Headless E-Commerce with Magento-A Primer
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If you are an ecommerce owner and thinking about how to scale up your business and want to see your business in action, Great! You chose the best path. Magento is recognized as highly effective for medium and large businesses. The comparison of Magento vs. Shopify 2022 will make you understand which E-commerce platform is right to grow your business.
[Table of contents]
- Introduction:
- How is Magento becoming popular among ecommerce owners?
- The 3 significant differences between Magento vs Shopify
- Let’s deep dive into more comparisons between both eCommerce platforms.
- To know about the pricing, please check the details mentioned below:
- Why is Magento preferred in making an eCommerce store?
- How are most businesses thriving on Magento?
- The 10 vital benefits of Magento
- What are the key benefits of Magento 2?
- Conclusion:
Introduction:
While comparing Magento vs Shopify, you must be aware of the substantial functional upgrades and new capabilities of Magento. The future of online commerce is online shopping carts, and two eCommerce platforms are leading the pack: Magento and Shopify. This blog will compare the two platforms. We will look at the advantages and disadvantages and uncover the significant differences. Our recommendations are based on several factors, and you can analyze which eCommerce platform is best for your business.
How is Magento becoming popular among ecommerce owners?
As per forbes.com, ecommerce store sales were calculated at $5 trillion in 2021, and it’s expected to reach $7 trillion by 2024. This is an incredible market that is only going to continue to grow. Thousands of merchants are supporting and appreciating the Magento store across the globe.
Magento and Shopify are the two most popular eCommerce platforms many merchants use for their businesses. Shopify is a platform that allows merchants to set up an online store and sell their products. It was founded in 2006. Magento can deploy multiple multilingual websites on a single platform, and businesses of all sizes can create multichannel experiences for B2B and B2C customers. Adobe officially acquired Magento on August 21st, 2018. The marketplace of Adobe offers approx. 3600 native integrations for customer support, marketing, site optimization, shipping and fulfillment. Fortune 500 companies opt for Magento Commerce to grab its benefits and capabilities. Magento is becoming the preferred platform for over 270,000 retailers. Records say Magento is now used by 162,787 live websites, with 543,196 using this eCommerce platform in the past.
The 3 significant differences between Magento vs Shopify
- Inventory Control Management– Shopify gets capped while reaching 100 variant combinations for products, and it only gives three options: size, color, and sleeve length. On the other hand, Magento offers unlimited scope to Magento users for adding products.
- Payment Gateway– Shopify and Magento support payment gateways like PayPal, Braintree, and many more, but Shopify users need to pay additional transaction fees for each transaction in Shopify payments. On the other hand, Magento users don’t need to pay any additional transaction fees.
- Functionality– Shopify users will get a dedicated Shopify app store for extended functionalities, whereas Magento has advanced features that brings growth in the eCommerce platform.
Let’s deep dive into more comparisons between both eCommerce platforms.
| FEATURES | MAGENTO | SHOPIFY |
| INVENTORY MANAGEMENT | Add unlimited products | Capped while reaching 100 combination of products |
| PAYMENT GATEWAY | Support the payment gateway |
Support the payment gateway but need to pay as additional transaction fees |
|
FUNCTIONALITY |
Advanced features to grow the ecommerce platform |
Dedicated Shopify app store for extended functionalities |
|
THEMES |
Many & useful free themes are available & Magento premium themes start with low price |
Low number of themes available and premium themes prices are high |
|
APPS |
Platform is flexible and many customization options are available |
Integrating apps are complex |
|
DISCOUNT COUPONS & GIFT CARD |
Magento allows to create the discount codes and gift cards |
Shopify does not offer to create the coupons and discount code on its Lite plan |
|
CALCULATION OF SHIPPING CHARGES |
Offers powerful and flexible options for calculating the shipping charges |
Offers flexible options for calculating the shipping charges |
|
COSTS |
Magento open source software is free to use |
Essential features are extra paid via extensions |
|
LANGUAGE |
Supports multiple languages |
Doesn’t have by default multilingual capabilities and its integrated with third party paid apps |
|
MARKETING SEO FEATURES |
Powerful SEO features, SEO friendly and able to amend meta descriptions, meta page title and add in schema markup |
Powerful set of marketing SEO features |
|
DROPSHIPPING |
Allow merchants to sell Ali Express products |
Integrated with Oberlo to find products from suppliers |
|
SECURITY |
Flexible to improve the store security |
Fraud analysis, PCI Complaint, GDPR Complaint and SSL Certificates are available |
|
CURRENCIES |
Support currencies from approximately over 200 countries around the world |
Capable of selling in approximately 133 currencies |
|
SCALABILITY |
Cope with high levels of traffic & it offers massive flexibility and scalability. |
Can upgrade your store plan to Shopify Plus for an enterprise level. |
|
SALES TOOLS |
Offers multiple channel selling options to integrate your Magento store with Facebook, Instagram, eBay by installing extensions. |
Automatically sync to Facebook and Instagram |
Magento and Shopify have some similarities, but there are some key differences that make users opt for Magento to build their eCommerce store.
