Matt: Oh, it’s your intro. I was about to start talking.

Lauren: I mean, you can if you want to.

Matt: It's okay.

Lauren: You're not gonna like my intro.

Matt: Oh god. Why, does it have something to do with Taylor Swift?

Lauren: Sure does.

Matt: Come on. How is that possible? How in the world would you tie Taylor Swift to this topic?

Lauren: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Publish & Prosper, where I am not going to be breaking any news because this episode comes out a full two weeks after the fact. But since we just did an episode where we talked about Taylor Swift and marketing strategies, and that episode was specifically a birthday pass for me. I am sorry to tell you, Matt, that Taylor Swift herself has given me an even better birthday present. Because she got married on my birthday.

Matt: Well, I hope the other one is that she's gonna give you a job.

Lauren: I'm sure she would hire me. We're practically best friends. We were born in the same year, and now her wedding anniversary is my birthday. I'm pretty sure we're linked by an invisible string for the rest of time.

Matt: I don't like this. First of all, you need to match my energy level. Second of all, I've had enough Taylor Swift for the next six months. Please.

Lauren: That's fine. That's it and that's all.

Matt: Oh my goodness.

Lauren: I'm done. You want to talk about Disney instead?

Matt: Yeah, actually I do.

Lauren: Great.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Great. Because I also just got back from Disney.

Matt: Yup. Totally fine.

Lauren: And it was, it was fantastic.

Matt: That's the real headline here, not the Taylor Swift wedding on the same day as your birthday.

Lauren: Well, Disney was great.

Matt: Did you get rained on?

Lauren: I actually, despite the fact that it did rain every day –

Matt: Right.

Lauren: – was very successful –

Matt: Cause it’s summer in Florida.

Lauren: Yes. Yeah. And, you know, it reached a certain point during the day where, like, it was a relief when it rained. Because it was so, so hot and so humid every day. Like, just like the kind of, like stagnant, humid air where even having a fan doesn't do anything cause it's just, you're just circulating the same hot air. And it was rough. But I am enough of a pro that I managed to navigate us towards shelter within the window of time that we needed every single time. There was like maybe one... one like, ten minute window where we needed some rain gear to get from one section of the park to the next in order to take that shelter. But other than that, I'd say –

Matt: Are you...

Lauren: – pretty successful.

Matt: A poncho or umbrella girlie? At Disney?

Lauren: It depends. If it's a, if it's something that looks like – I always have both in my backpack.

Matt: Oh, do you?

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Huh.

Lauren: Yeah. And –

Matt: So do you carry a full, full size backpack with you?

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Huh.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Okay.

Lauren: But no, I always have, like, a really small umbrella. Really like, small collapsible umbrella, and a poncho. They live permanently – like, this is specifically my Disney umbrella.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: They live in my, my park backpack specifically. But if it's a short burst, like I can just tell it's like, you know, 20 minute rainstorm and then it's going to go away. I prefer an umbrella. If it's something that I'm like, okay, we're battening down the hatches, it's going to be raining the rest of the day, and I'm not losing a park day over this.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Then I will rain gear up and say, alright, let's go.

Matt: I don't like umbrellas. I feel like umbrellas and strollers are the worst when you're navigating crowds.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: I don't do full backpack, though.

Lauren: I would be shocked if you did. Honestly.

Matt: I've thought about it many times. And I'm sure, you know, once or twice when I had my kids with me, I've probably done it. But I prefer just a crossbody.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: And then the most recent D23 package –

Lauren: Oh, yeah. Yeah you said the – yeah.

Matt: – had a really nice, like larger crossbody. It's, it's Fantasia Mickey on it and it's, like that's – Yeah. Plenty of room for a poncho and umbrella and water bottles and souvenirs and stuff. But not be a full backpack.

Lauren: This is legitimately – first of all, this is something that I could talk about for like, three hours straight. I am perpetually on the hunt for, like, a park bag that I like. I have one that I've been using for years that I really like, that that is still the one to beat. But there are definitely still things that I would change about it. So I'm like always on the hunt for like, what is the perfect park bag?

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Kind of thing. And like, this is, this is something that I've given – realistically, I've given this more thought than the, the passport that I've been working on for a year. It’s been over a year now.

Matt: That doesn’t surprise me.

Lauren: Cause it was supposed to be for my birthday trip last year. So it's officially been over a year. And I have spent significantly more time on park bag, packing, park essentials, rain gear, stuff like that.

Matt: Alright.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Well, I could talk about this for three hours too, but.

Lauren: One day you will. One day I will give you that opportunity.

Matt: Thank you.

Lauren: You're welcome.

Matt: What are we gonna talk about today?

[5:41] – Episode Topic Intro

Lauren: Today what we are actually talking about is... We are looking at some of the top slash best slash most popular ecommerce platforms in the market today. Obviously, we cannot tell the future. So if you're listening to this episode three months from now, six months from now, a year from now, maybe there's a new top player in the game, or maybe one of these has really fallen through.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: You know? But for right now, where we are right now in the landscape that we spend a lot of time in, this is what it looks like right now. This is what is available to you and what we consider to be some of the best options out there.

Matt: Yeah, I think this is important and relevant because... I think we're at we're finally at a place, an inflection point if you will, where, you know, direct sales has now become, you know, part of the conversation always.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: So when you're talking about, you know, whether it's at the one end of the spectrum within the authors, and, you know, you're in the middle of the spectrum with just, you know, straight up content creators and creators in general. Or the complete opposite end of the spectrum where you're talking about businesses and brands, or even if you want to throw publishers in there. Like, direct sales is now part of the conversation. Which means ecommerce platforms are now a thing. It's, it's something you have to think about in your stack of stuff that you're doing. So, gone are the days where we were some of the lone people beating that drum and getting laughed at. Now it is the thing. So we thought we would do this episode and really talk about all of the major ecommerce platforms that exist. Give you a little bit of color behind them. You know, the pros and cons, what to expect. And hopefully you'll be able to come away from this episode with a pretty good idea of the one you would like to use. If you're not already using one. Or at least narrowed it down to, you know, a couple, two choices that you can go out and research a little bit further. But at this point, if you've listened to any of our episodes and you're not selling direct yet, I would be surprised. But if you're not, this is a good episode for you. If you are, this is still very informational in the sense that it gives you an idea of what the other options are out there. In case you ever decide you're disenchanted with the one you're using now. Right?

