Shopify vs Magento

Want to start your e-commerce store but confused which platform to choose from? You’re not alone and the choice is getting tougher with newer platforms popping up everyday.

Between Shopify and Magento, the two most prominent platforms to build a website and market the brand simultaneously; you need to make a right choice. Cause the last thing you want is to be starting your website from scratch, after pitching your sweat and blood onto the wrong solution!

Here we’ll give you a clearer perspective on what platform to choose between Shopify and Magento; with factors majorly depending on the niche of your business, resources you have and the technical leverage you can offer into your venture.

When comparing with each other, many questions will strike your mind. In this blog we’ll cover:

1. 1- Which platform is easy to use?
2. 2- How much these platforms provide you with technical, automated support from backend?
3. 3- Which platform can aid in the maintenance of product category you want to build?
4. 4- Which one the options will help more in marketing your brand online?
5. 5- Which one has better Analytics tool for measuring performance metrics?
6. 6- Last but not the least, which platform will open more opportunities to connect with relevant experts and efficient customer support?

By the end of this article, you’ll have all the answers at your threshold facilitating you in making an ever right choice for your new online enterprise. And a much more information coherently provided, will work for your greater knowledge and confidence on the platform you choose.

Shopify vs Magento: The Comparison

1. 1- Making Your Brand Valuable
2. 2- Handy Web Management Options
3. 3- Easy Integration with Other Websites
4. 4- Out-Of-The-Box Selling Process
5. 5- Secured Payment Gateways
6. 6- Details Reports Dashboard
7. 7- Optimization on Search Engine
8. 8- Seek For Answers Easily

1. Make Your Brand Valuable

Magento and Shopify provide the users alike with unlimited convenience in customization and management of the website. It helps to draw your potential audience to make a purchase by giving them a seamless and attractive on-store experience on multiple devices.

• Shopify a Closed-source Platform gives users a limited possibilities of themes and customization on the platform, without allowing the user to gather complete control of the website.
• This platform is mainly built for the technical novices who simultaneously would like to venture into the e-commerce territory.
• The custom features included in the website through Shopify App Store by installing applications and integrating with webstore. It offers more than 2000 applications on its store to integrate your website for desired features and responsiveness.
• Shopify gives all user PCI Level 1 Compliance to protect their account from cyber attacks
• Shopify has limitations in including multiple business models online through a single webstore.
• The page loading time is greater than Magento and scalability of on store products can be an issue.

• Magento being a PHP based Open-source Platform, allows complete freedom for web developers to customize web pages through the source code.
• To add various features and responsiveness, the user can browse from 1000’s of plugin options from Magento Marketplace and integrate into the website.
• It provides user to choose the hosting solution out of the best and secure options. Meanwhile a current user can opt for cloud hosting in collaboration with AWS for scalability and simultaneously decreasing the page load time.
• Magento is focused primarily for those users who have the resources or skills of web development and are willing to take complete control of their website.
• It supports multi business models from a single on-site point of contact.

2. Handy Web Management Options

Managing of the face your company is indispensable i.e. website, hence both the platforms provide sufficient support to the users for harnessing the performance within their own limitations and functionalities.

• Shopify’s easy-to-use features allows technically challenged users to create Pop-Ups, CTA’s and customize on-store themes.
• One of the most out-of-the-box features of Shopify is managing the products, categories and variations and implementing the barcoding system which gives the flexibility of locating a particular product in the stock.
• Being a Closed-source platform and limitations of renditions from integrated apps, Shopify website do usually witness cross browser issues as different browsers work on different technologies.
• Shopify websites are responsive on mobile devices.

• Magento through backend control and compatibility with AWS Cloud Hosting, gives unlimited scalability to businesses.
• Online store management can be accessed through mobile with ease.
• Magento has strong CMS feature and various content formats can be optimized on the website.
• The websites do not witness any cross browser issues as they can be optimized from their source.

3. Easy Integration with Other Websites

Third-party web integrations are immensely popular and necessary for a smooth functioning of a website’s activities onto social media platforms and other web platforms. Since Magento and Shopify both have a different set of functionings, these points below will guide you how each platform will add value to your online store.

• Magento it involves the usage of APIs for integration other platforms and plugins.
• A developer is required to deploy a Simple Object Access Protocol in the web service during Magento installation for integration to a third party website.
• Social media portals can be integrated through plugins which will give user the chance to leverage his Magento account dashboard to automate social media posts through it.

• To combine his Shopify products into another platform the user needs to bring the Shopify Buy Button live on the current store, which can be easily done incorporating codes generated into places at website where the person would like to show the product.
• Social media platform integration can be achieved through application which provide API code.

4. Out-Of-The-Box Selling Process

Both Shopify and Magento provide exceptionally friendly web experience for inventory management and handle complex back orders. While both platforms are at par when it comes to bringing efficiency into play, each platform brings a new innovation in the field of inventory management.

• Magento provides a new strategy of automated intelligent sourcing which can drive 35% increase in company’s revenue. It extends the functionality through additional API’s which can re-module the supply chain model through amendments in the API directory, making out-of-the-box business logics easy to implement on web plethora.
• It supports multi business models from a single on-site point of contact.
• It’s order management system dashboard will provide you with metrics as Order ID, Store, Items, Language, Date, Customer, Status, Status reason and Pick list
• Sales management allows the webstore owner to assess and refine the on-store assistance on every level of the purchase funnel, from shopping cart to printing invoices and sales collection.

