"Should we use Shopify or WooCommerce?" is the most common question on our discovery calls with new commerce clients. The honest answer depends on where you are in your business, what you sell, and how comfortable your team is with code. Here is how we actually answer it.
Shopify (standard plan)
Best for: brands launching their first online store, doing under RM 150k a month, with a tidy catalogue and no exotic tax requirements.
Watch out for: Shopify's standard checkout has been getting better but still feels slightly off-brand. Transaction fees if you do not use Shopify Payments. The infamous 100-variant limit per product.
Local fit: iPay88, Billplz, Razer and GrabPay are all available through marketplace apps. Stripe is fully supported. Set up SST correctly from day one — Shopify's tax engine handles it well once configured.
Shopify Plus
Best for: brands doing RM 500k a month or more, multi-region, or with bespoke checkout requirements. Most of our recent retail clients are here.
Watch out for: the licensing cost. Worth it once you cross a certain revenue line; expensive overhead below that. Custom checkout extensions need real engineering investment.
Local fit: Shopify Markets makes ASEAN expansion (Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam) much easier than it used to be. We have shipped four Markets-enabled stores in the past year without major regrets.
WooCommerce
Best for: teams already running a substantial WordPress estate, brands with complex tax or pricing logic, and anyone who wants full database ownership.
Watch out for: WooCommerce is the platform with the longest tail of "plugins that almost work". The maintenance burden is real and grows with the number of plugins.
Local fit: excellent — almost every Malaysian payment gateway has a maintained WooCommerce plugin. EasyParcel, Lalamove and DHL eCommerce integrations are mature.
Headless commerce (Shopify Hydrogen, Saleor, BigCommerce)
Best for: editorial brands where the storytelling layer matters as much as the commerce layer. Multi-brand companies needing one backend and several front ends.
Watch out for: total cost of ownership. Headless feels great in year one and starts to feel heavy in year three if your team does not have front-end engineers in-house.
Local fit: the backend choice still constrains payment and fulfilment options, so a headless Shopify Plus build is essentially a Shopify Plus build with a fancier front end. Plan accordingly.
What we recommend, by revenue band
- Under RM 50k/month: Shopify (standard) with a custom theme.
- RM 50k – 500k/month: Shopify Plus or a tight WooCommerce build, depending on team makeup.
- Above RM 500k/month: Shopify Plus, often with selectively headless storefront pages for category landings.
- Multi-brand or editorial-first: headless on top of a commerce engine you trust.
Three local considerations the global articles miss
- Tax: SST is conceptually simple but operationally fiddly. Whichever platform you choose, get your accountant to sign off on the tax setup before launch.
- Logistics: EasyParcel is the default aggregator and works with all three platforms. If you ship internationally, integrate DHL eCommerce or J&T directly.
- Payments: default to Stripe for international buyers and a local gateway (iPay88, Billplz, Razer) for Malaysian customers. Do not force one to do the job of the other.
— Haris is a senior engineer at Vapordex Studio and the team's lead on headless commerce work.