Lauren: Which does often happen.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: For some reason or another.

Matt: Oh, for lots of reasons.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: I mean, I've always been a staunch Shopify supporter. I've used Shopify and still use Shopify for a number of different things that I do on the side. But I will tell you that probably at least once every other month, Shopify does something where I'm like, I hate you guys. Like, who else? Who else is out there that I can use? And you know, for me, I still always fall back to Shopify. They’re, for what I use it for, still kind of the best fit. But again, yeah, there's any number of reasons where you, you know, one of these platforms could fall out of favor with you. They're constantly making changes to their pricing, to the technology, to, you know, some of the rules that surround how you add products. I mean, you name it, there's any number of things. And it only takes one of those to to inconvenience you. And you have to go and change completely the way you're doing things. So yeah, I mean it. They're a fickle beast, for sure.

Lauren: Which, I mean, I think that is actually a really good point. And maybe, maybe this is the, the connection to our intro there, is that I think that you and I are both people that like to find something that that we like, we support, we're comfortable with, whatever it is, and we stick to that until given a firm reason not to.

Matt: Sure.

Lauren: We're both brand loyalists in a lot of ways.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Whether it comes to clothing or vacation locations –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – or I was just saying with my park backpack, I have my one that I love. I've had it for... I think I got it in 2021? So six years I've been using this bag now and it is still my go to. But every now and then – is that math? Is that how math works? Yeah, it has been five years. Anyway. Yeah. Close enough. It's fine. But... It's okay, I've already started rounding up to 2027. It's okay.

Matt: Ugh.

Lauren: I know. But, you know, I do still every now and then, like, go out there and say, is there anything, is there a better option here for me? Maybe I should try this bag instead? I see people talking about this a lot, maybe, maybe I should try this one instead. And then still wind up going back to my OG.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: So even if you are somebody who's like, I'm, I'm very comfortable with my current ecommerce platform, it's good to know what else is out there. It's good to know what the other features are. Even if all it does is just reaffirm your choice? Still good to know. And still good to have a well-rounded understanding of not just what, what you can do with these platforms or what you like or don't like about them, but also what other people are saying. Which I think is actually my segway into just talking a little bit about how I gathered some of this information. This is not a single source in any way. I did not just Google, like, what, what are the top ecommerce platforms out there right now? And take one person's or one outlet's word as gospel. So I aggregated – I spent like an hour trying to figure out that word earlier, and it just came out of nowhere. I couldn't remember the word for when you take –

Matt: What word?

Lauren: Aggregated.

Matt: Oh.

Lauren: Sorry.

Matt: I thought you were referring to gospel.

Lauren: No. No no no.

Matt: What do you mean you spent an hour trying to figure out the – you mean you were trying to recall the word you –

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: – wanted to use and couldn't?

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Okay.

Lauren: I couldn't put my finger on what the word was.

Matt: Was this an hour on the clock? Were you sat –

Lauren: No I kept –

Matt: – trying to figure out what word you wanted?

Lauren: I was working on the outline.

Matt: Okay.

Lauren: And I literally had like a – what I do when I'm writing, whether it's fiction or nonfiction writing, if I can't think of – like, whether I don't have a name for that character yet or I can't think of the word, I'll just put brackets –

Matt: Right.

Lauren: – and the, what I was looking for there. And then I'll come back to it later. And I had that where it was like in the back, it was like, percolating in the back of my mind for like an hour, and I, I never figured it out. And it just came out of my mouth organically. Sure. Of course it did.

Matt: Do you write in Google Docs or do you write in Word?

Lauren: I write in Google Docs.

Matt: You should just use comments instead of brackets.

Lauren: I should, but I don't like that the comments then push the page off center on the screen.

Matt: Well, you can hide them.

Lauren: Oh.

Matt: But the – what I've found the benefit to comments was, I was doing brackets too. And had been doing that since college, to be honest with you. But with the brackets I have to go through and manually find everywhere where I had brackets. And they would be everywhere. With the comments, you literally just go through and it lines up every comment for you and you're just going to each one and boom, boom, boom and knocking them out. And you can hide the comments on the right hand side. Because that drives me crazy –

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: – too. And now my, my page is pushed left because I have comments over here. So I'd keep those hidden until it's time for me to go through and go, okay, now I need to go back through and all those areas where I was missing like a word or a name, or I wanted to, to mask something with, you know, not using the real name or whatever that might be. And I just check off the comment and it's done. It's gone forever. Yeah.

Lauren: I’mma try that next time.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: It’s a good idea. Who would have guessed that you were going to get writing tips and strategies –

Matt: It was not on my bingo card today, yeah.

Lauren: – in this episode?

Matt: Yeah. That's alright.

Lauren: Anyway, I aggregated this list that we're going to talk through here from kind of five and a half different sources? Five main sources. I used several different generative AI tools. And then two different articles that I will have linked in the show notes if you want to go check them out. And then I scrolled through some Reddit threads, kind of unofficially.

Matt: Great.

Lauren: So let's get into it.

Matt: Yes, please.

Lauren: Alright. 20 minutes in, let's start talking about this.

