Building a store on Shopify, WooCommerce, Tilda or Salla
Shopify, WooCommerce, Tilda and Salla are ready-made ecommerce platforms that let you start selling quickly. Which one fits depends on the market you sell to, how your products are structured and who will run the store. In this guide we compare the four and explain what needs to be done at setup and during maintenance.
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The short answer
Shopify is a common choice for international sales and a quick start; WooCommerce if you already have a WordPress site or want control over every detail; Tilda for a showcase site or a small store in the Russian-speaking market; Salla for selling in Saudi Arabia. All four can do the job. The right choice depends on whether your payment and shipping companies are supported on the platform, how many products and variants you have and how technical your team is.
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The four platforms in brief
Shopify runs on a subscription; hosting and security updates are the platform's responsibility, and the store is extended with themes and apps. WooCommerce is an open-source plug-in built on WordPress; the server, updates and backups belong to you or to the team maintaining the site, and in return you can change everything. Tilda is a block-based site builder, quick for showcase sites and stores with few products. Salla is a platform aimed at the Saudi market, with an Arabic interface and local payment and shipping connections.
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What happens at setup
Connecting the domain, choosing the theme and adapting it to the brand, the category structure, importing products and variants, connecting the payment provider and the shipping company, tax and currency settings, return, privacy and terms of sale pages, basic SEO settings (titles, URLs, sitemap) and analytics and conversion tracking. Before going live, an order should be tested end to end: a successful payment, a declined card, a cancellation and a refund.
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Maintenance depends on the platform
On WooCommerce, security holes pile up if the WordPress core, theme and plug-ins are not updated regularly; a backup should be taken before every update and the change tried on a test copy first. On Shopify, Tilda and Salla the platform keeps the infrastructure up to date; maintenance is mostly theme changes, app compatibility, product and campaign content and speed checks. Either way, two-step verification should be on for admin accounts and who has which permission should be written down.
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Who should own the accounts and the data
The store account, the domain and the payment provider contract should be in the business's name; the agency or developer should only work as an authorised user. Make sure you can export product, customer and order data regularly. If you ever need to change platform, redirecting old product URLs to the new ones is the only way to keep your history in search engines.
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When a ready-made platform is not enough
If you have rules of your own, such as dealer-specific prices, sales that go from quote to approval, several warehouses or two-way data exchange with accounting and ERP systems, a solution built from plug-ins can be fragile and risks breaking with every update. In that case custom ecommerce software may be the better choice. We compare the two paths in detail in our guide “Custom ecommerce or a ready-made platform?”.
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How we work at Doki
We build stores on Shopify, WooCommerce, Tilda and Salla and take over the maintenance of existing ones. In the first call we listen to how your products are structured, your market and your payment and shipping companies, and write down which platform fits and why; if our own ready-made ecommerce product or custom software fits better, we say so. The store account and the domain are opened in your name; the product list (names, prices, stock, variants) comes from you. You choose the payment provider and the contract runs directly between you and the provider. Scope and timing are itemised in the written quote.
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