Magento Vs Shopify- Which is the Right Ecommerce Platform for Your Business

Magento Vs Shopify — Which Ecommerce Platform Should I Choose?

Believe it or not, the success of any ecommerce business depends highly on the ecommerce platform it is built upon. That said, choosing the right platform should be your first step towards starting an online business.

When it comes to the best ecommerce platforms, Magento and Shopify are two big names that top the list. Both of these ecommerce giants offer a lot of features and amazing functionalities that make running an online business a breeze. Since, both platforms have their own set of differences, selecting the suitable one for your business can be a daunting task. But, say no more!

In this blog, we are going to offer a full comparison between Magento and Shopify, so that you can pick the right one for your eCommerce business. Let’s begin!

Magento Vs Shopify: Popularity

Established in 2008, Magento has been predominantly the most popular platform for building ecommerce stores. However, Shopify is a tough competitor and has grown significantly over the past couple of years. It currently runs nearly 1.58 million websites from all around the world.

Over the years, Shopify has garnered the reputation of being an easy to use platform for building ecommerce stores. Coming to Magento, it is ruling the industry for being a one-size-fits-all eCommerce store builder, and has a huge user base all across the globe. It runs around 30% of total eCommerce stores in the world.

Our Verdict

As you can see, Shopify is the clear winner in this section. But this doesn’t mean Magento is any less popular. Let’s find out more about the differences and similarities between both platforms in detail!

Magento vs Shopify: Ease of Use

Ease of use is the most important factor to consider while choosing the right eCommerce building platform. This is especially true when you’re a beginner and setting up an online store for the first time. A platform that is easy to use, will allow you to run your business smoothly and conveniently. The good thing is, both Shopify and Magento are well designed and offer a user-friendly interface.

However, when it comes to coding, Shopify and Magento are completely different. Where Magneto uses PHP, Shopify utilises the power of Liquid coding. Particularly, Magento is an open-source platform, which means the source code is available publicly and can be modified when required. Shopify on the other hand is proprietary, meaning you can’t modify or change the coding. This is the reason, Shopify is considered to be the best for small and medium stores, while Magento is suitable for enterprises.

Additionally, Shopify comes with a Wizard mode that allows even beginners and non-technical users to use the platform and set up their ecommerce store pretty easily. What it means is, you don’t need a single line of code in order to use Shopify. There are amazing user-friendly functions like drag-and-drop builders, free themes, templates, and so on.

Our Verdict

If you’re a beginner with no technical knowledge and want to set up a small & simple online store, you can go for Shopify. However, enterprises and large businesses should always opt for Magento. No doubt, Shopify is easy to use, but Magento is more robust for large businesses. You can always work with a reliable Magento development company to get your store up and running.

Magento vs Shopify : Pricing

It’s no secret that owning a Magento store is going to be an expensive affair than owning a Shopify store. Even after being an open-source platform, you need to hire a reliable Magento development agency in order to build your store, which will add to your expenses. In the case of Shopify, you can either build your store on your own or hire a freelancer, which is much cheaper than hiring a mid to high-level developer for Magento.

Below is a detailed pricing comparison between Magento and Shopify:

Setup Cost and Hosting

Shopify doesn’t ask for any set-up fee. The best part is, it comes with a 14-day trial offer, using which you can try and test out its features before making any final decision. As for the monthly pricing, Shopify offers 5 pricing plans starting from $9 to $2000 per month. Also, you don’t have to worry about hosting as it is inclusive in the plans.

On the other hand, Magento doesn’t ask for any monthly fee being an open-source platform. However, you need to pick a hosting yourself, which can cost anywhere from $14 to $900.

Click here to know How Much Does a Website Cost in the UK

Transaction Fees

Note that, Magento does not charge any transaction fee. Not just that, it also offers more than 150 reliable payment gateways. This means you can make your transaction processing robust and hassle-free by choosing one of the best payment gateways of your choice.

In the case of Shopify, it allows you to choose from around 100 payment gateways. However, you have to pay a transaction fee both to Shopify as well as your selected payment gateway provider.

Themes Pricing

Shopify has a huge collection of themes as compared to Magento. Plus, they are a lot cheaper as well. On the official store, you will find about 80 themes, and 9 out of these are free.

Magento offers only 11 themes, only one out of which is free. To purchase the rest of the themes, you’ve to pay between $30 to $999.

Shipping Cost

Additional shipping costs can increase your operational cost, hence it is very important to consider it when selecting the right ecommerce platform for setting up your online store.

Shopify partners with local as well as global carriers in the UK such as DHL, DPD, UK Mail, Yodel, etc.

On the other hand, Magento has robust partnerships with carriers namely UPS, DHL, Hermes, UK Mail, DX, etc. Further, it also allows you to integrate with other carriers by simply installing their extensions.