[13:59] – The Top Ecommerce Platforms Today

Matt: Alright. So it gave you a pretty lengthy list. We're actually going to narrow this down. We're going to talk about pretty much the top five. We'll touch on the others real quick and tell you why we're not going to talk about them. But it gave you some of the ones you would expect. So in the top five you have Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix, Squarespace, and BigCommerce. Those are – by all definitions, I don't care who you pole – probably the top five most widely used ecommerce platforms on the internet right now.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Now we're going to go into those a little more in depth. The others that it gave you that we're not really going to touch on, because quite frankly they're either not that great – cause I’ve tried a few of them – or they’re more of an enterprise-level product where, you know, I think most of our listeners would not benefit from these. And those are Adobe Commerce. Adobe Commerce is a very large and somewhat unwieldy platform, but it's also very much tied to all other Adobe products. So it is relegated in that world of enterprise a little more so than it is, you know, for an independent creator or somebody like that. Ecwid or Ecwid, however you want to say it... You know, not the easiest platform in the world to work with, not as well known. You know, move forward at your own risk with that one. Square Online, not even gonna waste breath. Shift4Shop. ....That's Shift for Shop.

Lauren: I'm really glad you, you repeated that with emphasis.

Matt: I realized I said that fast and somebody’s probably like, wait, what did he just say? Again, not that great. And then this one is so annoying. I don't know why, but so many authors use this one. And it's... in the grand scheme of things, not a great platform, but whatever. And it's PayHip. Now, I think the reason why a lot of authors still use it is because it has been around for a while and it's morphed into, you know, lots of different variations of an ecommerce platform over the years. But again, it's 2026. The technology is far surpassed what PayHip actually does. Again, that’s my opinion, it's the opinion of a lot of other people online. So again, you know, buyer beware. Use it at your own risk. If you're already using it and you love it, great. Whatever. Don't at me, because I don't care. But I don't think it's a great of a platform. So we'll move forward with those five that we, that we identified as again, basically the the big five, if you will. There's other types of ecommerce platforms that we're not going to talk about right now. Some of them are more in the range of marketplaces. And you can get into things like oh, are you going to talk about Etsy? No. There are platforms like Fourthwall and Gumroad. They're kind of a hybrid of marketplace and ecommerce platform. You can go to Fourthwall, you can set up a product. Most of what you sell on Fourthwall has to run through their POD providers. But I do believe they have an inventory option where you can handle your own fulfillment. GoDaddy has their own version of doing ecommerce, but it is not easy.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: It's not user intuitive at all.

Lauren: I was honestly so confused when I saw that show up on one of those lists.

Matt: Yeah it’s –

Lauren: I was like, really?

Matt: – not great. Big Cartel is another one. It's more of a true ecommerce platform. It's been around for a while. They really need to do some updates, though. It's, it's pretty out of date. So... Yeah. But. Those are some of the other ones.

Lauren: Yeah. I just think it's important to recognize that there are... you know, this is a, this is a representative sampling, but there are so many options out there. Just because we didn't mention them doesn't mean they don't exist.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: But these are, these are the the most... Reliable? Maybe?

Matt: No, that's exactly right. What I was going to say is there's a reason why the top five are the top five.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: There's a reason why those five have grown at the rate that they've grown over the last three to five years. Like, exponentially. And there's a reason why more people use them than the rest of these smaller ones.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: It is reliability. It is security. It is things like that that are very important. Oftentimes we see people just go for the cheapest option, or what they think is the easiest option. And within days, weeks, months they hate their life, you know? Or, or worse, something bad happens, right? Like. So I get it. Lots of times you want to buck the system and not go with big name brands or things like that. But, you know, when you're dealing with money and people's personal information via transactional credit card things, like, you really need to, to think about who you're going to use, who you're going to trust with that information. And just trust with your business in general. And yeah, sometimes it might cost you a few pennies more per transaction. Or, you know, $5 extra per month than some other plan. But sometimes peace of mind and security is worth it.

Lauren: This is one of those things that you're this kind of like a cornerstone foundation of, of your whole brand. Which is not to say that –

Matt: If you're selling direct, yeah.

Lauren: Yes. Which, which is not to say that you can't ever change. We – absolutely you can. You can choose to move from one platform to the next. And it's not easy, but you can. It's okay to do that. But you, you do want to be thoughtful and conscientious about not just where you build your platform, like on what platform you build your platform, I guess. But also like recognizing that, that this is more than just deciding like, oh, you know, do I want to pay the premium for the highest end thing, whatever, blah blah blah. Your reputation is attached to this too. And if your customers ever have any kind of issue where they feel insecure about your ecommerce solution because you cheaped out and chose a less reputable or less reliable one.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: That's irreparable damage to your brand. That has nothing to do with your workflow or your automations or anything like that, and is actually just damaging your brand itself. So this is something that's worth doing the research. And, and worth spending the money on.

Matt: Yeah. No notes. Hundred percent.

Lauren: Love that.

Matt: Let’s –

Lauren: Not just cause you want to move on?

Matt: Well that too, yeah.

[20:47] – Shopify

Matt: We'll start with the biggest one.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: The, the, the one most people know and talk about. And that's Shopify.

Lauren: Ranked number one on every single resource that I looked at, including unofficially on Reddit. It was the one most recommended, the one that had the most upvotes every time somebody commented it.

Matt: I look at Shopify... Again, I'm a Shopify user, but just in general, when we talk to people who have used it or who use it or – I mean, you know, sometimes it's referred to as the lesser of the evils or, you know, the devil you know, however you want to look at it. But Shopify is the largest. They're the largest for a reason. And we're going to go through the pros and cons of each of these, and we're going to start with Shopify. But Shopify is verifiably the largest one right now.

Lauren: I mean, the lesser of all evils, this is capitalism. They're all evil.

Matt: It's like Delta, right?

Lauren: Right.

Matt: Well, and I don't think capitalism is evil, by the way.

Lauren: No, but –

Matt: We differ on that.

Lauren: – the companies that are –

Matt: It's like Delta. Like –

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Everybody says why do you always fly Delta? It's, it's the lesser of all the evils. It’s the devil I know. Like.

Lauren: Agreed.

Matt: You know?

Lauren: Absolutely.

