Magento vs. Shopify vs. Woocommerce vs. Bigcommerce [2024]
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Magento vs. Shopify vs. Woocommerce vs. Bigcommerce in 2024
With over 200 eCommerce platforms available, choosing the right one may be difficult for newbies. Don’t worry, we’re here to guide you through the top four options: Magento vs Shopify vs WooCommerce vs BigCommerce.
Each offers unique features to support your business’s success. To find your ideal match, let’s compare what each has to offer. Join us to discover the best fit for your online store!
Overview: Magento vs. Shopify vs. Woocommerce vs. Bigcommerce
Features
Ease of use
Magento
Most difficult; requires technical knowledge
Shopify
Easiest to use; drag and drop interface
WooCommerce
Moderate; requires familiarity with WordPress
BigCommerce
User-friendly, good interface
Scalability
Highly scalable
Scalable with Shopify plus
Scalable with plugins
Highly scalable
SEO Capabilities
Yes; advanced customization
Yes; basic to moderate SEO
Requires additional plugins for advanced SEO
Yes; basic to moderate SEO
Domain name and hosting
Requires separate hosting
Domain included, hosted on Shopify’s servers
Requires separate WordPress hosting
Domain included, hosted on BigCommerce’s servers
Integration options
Extensive app marketplace
Large app store
Large Plugin Library
Good app marketplace
Customer Service
Community support, third-party services available
24/7 support via live chat, email, and phone
Community and forum support
24/7 support via live chat, email, and phone
Pricing model
Free open source edition, enterprise version with licensing fees
Subscription-based pricing with various plans
Free plugin with costs for hosting, themes, and extensions
Subscription-based pricing with various plans
Now, let’s delve a little deeper into each one:
Magento
Ford, Sigma Beauty, and Graze are among the big names that have used Magento. It’s ideal for large, complex online stores because it offers total control over your website’s design, features, and ability to scale.
The standout feature of Magento is its customization potential. You can tailor every part of your store’s look and functions, unlike with ready-made plugins. However, this complexity comes at a price – Magento needs a lot of technical skill and resources to set up and manage.
Shopify
If there’s any user-friendliness prize for eCommerce platforms, Shopify will take the crown. Famous for its “get started fast” scheme, Shopify lets users quickly create a stunning online store without needing much tech know-how, thanks to its intuitive design and drag-and-drop features.
Shopify is also known for its wide range of themes and apps available. This all-inclusive platform helps owners build their stores, sell products, manage inventory, and accept payments quickly and easily.
While it’s true that Shopify’s platform is user-friendly and can be set up without coding skills, it’s always a good idea to consider hiring a Shopify expert like Craftberry to help you build and set up your store. This will ensure that your store has a converting design and that you have the necessary support to run it efficiently.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is an open-source plugin for WordPress, setting it apart from other hosted platforms in the list. It’s a great tool for businesses to manage orders, accept payments, and sell products.
To start using WooCommerce, you need a pre-existing WordPress website. The setup process may be more complicated than Shopify’s. But to compensate for this, its plugin library offers extended functionalities that cater to your specific requirements.
BigCommerce
Imagine a platform with robust features to serve scalable, all-in-one approaches. Between the Magento vs. BigCommerce vs. Shopify vs. WooCommerce battle, BigCommerce is that hero!
This intuitive platform enables businesses to manage shipping, handle orders, process payments, and sell through multiple channels. It also offers a comprehensive set of marketing tools and built-in scalability to facilitate a business’s expansion.
Platform Showdown: A Feature-by-Feature Comparison
Now, understand a clearer picture of each platform by tapping into eight key features as follows.
Ease of Use and Customization
If you’re new to the eCommerce world and looking for a quick scheme to build your store, Shopify is a safe bet. As mentioned earlier, Shopify’s drag-and-drop functionality makes it a perfect companion for beginners with no coding experience.
