There are a lot of variables to consider when choosing what e-commerce platform to use for your business. Selecting what platform to go with is an important decision, and it shouldn’t be taken lightly. Your e-commerce platform will be the base of your day-to-day business so take the time to compare your options. There are three e-commerce platforms that stand out from the rest, Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento. These three platforms are the most popular options, and they each offer excellent features and benefits. At Right On Tech, we have a lot of experience working with the three of these, and we hope to make the selection part easier for you by breaking down the pros and cons of each one.
What e-commerce platform is right for me?
Before we delve into our pros and cons, make sure you have some necessary information about your business needs in mind. Make a note of your average number of orders and your yearly dollar amount in sales; this might help you when considering your options.
Shopify
Shopify is ideal for small to medium businesses. It’s user-friendly and offers themes and apps that are easy to set up. Shopify provides an easy-to-use interface that makes adding products a quick task. When adding products, you have the option to manage titles, descriptions, images, shipping, inventory, and even some features for SEO. With this e-commerce platform, you can have unlimited products and orders, so your business isn’t limited by a set number. Shopify can be a good fit for different types of companies, including physical products, digital products, drop shipping, or services. On this platform, you can find a few basic templates available for free and a good-sized library of paid themes as well. In order to customize these themes to your business’s exact needs, you may need some help from a professional. They do offer a 24/7 support chat that is great for any middle-of-the-night questions. Shopify was initially designed for small to medium businesses, but there is an option for larger enterprises called Shopify Plus that offers more options and flexibility. However, Shopify does have a few limitations, such as its limit of a single domain being supported per website. Overall Shopify is a flexible e-commerce platform starting at $29 a month that offers a wide range of apps and few limitations on products.
- Unlimited orders and products
- 24/7 support
- Mobile commerce ready
- Option to use your domain name
- Free SSL certificate
- Accept credit cards and various payment gateways
- Automatic taxes
- Website builder with drag-and-drop
- Blogging platform
- Multiple languages
- Customer profiles
- Dropshipping options
- Customer accounts
- Search engine optimized
- Product reviews
- Gift cards
- Automatic carrier shipping rates
- Social media integration
- Inventory management
- Digital products
- Product variations
- Advanced Reporting
- Sell via Facebook, Pinterest, eBay, Amazon, and many others
- POS option
BigCommerce
The BigCommerce platform is similar to Shopify in its ease of use and how quickly you can get your store online; their backend dashboards even have a similar look. Adding products with BigCommerce is also an easy task, and it offers a few more options to fill out for your products. This platform supports multiple domains for a single website using redirects. BigCommerce does provide more opportunities for visual customizations.
BigCommerce Features:
- Unlimited products and orders
- 24/7 support
- Point of sale
- Visual store builder
- Migrate your store and import products
- Accept credit cards and various payment gateways
- Orders and inventory management
- Sell via Facebook, Pinterest, eBay, Amazon, and Square POS
- Multiple marketing features
- API
- Multi-layered hosting security and DDOS protection
- Level 1 PCI-compliant hosting
- SEO features
Magento
Magento is best suited for larger and enterprise-level companies. It offers high levels of customization but does require a higher amount of technical knowledge. A significant feature that Magento offers, unlike the other two, is multiple storefronts; you can manage more than one storefront from one back end. Magento offers a large number of plugins that can be used to customize your website to your business’s specific needs. This platform option is suitable for B2B companies, wholesalers, and manufacturers who need more advanced features than those offered by other platforms.
Magento Features:
- Unlimited products and orders
- 24/7 support
- Real-Time Shipping Rates
- Accept Checks, Money Order, and Online Purchase Orders
- Online Tax and Shipping Calculation and Prior to Checkout Estimates
- Customer Accounts
- Admin Report Dashboard with Business Overview
- Abandoned Shopping Cart Reports
- Flexible Coupons Rule and Pricing Restrictions
- Customer Group Pricing
- Create one or multiple invoices, shipments, and credit memos per order to allow split fulfillment
- Batch Import and Export of catalog
- Tax Rates per location, customer group, and product type
- Advanced Pricing Rules and support for Special Prices
- Web Services API for easy integration between Magento and any third-party application
Right On Tech
All three of the options we have looked at are great e-commerce platforms, and they each offer their own unique features and benefits. Take the time to consider what is best for your business and its needs. If you are still unsure as to what e-commerce platform is best for you, contact our team at Right On Tech. We are knowledgeable in all the ins and outs of these platforms and are happy and ready to help with your e-commerce needs.
