WooCommerce, Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce: Which Platform to Select for Your E-Commerce Website?

Choosing a perfect e-commerce solution is not a simple undertaking. With so many platforms that serve the same purpose, many people get confused and see no difference between them. However, each CMS has its own unique characteristics that distinguish it from the pack. 

While it’s business goals that play a key role in choosing an e-commerce platform, many other considerations determine the move as well. Let’s look at these factors and compare four of the leading e-commerce solutions: WooCommerce, Magento, Shopify, and BigCommerce.

WHAT TO CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING AN E-COMMERCE PLATFORM?

Selecting an e-commerce solution only because it’s currently trending is not the best idea. The fact that it has millions of positive reviews doesn’t mean it will be adequate to achieve your business goals. You should take other important factors into account as well. 

Here is a list of the key aspects you may want to consider before you contact an e-commerce solution vendor: 

Keeping these considerations in mind, let’s compare the four e-commerce platforms listed in the title so that you know when to choose one over another.

WOOCOMMERCE

WooCommerce is a free WordPress (WP) plugin that has been specifically designed to give WP users the ability to run their online shop right from WP. It creates a beautiful combination: 

• WP provides powerful content management tools for blogs, magazines, custom visual content, etc. 
• WooCommerce adds an online shop capable of expanding with extensions 

So, if your main focus is a blog, for example, but you want to have an online shop on your WP site as well, WooCommerce is an excellent choice. You can edit your posts and add products to your shop from the same admin panel. Very convenient! 

Other good features of WooCommerce worth mentioning: 

• Caters to a variety of business objectives. Selling fancy socks? Access to video or audio content? Training courses? Sofas? Tours? Stay assured: anything you want to sell, you can sell through WooCommerce. 
• Really big market player, with over 28% of all online stores based on it. Thanks to that, you can find all kinds of ready-made extensions or easily hire experts to have a custom extension built for your needs. 
• Scalable.

That said, there are some minor WooCommerce shortcomings you need to remember: 

• You’ll have to monitor the upgrade versions of add-ons and the entire website. WP and WooCommerce update often and demonstrate stable performance from year to year. However, other plugins and WooCommerce extensions that your website may be using may fall behind with their updates. 
• While you don’t have to pay for the plugin itself, you still have to cover the hosting expenses.

All things considered, WooCommerce is the best solution for: 

• Small companies or startups that already use WordPress. You might want to hire WooCommerce development company to properly install and customize your store.
• Those who need to control every single aspect of their website’s administration: everything can be configured and customized.
• Any type of business, from selling T-shirts to offering online training courses. 

BIGCOMMERCE

Everything’s big about BigCommerce. In contrast to some other e-commerce platforms, this SaaS-based solution has everything you need to run a successful online store out of the box. No need for additional extensions or plugins. Here is a short list of the key features of BigCommerce:

• Omni-channel retailing
• Product filtering and faceted search
• Abandoned cart saver
• Superior SEO tools
• Built-in discounting
• Accounting solutions
• Sales tax automation 
• Seamless integration with the leading payment solutions on the market (special credit card rates from PayPal)
• Great capabilities for migration from other platforms
• No maintenance or hosting costs, which makes deployment a breeze
• The best uptime in the industry. Fast-loading sites – great conversion. 

With BigCommerce, your business can grow quickly from small to midsize and then to large enterprise. 

What’s the catch? There are several: 

• Like every SaaS-based platform, BigCommerce is not free. You have to pay a monthly fee to keep it going. However, you can always take advantage of the 2-week trial period. 

• It’s not for people who like digging and tweaking. Although you can customize a BigCommerce site, it requires specialized knowledge and can be a lengthy undertaking. Thus, hiring BigCommerce developers for this purpose is wiser. 

To sum up, you can benefit from using BigCommerce when…

SHOPIFY

This SaaS-based e-commerce platform is the best choice for small business owners, such as hairdressers, tailors, farmers, or handymen. If you’re an independent entrepreneur, you’ll be able to manage a Shopify site with ease.

No coding skills are required to get a Shopify-powered online store up and running. You can adjust the basic functionality with a few clicks right in the admin panel. Some other Shopify attractions include: 

• A sizeable collection of design templates responsive by default: mobile users of your website will not be left out. 
• Many effective marketing and SEO tools. That guarantees that your website search engine rankings will be above average.
• Great capabilities for theme customization without requiring specialized knowledge. 
• Easy-to-use minimalistic admin panel. 

To sum up, choose Shopify if you: 

• Want to start your online business quickly and enjoy unlimited sales 
• Have no coding skills or desire to get technical
• You are a small business owner. 

MAGENTO

Finally, meet the King of e-commerce — as many call Magento — although it’s not perfect for every type of business. Here are the key benefits of this CMS: 

Not every cloud has a silver lining, though. While Magento is a great e-commerce tool, it does have several drawbacks you should be aware of:

All in all, go for Magento if you need a highly customizable and SEO-friendly solution and if you are skilled in the main web technologies. On the other hand, it’s the best choice for prosperous companies that can afford to invest large sums in the administration and customization of their storefront.

Magento has almost all the features and aspects you need in your online shop. It has the best multi-storage, multilingual, and multi-currency capabilities on the market. 

On the other hand, if you need to start an online store quickly, with some basic functionality only, you should consider other platforms, such as Shopify and WooCommerce. Magento is for larger, more feature-rich projects that are not implemented in a day. 

CONCLUSION

We hope this short guide we’ve put together has shed some light on the key features you need to consider when choosing an e-commerce platform for your site. 

Still in doubt? GetDevDone is always ready to lend you a helping hand. Just send us your design and describe how you view your future online store. We have all the required eCommerce development expertise to implement the most complex of projects. We can modify existing plugins or build custom ones, tweak and create themes, and improve the performance of your website regardless of which e-commerce platform you ultimately select.