Following steps won't make you confuse and deployed.
Know what eCommerce Platform is:
While having your business facets you must know how online retailing works and what are technology related aspects of your business that force you to make informed decisions and while going through this phase following questions must raise:
- Identifying business needs and business facets.
- Every merchant must know how eCommerce platform works.
Before deciding what online retailer solution you should use to be able to reach a wider customer base. You also need to gain insights of retailer eCommerce software use and to know the fundamental features of eCommerce software.
Following are three essential parts of an eCommerce software:
- User Interface: to assists the admin and customer interaction with the entire eCommerce Platform.
- SuperAdmin-Merchant Dashboard/Backend: to control features,functions,customers,orders,catalogues/products etc. of a store.
- Basic Infrastructure Set-up: that control the entire platform from hosted server, storage, devices, and network infrastructure.
Here are Basic features you should look while choosing eCommerce Platform:
- Powerful and fully equipped Content Management System.
- Easy to customize and extend.
- Smooth Checkout process and Interface.
- Powerful community to get technical support and ready extensions.
- Integrated Blog Section.
- How secure platform is.
In the beginning, Your interest should have control over the content of the website and features which you can get from a good selected eCommerce platform.
CMSs and Many other solutions for eCommerce platforms are available, they are easy to manage.
Magento is such a very powerful eCommerce Platform, definitely, it requires more developer intervention and needs a technical person to handle/control platform to compare to other platforms but at the end 'Profit' matter.
Is Magento best choice for Online Merchants:
With the above graphical presentation, 2.5+ million online shops built using Magento only and rest other e-commerce owns 2.8+ million. So we can see how big chunk of market turned to lone Magento.
Magento is number one E-commerce Solution and popular choice for Merchants.
Magento proved itself a successful eCommerce solution, at a global level, for many branded manufacturers, such as:
- Hermès of Paris in 27 countries
- Nescafe in 62 countries
- Dyson in 15 countries
- Special T by Nestle in 10 countries
- Guthy | Renker 8 brands in 9 countries
- Vans in 10 countries
- Kipling in 9 countries
- Eastpark in 13 countries
- 7FAM in 17 countries
& other big retailer companies around the world
There is a list of Reasons why Merchant favors Magento over other E-commerce solutions and software, few are following:
# Its control over appearance, content, shop with having complex and security features.
# Magento offers basic features ready to use/customize for Merchants like content & catalogue management system architecture, promotion tools, reporting tools, customer and their orders statistics, checkout procedure, and payment options.
# Magento is extensible: You can install additional features by choosing from thousands of extensions and themes available over Magento Marketplace.
At the end of 2015 Magento2 was released with many advanced features to improve Page caching, easy and new way to customize file structure, strong SEO features, and improved website performance and many more.
Magento vs Others:
The market is flooded by eCommerce solutions, so choosing a suitable platform for your business is being harder and harder.
Every business has a tough reason to choose a specific solution for their online platform.
None of the thousands of solutions will serve all of your needs, All have their positive and negative facets.
To find what may be the right solution for you we prepared an overview of some popular eCommerce with a comparison to most powerful eCommerce Solution, Magento.
When talks about other platforms Magento competes with its two flavors: Magento Open-source and Enterprise.
#Magento Open Source competes among other solutions with Wordpress/WooCommerce, OpenCart, Prestashop, Shopify, Squarespace, salesforce, spree, Joomla/Virtuemart, Drupal.
#Magento Enterprise competes with Oracle Commerce, BigCommerce, Hybris etc.
In what follows you'll find out more about a few of these, to help you in making the wise choice for your online store.
Magento vs WooCommerce:
Both Magento and WooCommerce are open-source eCommerce platforms and built using PHP language only. You will get the benefit of support with both of the platforms as having strong community support and extensions available.
- Magento recommended for both small and large/complex web shops while wooCommerce is better for small/simple webshops.
- While having Magento for both Community and Enterprise edition, WooCommerce is not specialized for Enterprise edition.
