• 08 Mar 2021
• 0

A comparative analysis of Magento, Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce

You will learn about different eCommerce platforms every day; however, BigCommerce, Magento, Shopify, and WooCommerce are the big brands. But a question may arise that which one of these is the best one?      

If we look at the trends of the past few years, we will see that eCommerce has been quite popular. Now, companies with physical stores also own an online version, where customers can purchase desired products. Different platforms power these websites, some of which are mentioned below:

• Shopify
• BigCommerce
• Magento
• WooCommerce    

Which platform among these will be suitable for your business? Only experts from the best eCommerce website development company in Kolkata can decide it. However, it would help if you had an idea about each platform’s pros and cons to make the right choice.

So, we will discuss these platforms one by one:

1. Magento

This is an online platform mainly used for the creation of eCommerce websites. It is an open-source tool and is mainly popular for its scalability, support for social media extensions, and efficient store management.

eCommerce sellers can post stellar product reviews while listing the available products. As mentioned earlier, Magento has strong support for social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Also, Magento is SEO-friendly, which means Magento-based websites are visible to a lot of people. Using the tools and extensions available, the website development experts can create unique and valuable services.

However, there are some problems associated with it:

• Cost (The community version is free; however, it does not contain all the features).
• Hosting (Magento works best with some hosting providers).
• It takes a lot of time to create Magento-based websites because of the platform’s complexity.

3. Shopify

This is an eCommerce tool that powers more than 650,000 stores, with stunning templates and features. Experts can choose these templates according to the niche and category of the industry.

What makes them unique? These are responsive (they can fit into any screen), etc. This tool is incredibly easy-to-use and offers technical support to customers. 

Shopify allows businesses to provide customized solutions that offer a level of personalization. This platform has several pros, which are discussed below:

• Integrate with potential market channels (Amazon and FaceBook) to improve a company’s sales figures.
• Allows businesses to offer a personalized shopping experience.
• This tool can be integrated with different payment options (including Apple Pay, PayPal, Amazon Pay, etc.).
• Fewer chances of cart abandonment
• Shopify contains different tools and marketing channels to boost a company’s brand image and loyalty. 
• If anyone wants, they can use eCommerce apps simultaneously to boost the volume of sales.                         

It has some cons too. These are mentioned below:

• Shopify themes can be difficult to customize while designing different eCommerce websites.
• People cannot access some features without paying a substantial fee.
• Adding some tools and add-ons can be costly, and small businesses might turn down the idea for this reason.
• The concept of email hosting is not supported.
• Some experts say that exporting blog posts can be a difficult task.       

3. BigCommerce

Like many of its competitors, BigCommerce has become a popular name in the eCommerce community. It’s comparatively newer; however, it has numerous websites under its belt.

It also comes with different layouts that developers can customize according to a business’s requirements. Here are the pros of using this platform:

• Zero transaction fees (despite using third-party payment processing systems)
• It contains an amazing product-review extension.
• It can be integrated with different tools and platforms.
• Advanced SEO features
• Multichannel and multiple staff support
• BigCommerce has advanced shipping solutions.
• Customized solutions are available, and eCommerce owners can customize them accordingly.    

The disadvantages of this tool are as follows:

• There are certain limitations or caps on the annual sales volume, especially if anyone uses the free or the basic plan.
• Absence of RSS feed for blogs
• Not everyone can use the feature of shopping cart abandonment. The seller must pay for a high-priced plan to use this concept.        

4. WooCommerce

This is a WordPress-enabled website and allows eCommerce owners to reach millions of customers. There are pros of using this tool, which is mentioned below:

• Separate sections for customers and administrators are available on the platform.
• Like any other platform, this one is incredibly SEO-friendly
• The option of one-click selling is present here.
• Tons of options for customization
• Highly secure

Disadvantages

• This platform is difficult to work with, especially with no previous experience.
• Extensive support (centralized) is not available on this platform. Each section offers different support channels that might confuse the user even more.
• Less frequent updates
• It’s pretty hard to implement support for multiple currencies.
• One would have to use extensions to implement some preliminary actions.     

Notable names in this section are mentioned below:

• Wix
• 3DCart 
• Squarespace
• Prestashop  

From the points mentioned above, it’s clear that all these platforms have different applications. The eCommerce development experts can decide if a particular platform is the right choice or not.

Swadesh Softwares is a destination where eCommerce owners can get answers to all their queries. Developers will ask questions such as:

• What is the niche of the company? Or what is the company trying to achieve via this eCommerce channel?
• How many products will be available on the store’s page? Will there be multiple pages?
• Which features will be added to the website (essential, moderately essential, and lastly, least essential)?
• Which platform is your ideal choice? Will it be feasible with the niche?    
• What is the timeline of the project delivery?
• What will be the pricing strategy?          

After the initial consultation, developers will perform a thorough market research. This is done mainly to gather market intelligence and look for weaknesses of the competitors. Now, they will decide how to perform better than these businesses to gain an edge over them.

In the next stage, developers will choose the right technology stack, and developers will use appropriate tools. These people will start working on the UI (User Interface) and UX (User Experience) designing before moving on to the next step, i.e., development.

The development stage will consist of several cycles, and after passing through each of them, the website will finally go to the testing stage. After going through debugging, the website is ready for generating sales.

Also Read : What’s New In Web Designing? 2021’S Report