Matt: This is how I view Shopify. It's... it has its advantages, for sure. Going with the largest provider of something has its advantages. It also has its disadvantages. So, you know, from the top its advantages are: it's pretty easy to use. Like, regardless of your skill level, Shopify is fairly easy to use. Very few of these platforms have an interface where it's basically two or three clicks and you're done. But Shopify is probably the closest to it. Like, you literally can pick a theme, you can pick a free theme. You don't have to pick a paid one. Once you sign up for the account, pick a theme and literally give it a few pieces of information, and your site is almost pretty much built for you. And then you're just gonna plug in the product that you're – which we're gonna assume is a book. They have a ton of apps. So, you know, again, you need things like, you know, help with taxes or some of these, they have an app for everything in their ecosystem. Their app store is great, by the way. For the most part. You can find so much stuff in there. Everything's rated. It's just a really good ecosystem for people who don't want to spend time doing a lot of the work themselves. And they're like me, they'd rather just plug in an app for that and plug in an app for that. Plug in something there for email, plug in something here for social media, and just let it let it go. Right? Like automating things. It's great for if you happen to get lucky enough to scale from selling three books a month to 3,000 books a month. There's no effect whatsoever, a negative effect, on the system. It's completely scalable and automated. They have a great selection of help resources. I've had to try and contact them once. That was not so easy. But I did eventually get through to somebody. But most other times, if there's something I'm trying to figure it out, their, their documentation, their knowledge base, their articles, it's, it's pretty easy.

Lauren: I have used Shopify as a research and education resource for pretty much the whole time that I've worked at Lulu, for very – whether it was in when I was doing social media content and looking for stuff to share on social media, or doing research for various podcast episodes we've done. And consistently a very useful, accessible –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – it's never been something that I've been like, oh my God I don't even know what they're talking about here. I usually feel like it, it answers the question that I need to by the end of it. So yes –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – absolutely great for that.

Matt: Now, the drawbacks to Shopify.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: The number one drawback, the one that most people cite, is the cost.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: So all of these platforms, or most of them, will have a monthly cost. Shopify tends to be on the higher end of the scale. Their base plan starts at $39 a month. For some people, that's a deal breaker. I think it just depends on who you are, how you value your time, what your budget is. But for that $39 a month, you get quite a bit. But it does start to add up.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: So all those apps I said that like –

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: – I like to plug in, some are free, some are not. Some also cost an additional amount of money per month to use them. Or there's a usage fee. Yeah, you might use an app to deliver audiobooks, and every time you deliver an audiobook to a customer there's a download fee, or things like that. So those fees start to add up. You could very easily go from a $39 a month plan to having a monthly bill that you're paying to maintain your ecommerce storefront through Shopify, and the associated apps with it, 50, 75, 100, $200.

Lauren: Easily.

Matt: But they also have plans that go as high as a couple hundred dollars a month, depending on what you need and how much you're using it. So cost is the number one reason cited by people who don't use Shopify. Or Shopify users when polled, what are your biggest complaints about Shopify? It's usually the cost.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: So.

Lauren: And there are, you know, there are different ways to look at that too. There is – I was looking at this yesterday. It is $39 a month, but it is slightly less if you are billed annually –

Matt: Well, yeah.

Lauren: – and not monthly. And this is for the basic plan. Obviously it increases as you tier up with their different, their different style of plans. But it's $29 a month if you bill it annually and not monthly.

Matt: That's a good point. What I will say is they build in some extra incentives for, for you to pay yearly instead of monthly. One is obviously you save some money. But the other is like, you know, shipping is a nightmare sometimes when you're dealing with ecommerce, right? Especially if you sell outside of the US, you're an international seller. So, you know, mapping, you know, shipping providers and regions and costs. It's, it can be a nightmare.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: They have what's called live shipping rates. But you can only access those, you can only use, you know, or get access to that feature, if you pay, if you're on one of the higher plans. Like the, you know, $100 a month or whatever, or if you pay annually. So if you pick the lowest plan, but you pay it annually, not only do you save $10 a month, but you get access to live shipping rates, which makes your shipping setup a breeze. And so if you're doing that, that's a pro move. And so if you're paying $29 a month because you pay it annually and you're getting access to live shipping rates, you are way ahead of the game already. So if you can afford it, if your budget allows for it and you can pay annually, you get a bunch of extra features built in for paying annually. Which I think is really cool.

Lauren: I mean, personally, I'm always gonna argue in favor of paying annually. If it's, if it's something that you know you're going to be using –

Matt: Well, yeah.

Lauren: – and you have the upfront –

Matt: Yeah, yeah.

Lauren: – money to, to cover that. I think that's always just my personal preference. But I also think that while I completely agree that it's very easy to go a little overboard with the apps that you install to make this whole workflow a lot easier for you, and then all of a sudden you're paying $100 a month just on the apps and all that supporting stuff alone. In the same way that we've talked about, you know, in the last episode we talked about offset versus digital printing and understanding the difference between like maybe the price per unit or the cost per unit for offset is lower than digital. But when you also factor in all the budget that you have to spend on warehousing and storing that inventory and fulfillment and packaging and all that kind of stuff, it might actually wind up breaking closer to even than you think it does. On the cost per unit. Maybe you decide that you don't want to spend the extra expense on all of these different app solutions that are in Shopify, but you wind up creating a tech stack for yourself that's bits and pieces from all over the place that winds up still costing that same amount, and it doesn't exist in the ecosystem that you're in in the first place.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Are you actually saving that money at all in the long run and possibly wasting even more time on top of the, the additional money?

Matt: Some people would still see that as a disadvantage.

Lauren: Sure.

