Introduction
Choosing an eCommerce platform for your retail brand is tough. Not only can it be responsible for the success or failure of your business, but there are so many to choose from. It can be hard to know where to start.
Narrowing your shortlist down to Magento and Shopify is a great choice. These are two of the biggest and most popular players in the space, and either makes for a great eCommerce platform,
Read on if you want to find out more about both platforms.
An Overview of Magento and Shopify
Magento is an open-source eCommerce platform with an enormous amount of customisation options. It’s a brilliant platform for large retailers, but it may be a bit over the top for smaller stores. It also comes with a bit of a learning curve. At the time of writing, it’s used by over 164,000 websites.
Shopify is an all-in-one eCommerce platform that makes it easy for anyone to create an online store. As a hosted solution, you don’t need to worry about finding a hosting provider and building a website from scratch. Shopify handles almost everything for you, but you’ll need to pay for the privilege. At the time of writing, almost 4 million websites use Shopify.
Setup and Design
Shopify makes it easy for anyone to set up and design an online store, even if you don’t know how to code. With Magento, the design options are almost endless. But it may require a bit more work.
On Shopify, you can choose from a handful of free themes and thousands of paid ones to quickly build your store. Drag-and-drop functionality makes them easy to customise without you having to dive into code. Better still, Shopify provides a setup wizard to help even the most novice users create a store. You can literally build a functional eCommerce store in an afternoon.
Magento is much more customisable, but it can be harder to set up. Hire a good developer and you can design your store in any way imaginable. Alternatively, you can use one of Magento’s pre-made themes.
It’s important to note Magento isn’t an all-in-one platform, so you’ll need to find a hosting provider and register a domain as part of the setup process.
Features, Apps and Extensions
Both platforms have all of the core features you need for an eCommerce store built-in. That includes inventory management, shopping carts, checkouts and payment gateways. The only difference is that Magento offers more intermediate and advanced features like customer loyalty tools and business intelligence dashboards out of the box. These are available on Shopify, but you’ll need to add an extension.
Both Magento and Shopify have massive app and extension libraries.
On Shopify, there are over 7,500 to choose from, covering all manner of functionality from product sourcing and translation to shipping and delivery.
Magento boasts over 3,000 extensions helping users add a similar functionality level.
Payment
Both platforms make it easy to collect payments. The only difference is the number of payment gateways available and the fees both platforms charge.
Shopify offers almost a hundred payment gateways to UK users, as well as its own version, Shopify Payments. Shopify charges 1.7% + 25p on all card transactions if you use their own gateway and have a standard Shopify plan. Rates rise to 2% + 25p if you use the basic plan, and Shopify charges a 2% fee on all transactions processed through a third-party gateway.
Magento also offers dozens of different payment gateways, but it doesn’t charge any additional fees on top of the gateway provider’s fees.
Pricing
Shopify offers three plans depending on your store size and needs. The basic version costs £19 per month, the Shopify plan costs £49 per month and comes with reduced fees, and the Advanced plan costs £259 per month. Shopify also offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.
Magento is free to use as an open-source product. But you’ll need to pay for a hosting provider and all the other associated costs of creating and maintaining your own website. You’ll likely have to pay a designer and developer to create your ideal store, too.
Shipping
Shipping is one of the most critical parts of the eCommerce process and, as such, deserves its own section. Both platforms offer several shipping options and integrations.
Magento lets you integrate with third-party shipping providers or do self-service shipping. Integrations include DHL, UPS, Royal Mail, and 3PL providers like Pro Carrier. You can also connect with several drop shipping providers if you prefer not to carry inventory yourself.
Shopify also integrates with every major UK and international postal carrier, as well as 3PLs. It also provides its own delivery service, Shopify Shipping, which lets you manage orders without leaving the app. The service is run in partnership with DPD and Evri. Shopify also has several dropshipping integrations to help you run a successful dropshipping business.
Customer Support
As a piece of open-source software, Magento doesn’t have live chat or phone support. But what it does have is a huge community of developers and an extensive forum that can help with almost any issue.
Shopify offers 24/7 customer support by email, live web chat, or phone. You can also use Shopify’s Help Centre and video tutorials.
