For merchants looking to expand into the digital world of ecommerce, deciding on the best platform to go with can be tricky. With a bundle of options available to choose from, two main platforms stick out and gain the most attention in the ecommerce market – Shopify and Magento.
In this article, we take a look at the two and work to decipher which may be best for your needs.
Shopify vs Magento – What’s the difference?
Let’s break the platforms down into simple terms. Simplicity is key to understanding the basics.
Shopify is great for helping business sell larger scale volumes of goods. Your monthly fee gets you access to an industry leading platform full of simplicity and room for expansion. Perfect right?
Well yes it may seem perfect, but like all things, it isn’t suited for everyone. Magento is good for the larger business looking to grow more online but does come with a setback. A good chunk of coding knowledge is required to get the most from Magento and on top of that, you’ll need to fork out further for web hosting and additional site security measures.
Ease of access, or lack of?
Wherever you look online, you will see numerous articles just like this one stating that Shopify is easier to use than Magento. Unless you know coding, this is the case for most businesses and probably yours as well. The drag and drop element of Shopify allows for faster, easier customisation (not to mention the reduced risk of breaking the store with code).
Not everything is straight forward with Shopify though; there are areas that could prove beyond your scope of knowledge and require outsourced store development.
The verdict then? Magento’s flexibility could serve as a bonus to those with experienced coding knowledge. But overall, it’s fiddly elements and trick to understand coding makes Shopify have greater ease of use allow for beautiful stores to be built without the stress of code.
Adding to the eCommerce Gig
We know that Shopify allows for great apps. That’s why we develop a range of superb apps to aid your Shopify store development. Whilst we may have a slight bias towards the one in terms of apps and extensions, we have to give praise to Magento for the range of extensions on their marketplace.
Shopify offers free and premium applications for all business industries. Most of Shopify applications are suited for everyone too – discover our Fraud blocking app, callback request button and more on our app page.
Magento, whilst offering a larger library of extensions than Shopify, does lead back to the initial point of requiring a good coding knowledge foundation in order to successfully implement and extract the most value from.
Prices for Magento extensions vary. Some are free whilst others can extend way above $1,000. Costs depend on many factors such as the agency that developed the extensions. Some others can put you out of pocket where the same feature can be done for free on Shopify. For example, integration with Facebook can cost almost $200 on Magento whilst being free to undertake on Shopify. Not a cost some businesses are prepared to make.
The Shopify vs Magento Summary
No coding knowledge? Then choose Shopify. Magento will take time and technical knowledge to make your store your vision.
Shopify is more user friendly and will allow you to build your store and go digital faster. If you want to get up and running quickly and are starting out in the ecommerce world than we highly suggest you consider using Shopify.
Magento shouldn’t be discarded though, especially if you have the coding knowledge to get the most out of it. It’s a good platform to play with to explore complete creative freedom. If you do not have an international or global market of incoming sales, the added time and money that comes with developing Magento may not be for you.
If Shopify sounds like your path forward, we’d love to play a part in helping you develop your ideal store.
Explore our dedicated Shopify apps or get in contact to see how we can work together to grow in the online ecommerce world.
Contact Us
If you’re still looking for additional help, please reach out to us – we’d be more than happy to give a helping hand. Drop us an email or fire up a live chat on our website for a super-speedy response.
If you’re looking to optimise and safeguard your Shopify store further, then discover our highly-rated apps! Trust me, they’ll give you a competitive edge that you can thank me for later ????
Proofer Proof Management – That extra pair of hands you always needed for your customised products.
FraudBlock – Goodbye fraud and refund fees, hello more free time!
AutoSync for Square – Automation for your Shopify and Square inventories. Simple.
