Are you having a difficult time to choose between Magento and Shopify? Well, then you are not alone. I suggest to take a seat and this comprehensive post will help you make the best decision.
It is quite difficult to select the best e-commerce site out of abundantly available options. After all, having selected a wrong platform and then starting again from scratch is pretty discouraging.
Magento and Shopify have embarked the course to progress and popularity at an equal pace. These are the rising dawn of e-commerce sites. Magento and Shopify have the leverage of providing various benefits all at once.
Let’s delve into details…
1. Magento and Shopify: A Quick Overview
Although serving the same purpose, Magento and Shopify are entirely different whether in terms of structure to functionalities or payment criteria to extensions and what not! Magento is an open-source platform, hosting a mass of stores, competing to gain the highest rank. Magento’s journey from open-source to premium is quite breathtaking. With the release of Magento 2, chances are its popularity will shoot up rapidly.
Shopify being a paid service provider, let’s the user build, design and manage their stores without any coding required.
As things are getting a bit interesting, let’s find out some more.
With the quick glance at the statistics, we’ll dive into in-depth comparison between Magento and Shopify. Stats are important, as they are a good source to decide which option to take on.
| Shopify | Magento | |
| Cost | Paid | Free |
| Products | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Hosting | Included | Not Included |
| Minimum Year Startup Cost | $348 | $250 |
| Coupons & Discounts | Minimum | All |
| Themes | Medium | Large |
| Customization | Medium | Large |
2. Shopify: Pros and Cons
2.1 Shopify Pros
Themes and Templates
Isn’t it appealing to have an automatically customizable store for different devices without any hassle? Shopify is rich in mobile-adjustable themes which makes its use more comfortable.
Mobile usage related conducted research states that
“69% of consumers worldwide between the ages of 18-39 use mobile devices to research products before they buy, and 44% use tablets.”
So now is the right time to step up your store customization game!
Comprehensive
If you are here to stay longer in the game, then nothing beats Shopify. It’s App Store with broad features helps you advance your site’s functionality.
Customer Support
SHOPIFY IS ALWAYS THERE FOR YOU! With their 24/7 phone support, live email and chat functionality, you can consult their experts anytime.
Shopify also has a forum, where you can share business tips and techniques.
3. Shopify Cons
3.1 Transaction Fee
If you are using Shopify payment gateway, then you will not be charged an additional transaction fee. However, if you are using any other method our gateway, then the plan is as follows:
- Lite Plan ($9 per month.): 2%
- Basic Shopify Plan ($29 per month.): 2%
- Shopify Plan ($79 per month): 1%
- Advanced Shopify Plan ($299 per month): 0.5%
4. High Complexity
4.1 As the saying goes
“Too much of anything is bad for you”
This proves quite right in this case, as Shopify provides a vast range of features, it makes things a bit complicated. You need to be a bit choosey so you can get many benefits out of your e-commerce store.
Limited Themes
Shopify Free themes are limited in number and provide very little functionality. If you are happy with free themes provided by Shopify, then you are good to go.
To give a rapid boost to your business then Shopify premium themes are worth an investment. These themes are more appealing to customers and provide a wide range of functionality to users.
5. Magento: Pros and Cons
5.1 Magento Pros
Community Support
Magento requires development skills and there are chances of you getting stuck. Magento Community Support provides with comprehensive, yet simple solutions to your queries.
Flexibility
As there are no limitations to design, you can make your store stand out among others and attract more customers, with the help of coding (or you can hire someone to do it for you).
Cost
As Magento is an open-source e-commerce platform, it’s free to use.
6. Magento Cons
Development knowledge
To build your store on Magento, you need to be quite an expert in coding. As the learning curve for Magento is a bit steep, you are more likely to run into problems. You can also hire some experts for development, but it will cost you too.
Coding…Seems quite work :’)
Time Consuming
Understanding the Magento interface is time taking task. You really need to spare some time to get familiar with the platform, so your chances to get into trouble lessen.
Cost
In spite of an open-source platform, you will need to pay for the hosting of your domain. Magento does not provide this utility, which can be costly for the users.
- Community Edition: FREE
- Hosting: $4-$100+/month
7. Summary
SEO friendliness is a feature which helps sites to grow more and rank higher than their competitors. Fortunately, both Magento and Shopify are more search engine friendly in the eyes of Google. This feature gives the potential to rank higher and subsequently more visits to the store.
Magento’s Content Management System and Shopify’s editor lets you take the necessary steps to optimize your store.
As we know a single platform cannot enjoy all of the perks. Each platform is a mixture of pros and cons. It’s totally up to you to select a platform which better fits all your needs.
Shopify will provide you with customizable themes and templates. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week Customer Support, a forum to discuss and exchange information, and easy-to-use interface. Along with all these benefits,
Shopify premium package is somehow costly and attracts more customers. You will be charged per purchase for using a payment method other than Shopify payment gateway.
On the other hand, Magento is a free platform, It’s community support gives a solution to your technical and business-related problems. If you have technical know-how then you are good to go.
Need to get your business online and embark the journey of success? – Clustox will help you achieve your goal distinctively by building your store from scratch, dealing with all minor and major details and sparing you the headache, all within a timeline. We are here to help you rank your store high and grow your business among competitors.
Without further ado, shoot us an email, and let us help you.
