Last updated - January 20, 2024
Apart from money, a lot more goes into e-commerce web development than you might think! Yes, it is a harsh truth. Many of us often believe that eCommerce is all about automating the conventional retail business and that doesn’t suffer from any challenges or hurdles faced by the local retailers.
But that is totally different than reality. In fact, it is more challenging than a conventional business as it is totally reliant upon one basic parameter – “a 3rd party platformâ€! In order to get your online business functional, you have to do a lot of research and analysis for the right platform to rely. You will find plenty of options for E-commerce web development, like WooCommerce, Magento, Shopify and more.
Surely, you will find enough features in each of the eCommerce platform and e-commerce service providers that will help you set up an online presence, but in order to really get the best result from your investment, you have done a detailed comparison among a few of the leading platforms.
Okay, so which are the leading platforms these days?
Considering the eCommerce platform usage statistics, there are 3 leading platforms that can be compared to help you choose the right among them.
- WooCommerce – more than 24K websites
- Shopify – more than 20K websites
- Magento – more than 15K websites
Let’s dig into each of them to know which one wins the battle.
Cost Factor
For everyone investing or hiring e-commerce service providers, pricing is the most influencing factor while making the decision of choosing the eCommerce platform. Considering the offerings and prices, WooCommerce brings free eCommerce plugin, but you may have to consider price starting from 49$ based on the offerings you wish to roll-out on your eCommerce business nature.
On the other hand, Magento comes up with two different flavors, Magento Community Edition and Magento Enterprise Edition. Magento Community edition is free of cost, but based on the requirements you may have to pay additional costs that you can figure out when contacting e-commerce service providers. Whereas Magento Enterprise edition is suitable for enterprises and large scale business with the price starting from $50K.
Shopify brings a budget-friendly option when it comes to the cost of an eCommerce site. You can leverage from the 14-day free trial and later you can pay the cost starting from $29 onwards.
Industry Compatibility
Today, the eCommerce has reached beyond the boundaries and is not limited to the shopping of clothes only! Starting from fashion and accessories, you can find plenty of other industries leveraging from online customer engagement. Talking about industry compatibility,
- Shopify – It is suitable for fashion & accessories, consumer goods, retailers, jewelry, luxury goods, and cosmetics.
- Magento – It is compatible with Health & Beauty, Fashion, food & beverage, auto parts, B2B, manufacturer & distributors, multinational retailers and more.
- WooCommerce – More suitable for services, publishers, lifestyle brands, content-driven sites, and healthcare & biotech industries.
Features, Flexibility and Ease of Use
If you have just started your online business, features will be a key measure when it comes to selecting the eCommerce platform. Here are the key features of all the 3 platforms that you can leverage from:
Key Features of Shopify:
- unlimited products
- unlimited bandwidth and online storage
- Shopify point of sale
- online sales channels
- fraud analysis
- manual order creation
- discount codes
- staff accounts
- overview dashboard
- finance reports
- Customer support.
Key Features of Magento:
- Marketing, Promotions and Conversion Tools
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Site Management
- Catalog Management
- Catalog Browsing
- Product Browsing
- Checkout, Payment and Shipping
- Order Management
- Customer Accounts
- Customer Service
- International Support
- Analytics and Reporting
- Mobile Commerce
Key Features of WooCommerce:
- Compatibility with Google Analytic
- Open source community
- Wider CMS capabilities
- 50000+ plugin options
- A wide range of themes options
- Easy to learn and use
- Gets sophisticated extension system
- No transaction fees
- Easy customizations with full control of the code base
Shopify wins the battle here by providing ease of use to the beginners. On the other hand, Magento is less preferred for the newbie getting into the eCommerce business due to technical complexities.
Customer Support
No matter how smart you are, you may be required support at any point of time and thus, it is important that the eCommerce platform you choose must be having different support offerings for you. Here’s the quick comparison for the level of support provided by different eCommerce platforms:
- Shopify – 24/7 live chat + phone support on all plans ($9 to $299)
- WooCommerce – 24×7 live chat + phone and email support (varying from plan-to-plan)
- Magento – 24×7 Phone support & support ticket options
Security Aspect
When it comes to security in WooCommerce, you will have to pay the additional cost to get the SSL certificate from the 3rd party vendors. Moreover, WooCommerce requires a strong password, iThemes, and limited logins. On the other hand, for Magento, you will be requiring hosting and PPI in order to achieve higher security. Shopify brings ease of security. All you need to do is to set a strong password! No need to worry about SSL or hosting or PPI.
Final Verdict
It really doesn’t matter how many articles or blogs you read to find the best eCommerce platform, only you know what exactly you want and which platform suffices all your requirements. The above recommendations and points discussed are based on the reviews and experiences shared by the individuals working as e-commerce service providers or in e-commerce web development. However, in the end, the only thing that matters is your view or opinion. Feel to share your views on which eCommerce platform is best? Hit the comment below!
