Magento vs Shopify: Complete eCommerce Guide

“When people talk about eCommerce platforms, then you must have heard about Magento eCommerce development or Shopify website development. These are the best and most widely used key features used by a large number of website developers around the world. Difference between Magento vs Shopify? Are these the same? Why are these so popular among the developers? Why hire Magento developers or hire Shopify developers for eCommerce website development? Let’s find out!”

Finding an ideal eCommerce platform for your business can be a game-changer. Therefore, it comes at the top of your priority list when starting a new business or taking the existing business to the internet. You need a flexible and all-in-one solution for your business to deliver enticing customer experiences and drive your business towards growth.

Customer experience is a key factor in today’s digital business environment. Customers prefer to have experiences, not products. Better user experience leads to customer satisfaction and the satisfied user always spreads the word about the brand. Likewise, there are chances for organic leads without spending a penny on marketing strategy.

If you have an online store then it is a must for you to attend to each and every user. Every user matters a lot in online business. From purchases to feedback, every factor counts to building your brand reputation in the market. With a flexible eCommerce platform, you will be able to customize the user experience along with maintaining a high customer satisfaction rate. Some people make the website in a hurry and don’t analyze the needs of the user and the market. Therefore, it leads to the great failure of eCommerce websites.

A perfect eCommerce site needs to have lots of features and has to be seen from various directions. Firstly, the designs play a major role to attract the user.  The Front-end needs to show and convey the content which you are trying to deliver to your user. The color, fonts, size, style, alignment, and much more needs to be user-friendly.

Not only the front-end, but the back-end should also equally be more adaptive in performance. So that customers can enjoy browsing the website and purchase their choices. Before, making an eCommerce website make sure you make a list of the features and functionalities along with the suitable technology. It is very important to choose technology as the entire website depends on it. Hence, don’t make your decision in a hurry regarding which platform is the most suitable for your business because a bad decision may lead to delivering unfavorable outcomes for the business and will restrict your freedom.

Both, Magento eCommerce development and Shopify development are strong players in the eCommerce industry and when you plan to choose one depending on your business vision and goal, hence, it becomes necessary to compare these two based on features, ease of use, value, and many more aspects.

Magento vs Shopify – The User-Experience

Magento vs Shopify – The Numbers

Selection between Magento and Shopify

Taking a business online is already a hectic task and then selecting a suitable eCommerce platform becomes more difficult. So, it can be said that there is no similarity between these two platforms, whether, in terms of usage, even the coding language is not the same in both of them, where Magento uses PHP, Shopify uses Liquid language.

Let’s discuss these platforms in brief before making a final call.

Magento

It is an open-source platform and you need to pay extra for Magento hosting. Therefore, you must be careful while selecting suitable hosting for your Magento store. You cannot make a store using Magento by yourself and if you do, then make sure, you are a tech-savvy person. In addition, you can hire a Magento developer who could help you know better about its features and possibilities. A business owner without any technical knowledge can’t make an eCommerce website using Magento. One needs to hire a Magento developer to develop an eCommerce website for any business.

Pros of Magento Development

• Feature-rich platform
• Community-supportive because it is an open-source platform
• Available in the public domain and free to use
• Offer great SEO features through which your store can rank up in search engines
• One-click download and purchase
• No restrictions on design, you are free to choose or create one

Cons of Magento Development

• If you are not from a technical background, you cannot use it without learning about Magento
• The cost of themes, extensions, and hosting makes it a bit expensive
• Require continuous optimization for better speed and performance

Shopify

It is a self-hosted eCommerce platform, hence, you’re not required to worry about hosting your store and managing servers for optimum performance. So, it is the most suitable platform for you if you own a small business or are new to the eCommerce industry.

Beginners find it is the most convenient by just simply using drag and drop features. Yes, It has its complete guide available online and the expert team of Shopify guides you with how to use Shopify. In addition to this, it helps you save developer fees and in other words, it has become the favorite choice for small business enterprises and ups.

Pros of Shopify Development

• Easy to build a store on Shopify without using a single line of code
• A self-hosted platform, therefore, no requirement to manage your server
• Using this platform makes the website fast and secure
• 24*7 customer support
• Convenient to integrate your store with the eCommerce platform
• A wide range of mobile-ready storefront themes

Cons of Shopify Development

• Not convenient for SEO optimization
• Limited flexibility and customization
• The transaction fee for every sale transaction
• A limited number of free themes

Magento vs Shopify – Ease of Use

The internet is full of eCommerce websites.  Several companies have launched their eCommerce in the market. But only a few of them could reach the heights. Why? What makes the user go to their website? Are you finding it difficult to build and run your store online? If yes, the lack of technical knowledge and awareness is the major reason. So, you don’t need to have adequate technical skills to create an eCommerce store because there are platforms available in the market through which you can easily set up and run your online business in just a couple of hours.

Features of Magento eCommerce Development

• It is a flexible platform that allows you to develop a fully integrated solution
• Through a wide range of customization features, it becomes easy to create a store with the great user interface
• An extensive user guide available to get started

Features of Shopify Development

• The drag and drop feature helps in building your website easily
• Ease to customize themes by inserting images
• Easy to set up payment options
• Offer unique and personalized theme experience to customers

Bottom-Line

In conclusion, there are many large corporations like – Budweiser, Tesla Motors, Penguin Books, etc. who are using Shopify, however, while considering its’ features, it is most suitable for small businesses. After that, it allows the users to host their sites and servers without having much technical knowledge. Shopify is the complete package for eCommerce website owners to make their website better according to their needs. From the above-mentioned MNCs to small-scale industries, every business owner can afford it and use it easily without having much technical knowledge.

Magento eCommerce development similarly is considered best for the medium and large eCommerce corporations. It allows users to manage complex interactions needed for B2B commerce. Major users of this platform are Nike, Ford, 20^th Century Fox Entertainment, and others. Moreover, it is available in both free and paid versions in the community and enterprise editions.

Above all, you should choose the best fit considering the size and nature of your business. You can consider both Shopify and Magento as the two opposite sides of a coin. On one side, where Shopify is a user-friendly platform and works best for amateurs, it also comes with a lot of limitations through which it becomes suitable for small businesses. On the other side of the coin, Magento might have a bit complex user interface, but it is considered the most suitable, especially for businesses that are seeking growth soon.