Magento vs Shopify: Basic Ecommerce Features

Magento and Shopify are known as the ecommerce giants for a reason. They offer tons of useful ecommerce features to help you set up and run your online store with full efficiency. However, both platforms are different in terms of capabilities.

Apps and Add-ons

Where Magento supports more than 500 add-on extensions, Shopify is limited to just 100 add-ons and apps, which are both free and paid. So, in this category, Magento is a clear cut winner. Moreover, similar to Shopify, Magento also offers multiple features such as wishlist, coupon codes, customer portal, gift cards, order status tabs, etc. to help you provide the best shopping experience to your customers.

Themes and Templates

While both platforms offer well-designed and optimised themes and templates, Shopify offers more themes than Magento.

But here is the deal, Magento focuses on quality rather than quantity. The themes and templates offered by this platform are highly responsive and attractive. Using them, you can get an impressive front end look for your store.

Multi-language Support

Having multiple-language support is very important for an ecommerce store, especially if you want to target a global audience. The good thing is, both platforms offer multi-lingual support in their plans.

Magento vs Shopify: Marketing, Sales and SEO Features

Ever wondered how some products, despite their cheap quality, are sold in huge volumes? Smart sales & marketing and SEO strategy is your answer!

It doesn’t matter how top-notch quality products you have in store, you will not be able to sell them if your marketing is poor. This makes it very important to look at the marketing and sales features offered by the ecommerce platforms you’ve shortlisted.

Below is the comparison of marketing, sales and SEO tools offered by Magento and Shopify:

Marketing Features

Shopify allows you to advertise directly on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram and execute email marketing campaigns to drive more traffic.

On the other hand, Magento has less marketing capabilities as most of its features are available exclusively via extensions. Also, you need a mid-level developer on your side to integrate and utilise these marketing tools. But still, Magneto’s marketing abilities are robust and allows you to run targeted campaigns and integrate your store with Amazon’s Seller account.

Sales Features

Believe it or not, in absence of the right sales tools, you can’t expect a great conversion and sales rate. Let’s see what Magento and Shopify have to offer in this regard:

Good thing is, most sales features of Magento and Shopify correlate with each other. Shopify has a slight edge as it comes with inbuilt features to sell via Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. With Magento, you can only sell using extensions.

But Magento gets the prize for being very flexible. It offers great customisation features which aren’t available on Shopify.

SEO Capabilities

SEO is the most important aspect that helps you to increase your brand visibility and drive more traffic to your online store. Again, both ecommerce platforms offer nearly the same SEO capabilities. You can alter the meta descriptions and tags, add different alt tags, replace URLs, and so on.

The only difference is, Magento offers built-in SEO capabilities, whereas Shopify requires to use SEO add-ons.

Magento vs Shopify: Security

Security is one of the most crucial factors for running an ecommerce store. The internet is full of hackers and fraudsters. So, to keep your site away from them, you need to make sure that your security features are firm and efficient.

The good news is, both Shopify and Magento offer tight security features. First of all, both are PCI-DSS compliant, which automatically keeps your site protected.

However, Magento is a winner as it allows you to use multiple security plugins to fool-proof your online store.

Magento vs Shopify: Scalability and Flexibility

Both eCommerce platforms allow their users to scale and expand their business to a great extent. However, Magento is built with a strong focus on scalability. Hence, it allows you to grow seamlessly without worrying about your handling higher traffic volume and products. Moreover, it also has multiple payment options and multilingual support using which you can expand your business globally.

Magento Vs Shopify: Pros and Cons

Magento Pros & Cons

Shopify Pros & Cons

Conclusion

Magento and Shopify are great platforms to set up your online store on. But both have their own set of Pros and Cons. Hence, the selection should be based on your specific requirements and ecommerce goals.

Although both platforms allow you to grow and expand, Magento is specially built for it. It can help you to start your business globally with ease and convenience. But if you don’t have any plans to grow and are looking to set up a small or medium store, then Shopify is the best option for you. It is easier to use and affordable as well.

In a nutshell…

Shopify is much easier to use as compared to Magento.

Magento on the other hand, needs a fine-tuned approach. It takes both time and technical expertise to set up your business online. But if you’re planning to expand your business, and have a professional developer on your side, Magneto is the right choice for you.

Should I Choose Magento Or Shopify?

Choose Shopify if…

• You want to quickly set up a small ecommerce store
• You’re switching from ecommerce website builders like Weebly, Wix and Squarespace
• You have a limited budget and less technical expertise
• You’re looking for an easy ecommerce builder with a reliable support team

Choose Shopify if…

• You want to take your well-established business online
• You’ve good coding knowledge or professional developer on the side
• You want freedom to customise your site
• You want to expand your business globally and target an international audience
• You want to establish a great brand

That’s it!

You can easily select the right platform by going through the above-mentioned points. Whichever platform you choose, we can help you build an attractive and high-performing store and run it smoothly by combining our expertise and experience. Feel free to contact RVS Media and talk to our experts today.