Matt: One of the other things that is considered a disadvantage of Shopify is that everything is within the Shopify ecosystem.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: So if you're somebody that likes to have total control over your website presence, over the things you're doing, over hosting your files – over, you know, Shopify might not be the best solution for you. Because everything is in the Shopify ecosystem. So, yes, you kind of own your site and everything, but, you know, there's still a single point of failure there if, let's just say Shopify goes down for whatever reason or something like that happens, or who knows. Everything is there in Shopify’s platform, in their ecosystem. So there is, there is a choke point there, potentially. Now, I've not seen that happen, but it does happen. You know, Google's gone out for half a day and half the world was like, whoa, what's going on? So it's always something to think about. But you know, I think the two biggest disadvantages to Shopify would be cost. You know, that just adds up very quickly. And again, the fact that everything is within the Shopify ecosystem. So if you're somebody who doesn't like that, who doesn't like that single point of failure system or, you know, just likes to have more control over things like hosting their site, hosting their files, you know, stuff like that. Shopify may not be the best bet for you.

Lauren: I think a lot of the things that we're going to talk about, and that we have already talked about in this episode, are... they can they can be equally advantages or disadvantages depending on your personal preference.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: So this is something, you know, we're, we're presenting it as factually as possible, because some of these things you might, you might just be like I, that's not a, that's not a disadvantage to me. I'm fine with that. I prefer all my things to exist within –

Matt: Yes.

Lauren: – the same ecosphere. I think I just mashed two words together.

Matt: You did, but it's okay.

Lauren: Whatever. It's fine.

Matt: It works.

Lauren: It does work. You know, for some people they prefer that. And other people that would be a deterrent for them. So, you know, take everything with just because we are identifying something as an advantage or disadvantage doesn't mean you have to view it that way.

Matt: Yeah. The last thing on Shopify I will say is that Shopify is best for people who are beginners.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: I think. So, if you are a beginner, if this is your first foray into direct sales or ecommerce or building a website or doing whatever, Shopify probably is your best bet. As long as you have the budget. I think that's probably the best one for you to go with.

[31:42] – WooCommerce

Matt: The next one is kind of on the opposite end of that spectrum, I think. It's WooCommerce. But what we have to mention here, what we should point out, is WooCommerce is actually just a plugin that sits on top of WordPress. So unlike Shopify, where everything is Shopify – it's the Shopify platform. It's Shopify plugins. You're building in Shopify. It's hosted by Shopify. Everything is there, nice and tidy, right? Good or bad. WooCommerce is nothing more than, than an actual plugin, an ecommerce plugin, that sits on top of your WordPress site. So if you're already a WordPress user, which I think something like almost 40% of the world operates on WordPress. Or did, they had a huge... It doesn't matter. Anyways.

Lauren: Oh?

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: I was like, oh, you got tea?

Matt: There was like a whole like –

Lauren: What?

Matt: Nah, it's old tea.

Lauren: Oh.

Matt: There was like some weird fallout within the WordPress leadership ranks. And –

Lauren: Sad.

Matt: – business unit. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Anyways, I've always found WordPress to be somewhat complicated and, and aggravating, so I've, I've never really stuck with WordPress. But some people absolutely love WordPress. I mean, absolutely love it. Because you have full creative control, because you choose where you want to host your site, who hosts it, how you host it, the files, all of that stuff. It gives you full control. So I can see why a lot of people like it. But there's a massive learning curve there. But –

Lauren: My understanding is always kind of been that if you already are a WordPress user, WooCommerce is the ultimate solution for you –

Matt: Sure.

Lauren: – if you are trying to add ecommerce into your existing WordPress. But if you are building a site from scratch, this is probably not the direction that you want to go in.

Matt: No, not unless, again, you're somebody who already has experience building sites –

Lauren: Right.

Matt: – and you want all that control. I mean, the learning curve on WordPress is steep. It's not... Yeah, it's not for the, the beginner or faint of heart. But yes, WooCommerce is the ultimate plugin for you if you have a Word – it's probably one of the only or best solutions for ecommerce if you've got a WordPress site and you want to keep everything, you know, native there. Again, it's extremely flexible in terms of what you can do. Like WordPress, WooCommerce offers you a lot of flexibility there. You're still within the WordPress ecosystem, so WordPress has its own other apps and things available. WooCommerce is just another one of those apps. I think personally WooCommerce is a tough one. WordPress is a tough one, I should say. If you're just starting out, if you're an indie creator with just a couple of titles, you know, there's just a lot of work that goes into it. So I would I would think very carefully about whether or not you're going to, to move forward with WordPress and WooCommerce. It has its advantages. That creative, flexible sort of environment where you can do whatever you want. WordPress has been around for a long time, so they've got quite a bit of SEO built up in terms of their platform and the way that they're able to make sure that, you know, discoverability stays at the forefront of what they're doing. But yeah, that's a tough one.

Lauren: Please correct me if I'm wrong about this. But I'm, I'm pretty sure that WooCommerce and WordPress are open source, so they are free to use in a way that could be misleading. Because –

Matt: Yes.

Lauren: – they are free to use, but there are just other... not hidden costs, but there are other costs in there. You are still responsible for paying for hosting your own platform and paying for all the the tools and plugins that you would need, that might already be built into something like Shopify. So I think it can be an attractive option for people because they see free to use and think, oh wait, wait, wait, wait, I can, like, I can save some money in my budget here.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: And then you don't realize that there are a lot of tangentially related or hidden fees or something like that, that you are still going to be responsible for paying for. It's just not technically being billed by WordPress.

Matt: Yeah, I wouldn’t say there's a lot of them, but there's definitely, you know, fees and things that upfront you might not realize you're going to have to shoulder. And it can be confusing, right? Like figuring out – Because you have a lot of options of where to host and how to host your WordPress site. You can actually host it with WordPress. I think it's called like WP engine or something like that. Or actually that was part of the, I think, the internal falling out that was happening. So it's, I don't know if they figured all that out, but WordPress was a little bit of a mess there for a little while, I think last year. Anyways, yes, you're absolutely right. It looks completely free on the outside if you're looking in, because again, a lot of it's open source or, you know. But when you get down to it there, there will be monthly fees or yearly fees for hosting – and a number of other things, by the way. So it's not completely free at all. You're 100% right about that. And again, you know, if you want complete freedom, creative control, things like that, it's a good option. But these days, if you just want something easy, fairly quick, you don't want to have to spend a lot of time learning how to build certain components or dealing with these things. You don't want to deal with figuring out how you're gonna host it, who's gonna host it, where you're gonna host it, what those fees are gonna be. It's not a great option. But it's still one of the largest ways that people build and or host content and sell content. So. We had to talk about it.

