Shopify vs Magento: Which eCommerce Platform Is Right for You?

As a business owner, you need to consider many facets of your business before picking the right eCommerce platform for you. These key considerations include figuring out your existing inventory, your customers’ user experience, payment policies or models, and even shipping services. The best platform for your business should always be one that melds functionality and form, one that’s customised to make shopping seamless for your customers and to make managing the system fuss-free for you.

In this article, we will compare Shopify and Magento, two of the world’s leading eCommerce platforms merchants leverage to sell their goods and services. Despite their own shortcomings, Shopify and Magento are both popular platforms with unique functionalities to boot.

Key Pointers:

• Shopify is a fully hosted eCommerce platform that allows you to run your business seamlessly. You pay a monthly fee to enjoy its full suite of services, including web hosting, adding widgets, and more. Quite intuitive.
• Magento is an open source platform that is free to install on your PC. It requires some website-building know-how and coding knowledge. You pay for your own hosting, website setup and extensions.
• With its user-friendly capabilities and limited customisation, Shopify is suited for entrepreneurs and start-ups. Small and Medium enterprises (SMEs) and Large Corporations will benefit from extra features and B2B functionalities of Shopify Plus. Magento, however, is great for larger enterprises looking to incorporate complex functionalities or build unique brand experiences.

Shopify, at a glance

The user-friendly eCommerce platform is popular for helping merchants build their stores and sell their goods and services through a streamlined dashboard. Shopify is a subscription-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) sales platform with tiered subscription prices, each comes with its own unique features atop a full suite of business management tools.

Magento Open Source, at a glance

When Adobe purchased Magento Commerce in 2018, it converted the business into two formats: Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce. The former is a free, open-source platform with limited features, great for merchants on a budget. The latter is the premier version of the two and comes with must-have features, such as PCI Compliance, technical support and advanced marketing capabilities. This article delves on Magento Open Source.

SALES TOOLS

We compare both eCommerce Platforms with the sales tools they each provide. Below, a summary of what we found out.

Shopify’s Sales Tools

Some of the best Shopify sales tools include:

• Multi-channel selling: Merchants can sell their goods on other mediums or digital stores, including Facebook Marketplace, Instagram Shops, Pinterest and even Amazon.
• Omnichannel selling: Consolidate your customer data and transactions in one platform. Gain insights into your customers whether they purchase through D2C, B2B or retail POS channels.
• Abandoned cart recovery: Shopify sends an email out to users with a link to their abandoned cart to encourage them to complete their purchase. This automated process has helped brands remind potential leads to revisit their orders or cement their brand identity.
• Customer reporting: Understand your demographic better and determine which products are popular with Shopify’s customer reports.
• Shopify Payments: The platform’s payment processor is included with its platform; if you use Shopify Payments, there are no additional transaction fees other than the card rates
• Blog support: Create blogs to update customers on the latest offerings or happenings, as well as use them to create a brand personality through them.
• Checkout Extensibility: With Shopify Plus, you can fully customize the checkout experience the way you want. Allow your customers to redeem loyalty points, upsell complimentary products,reinforce your brand identity, and more — all on the checkout page.

Magento’s Sales Tools

Some of the best Magento sales tools include:

• Multi-channel selling: Merchants can install plugins or extensions to cross-sell their goods on Facebook Marketplace, Instagram Shops, Pinterest and eBay.
• Payment processing: Rather than having their own payment processor, Magento uses popular third-party software, such as PayPal, to handle transactions.
• Checkout customisation: Create a bespoke checkout experience for your customers with Magento for your online store.
• Add-ons: There are tons of widgets and add-ons to incorporate onto your site at Magento’s Marketplace. Merchants must do their due diligence to ascertain the authenticity and suitability of these widgets before adding them to their pages.

Verdict: Tie. Both platforms have powerful and unique sales tools at their disposal. While Shopify stands out with its broader variety of features, the limit is endless with Magento Open Source.

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

The help you receive as you set up your store can make a difference. Below a summary of what we found out.

Shopify’s customer support

Nothing can quite beat Shopify’s stellar 24/7 customer service.

• Community Forum: Ask questions, join conversations around popular topics, or find solutions to common issues at the community forum.
• Help Center: Follow step-by-step guides to better set up your business at Shopify and learn more about the Shopify mobile app here.
• Contact Support: When all else fails, reach out to the award-winning team of experts to help you resolve your problems.
• Hire an Expert: This one is for time-pressed merchants who need professional assistance immediately. For a fee, reach out to the rich ecosystem of certified Shopify experts, like 360&5, who can help you bring your business to new heights.

Magento’s customer support

Since Magento is an open-source platform, users rely mostly on the robust user community to resolve issues. Unless you sign up for the premium version, aka Adobe Commerce, Magento does not offer customer support in the form of emails, phone, or live chats. Put simply, you are really on your own.

Verdict: Shopify outperforms Magento with its suite of customer service. However, there are still merits in relying on the practical tips and solutions rendered by communities behind Magento’s ecosystem.

PRICING

Both Shopify and Magento offer different pricing models for their business. Below, a summary of what we found out.

Shopify’s pricing plans

Shopify pricing is subscription-based, and there are three pricing tiers – Basic (USD $29/month), Shopify (USD $99/month) and Advanced (USD $399/month) here. Luckily, all three tiers come with domain and hosting fees, so you do not need to fret about purchasing them. We recommend making an annual subscription instead of a monthly one to save up to 50% off its total subscription fees.

There is also Shopify Plus (USD $2,000/month) for larger enterprise businesses, which comes with way more features and functionalities. Do note that a transaction fee is charged for every transaction made on Shopify. Furthermore, you will have to fork out more money to pay for apps and certain themes.

Magento’s pricing plans

While Magento Open Source is free to download, you will have to bear any other additional costs associated with this open-source platform. These include paying for your own web hosting, security, and development work required to develop your store. Additionally, you will also need to pay for a service provider to accept online payments, and this amount depends on the gateway you decide to go with.

Verdict: It is rather difficult to compare both eCommerce platforms, which come with their own unique features. With its pricing, transaction fees, and other miscellaneous expenses (such as apps) clearly met out, your cost is more predictable with Shopify.

EASE OF USE

Most merchants do not have expertise in developing websites or designing them. Unless they hire experts with technical chops to create them, many will struggle to get started.

Shopify is intuitive but limited in source code editing capabilities

In general, Shopify is intuitive and easy to use, perfect for merchants with no technical expertise to operate. It’s as simple as dragging and dropping widgets and other features to new pages, which makes creating a well-designed a website a breeze.

However, there is one limitation: Shopify does not allow users to customise their source code freely.

Magento requires tech expertise which can be complicated

On the other hand, Magento grants users complete control of their website. With Magento, users are able to make changes to their source code, which allows them to personalise almost every element of their online store. This, however, can be quite complicated for users without comprehensive knowledge of coding or tech know-how.

Verdict: If you are looking for ease of use, choose Shopify for a fuss-free experience.