Regarding customization, Shopify might be the least flexible platform on the list. However, it can work perfectly with Shopify builders like GemPages, providing merchants with various customization options to set their online stores apart.
BigCommerce is an ideal platform for beginners because it’s easy to use and also has plenty of options for those who want to customize their online store. It allows users to enhance functionality and adjust the design elements within the app’s parameters.
For those who are familiar with WordPress, WooCommerce will be a great choice. However, if you’re not too tech-savvy, keeping up with plugin updates and management might be a bit of a hassle.
When it comes to requiring technical knowledge, Magento is at the top of the list. It’s free to download, but getting it all set up can be tough if you do not have advanced coding skills. You might even need to bring an expert to help sort things out. The upside? Magento gives you full control over your online store’s design, layout, features, and more to make it truly your own
Site Performance and Scalability
When it comes to online store performance, having a solid hosting solution is crucial, especially for platforms like Magento. It’s known for top-notch performance, but if it comes with an improper server, you might see slow load times.
Thanks to its remarkable scalability, Magento is among the favorite choices of large brands and retailers. No matter what you desire to handle – massive product catalogs or high traffic volumes, Magento gets it. And, of course, it comes with a hefty price for server upgrades.
Shopify stores, on the other hand, are known for their smooth and reliable shopping experiences. This is thanks to Shopify’s robust infrastructure. The platform is versatile, catering to businesses of various sizes with its different pricing levels. However, when it comes to handling capacity, it might not quite match Magento or BigCommerce.
About WooCommerce, its performance is largely influenced by the choice of hosting and plugins. A high-quality hosting plan leads to optimal speed and vice versa. Woocommerce also offers scalability options, but optimizing store management and growth typically requires some coding know-how.
BigCommerce is another platform built with performance and the ability to scale in mind. It’s designed to effortlessly manage traffic spikes, making it easier for businesses to grow without needing deep technical skills.
Designs and Themes
All four platforms in the battle today can satisfy even the pickiest business owners with a diverse selection of themes and templates. Even better? Customization availability and mobile responsiveness are big wins for these contenders.
Shopify and BigCommerce offer a range of free and premium themes to enhance the appearance of online stores. Both platforms offer 12 free themes. Shopify provides 174 paid theme options, whereas BigCommerce offers 191. However, it’s worth mentioning that BigCommerce’s themes may have similar designs, meaning its larger number of themes doesn’t necessarily translate to a wider variety of design choices.
For WooCommerce, you can get to pick from a huge range of WordPress themes.
Magento offers a wide variety of themes and add-ons from its marketplace, giving you lots of options to customize your store just how you want it.
Marketing Features
Running a store on Magento comes with the advantages of its built-in marketing features. They often include SEO tools, coupon codes, email marketing functionalities, and customer segmentation.
Though equipped with this comprehensive toolkit, Magento still lacks advanced marketing automation and integrations with popular marketing platforms. Additional extensions might be necessary in this case.
The open-source solution WooCommerce also offers essential marketing features. Related plugins include basic functions for SEO optimization, email marketing, and social media sharing. Yet, with so many plugins to pick from, finding and managing the right ones can get tricky.
Shopify and Bigcommerce make promotion easier by providing a wide range of tools, such as SEO, discount codes, gift cards, and social media integration. Users can also benefit from Shopify’s intuitive analytics dashboard and reports.
While Shopify’s standard plan has plenty of marketing tools, for more specialized features like targeted emails or automated reminders for abandoned carts, you might want to look at Shopify Plus for an upgrade.
Products and Orders
Extensive product management features make Magento a top choice for large business owners. With advanced inventory management, order tracking, and fulfillment capabilities, owners can create and manage complex product catalogs. And again, the more intricate it is, the more coding assistance it requires.
Another great solution for businesses with rapid expansion desires is BigCommerce. This platform provides advanced product options, variants, and store-keeping units, making it ideal for managing large-scale e-commerce operations.
