Difference Between Shopify, Magento and WooCommerce

Shopify

In the BuiltWith Top 1 Million of eCommerce websites, Shopify, which was founded in 2004, maintains a 21% market share, placing it just behind WooCommerce in second place. Shopify filed for an IPO in May 2015 at a price of $17 per share, and since then, the stock has totally skyrocketed to $372, placing its market valuation for 2019 at $43 billion. So, yes, Shopify has experienced significant growth over the previous few years and is currently experiencing strong momentum.

The primary way that Shopify stands out from the competition is that it provides the fastest way possible to set up an online store.

In fact, everything is included; you don't even need to worry about choosing a hosting company or installing any software. The premium hosting plan provided by Shopify comes with unlimited bandwidth, a built-in CDN, and routine site backups. Additionally, unlike WooCommerce or Magento, Shopify takes care of updating and maintaining the underlying software for you.

Therefore, all you need to do is create an account, select a theme, and begin adding products. If you'd like, you can also add a custom domain name (highly recommended).

You won't need to spend any time thinking about developing a payment gateway, setting up a safe shopping cart, or creating a system for monitoring orders because all essential eCommerce functionality is supported right out of the box.

This gets me to my second topic, which is about the design of your store, which is based on your theme selection. These expertly created themes function quite similarly to WordPress themes: They offer certain fundamental capabilities as well as a template for the layout and appearance of your website.

Both official Shopify themes and themes created by independent developers are available. Shopify presently offers 64 premium alternatives with prices ranging from $140 to $180 along with eight free themes.

Most themes include a tonne of customization options, and Shopify's user-friendly interface lets you easily alter the appearance of your site. This means there isn't ever a need to write a word of code, while developers are free to add their own customizations by directly modifying the HTML and CSS.

It's also important to note that, despite the themes' primary focus on eCommerce, they offer support blogging features for individuals who want to experiment with content marketing.

You can use applications to increase the functionality of your store, much like with WordPress. Thousands of apps for a range of purposes, including live chat, drop shipping, automatic currency conversion, variable shipping rates, and accounting software, are available in the Shopify App Store.

Although some apps are free, many of them demand a monthly fee.

Direct access to your server for complete customization flexibility is one thing you do not receive. Unlike WooCommerce and Magento, where you have access to the underlying software, Shopify is a hosted solution. This could be problematic if you need to modify your store in ways that you can't do with applications, HTML/CSS, or themes.

You must subscribe to one of Shopify's three plans in order to use the platform:

Online transaction fees for the no-frills version of Shopify, which costs $29 per month, are set at 2.9% + 30c.

Gift card support and professional reports are included in Shopify's $79 monthly plan, and the online transaction cost is reduced to 2.6% + 30c.

Advanced Shopify, $299 a month, includes all the features of the other versions as well as real-time carrier shipment and an advanced report builder. The cost of an online transaction is now 2.4% + 30c.

It's vital to keep in mind that these processing costs are based on the supposition that you use Shopify Payments' official service. Shopify adds a fee on top of what the third-party payment processor costs if you choose to use your own payment processor (like Stripe or PayPal). Depending on your package, this price ranges from 2% to 0.5%.

Shopify furthermore provides Shopify Plus, an enterprise-focused package with greater flexibility, starting at $2,000 per month.

Magento

The following is Magento. Since its founding in 2008, Magento has been owned by a number of different companies, including eBay, before being eventually purchased by Adobe in 2018. According to statistics, Magento powers 9% of the top million websites' eCommerce businesses, placing it a distant third behind Shopify and WooCommerce.

The Magento software can be used in one of two ways:

Similar to how you can install WordPress, you can install the free, open-source Magento software on your own web hosting. You can get this, which is known as the Community Edition, from this page.

Magento Enterprise Edition is available for purchase, with prices starting at $22,000 and increasing from there.

We are going to concentrate on the free, open-source Community Edition because the Enterprise Edition is so expensive.

If you're a skilled developer, this won't be a problem, but if your technical skills are far below average you're probably best off searching elsewhere. The Community Edition has a much steeper learning curve than Shopify.

