What can a virtual assistant do in Shopify or WooCommerce?
A virtual assistant takes over the repeating work in your shop: products, orders, returns and customer questions. Where you land depends on your platform, because Shopify and WooCommerce ask for a different kind of work and a different number of hours per month.
For most webshops the work lands between ten and twenty hours a month. In Shopify those hours go into products, orders and customer questions, because the platform maintains itself. With WooCommerce there is a WordPress site underneath your shop as well: updates, backups, security and speed.
The question nearly always arrives in the same shape: I run a webshop, what can someone else take over. The answer depends less on what you sell than on what your shop runs on. If you want the basics first, read virtual assistant for your webshop. This article goes one layer deeper and looks at the difference between the two platforms, and what that means for the work you hand over.
What work in your shop can you hand over?
Most of the work in a webshop repeats itself, which makes it transferable. It falls into four areas, and those areas are the same on both platforms.
| Area | What you hand over | Rhythm |
|---|---|---|
| Products | Adding items, updating variants and prices, cropping and uploading photos, writing product copy, building collections and categories, keeping stock levels right | Weekly, with a peak when a new collection drops |
| Orders | Processing orders, creating shipping labels, sending track and trace, logging returns and issuing refunds | Daily |
| Customer contact | Answering questions about delivery and returns, following up on reviews, keeping the FAQ current | Daily |
| The shop itself | Setting up discount campaigns, swapping banners, connecting and sending the newsletter | Monthly or per campaign |
That is the execution side. What you sell, at what price and at what margin stays with you. What that support looks like day to day is set out on webshop management and support.
What is the difference between Shopify and WooCommerce for the work you hand over?
This is the heart of it. With Shopify you rent a shop that someone else maintains. With WooCommerce you own the building, with all the freedom and all the upkeep that comes with it. You see that difference in who you need, how many hours go in, and what breaks when nobody is looking.
| Shopify | WooCommerce | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the work sits | In the Shopify admin: products, orders, apps and the theme | In WordPress: products and orders in WooCommerce, plus the whole site around it |
| Who does the maintenance | Shopify itself. Platform updates and security are not your job | You, or someone on your behalf: plugin updates, theme updates, backups, security and speed |
| What goes wrong unattended | Apps you still pay for but no longer use, and theme tweaks that shift after an update | Outdated plugins, a site that keeps getting slower and, at worst, a hacked shop |
| What access you give | A separate staff account with permissions per part of the shop | A WordPress user with a role, and sometimes access to your hosting as well |
| Hours per month | Usually 10 to 20 hours for the shop work itself | The same shop work, plus roughly 2 to 4 hours a month for maintenance |
With WooCommerce that maintenance is not an extra, it is the price of the freedom WordPress gives you. What goes into a maintenance round and what it costs is covered in what does WordPress maintenance cost. If you want the maintenance and the hosting in one fixed subscription, that runs through hosting and maintenance: 60 euro a month for maintenance, 25 euro for hosting, 85 euro together, cancellable monthly.
There is a practical consequence for who you hire. For a Shopify shop you need someone who knows the platform and works tidily. For a WooCommerce shop you want someone who is comfortable in WordPress too, otherwise you split the work across two parties and end up stuck in the middle when something breaks.
How many hours do you need and what does it cost?
The number of hours hangs on two things: how many orders come in per month, and whether the customer contact is included. That second one moves the needle more than people expect, because delivery and return questions always land at the moment you are busy with something else. These are practical guidelines, not a calculation model.
| Situation | Hours per month | Monthly package |
|---|---|---|
| Up to roughly 100 orders a month, you answer the customer questions yourself | 10 hours | 840 euro |
| 100 to 400 orders a month, customer contact included | 20 hours | 1600 euro |
| A growing shop with daily customer questions and a lot of product work | 40 hours | 3000 euro |
| Several shops, or one shop with a fixed team around it | 60 hours | 4200 euro |
If you are unsure about the number, how many hours do you need will help. What sits inside a package is set out in what does a virtual assistant cost.
One more thing you will run into online: plenty of providers do this work for a few euro an hour. That is not a trick, it is simply a different offer. For purely repetitive data entry in bulk, moving a thousand products across for instance, you are often cheaper off there and it is a sensible choice. It works less well as soon as something else is attached: customer questions that need answering in Dutch or Swedish, personal data of EU customers that has to be handled properly, or a WordPress install that needs maintaining as well. Then you tend to pay twice, once for the cheap hour and once to put it right. So look at what kind of work it is first, and at the price second.
What access do you give, and what do you keep?
You never have to share your own login. Both platforms let you create a separate user with limited rights, and that is exactly what you should do.
- A separate staff account. In Shopify you add an extra user to the shop, in WooCommerce a WordPress user of their own. Your owner account stays yours.
- Rights limited to what is needed. Products, orders and customer questions cover the daily work. You widen it only when the work genuinely needs it.
- Payment settings and payouts stay with you. Nobody needs to reach your bank account or your payment provider in order to ship an order.
- Access you can withdraw in a few clicks. Remove the user and it is done, without changing passwords everywhere.
With WooCommerce there is one extra thing to weigh. An administrator role in WordPress reaches far beyond the shop: it also opens up plugins, themes, users and the settings of the site. If someone only runs the shop, the shop manager role is enough. If the same person also does the maintenance, administrator makes sense, but then you want to know who you are letting in and how that is written down. How to arrange that properly is covered in working securely with a virtual assistant.
Frequently asked questions
Can a virtual assistant add and update my products?
Yes. Adding and updating products is usually the first thing people hand over, in Shopify and in WooCommerce alike. It covers variants, prices, stock levels, photos and product copy, plus clearing out duplicates and sold out items. You supply the data, or I pull it from your supplier file.
Who handles the returns and the customer questions?
In most setups I take the first reply and the follow up, and you only come in on the exceptions. Logging returns, issuing refunds, shipping labels and track and trace all run through me. Questions about delivery and returns get answered in English, Dutch or Swedish, in your tone of voice. Whether a customer gets their money back stays your call.
Do I need maintenance alongside shop management with WooCommerce?
Yes. With WooCommerce there is a WordPress site underneath your shop and it does not maintain itself. Plugin updates, backups, security and speed are part of the deal, in practice around two to four hours a month. With Shopify that disappears, because the platform handles it. Maintenance and hosting together cost 85 euro a month.
What does webshop management cost per month?
It runs on monthly packages: ten hours costs 840 euro, twenty hours 1600 euro, forty hours 3000 euro and sixty hours 4200 euro, all excluding VAT. Up to roughly a hundred orders a month, ten hours usually covers it. Add the customer contact and you land closer to twenty. There are no setup fees and you can adjust every month.
Also interesting
Webshop management and support
Products, orders and customer questions kept up to date by a VA.
BasicsVirtual assistant for your webshop
The broad introduction: what a VA does in a shop and when it pays off.
WordPressWhat does WordPress maintenance cost?
What sits in a maintenance round and why WooCommerce needs one.
Knowledge baseHow many hours do you need?
Matching the size of your package to the work that actually comes in.
Ready to hand your shop over?
Book a no obligation introductory call and find out what a virtual assistant can take over in your Shopify or WooCommerce shop.
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