Magento vs Shopify: Which Is The Right Platform For Your Business?

All online business owners understand the struggle of choosing the most suitable eCommerce platform. Making the right decision will allow you to manage all aspects of your online business easily and efficiently.

From creating content to maintaining an online store, the platform you choose may be the determining factor for whether your eCommerce business succeeds in both the short term as well as in the long run.

While there are numerous eCommerce platforms available, none are as popular as Shopify and Magento. Currently, both these platforms dominate the eCommerce market because of their remarkable capabilities.

Shopify is the best all-in-one platform for startups and small to medium businesses that want to kickstart their eCommerce journey quickly.

Magento, on the other hand, focuses on building a more complex eCommerce system for businesses looking to scale. Here are 5 major factors you should consider before choosing which eCommerce platform is the right choice for your business.

1) User-Friendly Payment Gateway

While both platforms support online credit transactions, Shopify has a major edge when it comes to payment gateway options.

Supporting over 70 payment gateways with their default built-in option offered, this is far more than what Magento offers.

While more gateways can be added to the Magento store via third-party add-ons, Shopify has 0% transaction fees making it a highly desirable and convenient option.

2) Multiple Extensions and Add Ons

Extensions and add on applications assist in enhancing and expanding the functionality of your online store in many different ways.

Magento is at a strong advantage with over 5000 applications to choose from while Shopify only offers over 100. This is primarily because of the large, open-source, community-driven nature of the Magento platform.

Furthermore, Magento also lets you get these applications with a one-time payment. Shopify on the other hand works on a subscription model so you would be required to pay monthly for use.

3) Backend management

While both platforms offer unlimited product uploads, Shopify has a more user-friendly backend system. Magento allows for greater customisation so if you need to be able to alter the backend administration, Magento offers a more flexible framework but if not, Shopify lets you manage and maintain your online products easily.

Furthermore, Magento is not a hosted solution so you would have to procure your own hosting provider in addition to setting up your online store.

With the help of Verz professionals, both platforms are viable options because we provide comprehensive training and support to teach you how to run your online store effectively.

4) Security

Security is essential for all websites but even more so for eCommerce websites when handling online payment. Despite being a cloud-based platform, Shopify automatically protects your site with SSL encryption and it is also PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) compliant.

However, Shopify is still susceptible to attacks because their support team has access to transactional records. Last year two rogue Shopify employees stole data from over 100 merchants.

For Magento, your web hosting provider plays a major role when it comes to keeping your store secure. While Magento provides patches and timely updates for known security risks, it is really up to your development team to keep your site protected. Let Verz keep your site safe with our comprehensive website maintenance package!

5) Cost

The initial costs of setting up a Magento website is considerably higher than Shopify. One key reason is that because of its more complex system, a proficient web developer is necessary to help build and develop your website as well as to provide hosting services.

Shopify is self-hosted and while this comes with initial cost savings, it ties you to the platform. Shopify makes it troublesome to switch to a different hosting provider as your company expands.

Migration from Shopify to another platform is considerably difficult so carefully consider your options before making a decision. For applications and add-ons, Magento charges you based on a one time payment model while Shopify requires you to pay a monthly subscription fee for use.

If you use Shopify Payments as your payment gateway, the transaction fee will be waived. When using Magento and a third party payment gateway for Shopify, the payment gateway will charge a transaction fee.

Here’s a comparison for Shopify and Magento’s other features:

The Verdict

Choosing the right eCommerce platform depends on your business requirements. Shopify may seem like the right decision now for start-ups and small businesses. However, over a period of time when the company grows with more products offered and more functional requirements for example to offer online promotions, Shopify may end up being more costly.

You will need to upgrade your storage as well as adding subscription-based extensions. As for Magento, the system is meant to support medium to large scale businesses. If you intend to scale your business, Magento allows you to implement more modules and is the more flexible platform in the long run.

The post Magento vs Shopify: Which Is The Right Platform For Your Business? appeared first on Verz Design & published here with their permission.