To install Magento, you'll need to pick a hosting provider, preferably one that can handle the demanding resource requirements of a Magento website.

Installing themes and extensions will let you decide how your site will look and perform (the Magento equivalent of WordPress plugins). You can purchase themes and extensions from third-party marketplaces or through the official store, which has a good range.

A word of caution: Magento themes and extensions can be pricey, especially if you're used to the cost of WordPress products. For instance, it's not uncommon for extensions or themes to cost $300 or more (though you can find cheaper options, as well).

The similarities between Magento and WordPress stop at this point. The main distinction between the two is simple to see: Magento is only an eCommerce platform. Due to Magento's complexity, even basic activities, like adding extensions, may require the assistance of a specialist.

However, the Magento core is the most potent eCommerce platform available and has a long range of capabilities. There are too many to list here in full (see this page to view them all), but the following are some of the features and capabilities you have access to:

·         Create product bundles, cross-sell related items, and upsell.

·         Each product category has its own landing page.

·         Flexible pricing guidelines and promo codes.

·         One admin panel can be used to manage all Magento stores.

·         Show as many product characteristics as you want, such as size, color, and style.

·         Registered users have access to a dedicated account dashboard.

·         checkout on one page.

·         built-in wish list features

·         SEO URL rewrites.

This is in addition to all of the other core eCommerce features that are necessary for online stores, such as product pages, shopping carts, payment gateways, order management, etc. The Authorize.net and PayPal gateways come built-in by default, but you may add a tonne of other gateways using extensions.

WooCommerce

Finally, WooCommerce, an eCommerce solution, is something that every WordPress user should be familiar with. According to the statistics, WooCommerce is the most popular option to create an eCommerce store, and with a 22% market share, it just edges over Shopify to take the top spot.

In May 2015, Automattic purchased WooCommerce in a deal reportedly worth $30 million. If you are unfamiliar, Automattic, the business that runs WordPress.com, has a current market value of $3 billion. We merely provide that information to show that WooCommerce, like the others, has the financial backing of a billion-dollar corporation.

WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, therefore you'll need a WordPress-powered website to use it. WooCommerce is not an all-in-one solution like the two specialist eCommerce platforms mentioned so far.

The fundamental WooCommerce plugin is free, just like the basic WordPress software, but you'll probably need to buy some premium extensions to set up a working store.

WooCommerce provides eCommerce capability for your website right out of the box. After installation, you can add products to your website with their associated specifications, photos, prices, and other details. Visitors can then add these items to their shopping carts and proceed to the checkout to make payments.

WooCommerce includes an easy setup wizard to assist you in setting up your store, including instructions on how to connect to payment processors like Stripe or PayPal, create shipping zones, and more.

WooCommerce also includes tools to make it easier for you to figure out taxes and shipping costs automatically.

It's also one of the most user-friendly eCommerce platforms, and since all order handling is done through the well-known WordPress back end, WordPress users will feel right at home.

Of course, your site's design is among the most crucial elements to consider before starting a business. Thankfully, the majority of WordPress themes already support WooCommerce, and WordPress.org and marketplaces like ThemeForest also host thousands of specifically designed WooCommerce themes for every imaginable market:

The marketplace for extensions is where WooCommerce really shines. You may take advantage of the 50,000+ free plugins at WordPress.org as well as thousands of paid choices because it's built on WordPress. WooCommerce is so well-liked that you can also discover thousands of plugins made expressly for enhancing WooCommerce.

In reality, you can find almost a thousand free WooCommerce plugins by searching for "WooCommerce" on WordPress.org (our favorites). Additionally, there are another 330+ free and paid extensions available on the WooCommerce website's extension marketplace.

Some of my preferred extensions are:

Customers can make regular payments to you with WooCommerce Subscriptions ($199).

Product Add-ons ($49) allow customers to further customize their purchases (for example, specify engravings).

You may make special offers or even provide gift vouchers to your store with Smart Coupons ($99).

You can utilize dynamic, adjustable rates by creating an infinite number of pricing "rules" using Dynamic Pricing ($129).

You can take appointments through your store with WooCommerce Bookings ($249).