2026年11月12日
This article is a localized edition of the Japanese original. Read the Japanese original
Whether you build an online store with WordPress (WooCommerce) or with STORES (formerly STORES.jp, a Japanese online store service) comes down to one question: can you take on responsibility for operations in exchange for more freedom? If you want to start selling right away and don't want to manage servers or security, STORES fits. If you want to grow the store together with articles and a brand site, or want fine-grained control over features and design, WordPress with WooCommerce fits. This article explains how the two differ in structure, the points to compare, how to use both together, and what to watch out for if you switch later.
Pricing plans and feature tiers change often, so this article does not mention specific amounts and compares the two by structure and approach instead. Check each service's official website for the latest terms (as of October 2026).
What Is the Difference in the First Place?
STORES is a service that bundles online store creation, payments, and order management. The service handles server and software updates, and you can open a store just by setting up products and design in its admin panel. This is the model often called "ASP" or "SaaS."
WordPress + WooCommerce is the approach of installing WordPress on a server you provide and adding the e-commerce plugin WooCommerce to turn it into an online store. The software itself is free, but you are responsible for the server, domain, SSL, contracts with payment services, updates, backups, and security.
In other words, STORES is like a rented storefront, and WordPress is like a store you build yourself. The question is not which is better, but what you want to manage yourself.
Points to Compare
Effort Until Opening
With STORES, you create an account, register your products and store information, and you can start selling in a short time. Payments are built into the service, so there is little extra contracting to do.
With WordPress, you need to prepare a server, install WordPress and WooCommerce, choose a theme, configure payment plugins, set up email sending, and more. If you are experienced it doesn't take long, but if it's your first time, plan on anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.
Design and Feature Flexibility
With STORES, you adjust the design within the provided templates and settings. Within that range it's easy, but fundamentally changing the layout or building your own checkout flow may be difficult.
With WordPress, customization through themes, the block editor, and child themes lets you build almost any look and feature. Its strength is how much plugins and code can cover, such as subscriptions, pre-orders, member-only pricing, and complex shipping calculations. On the other hand, the more plugins you add, the more compatibility issues and update work you have.
Payments
STORES generally uses the payment features provided by the service. The available payment methods, such as credit cards and convenience store payments (common in Japan), vary by plan and over time.
With WooCommerce, you choose and install an integration plugin for each payment service, such as Stripe, PayPal, Square, or KOMOJU. You sign the contract with the payment service yourself and go through its review. For security, it's important to choose a method that does not store card data on your own server (the payment service's hosted page or tokenization). When configuring, follow each payment service's documentation, and check the order flow in test mode before switching to live mode.
Traffic and Content
WordPress was originally software for building blogs and websites, so you can publish articles and customer case studies on the same site as your product pages. Because you can tune URL design, structured data, internal links, and more yourself, it suits stores that want to grow search traffic over the long term. However, search rankings depend on many factors such as content quality and competition, so choosing WordPress does not by itself put you at the top.
STORES may also offer blog-like features and integrations with social media and other marketplaces. If you want to start publishing easily, that may be enough, so check the official information to see whether it has the features you need.
Responsibility for Operations and Security
This is the biggest difference. With STORES, server maintenance, software vulnerability fixes, and outage response are the service's responsibility.
With WordPress, you (or a contractor) handle updates to WordPress core, themes, and plugins, backups, protection against unauthorized logins, server monitoring, and so on. If you neglect updates, attackers may exploit vulnerabilities, leading to defacement or data leaks. An online store handles personal and order information, so think about whether you can put an operations setup in place before you choose.
How to Think About Costs
Amounts vary by plan and contract, so it's hard to generalize, but the structure differs as follows.
- STORES: Mainly the plan fee and payment processing fees based on sales.
- WordPress: Server and domain costs, paid themes and plugins, payment service fees, and, if you outsource maintenance, that cost too.
Even though the WordPress software is free, once you include maintenance time and outsourcing costs, it is not necessarily cheaper overall. We recommend comparing them including labor costs.
Which Cases Each One Suits
When STORES is a good fit
- You want to start selling quickly and test whether things sell
- You can't spend time or staff on managing servers and security
- Your number of products and checkout flow are relatively simple
When WordPress + WooCommerce is a good fit
- You already run a site or blog on WordPress and want to add selling to it
- You need your own way of selling, such as subscriptions, reservations, or memberships
- You want to keep design and data under your own control and grow them over the long term
- You have a setup that can keep up with updates and backups
Using Both Together
You don't have to pick just one. A common setup is running the brand site or blog on WordPress and selling on STORES. You can start simply by linking from WordPress articles and product introduction pages to STORES product pages with a button.
With this setup, the WordPress side can focus on publishing information, and payments and order management are left to STORES. The catch is that analytics is split across two sites. If you measure with GA4 or similar, check whether you can set up a tracking tag on the STORES side and make sure you can follow visitors moving between the sites; that makes it easier to see which articles led to purchases.
What to Watch Out for When Switching Later
You may start on STORES and move to WordPress once the business grows, or consider the reverse. These are the challenges when switching.
- Migrating product data: Check whether CSV export and import are supported, and do a trial migration to confirm how images and variations are handled.
- Customer and order data: Because this includes personal information, confirm what can be migrated and how, and whether you need to notify the people concerned. You also need to update your privacy policy.
- URL changes: If you are not using your own domain, URLs change, and you may not be able to carry over search engine rankings or external links. Running on your own domain from the start reduces the impact of a migration.
- Legal notices under Japan's Act on Specified Commercial Transactions and terms of use: These are required on either service. Republish them on the new platform.
When migrating to WordPress, take a backup before you start, and complete order tests on a staging environment before going live.
Summary
- STORES's strengths are how easy it is to open and how little operational work it needs; WordPress + WooCommerce's strengths are flexibility and running the store together with content.
- The biggest difference is whether you take on the server, updates, and security yourself. Choosing based on your operations setup makes the decision easier.
- Using WordPress for publishing and STORES for selling is also a realistic option.
- Pricing and features change, so check the latest terms on the official websites, and if you might switch later, starting on your own domain gives you peace of mind.
Questions about WordPress? The publisher of this site is based in Japan and replies in Japanese. Contact (Japanese)