An e-commerce platform refers to a software piece that enables you to develop an online store and also run an online business. It provides you with all the tools you need to create and also manage your website including day-to-day operations and products. Most e-commerce builders utilize drag and drop functions, and the good news is that you don’t need to be a website developer to build an attractive online shop. There are many online e-commerce platforms that you can get online for free, or purchase and customize to suit your business demands.
Choosing the best e-commerce platforms for your business
Selecting a suitable eCommerce plugin for your business can be a challenging task. In today’s market there are numerous options but to select one of the best can be pretty difficult. Since the development of e-commerce websites is booming nowadays, the demand for electronic commerce tools is increasing these days.
To make your online store highly profitable, you should select the shopping cart which will meet your requirements and needs. Besides, it offers you the needed functionality to build your eCommerce platform. Regardless of whether you are a new online retailer or an experienced online retailer or any selecting the right eCommerce platform can be pretty confusing these days.
Finding the suitable eCommerce platform for your business should make everything else that happens after that incredibly easier to manage. In this article, we’ll compare three popular eCommerce platforms: Magento, Shopify, and WooCommerce to help you in picking the appropriate shopping cart according to the demands of your business.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
WooCommerce is usually considered as SEO-Friendly due to the wide variety of customizations it offers and provides access to the source code of your online store. According to some recent statistics published by eCommerce platform.com, WooCommerce attained an SEO score of 98 out of 100.
Shopify is greatly optimized for Search engine optimization. It provides many wonderful features for different functionalities of SEO . According to a recent study by eCommerce platform.com, Shopify had a 98 SEO score out of 100.
Magento is also highly customized when it comes to SEO and provides high extensive SEO functionalities. Magento is among the few platforms that offer the most out of the box functionalities for SEO. According to recent statistics published by eCommerce platform.com, Magento eCommerce had an SEO score of 100 out of 100.
Scalability and performance
WooCommerce typically slows down when loading some images with a variety of different variations. Magento platform is an incredibly powerful CMS and provides you with more features when compared to Shopify. Shopify loads pages pretty quickly than all other E-Commerce platforms, and there’s considerable load time between Shopify and Magento.
Cost and prices
WooCommerce is usually a free eCommerce platform that comes with free updates. Additionally, WooCommerce provides clients with priced extensions for search engine optimizations. The official pricing of WooCommerce begins from $49 for a single platform.
Shopify first provides a 14-day trial to new customers, and then the basic package begins from $29, and the advanced Shopify plugin costs $279.
Magento eCommerce development provides two pricing plans. First, is the Magento Community Edition that’s free to download, and the other is Magento Enterprise Edition ideal for enterprise and businesses. The pricing of this version of Magento can be established by contacting Magento itself.
User-friendliness
The WooCommerce platform boasts a pretty high degree of user-friendliness and offers ease of use every day. However, it’s more challenging than Shopify when it comes to setting up the online store because WooCommerce is simply a plugin and not a subscription-based option like Shopify.
Unlike Shopify, Magento is not that user-friendly. It’s not the best selection for those who have limited or basic technical skills only.
Shopify is an extremely super user-friendly platform. It has numerous features such as editing themes and drag and drop simple tools which make your experience of any E-Commerce website portal great.
Security
When it comes to security in the WooCommerce platform, you should have an SSL certificate that costs around $200 to $300 and is usually sold by third-party vendors or the host. Also, Security in this platform requires strong passwords, limited logins, and iThemes which are a requirement for WordPress.
Security in Magento requires hosting and PPI which makes your eCommerce website secure. To ensure security in the Shopify platform, all you require is a strong password since the SSL certificates are typically embedded in your Shopify subscription.
eCommerce templates and design
WooCommerce makes all WordPress themes work well with your plugin. There are approximately 1000 WooDesign themes that businesses can choose from their websites. Also, it has a benefit over Magento and Shopify. Moreover, you can get beautiful themes in places such as ThemeForest.
Magento design themes are readily available for download from the Magento Connect and offer a wide range of templates for your business website. The price of the paid themes is around $0.1, and its average cost is $80 to $110. Shopify provides nine free website templates, and the price of the paid Shopify themes is $140.
Customer service
WooCommerce offers limited customer support owing to its open system architecture. Nevertheless, WooCommerce allows you to submit a particular support ticket at WooCommerce.com if you need support assistance.
Shopify leads in this category when it comes to customer service. It provides 24/7 customer support to all its users. You can always contact the customer service staff through email, live chat or on the phone. There is nothing like customer service in Magento. However, if you need some assistance, you can always connect with the broad developer community and then ask any platform related queries from them.
It is worth mentioning that all the stated comparison of the three eCommerce platforms has many similarities and different functionalities which all their users can take pride in. The eCommerce market is incredibly crucial, and if you fail to select the best eCommerce platform, then it often leads to a great loss of business sales.
We hope this post has relieved you of the burden of selection and will help you to discover the appropriate shopping cart for your business. Choosing the best eCommerce platform as per your business demands can help you meet your targets and achieve your business goals