Shopify stands out for its simplicity in managing products and orders, making these tasks easier than on other platforms.
On the other hand, WooCommerce, built on WordPress, allows for detailed customization of product listings and offers a variety of shipping choices, automatic tax calculations, order tracking for teams, and more flexible product management options.
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Checkout and Payments
Magento excels at managing large and diverse product ranges, making it ideal for businesses with high sales volumes or a wide range of offerings.
Its standout features are flexible checkout options and deep customization, appealing to businesses with specific needs at checkout. However, the need for technical expertise could be a hurdle.
For those looking for an easy setup and straightforward management of checkout and payment processes, Shopify is a great solution. No coding knowledge is required for basic operations.
Shopify is known for its smooth checkout experience, thanks to a built-in process designed to reduce the steps customers need to take, thereby improving conversion.
Businesses can adapt to diverse customer payment options thanks to Shopify Payments and its integration with over 100 popular payment processors (PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.Net, to name a few). Additionally, Shopify has its own one-click checkout option for returning customers, called Shop Pay, which is another advantage that contributes to its fast checkout process.
Alt-text: A screenshot of the checkout page on Cowboy
Once again, WooCommerce relies on plugins to extend the checkout and payment features. Through plugins, you can integrate with popular payment processors like Stripe and PayPal. Moreover, with some plugins, you can customize the checkout process, such as by adding additional steps or changing the layout.
Like other platforms, BigCommerce integrates with PayPal and many other popular payment processors to offer a variety of payment choices. This platform strikes a good balance between a user-friendly checkout flow and the ability to customize the process.
Integrations and Ecosystem
Strong API support gives Magento the power to integrate with thousands of third-party systems for different needs like payments, shipping, and marketing. However, setting these up requires technical know-how.
Shopify’s App Store is packed with various apps for marketing, accounting, shipping, and more. While not as extensive as Magento, Shopify’s app store makes it a go-to solution for those seeking a user-friendly interface and an easy installation process.
BigCommerce also has an Apps Marketplace with plenty of apps and integrations. It simplifies the connectivity with enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), customer relationship management software (CRM), and shipping solutions, helping businesses tailor their operations to enhance their productivity.
WooCommerce takes advantage of the vast WordPress plugin ecosystem. Businesses can access thousands of plugins and extensions when it comes to managing payments, orders, product variations, and more.
Customer Support
Shopify and BigCommerce satisfy and retain their users by offering dedicated customer support. They provide 24/7 assistance via phone, email, and live chat so that users can reach out to them whenever they face issues or need advice.
If that’s not enough, remember that both platforms offer indirect support via extensive documentation, guides, and tutorials on their websites.
On the other hand, Magento and WooCommerce primarily rely on community-based support. They offer a wealth of documentation, forums, and resources for assistance and guidance.
However, it’s important to mention that Magento provides different levels of support plans. The basic support mentioned earlier is just the start. When you upgrade to the Enterprise Edition, you get access to priority support and specialized technical help.
Magento vs. Shopify vs. Woocommerce vs. Bigcommerce: How Much Does Each Platform Cost?
Getting to know the features of each platform thoroughly can give businesses a clearer idea of what fits their needs best. But choosing the best among WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce isn’t just about features; it also needs to align with your budget.
Scroll down to explore the pricing plans of the four players and decide which will be your ideal companion.
Magento
Magento is available for free as an open-source platform, but it also has paid versions like Magento Commerce and Magento Commerce Cloud, which come with added benefits but at a higher cost.
Running a store requires other costs too, like hosting, domain names, development, add-ons, and design. Fees can vary depending on which providers and plans you choose. For instance, a domain name can cost you $10–$400 annually.
Shopify
Shopify caters to a variety of business needs with three distinct pricing plans, each packed with its own features and advantages. For those seeking advanced capabilities, Shopify’s Plus plan is available.