Themes: Most Shopify themes have a price attached, but Magento has a good range of themes. Both eCommerce platforms help you to customize your store and offer a large collection of themes. The premium Shopify themes start at approx. $80, while Magento premium themes start at $1, which is very low in price compared to Shopify. Many free themes are offered by Magento, but Shopify offers quite a low number of themes.
Apps: Integrating a Shopify app store is more complex, while Magento has lots of customization options and its platform is very flexible.
Discount Coupons & Gift Cards: Magento allows the creation of discount codes and gift cards. These can be created in the Magento store at the time of invoice or when the order is placed. It has three types of gift cards, such as virtual, physical, and combined. On the other hand, the Shopify platform does not offer the creation of coupons and discount codes on its Lite plan, but it is available on its other plans.
Calculation of Shipping Charges: Both eCommerce platforms offer powerful and flexible options for calculating the shipping charges, and it is an essential feature for any eCommerce store.
Costs: Magento open source software is free to use. It is well managed by software contributors who empower the eCommerce platform with many key features while Shopify is a commercial product and its essential features are extra paid via extensions.
Language: Magento allows creating multiple store views in the choice of your language as it supports multiple languages. On the other hand, Shopify doesn’t offer by default full multilingual capabilities and it has integrated with third-party paid apps.
SEO Features: Magento and Shopify platforms both offer pretty similar functions. They have a powerful set of marketing and SEO features to promote your online business. Magento is SEO friendly, which means you are able to amend meta descriptions, meta page titles, and add in schema markup.
Dropshipping: It is a Magento extension to allow e-merchants to sell Ali Express products, which cost $249. On the other hand, Shopify is integrated with Oberlo, which finds products from a wide variety of suppliers.
Security: Magento provides flexibility to improve the store’s security by themselves, or in the Payment and Security section, you can install the Magento extensions to keep the business data safe. On the other hand, Shopify also has features like Fraud Analysis, PCI Complaint, GDPR Complaint, and SSL Certificates that are available for every Shopify site.
Currencies: Magento supports currencies from approximately over 200 countries around the world, whereas the Shopify eCommerce platform is capable of selling in approximately 133 currencies.
Scalability: Magento can cope with high levels of traffic; it offers massive flexibility and scalability. On the other hand, in Shopify, you can upgrade your store plan to Shopify Plus to an enterprise level.
Sales Tools: Magento offers multiple channel selling options to integrate your Magento store with Facebook, Instagram, and eBay by installing extensions. Through Checkout customization, you can track the sales and revenue. To set discounts on items, you can use Abandoned cart recovery, whereas Shopify products automatically sync to Facebook and Instagram so you can easily create ads and shoppable posts.
To know about the pricing, please check the details mentioned below:
|
Option Fee |
Magento Pricing |
Shopify Pricing |
|
Monthly |
× |
Lite Plan: $9 Shopify Basic: $29 Shopify: $79 Advanced Shopify: $299 Shopify Plus: starts from $2000 |
|
Themes |
Free – $499 |
Free – $180 |
|
Hosting |
The price depends greatly on the Magento hosted platform provider you choose |
Hosting costs are included in every monthly plan without extra expenses, except Shopify Lite. |
|
App |
Free – $15,000 |
Start from $15/month |
|
Developer |
Up to you |
× |
|
Domain |
$10 – 15/year |
Free or you can purchase domains through Shopify at $14/year |
|
Transaction |
(Stripe) 2.9%+30¢ |
Basic Shopify: 2% Shopify Lite: 2.4% Shopify: 1% Shopify Plus: 0.15% Advanced Shopify: 0.5% |
Why is Magento preferred in making an eCommerce store?
Magento’s eCommerce platform is filled with rich features that offer businesses of all sizes a flexible and scalable solution for their online eCommerce stores, so it is considered the most significant player in complex eCommerce systems. Magento offers all aspects of running an online store, from managing products and inventory to processing payments and shipping orders. Magento supports multiple stores, product categories, and custom product attributes. In addition to all these features, Magento is highly customizable so that businesses can tailor the platform to their specific needs and requirements. It comes with a wide range of critical features, such as:
- Catalog Management
- Search Engine Optimization
- Internationalization
- Payment Modes
- Order Management
- Advertising and Marketing
- Easy Checkout
Analytics & Reporting
How are most businesses thriving on Magento?
Magento open source and its flexibility are key features of Magento. It is highly used by medium and large-size businesses. Magento commerce is available in the on-premises version or as a PaaS. It is enhanced with optimized cloud architecture and hosting AI-powered analytics and merchandising. Magento open source is robust to deliver all basic eCommerce capabilities in creating an ecommerce store from scratch, but it requires a bit of coding knowledge, so Magento developers can easily handle it. The last few years back, Magento upgraded to Magento 2 with the latest features. Most businesses are choosing Magento because of the following vital advantages.