- Magento has strong features like handling Big catalogs, advance payment options,out-of-box feature, promotional features. Magento is a little complex to handle admin point of view,
While WooCommrce is easy to handle and host.
- Magento specially built for e-shops while having supporting content management system.
WooCommerce is the right choice for content/blog-focused websites with its Wordpress content management system.
Above aspects make Magento complex but Robust choice over WooCommerce but at the right choice should be made into consideration the type of business you own, your budget to spend over hosting, resources etc. should be considered.
Magento vs Joomla/Virtuemart:
Both Joomla/Virtuemart and Magento are opensource eCommerce Solutions being used for multiple industries like education, health, automobile, shopping, entertainment etc.
- While Joomla is most powerful CMS suits to all kind of industries and having a wide variety of extensions available and easy to set-up, Magento is powerful specific to e-commerce approach and offers freedom to set-up E-commerce.
- In terms of E-commerce, Magento occupies top position over Joomla/VirtueMart with bigger community support.
- Joomla's is low-cost solution compare to Magento, Both solutions are SEO rich. Magento is little stronger to manage catalog compare to VirtueMart but complex to manage.
Magento vs Drupal:
Drupal is specially developed as a content management system while Magneto is developed as a fully functional eCommerce solution, Both are very powerful at their place.
- Drupal has two editions: Ubercart and Drupal Commerce and Magento also has two editions Open-Source and Magento OnPremise
- Drupal Ubercart mainly used for content publication management features and Drupal Commerce to add eCommerce functionality to the website, in contrast, both Magento edition professionally built for eCommerce solutions only.
- Drupal is a better option for content-oriented websites while Magento is an ideal solution for big catalog based websites.
Magento vs Shopify:-
- Magento Open Source offers basic features at no cost what Shopify offers, However you need to pay for your hosting services while hosting Magento website. For Shopify, you need to pay some fee depending upon your chosen solution: Basic Shop or Advance Shop setups.
- Shopify is easy to install and setup while having Service provider support while with Magento you need to be little technical.
- With Magento you are open to customizing framework at any level for your needs, While Shopify you have some limitations.
- Both platforms offer a wide range of features for all size of businesses.
In the end, your needs to be taken under consideration while choosing the right solution out of the above two options. Also, long-term goals should be taken into consideration.
Magento vs BigCommerce:-
- Magento has free edition as an open-source option while Bigcommerce is paid solution. Magento on-premise option cost you yearly while for Bigcommerce you need pay monthly/yearly based on your chosen license edition Standards, Plus or Pro.
- BigCommerce is easy to launch and configure while Magento requires some technical skills.
- Both offer a wide range of features. But while it comes to your business specific need Magento open to customizing its framework at any level while BigCommerce has limitations, So Magento is a leader at customization option.
- Regarding Social Media promotions, BigCommerce has upper hand over Magento.
Magento vs Prestashop:-
Both Magento and PrestaShop are open-source eCommerce Solutions. Both offer you the flexibility to customize your framework to meet your web-specific needs.
Following are their strengths and weaknesses can help you to make the right choice:
- Magento has a bigger community for support in terms of resolving issues while Prestashop as a smaller community.
- For smaller and simple online business Prestashop could be a better choice. On other hands, Magento could be a better choice for multi-store need as can be managed with the single admin interface.
Conclusion
The secret behind choosing the right choice when you are looking for an eCommerce is identifying your business needs, your business plans, your budget and identifying features you require.
There is nothing like a Good or Bad solution but what is appropriate for you matters. Which one is most suitable for your resources and cost-effective.
There are many solutions available in terms of free(open-source) or paid. But you need to find which could be long-serving and can get you higher ROI.
Many solutions could be better in terms of features but you need to thing marketing, promotions and SEO point of view too.
The platform should provide you the freedom to customize its structure, framework to achieve specific business needs. Community support, extensions, Themes/Templates availability base should be strong. All of these are necessary to build an ideal online shop/website to target customers.