Even better? Shopify provides an appealing deal: a 3-day free trial, followed by the first month at only $1. This allows you to explore Shopify’s robust features and begin creating your online store risk-free.
Now, let’s dig a little deeper into its plans.
Note: It includes a 2% transaction fee for third-party payments and is limited to one user.
At $65 monthly ($49 yearly), this plan suits small teams with all Basic features plus five staff accounts and reduced transaction fees to 1%.
For growing businesses, this plan is $399 a month ($299 yearly), offering expanded global selling to 50 markets, custom reports, and 10x checkout capacity.
Starting at $2,300, tailored for complex operations with significant inventory and checkout needs.
Woocommerce
In the Magento vs. BigCommerce vs. Shopify vs. WooCommerce comparison, WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin, offering basic features like product management, inventory tracking, and secure checkout right out of the box.
So, what cost does it take to run your business using WooCommerce?
Like Magento, you need to invest in hosting and domain registration.
While WordPress offers access to a wide range of free extensions and themes, many advanced functionalities require additional paid extensions.
For instance, payment gateways, theme customization, shipping integrations, or marketing extensions will have fees associated with them, ranging from a few dollars to hundreds per year.
BigCommerce
Like Shopify, BigCommerce tiers its pricing plan to meet the different business needs and scales. It includes three main plans and a custom Enterprise package. Here’s a breakdown of the core features of each plan:
Ideal for new business.
It offers unlimited products, a mobile-optimized store, SEO tools, live support, professional reports, a blog, product reviews, and more.
However, it misses out on features like abandoned cart recovery and product filtering.
Perfect for businesses making up to $180k a year.
It covers all the features that the Standard plan has, plus:
These powerful supplements help you enhance customer engagement and maximize sales opportunities.
For growing businesses needing more than the Plus plan.
The Pro plan adds features like Google customer reviews, which can be shown on product pages and in search results and ads, increasing trust and sales. It also offers advanced product filtering to improve the shopping experience.
While more expensive, the Pro plan is worth it for businesses earning less than $400k annually, offering significant growth potential.
Important note: BigCommerce does not charge transaction fees on any of its plans.
Pros and Cons of Each Platform: Choosing Your Champion
Before wrapping up this comparison of Magento vs. WooCommerce vs. Shopify vs. BigCommerce, let’s summarize the pros and cons of each contender. Then, we’ll give you some tips to choose an ideal companion.
Magento
Pros
Cons
Tips: Magento is suitable for large businesses with complex, high-volume stores, large budgets, and in-house technical expertise or a dedicated development team.
Shopify
Pros
Cons
Tips: Shopify is ideal for newcomers and small- to medium-sized businesses looking for an easy-to-use, all-in-one e-commerce platform. You can start small with its low-price plan which has essential features, and upgrade to more advanced plans as your store expands.
Woocommerce
Pros
Cons
Tips: WooCommerce is a perfect solution for budget-conscious businesses and those with some technical expertise, willing to manage a self-hosted platform.
BigCommerce
Pros
Cons
Tips: BigCommerce suits businesses of all sizes, especially those prioritizing scalability and reliability, and are comfortable with a higher price point.
Final Thoughts
So, who is your top choice in the Magento vs. BigCommerce vs. Shopify vs. WooCommerce showdown?
When looking into these platforms (and possibly others), remember to consider all crucial features like user-friendliness, scalability, SEO capabilities, integration options, and pricing structures to find the best fit for your business.
In the end, you’ll want a platform that not only showcases your brand but also connects you with your audience and drives your business. With the insights from this comparison, your choice can set the stage for your online success.
About GemPages Academy
GemPages Academy is a knowledge hub for storefront optimization and achieving overall eCommerce success. In collaboration with industry experts and leveraging cutting-edge Shopify applications, GemPages Academy offers a diverse array of content in various formats, including insightful blogs, intuitive tutorials, comprehensive webinars, and educational courses.
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