Shopify is an e-commerce platform that is picking up a lot of steam. Its popularity can be attributed to a range of different factors. The platform excels in all the most critical areas, like interface, connectivity, and usability. Perhaps most importantly, Shopify manages to handily outperform the competition, especially for users with access to their premium offering, Shopify Plus.
The platform is most notable for its excellent range of tools and capabilities. When nurturing an online business, options are invaluable. They allow you to experiment with different storefront styles without worrying about retooling your platform’s infrastructure every time. In the long-term, this flexibility allows you and your platform to accrue a lot of actionable experience.
Shopify’s closest competition is Magento Enterprise. It’s a laudable service in its own right, but it isn’t on the same level as Shopify. The two are very similar, though. As a result, business owners, entrepreneurs, and programmers are often caught between the two at the outset of their online venture. In the coming article, we’re going to be comparing these two services and explaining why Shopify is the handily the best option for your burgeoning enterprise.
Let’s get started.
Capabilities, Utilities, and Scalability
One of Shopify’s marquee features is its scalability. It’s designed from the ground up to allow its users to go from startup to bustling corporation at a breakneck pace. With other platforms, Magento included, success is as much a call for worry as it is for celebration. Because of factors like Bandwith restraints, traffic caps, and more, the most successful businesses often need to jump ship the moment the experience success. Not with Shopify—the platform is built to handle as many dedicated customers and partners as you can throw at it.
This scalability is made possible through the vast assortment of resources that Shopify gives businesses access to. To start, you can access over twenty channels. That’s an enormous number by any margin, but when you factor in the included custom code options, it becomes a game-changer for anyone looking to nurture an online business.
Next, Shopify rarely forces you to endure downtime. Maintenance is the bane of many online business owners. Some platforms force you to sit through hours upon hours on maintenance each and every week. During maintenance periods, customers can’t interact or view your storefront. So every second spent in maintenance is one where your business isn’t able to grow or service its clientele.
Shopify has maintenance periods as well—they’re necessary parts of hosting expansive online platforms. But the service goes to great lengths to ensure that these periods are brief, lasting little more than an hour at a time. And to make things better, Shopify does a stellar job of only performing maintenance during periods where web traffic is at its lowest, like the early hours of the morning. Its estimated uptime is around 99%, which an enormously impressive statistic. The result is a platform that feels like its working with you instead of against you.
Shopify’s front-end is highly customizable as well. You can use their expansive back-end kit to craft a webpage that speaks to your vision for your company. With Shopify, your storefront won’t feel like a pre-made template from a low-level hosting platform. Instead, Shopify gives you and your programmers everything you need to make an engaging and visually appealing front-end.
Lastly, the platform’s superb integration tools allow you to experiment with a staggering number of applications. If their statistics team is to be believed, you can experiment with over 1,500 apps. Apps can do a lot for your storefront—they can make everything from the user experience to backend handling more manageable and intuitive. As a result, this is an immensely valuable resource. And its one that is seldom held by the competition, Magento included.
Shopify vs. Magento—The Decision
Magento lacks all of the above features and capabilities. At best, the platform includes a half-baked alternative that only features a fraction of the utility and customization options provided by Shopify’s expansive offerings. This isn’t to say that Magento is without its bright spots. The platform has a lot of great functionalities, but they pale in comparison to Shopify’s offerings concerning usability, customization, and scalability.
This verdict is even clearer when bringing Shopify Plus into the mix. Shopify Plus includes all of the features listed above and a host of unique offerings. It uses turnkey operations to make integrating tech and new systems a straightforward and intuitive process, which effectively alleviates some of the e-commerce’s largest headaches. Likewise, users will have access to a 24/7 support line that can offer hands-on maintenance services and actionable advice at all hours of the day. And marquee features, like resource allocation and scalability, are improved further as well.
In short, Shopify, be it standard or Shopify Plus, handily outperforms Magento. If you’re looking for an e-commerce platform, you would be hard-pressed to find a better partner than Shopify.
Video – What is E-Commerce?
The term e-commerce stands for electronic commerce. It refers to commercial transactions that occur through electronic networks (mostly on the Internet). Watch this Market Business News video to find out more.