Lauren: Yeah.

[37:35] – Wix 

Matt: We'll move on to Wix.

Lauren: Okay.

Matt: Wix is a lot like Shopify. It's another sort of, kind of drag and drop, easy-builder type of tool. Wix was kind of garbage back in the day. Like, there were very few site builder tools that existed, but Wix was one of them. And I feel like they were kind of at the bottom of the ladder there. But the joke's on everybody else, including me, because Wix is one of the few that survived that era, and they've been able to transform into, you know, something very similar to Shopify. So Wix places a little more resources and effort into being a full website builder solution, not just ecommerce. Like Shopify is really focused on ecommerce. Like you can build a nice, robust website with Shopify. It takes a little longer, but they're really focused on ecommerce, right? Whereas Wix is a pretty healthy balance of like, yes, you can build a really nice, just straight up website, but you can also build in a really cool sort of ecommerce storefront component. So. It is easy to use though. It's like Shopify. If you're a beginner, it's a lot of just drag and drop, or I want this, or choose a different font or different color, but you can spin up a Wix website and storefront very quickly, just like Shopify.

Lauren: I actually saw them do a presentation at a conference one time that they literally spun up a website live on stage.

Matt: If you've ever done something like that.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Like, you know again, an online website building tool or, or something like that, you could hop into something like Wix or Shopify and very quickly spin up a website.

Lauren: Sure.

Matt: And then spend a few more hours making it like a top notch site. But you could spin up a basic site literally in 20, 30 minutes. And be published on the web, ready to do whatever you want to do, right? But again, you know, Wix is really good for that balance. Like if you're just trying to build yourself a nice author platform and you really want to focus on that first, like your brand, who you are as an author, maybe you've got multiple titles. It's a really good option. Now again, they're not as focused on ecommerce as Shopify is, but they've got really good ecommerce tools. I think that if you're going to, if you're looking to have just a nice, balanced approach in perpetuity, Wix is great. If you think you're going to sell more and more. You know, you're gonna keep publishing or writing books or creating content, and you want to keep – and you really want your presence to be more ecommerce, more direct sales-focused. Shopify might still be the better bet, but Wix is a great option. Their pricing is fairly similar, if not almost identical to Shopify, although some of the plans can be a little bit cheaper. And then they have some plugins and things too that will help with things like tax collection and stuff like that, so. I think Wix and Shopify are probably the two easiest to use for beginners, most widely used. And again, Shopify just focuses more on ecommerce and direct sales. Wix really tries to present more of a balanced approach to an actual website with multiple pages. Maybe you want a blog built in. I'll tell you, that's one thing that kind of sucks with Shopify.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Trying to add a blog to your site, it's almost impossible. Like my website sucks for that. Like, there's literally like an About Me page and then like, you know, my book. But I tried to build out a blog and it was just like, it was a nightmare. So, you know, a lot easier on Wix, right? So think about that. Like, what are you going to use your website for besides just selling books?

Lauren: I was actually on a website recently that I'm not con- I'm not, I'm not like 100% confident, but I'm pretty sure it is a storefront that's, that's powered by Shopify. And they used to have a blog attached to their website and they don't anymore. And I was like, oh.

Matt: Yeah. Or oftentimes link off to a different...

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Which I actually think, I think even – I think you're right, I think even back then when they did have the blog attached to it, it still, it was a third party. And then they just kind of gave that up because it was, you know, not integrated well with the rest of the website.

Matt: I think that was an afterthought for Shopify. They were like, yeah, we need to have this here. But it's like –

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: – I just don't think they put any thought into it. –

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: – Because it is not user friendly at all. At all.

Lauren: Which is unusual for them. But.

Matt: Well, it's unfortunate too, because that's where a lot of people get a lot of their discoverability from.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Right? So maybe Shopify will work that out one day.

Lauren: Maybe. I do think that one of the things that was interesting with Wix and Shopify, actually, was one of the sources that I used for this – that, again, I will have this linked in the show notes – was actually an article from Shopify. Shopify loves a good listicle, and they had a list of the 11 best ecommerce platforms in market today.

Matt: Let me guess what number one was.

Lauren: I bet you can't.

Matt: It's gotta be Shopify.

Lauren: Oh my gosh. You were right.

Matt: Gold star for me.

Lauren: But what do you think number two was?

Matt: I'm going to guess it's Wix –

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: – since that's what we're talking about. But I will say this. And you're right, they absolutely love a listicle. Like, Shopify puts out so much content, like blog content.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: It's almost all in list form.

Lauren: Always. And it's very rarely ten. They very often do nine or eleven. And I'm like, what, what's wrong with a nice ten?

Matt: Yeah. I don't know, I like even numbers too, but.

Lauren: Yeah. But I did think that it was very telling that they put Wix as number two. Because obviously this is, this is a list that is compiled with with some bias, even if they're presenting it as an unbiased –

Matt: Well, it looks like bias. But think about it, like. Every, every other bit of research you do outside of Shopify, people still list Shopify as number one.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: So yeah, I mean, there's obviously some inherent bias, but at the end of the day, they are actually number one.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: So it's just because it's coming from them it feels a little bit more cringy. But you know what I was going to say is you're right, in terms of of the content and always doing listicles. But what I've found is they are actually fairly objective –

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: – about their competitors when they are doing content that involves their competitors. And I don't see a lot of other people doing that. So, you know, hats off to them for that.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: At least.

Lauren: I, I completely agree with that. And I think that that's very relevant that because they are very often a brand that is as objective as they can be. And do not – like, they they don't shy away from their competitors. WooCommerce was on there too. Multiple other, like there were, there were definitely different competitors of theirs on that list. And I think that it's very telling that they put Wix at number two.

