How To Choose the Right E-Commerce Platform for Your Business?

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When starting an online business, the choice of the e-commerce platform arises immediately. Your Google search history shows never-ending battles of Shopify vs. Magento 2 vs. Shopware vs. other e-commerce platforms. According to IT Delight, a professional e-commerce development agency, it can be hard to tell which wins out. But the platform you choose should fit your business. So, let’s focus on what you need to consider when picking your e-commerce platform.

What influences the choice of e-commerce platform?

The various platforms have different features. For example, suppose your business strategy includes expanding to different markets. In that case, your chosen platform should allow scaling, so you avoid having to pay to switch to another provider or develop from scratch.

Here’s a list of other factors to consider:

• Market. Are you planning to sell locally or globally? Consider shipping issues, payment handling, and data processing compliance.
• The number of expected transactions. If you are in the startup phase or have an extremely niche product, there’s no point in investing in a platform (or an expensive plan) that offers more than 100,000 transactions per day. It takes different system resources to process 20 transactions per day versus more than 200 per hour. So, if you plan to expand, look for scalability.
• The number of users. When a client creates an account, your system must register it and process all the information from the user. And it’s one thing when it’s 200 accounts in total, and another when 200 new accounts are created per week. The more accounts you expect, the more storage and operational capability you need. On top of that, you need to consider how many administrative accounts you need to open for your employees to manage the online store with ease.
• Cost. That’s a factor that a business owner should always consider. Try to keep a sense of value the provider offers to your budget.
• Payment options. This is something that’s closely connected with your marketing strategy. Firstly, online transactions have requirements for safety and fraud detection, like SSL certificates and two-point verifications. Secondly, if you plan on having cryptocurrency payment options, loyalty programs, gift certificates, vouchers, coupons or other discounts, your e-commerce platform should allow your clients to use these.
• Branding and customization needs. Loyalty and brand awareness are interdependent. Since the online realm limits what brands can do to improve their visibility, check if the e-commerce platform offers a customization option. And it’s not merely your brand’s logo or name—it’s the whole online visual representation of the brand, from the colors to the fonts, to similarity with land-based stores, if any.
• Reporting and analytics. More advanced e-commerce platforms have analytics in their feature sets, so you can create a report based on items sold, clients landed or returns processed.

That’s a lot to consider, but understanding the features of the platform will help you save money, and the cost is always a key consideration. Let’s compare the features of Shopware vs. Magento 2 vs. Shopify.

Magento Vs. Shopify Vs. Shopware: Overview

Each of these platforms has different versions, based on the type of businesses they can serve and their features:

• Shopify: Shopify (startups to medium-sized businesses) and Shopify Plus (enterprise-level businesses)
• Magento: Magento 2 Open Source (free version), Magento Commerce (extended functionality feature set), Magento Cloud (cloud-based solution for enterprises that process lots of sales data)
• Shopware: Starter, Professional, Enterprise editions for small, medium and large businesses.

This article won’t cover Shopify Plus vs. Magento 2 Commerce vs. Shopware Enterprise. We’ll focus on comparing Magento 2 vs. Shopify vs. Shopware, as they are the most used for startups and medium-sized businesses. Let’s cover the basics of each platform before looking at functionality.

Design and customization

Since the website design is the first thing the client sees, it’s important to associate it with your brand, so customization and design are essential. While Shopware and Shopify offer drag-and-drop customization that doesn’t require coding skills, Magento’s customization should be done by a professional as it’s code-based. Let’s look at the design possibilities of Shopify vs. Magento 2 vs. Shopware.

When you compare the design flexibility of Shopify Plus vs. Magento 2, you’ll also find out that the more advanced enterprise versions come with more design features, plugins, and tools that the site developers can use to create a unique user experience.

SEO/Marketing possibilities

Merchants have to pay particular attention to the platform’s marketing features and SEO possibilities because this will affect cost and marketing strategy. For example, with Magento, you can easily adjust merchandising, create custom catalogs, insert promotion banners, and choose how to display the product. SEO-wise, there’s no point in comparing Magento 2 vs. Shopify Plus vs. Shopware as they all offer the same features, including a blog page, catalog customization and an admin dashboard.

Scalability and third-party integrations

Every business owner dreams about growing their business and market internationally, but not every e-commerce platform can handle the growing volume of clients. IT Delight company emphasized that some solutions (like Shopware) offer upgrade plans and extensions, others, like Magento, can be built up like Legos—you just add more pieces to create a bigger figure. The plus of instant upgrading is that you don’t need a tech person to do it for you—the migration is part of the service. But for Lego-like scalable solutions, you need tech skills and knowledge on how to integrate the parts.

Security

Security-wise, each platform offers the same industry-accepted standards for anti-fraud, like SSL certificates, safety plugins, and two-factor authentication. Additionally, they all comply with PCI DSS standards to ensure safe payments. However, the difference between these platforms lies in the way they handle data, as various regions have different laws regarding customer data processing. Shopware, for example, is GDPR-compliant.

Pricing

The cost for a platform depends on a few factors:

• Store registration country
• Chosen plan/edition
• Your annual revenue
• Chosen features

Be prepared to spend more if you plan on third-party integrations. Also, some e-commerce platforms offer free trials of the higher-value versions. For example, both Shopify and Shopware offer free trials, but unlike Shopware, Shopify doesn’t offer a free version. Magento 2 functions as a free, open-source platform, but their Commerce and Cloud options have price plans that don’t have free trials.

Conclusion

These platforms are great options for small to medium businesses, but if you are going to set up your e-commerce account and deal with customization yourself, we’d advise you to opt for pre-built solutions that don’t require hard coding skills. However, if you’re planning for fast market expansion and want to customize as many front-end and back-end features as possible, we suggest choosing a scalable platform like Magento and partnering with a tech team to help with the setup.

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This content is brought to you by Igor Yemelianov

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