• Shopify offers its users the POS system sends you alerts on stocks and sales from all locations, but also include the report metrics like the best sellers and aggregate performance of your business.
• For e-commerce aspirers there is a niche service known as Oberlo and Ordana, which follows the process of dropshipping. It claims a certain charge for the service, for the inventory to be handled and shipped by the host itself.
• The order management and sales dashboard touch every point of Customers, Sale channels, Product information, Inventory levels and location, Suppliers for purchasing and receiving, Customer service; namely, returns and refunds, Order printing, picking, packing, processing, and shipping.

5. Secured Payment Gateways

Both Shopify and Magento have partnered with some of the most popular and secure payment gateways, giving their clients the satisfaction to grow on sales through secured payment platforms like PayPal. But as the threats of cyber-attacks are constantly on the rise, a more secure 3-D platform is preferable.

• While the option of Shopify Payments will always be an option for online sellers, it does not support a 3D secure gateway, though you can integrate with a third party option
• Through Shopify Payments you can track your money real time, streamline the chargeback process as well as spared from any transaction fees that any other gateway would charge on per sales.

• Magento, alike Shopify, Magento Payments do not support 3D Payment Gateway but have numerous options in the Magento Marketplace to integrate the plugins and add 3D functionality to your checkout page.

6. Details Reports Dashboard

A company without data, is like a blind and deaf version of a leader. Data is a necessity for businesses to bank upon for their marketing activities and business operations. Shopify as well as Magento can track from where the customers’ have landed on their page, which product is selling the most, the average order value to detailed reports on their marketing activities.

• Shopify within the range of plans provide greater options of metrics and all in one dashboard.
• The user can integrate Google Analytics into your Shopify account for further in-depth information of your website performance. This can be easily done by copying the code from Google Analytics account under ‘Get Tracking ID’ domain, and applying on your Shopify webpage.
• The basic metrics of sales, marketing, products and customers are provided by Magento as well
• The basic metrics of sales, marketing, products and customers are provided by Magento as well
• The basic requirements for running the business intelligence reports are; the website should run on a public server, the domain must have valid SSL certificate, while configuring Magento, the Base URL must point to secured URL and last but not least, make sure Magento crontab is created and running successfully.
• Just like Shopify the user can merge Google Analytics into your Magento hosted website.

7. Optimization on Search Engine

Both e-commerce platforms provide a safe and reputed domain for their clients’ to build their website upon. This helps in increasing the visibility of the website on Google, whenever a searcher inputs their query regarding a particular segment in which the subscriber deals in.

• Both sources provide convenience to end user as well as to its main user in segregating the products into sub categories and catalogs.
• Magento and Shopify alike, provide their subscribers the feature to utilize product cataloging and allowing users to search on the website through catalog search.

8. Seek For Answers Easily

Shopify as well as Magento both boast of their uninterrupted helpdesks to their clients. Not only there are virtual help desks to solve your issue in a minute but also you can contact experts for their help when in need.

• Shopify extends a forum for the user to interact with millions of experts, partners and their colleagues simultaneously.

One can seek help from the community of Shopify Partners, which are regarded as authorized experts of a handful of which FirstWire Apps dominates the arena with real, yet magical results to their clients. These Shopify Partners not only suffice your needs for web development, but also are deemed as the authoritative figures for online promotions of Shopify websites.

• Magento for general queries about products and services, has curated massive collection of documents online.
• They’ve also established the online support system with many trustworthy third-party companies.
• Alike Shopify the user can approach the MagentoExperts and partners who can guarantee satisfaction for the solution of your problem.
• Also unlike any other platform available today, it promotes computer enthusiasts to contribute to Magento’s interface by innovative solutions, and solve website bugs for better user experience.

Conclusion

These are some of the insights which might help you in realizing your e-commerce goals for the year. Since these platforms frequently update features for an invariably smooth user experience curated for their subscribers, working on any of these services might not only save your time but also redeem your efficiency which your company might be leaning on for future sales and growth. But this shouldn’t confuse you with what platform you should go for to set up your online business since the major decision depends on what resources you currently have at your disposal.

As for Magento, it’s the most desirable Open SaaS (Software as a Service) platform when a user:

• Has a substantial budget in the start of the business
• Has the skill or resource for web development, which is rendered mandatory if you’re choosing Open-source Platform like Magento for your on-store customization.
• Requires the speed and performance of the website as a mandate on multiple devices and browsers
• Wants an advanced and innovative level of inventory management systems to save time and revenue of the company
• Wants the reputation of the top billion turnover companies’ platform in it’s ordeal.
• Desires unlimited scalability in his business.
• Last but not least, has a massive catalog of products to be shown online.

Hence picking the right option in the lot is extremely necessary and will depend significantly on the current resources you have. Many mid-sized companies have moved onto Open SaaS platforms as they are ready to afford the technical complacencies, which will grant them full control of their website on the other hand. Also companies dealing in numerous apparel varieties, should choose Magento unlike those who have limited stock varieties at all times such as those involved in business of cigarettes and vapes. So before making a purchase through any of the platforms make sure you have the right resources, the right budget and the right niche.