Matt: Yeah. Yeah.

Lauren: And that says a lot about how these two kind of measure up against each other.

Matt: Yeah. So just like the other two, you know, we'll tell you that we feel Wix, in my opinion, it's best again for beginners, first timers. But I think Wix is also really good for nonfiction creators. People who really do want to build out a broader website presence, have more pages, maybe a blog, some other stuff like that. Having that ability to do it in a fashion that is much easier than on Shopify, I think, is what puts Wix a little bit ahead. And I think that's what it makes it best for nonfiction creators, beginners, even small businesses, things like that.

Lauren: Yeah.

[45:08] – Squarespace

Matt: Okay. Squarespace.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Squarespace is the one that everybody either loves or hates. And then a lot of people love to hate it.

Lauren: I have to ask this question all the time, so maybe you can answer it for me just in case any of our listeners are thinking it at the same time. Squarespace and Square. Two different platforms?

Matt: Yes.

Lauren: Insane.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: So...

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: To be clear right now, we are talking about Squarespace, which is not the one that it has the physical card reader that you see when you go out shopping these days.

Matt: That’s just Square.

Lauren: That’s Square.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Right. Okay.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: One day I'll get it right.

Matt: Yeah. It doesn't matter. You don't need to get it right.

Lauren: That's fair.

Matt: Honestly. Squarespace has been around for the while. It's got a really good site building tool. It's really good for people who do things that are going to be very image-heavy, portfolio-based. It's used by a lot of small businesses, especially those that, again, need to be able to include a lot of photos or imagery and things like that. I personally wouldn't, you know, if I'm talking to an author creator and we're talking about stuff, I personally would not recommend Squarespace, necessarily, for the purpose of selling books. Especially if you're new or a beginner. But you can build a really nice website on Squarespace. If for some reason you're already using it, or you're just inclined to use it, I mean, you're going to build a nice looking site, especially if you know, you're doing or you take the time to learn their tool set.

Lauren: It's just not really as focused on ecommerce.

Matt: They have ecommerce, obviously. It's just not a huge focus. Again, I think, I think when they set out to, to build Squarespace to, to build that platform, they were really trying to build something that was also holistic and all encompassing, kind of like Wix. But Squarespace is a little more complicated. It's fairly easy to use, but still a little more complicated than Wix or Shopify. But their templates and their template database are really nice. Again, if you need a presence that is very much image driven or imagery driven, I should say. You know, if you're going to have a lot of photos or a portfolio of things or... You know maybe, maybe you're not an author or a creator necessarily in the sense, but maybe you're a designer, you know, a cover designer, things like that. And you really need to have a site where you can showcase your work or, you know, whatever it is. Right? Maybe you are a book creator, but you sell photo books or, you know, coffee table style art books, or things like that. Squarespace is a pretty decent option just because of how robust that platform is in terms of that type of template, that type of setup. But yeah, you're right. It's not focused on ecommerce, and they have less features in their ecommerce part of the business. Because they're not focused on ecommerce, you may find it a little harder to navigate things like tax collection, shipping. It's not quite as easy or intuitive as as a Wix or Shopify. And then if you wanted to, to create a storefront that had any level of complexity to it, or just something beyond like buy now, it's in the cart, and you're done. Like if you really wanted to build out a cool shopping experience, which a lot of authors and creators do, and I think that's really cool. Squarespace is not the one to do it with. Yeah.

Lauren: We also don't have a Lulu Direct plugin. If that's something that you're looking for.

Matt: We don't, that's a good point that you bring up. So the first three we talked about there's Lulu Direct plugins for all three of those. So it's very easy to just plug and play. It's virtually no work involved. Squarespace does... we did not do a plugin for Squarespace. For a number of reasons. Now, if you're a Squarespace user and you want to use Lulu, you still can. You could use, Zapier and create a zap. That would work. You could also use Claude and create an MCP, where you can connect your Lulu account and your projects to your Squarespace website, your, your storefront, and make sure that any orders that come through for those books go right through the Lulu API and they're printed and shipped. These days with Claude and MCPs and, you know, being able to create zaps, I don't think we’ll create any more native plugins. I think because this stuff exists now, we don't need to, but yeah, there is no Lulu plugin for Squarespace. You're right.

Lauren: Yeah. There are there are a lot of solutions out there that are unofficial solutions.

Matt: Sure.

Lauren: Just because we do not have an official plugin for it does not mean that it's not possible for you to connect your Lulu account and various different sites and sources and platforms and subscription tools and stuff like that out there. So, you know, don't let that necessarily deter you from using something if it's a super attractive option and suits your needs.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: There's still a way to figure it out.

Matt: Yeah, I agree.

[50:20] – BigCommerce

Matt: This last one that we'll touch on, there's also not a Lulu plugin for this one.

Lauren: Right.

Matt: We’ll just go ahead and get that one out of the way.

Lauren: Yep.

Matt: I almost didn't want to include this one because of how how many larger scale businesses use it. But I do think it's a good one to talk about, because if you're someone who really wants to make sure you're getting a lot for your money... From what I've heard and been told and seen BigCommerce, which is, you know, the fifth one, they pack a lot of stuff in to each of their plans. So on some of these other platforms, you might have to use an app or a plugin for, you know, tax collection or, I don't know, some other facet of what you're doing. Right? Or, you know, to create bundles, you might have to use a plugin on Shopify. There's a lot of that stuff that's just naturally built in to BigCommerce. It was, it was created, as in the name, specifically for stores and brands and businesses that had pretty healthy catalogs or, you know, product catalogs, portfolios. There's a lot of stuff built in for people who are selling at scale. It's a great tool if you're already somebody who's selling a lot of books and you're looking for a [direct to sale or] direct sales platform. But it's also a little bit tough to manage. It's built like an enterprise tool. So it's not going to give you that super sort of easy drag and drop, sort of feel like you're going to have to do a little bit of homework to, to build a really nice storefront using BigCommerce. But again, if you're someone who's already doing volume, or anticipating doing a lot of volume, or has a catalog of 150 titles or more, or something like that. Maybe you're a medium sized publisher, small publisher, whatever that might be. BigCommerce is a really good option. But yeah, I think if you're at the smaller end of that spectrum in terms of a beginner, maybe you've only got one or two titles, something like that. BigCommerce is not for you yet.

