eCommerce Platforms Comparison – Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, and WooCommerce

With brands taking their retail business online and many new ones cropping up, it’s important to pick the right eCommerce platform to sell online. With so many eCommerce platforms to choose from, it may be a little daunting to figure out which one is right for you.

We’re cutting your search short! We’ve compared the top 4 eCommerce platforms and listed their best features and biggest drawbacks to help you pick the right platform!

eCommerce Platforms Comparison - Shopify vs BigCommerce vs Magento vs WooCommerce

Here’s a quick comparison of the top 4 eCommerce platforms to help you understand which one would be right for you.

Shopify 

Shopify is an eCommerce platform that helps businesses of all sizes to set up their online store. Shopify offers online retailers a suite of services including payments, marketing, shipping, and customer engagement tools to simplify the process of running an online store for small merchants. 

Large brands like Kylie Cosmetics and Redbull use Shopify to sell to their shoppers globally.

Pros of Shopify 

• Easy to set up. Shopify is built in a way that anything can set up their business in just an hour. 
• You can create a development store to test your store, its design, and functions before you launch. With this, you can ensure that your store is set up before you start paying Shopify for hosting.
• A large collection of themes for your store design. You can pick from multiple themes available by Shopify and other theme developers, whether you want a minimal theme or a photo-centric theme.
• Multiple apps to choose from. Shopify has a robust app store that allows you to find the exact solution you need.
• An ecosystem of experts and developers. Shopify has an ecosystem of experts that can help you with any requirement you have. Shopify communities exist across different social platforms so that you can connect with other merchants and find help and new ideas.
• 24/7 support. You can get round-the-clock support for any issues you have. Shopify is known for its thorough customer support.
• Multiple payment methods are available. You can enable 70+ payment methods on your Shopify store.
• Scalable. Shopify has different plans available for your changing needs. This way, you can scale up as you grow.
• Mobile responsive. Every theme is mobile-responsive, ensuring that your store design is easy to use on different devices.

“If you need to start selling online today, Shopify is a great option, fast, responsive, and reliable.

With Shopify, you will find great versatility through its ecosystem of applications that you can find in its marketplace

Something extremely important is that with Shopify you will not require programmers and a hosting provider because you do not have to worry about technical issues such as high availability, security, and staggering.”

Cons of Shopify

• Limited customization for the checkout process. Since checkout processes have a set structure and require specific details, you can't customize this part of the store.  
• The eCommerce platform charges a small transaction fee for every sale made.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce provides a SaaS eCommerce platform to businesses that want to sell online. Similar to BigCommerce, brands like SkullCandy use BigCommerce to sell.

Pros of BigCommerce

• In-built product variants. You can add multiple product variants to your individual product. 
• High SEO capabilities. BigCommerce provides excellent SEO. 
• No transaction fees. BigCommerce doesn't charge transaction fees for sales made.

Cons of BigCommerce

• Sales threshold. Every BigCommerce plan comes with a limit to the annual sales you can make. This means that if you make more sales than permitted in your current plan, you will be automatically upgraded to a higher plan.
• Complex content editor. BigCommerce has a complex content editor. This makes it challenging to create an About page or custom landing pages. 

Magento

Magento is an open-source e-commerce platform, owned by Adobe, that lets merchants build their store from scratch. With Magento, you need a little developer expertise to set up. Large brands like Christian Louboutin use Magento.

Pros of Magento

• Flexible. What makes Magento a hit is that it is flexible as an open-source platform. Store owners can modify the source code as per their requirements, allowing you to customize your templates.
• Scalable. Just like Shopify, Magento’s open-source platform makes it easy to scale.

Cons of Magento

• Expensive. While Magento has a free version, it has limited capabilities. A paid version costs a lot for even a medium-sized business.
• Requires developer expertise. Magento requires developer expertise since it is an open-source platform. Many business owners will not be able to set it up on their own.
• Low support. Magento has negative product support, with an unresolved support forum and little customer support from their team.
• Slow loading time. Due to the code customizations, Magento has a slow loading time, making it frustrating for shoppers to view your website.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a flexible, open-source eCommerce solution built on WordPress. Unlike other platforms like Shopify that are built holistically for eCommerce, WooCommerce can be enabled on your WordPress site as a plugin. 

Pros of WooCommerce

• Multiple plugins are available. WordPress has a vast plugin library, allowing you to find the solutions you need to customize your store.
• Free and paid themes to choose from. Merchants can choose from multiple themes, with a large community of theme developers publishing new designs every day.

Cons of WooCommerce

• Lack of centralized support. Since all your solutions are provided by different developers, support is scattered.
• Paid payment methods. Adding most payment methods has an upfront cost to merchants.
• WordPress-reliant. WooCommerce is a plugin that is part of WordPress and you will need to rest of WordPress features to set up your store.
• Maintenance. You will need to monitor and maintain your store's plugins, especially since they are third-party apps. You also need to ensure that they are compatible with one another.

Which is the best eCommerce platform?

Every eCommerce platform has its cons. However, the best eCommerce platform, due to its dedicated focus on its merchants across the globe, is Shopify.

Shopify is a platform built for eCommerce stores, ensuring that the feature sets available on the platform are constantly optimized and up to the needs of the merchants.

With Shopify’s large ecosystem of merchants, developers, apps, and experts, store owners like you can easily get the help they need, find the right solutions, and work with other like-minded individuals to improve your online business.

Our team of Shopify experts works with Shopify merchants like you to the store design that reflects the personality of your brand and caters to the functionalities you require. Whether you want to revamp your existing design or build a new one from scratch, we will help you create a positive shopping experience on your Shopify store design.

Reach out to us on info@xgentech.net and we’ll help you set up your Shopify store design!