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Picking the right platform for an e-commerce business can be a tricky thing, but it can also be crucial to your success. It all comes down to your needs, and different platforms will offer different pros and cons for using them to sell your products. In this guide, we’ll cover two of the largest platforms, Magento and Shopify, which have some fundamental differences between them. We’ll also try to highlight some of the advantages that the latter offers for your e-commerce store, but it will be up to you to choose the one that suits your business the most.

SEO Optimization

With almost half of the total online purchases beginning with an online search, it’s clear how important SEO optimization is for any e-commerce business. Shopify Plus and Magento EE both offer the usage of independent links, page URL’s, page titles, meta descriptions and H1 headings in order to boost your rankings. However, if you’re looking to migrate from another platform, Shopify Plus has an edge with their Traffic Control App, which will let you easily redirect the traffic you’ve already built on the previous platform. This way you’ll be migrating to another platform without compromising your SEO ranking at all.

Marketing

Without a marketing team and strategy in place, you probably won’t be attracting potential customers to your site. Since most marketers aren’t exactly programmers, having a platform to ease the process for them can be a lifesaver. Shopify Plus is way more user-friendly when it comes to marketing, as it will allow you to make changes directly from the admin panel, making it way simpler to use. There are also plenty of extensions you can add for A/B testing, automated email campaigns etc. Magento, on the other hand, has a significantly more complex backend and you’ll need a dedicated developer to create all of the features Shopify Plus offers by default.

Security

Every e-commerce company must take their security seriously because if they don’t, they’re putting themselves and their whole businesses at risk of being hacked.  Magento EE is a self-hosted platform, which basically means that they don’t take any responsibility for securing the data on your server. On the other hand, since Shopify provides hosting, they will carry all the risk for any potential security failures. This clearly means that Shopify is a way safer option unless you’re willing to invest your time and money into your own security, at which point you will still be responsible in case it fails.

Apps and Extensions

While Shopify offers around hundred apps and extensions you can use to improve the functionality of your store, Magento, being an open-source platform, offers well over five thousand of those. And while a larger number usually means more choice, it doesn’t automatically mean Magento apps beat the Shopify ones when it comes to quality and functionality. Keep in mind that Magento is an older platform and that most of those apps are community made. Also, sometimes you might get lost if you’re offered too much of the same, which won’t be the case with Shopify.  Like experts from SEO Services Sydney suggest to always try to keep it simple.

User Interface

The user interface of your store is extremely important if you’re looking to manage your store successfully. Magento is very flexible, but overly complex and has a lot of options built into the admin page. Shopify, on the other hand, is the better choice if you’re looking for a simpler admin interface and you won’t have to be a techy to figure it out. All of the functions you might need from day to day, like managing categories or editing products is really simple in Shopify and you shouldn’t have any problems with it. Magento offers everything that Shopify does, but at the cost of simplicity, and you can go with it if you can manage the technical part.

Support

Magento is based on community support, so you won’t have any guarantees that someone will deal with your inquiry or a problem. Plus, it might actually take a while before you get any responses. Its community forums offer a lot of already answered inquiries, so you’re likely to find a similar issue as you’re experiencing, but it will take some time and research to do so. Shopify offers 24/7 customer support and the community support, so you can take your pick. Having dedicated support can be especially handy for small businesses, who might need constant assistance when it comes to upgrading the platform.

Conclusion

Here is another helpful article on this topic called “Shopify Plus Review – The Only Platform You Will Ever Need.”

Both Magento and Shopify are capable of fulfilling all the needs you might ever have as an e-commerce business but at different costs. Magento can be great if you’re looking for a lot of customization, and if you can afford developers to tweak it for you. Shopify is a better choice for smaller businesses, as its costs are always fixed and they’re more likely to value simplicity over customizability. So take all the things we highlighted in this guide, and go with the option that best suits your e-commerce needs.

 

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