Lauren: I think that yet is, is a really important qualifier in there. Because that is why it made the cut, ultimately, to be included in this. Is that this is something that you can absolutely grow into, and absolutely something that could be a really great long term solution.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Or it could be a solution for somebody who is saying I am an established, author or, or I have an established brand. I've got this proof of concept already. I'm not experimenting with this. I've been selling direct for several years now. And I'm looking to make a change to a new platform because I want more features, more capability, more scalability, stuff like that. This is not the entry-level one, but that doesn't mean that it's not a good option –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – for people that are in this space, that are looking for something a little more robust than those beginner, entry-level –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – platforms.

Matt: Yeah, if I was going to grow or scale into a different platform outside of Shopify, one that could handle more volume, offer me more for my money, better transaction fees, you know, all those things when you're dealing with high volumes, BigCommerce would be the one that I rolled into. It wouldn't be Adobe or one of those others. It would be BigCommerce for sure.

Lauren: Yeah.

[53:58] – Up and Coming Solutions for Authors

Matt: Okay. A few more that we didn't talk about yet, but we just wanted to mention them. These are very specific to authors and books.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Books, I should say, regardless of how you identify. But. There's a couple that we just wanted to quickly mention. We're not going to go in-depth. You can look them up for yourself. Books.by or Books dot B Y is basically a, an ecommerce storefront tool platform specifically geared towards people who sell books. Authors, creators, things like that. They're also the people that built and own Tableau, which is kind of a self-publishing site. So they kind of work hand in hand. There's another one called The Bookshelf. It's TheBookshelf.io.

Lauren: I will link all three of these –

Matt: Yup.

Lauren: – in the show notes, so if you want to learn more about them, you can check them out. Because some of them are... the, the URL is not...

Matt: Sure.

Lauren: Super obvious what it is.

Matt: Yeah. The Bookshelf is brought to you by the people that did Atticus, the writing tool. So again –

Lauren: Great tool.

Matt: – they’re in the industry, they know – Now, I will say Bookshelf does not have the direct sales component ready yet. So it's a website builder right now, for authors and booksellers. The direct sales component, I believe, is coming later this year. But nonetheless looks like it's a great platform. We know the people behind that one. And then the other one we’ll mention is called StorytellerOS. Also URL is StorytellerOS.com, I think, or something like that.

Lauren: Something like that.

Matt: Storyteller is also one of those all-encompassing platforms. Will help you with direct sales, building a site, it'll help you with social media posting, all kinds of things. So again, very much geared towards authors, creators, people who are in the business of selling books. So those are three strong contenders if you want something that is easy to use and very much focused on authors, books, and not so much other stuff. Some people might find it nice to have a tool set that is specifically geared towards, you know, people who write books for a living or something like that. So, yeah.

Lauren: I'm always excited to see when people that are in the industry too are the ones that are, that are building these kinds of tools.

Matt: Yes. Yeah.

Lauren: Because somebody said, I'm looking for a solution that is going to best suit my needs. And right now there's nothing out there that really is specifically for me and solving the problems that I need solved.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: And fine, I'll do it myself. And I kinda – I always love to see that. So these are really cool. Check them out. We'll probably talk more about them in the future.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: And some other ones out there too.

Matt: Yeah.

[56:47] – Episode Wrap Up

Matt: So hopefully that was helpful. Again, we talked about the top five. We got Shopify, Wix, WooCommerce, Squarespace, BigCommerce. If you're a beginner, Shopify is probably your best bet as long as you have the budget for it. If your budget is not Shopify-friendly and you're a beginner, you can take your chances with WordPress and WooCommerce. Just be wary of the fees, and it is a steep learning curve. But if you're somebody who likes to learn new things, you want to learn to build your own website and you want to learn about how that works, WordPress is a good option for you. It is open source, there is a lot of free components to it. But again, just be conscious of that, and keep an eye on those fees. If you've got a little experience in these things and you want something that's more well-rounded, because you want to build a more robust website in general, maybe you have a nice blog but still have a storefront, Wix is a good option. And then if you're looking for scale, you really want to move the needle, and you're at that point where you're ready to, to sort of level up, BigCommerce is probably, probably your best bet there.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: So.

Lauren: No notes.

Matt: Anything else you want to add to that?

Lauren: I don't think so. Maybe just, you know, a reminder that even if it wasn't something that we mentioned in this episode, doesn't mean that it's not a viable option for you.

Matt: Sure.

Lauren: Depending on, on what your goals are, what your business needs are, there are so many – more and more every day – solutions out there, platforms out there. You don't have to settle for one just because it's the first one you come across. You also should not settle for one just because it's the cheapest one that you come across.

Matt: For sure.

Lauren: Do your research. There's a bunch of stuff out there to help you. If, if this is something that you're really trying to narrow down and pick a path... Go forth and do it. Because there's a lot of really great options out there, and one of them is going to be the right fit for you.

Matt: Yep. Alright, so... Do all the things. Like, subscribe, leave a comment, leave a review. Send an email.

Lauren: Podcast@lulu.com

Matt: Let a pigeon free with a note strapped to its leg, send smoke signals. Whatever you want to do.

Lauren: Smoke signals might not be super viable right now.

Matt: Not a good idea?

Lauren: Well, I mean, it's not a bad idea. It's just been raining a lot.

Matt: Here?

Lauren: So. Here.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Okay.

Lauren: So we might not see ‘em.

Matt: Alright. Scratch that one from the list. Alright –

Lauren: But, uh – yeah.

Matt: – come back and listen next week.

Lauren: Most important one.

Matt: Yep.

Lauren: And until then, thanks for listening.

Matt: Later.