here you create the design (free)
- https://studio.firebase.google.com → Here you create the website (free)
- https://www.shopify.com/starter → Here you create products and then copy payment links for each product into the website (€5/month)
That last one should work, but I still need to verify.
Should I record a video of how to do this?
YES
Not needed
Whatever you prefer Edit
Talk soon, Primož