E-commerce sales of mid-2018 across globe sum up to be around 2,842 Billion USD. Increasing sales root from cutthroat competition. As one of the top Shopify Development Company, we are aware that the foundational factor of an e-Commerce store is the platform it thrives upon.
What is the catch?
If you are on the verge of starting an e-commerce platform or are looking to revamp it, the first thing you do is hire Magento developer. Congratulations! You just landed in the gold mine.
This article is for the ones who are looking forward to developing a phenomenal e-commerce platform. Here, we will compare Magneto and Shopify - the e-commerce platforms that are fueling the rocketing growth of store like Lee, Omega, Ford, Bvlgari and more.
Magento vs Shopify
At a glance, not even an expert developer can tell whether an e-commerce store is built on Shopify or Magento. But as one treads deeper, one will come across some subtle and powerful difference that impact a buyer’s journey.
Shopify
A Shopify e-commerce store runs on a subscription basis. As a developer, you pay for the self-hosted platform that allows you set up the e-commerce platform within minutes.
Magento
Magento is a wonderful platform that is powered by open-sourced software. It will require you to set up hosting, install, set up and configure the entire ecosystem. As a Magento development company, we know a lot of development effort and time is what is required to build a successful Magento store.
There is more we will dig out but at a glance, Shopify has an advantage over Magento. Both of the platforms have their own set of offering at multiple layers. The platform suitability is quite relevant to the fact what your business is all about. Let us dig into these parameters before we pick one.
What is your Business Size?
Shopify comes with a tired business model that allows you access basically to advanced features. Beginning with a Lite option, you can change your Facebook messenger into a selling platform that would process payments too. Advanced Shopify works phenomenally to help startups grow with multiple shipping options and abandoned car recovery. Magento offers complete support to any scale of the platform but Shopify offers more options and flexibility.
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How much are you willing to spend?
Shopify offers its users a subscription-based model that includes the hosting fee. The maintenance fee of the platform is also part of the package.
Magento comes across as free software and a massive active community support. But charges pile up for a Magento store as you need to buy hosting, Magento Apps, hire CMS developer and more.
Shopify wins hands down as it comes with easy to pay low-cost options and allows you a simplified model of engagement.
Do you require extensive customization?
Shopify brings a plethora of free and moderately prices themes that can render a brand unified look to your online store. Logo customization, background color, and menu customization all can be achieved swiftly with Shopify themes that are installed with a single click. The ones that are feature rich allow extreme customization of Shopify stores and make it cut through the clutter. The user experience Shopify theme offer is superior to the Magento themes.
Magento has a long list of themes to pick from, but none of them matches the sophistication Shopify themes offer. The complexity of installation of Magento themes is higher than Shopify.
How are you planning to host?
Shopify brings a complete hosting solution along with its bundle that expedites the platform setting time. Without any requirement of adding more security layers, Shopify allows instant and scalable growth.
Magento download and installation is a quickie but it demands separate hosting cost and effort. Tagging along are the security needs for the Magento platform that the owner needs to look after.
Which platform drives more traffic?
Without any bias, both the platforms are inherently SEO friendly. What does that mean? While building Shopify or Magento e-commerce stores, the workflow is such that the by just following the tips one can build an optimized store for Search Engines.
Both offer Title Tags and Meta description options, allow header appending, image optimization by adding alt text, canonical URLs, automatic sitemap creation and more.
Which is a better point of sale?
If you have sales representatives in the field or at trade fairs, it is must for you have a quick and easy POS system. Both of these platforms offer POS setting with a different approach.
Shopify brings its users a POS app. The App can be used on any device and in an instant your device turns into a POS of sale payment collector that would facilitate receiving payment as cash, credit and gift cards.
Magento offers extensions that can be added to the store to help it make sales offline too. This might be a little complex so Shopify wins in this territory too.
How much time do you have?
Shopify not only offers speed but better designs too. So with less effort, you get more within a few minutes. As the security and hosting come along there is no further time involved in finalizing the support system. All that effort goes into the brilliant customization that is also easy and quick.
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Magento needs time and effort to design the way to want it to. Being a challenging territory, it would ask for medium to advanced programming skills. Cost and time both are higher for a Magento store.
How intuitive do you want your platform to be?
Indeed Shopify platforms are easy to use and that is what adds to its popularity of use to fuel 500,000 stores across the globe.
Magento is not far behind if we compare it from a chronological perspective. The Magento ecommerce stores are around half the count of Shopify that is a clear indication of Shopify’s popularity.
Conclusion: Shopify vs Magento?
Shopify is a proclaimed winner in the battle as we have been able to deliver e-commerce stores that have made fantastic sales for our clients. Not only is it easy for the developers to build, but it also offers extreme customization and makes e-commerce platform building a low cost and high-quality affair.