- Limitless customization and flexibility to personalize a store
- Packed with powerful features and Magento 2 extension
- Ideal for medium and large businesses
- The supportive community and friendly discussion forum
- Open source and free to use
- Robust management, including images, products, inventory and comment reviews
- International supports like currencies and multi-lingual
- Magento accepts payment methods such as credit card, PayPal & Google Checkout with the support of external payment modules like eWay, ePay, and CyberSource
- Excellent customer service
- Category management of Magento allows users to select products through categories easily
- Proper access to client accounts and transaction history, including account status and preferred catalogue
- Smooth inventory management to monitor the products being abandoned in stock, import and export
Let us quickly look at what the numbers say while comparing Magento vs Shopify:
|
Parameter |
Magento |
Shopify |
|
Number of live websites |
||
|
Number of Apps and Add-ons |
3600+ |
4200+ |
|
Number of Themes |
6*(mobile responsive themes) |
86* |
|
Theme Price |
Free – $499 |
Free – $350 |
|
Monthly Cost |
Free |
$9 – $2000 |
|
Available Devices |
Windows, Android, iPhone/iPad, Mac, Web-based |
Windows, Android, iPhone/iPad, Mac, Web-based |
|
Ideal eCommerce Size |
Large & Medium Enterprises |
Preferable for small enterprises |
|
Available Support |
Email, Phone, Training, User Community, Help Center |
Email, Phone, Live Support, Ticket, Community forum, Help Center, API documentation, Video tutorials, Professional certified experts |
|
Feature Comparison |
Magento has far more intermediate and advanced features built into the system |
With Shopify, you often have to get an app for extended functionality |
|
Payment Gateways |
Support for a far lower number of gateways, but they can be added through third-party apps |
Supports more than 100 payment gateways and their own payment |
The 10 vital benefits of Magento
- Robust ecommerce platform:Magento is the most robust ecommerce platform to ease your business needs. It can store thousands of products and is highly scalable. In addition, the Magento store allows you to use filter and navigation features, which improve the performance and conversion rates of your ecommerce store.
- SEO-Friendly:Magento users get meta description features and pre-built SEO URLs to offer the best SEO results.
- Quicker Online Store:Magento’s ecommerce platform is considered unique among others because it has the fastest loading speed of web pages, affecting sales and conversion rates.
- Easy Customizable:Magento users can customize the website view by configuring product categories and features. Payment, language, and shipment are vital in connecting with your customers efficiently. There are many plugins in the Magento store for payment processing, accounting, shipping extensions, and site optimization, which allow store managers to save time, improve backend efficiency, increase transparency, multi-store handling, cost-effectiveness, and enhance user experience. Multiple free and premium Magento 2 extensions are available, like Magento 2 multi-flat shipping, Magento 2 store pickup, Magento 2 gift card and many more.
- Mobile Friendly Platform:Magento’s ecommerce platform is more adaptable to all browsers and screen sizes. It is highly mobile responsive, allowing consumers to shop from any device and anywhere.
- Content Management System with Flexibility:Flexible content management systems update quality content to attract consumers. Magento is useful for manipulating a shopping cart’s basic functioning; without any technical knowledge, this tool is used to edit ecommerce webpages.
- Advanced Reporting:With the help of the data, latest insights and metrics, Magento users can understand the behavior of consumers in their ecommerce stores. It has many reporting features, such as orders, customers, and products. You’ll be updated on different changes through reports. Changes can occur in the number of orders, registered accounts, shipping fees, taxes, and product orders. Magento’s ecommerce platform offers insights into bestselling products.
- Enhanced Security:Magento users can effectively protect their ecommerce store and manage internal access with security permission. To prevent unexpected breaches, you can create a secondary password. It protects against site attacks. Store administrators can secure their Magento ecommerce store with the help of its advanced security features, login screens with Google reCAPTCHA, and secondary password prompt with PCI data security.
- Advanced Search Filters:Magento offers vital features to users, such as search, viewed products, product tag filters, and product reviews. Based on auto-suggested terms, can do this search efficiently.
- Third-party integration:Magento offers integration options with multiple payment gateways and web applications such as PayPal, Google Shopping, Mailchimp, Quick Books, and eBay.
What are the key benefits of Magento 2?
Magento 2 is the updated version of Magento and has launched with robust security features. It has a fraud protection system known as Signifyd, which allows the ecommerce platform to recognize and abandon fraudulent orders. Furthermore, features like page builder and progressive web applications aid in developing a strong ecommerce platform with security, performance, and enhanced speed.
Conclusion:
Magento is the best option for medium and large-sized businesses, and it’s ideal for ecommerce stores that make the businesses thrive and scalable. E-commerce is a booming and profitable business; with a Magento store, you can get your business up and running quickly. Magento is designed with rich features and has powerful capabilities to help merchants run their ecommerce stores effectively. If you have any queries, please get in touch with us; our Exinent experts will happily help you further.
