SaaS e-commerce platforms are cloud-based software that facilitates building e-stores. They offer options for different budgets, business needs, and IT landscapes. SaaS e-commerce platforms work on a subscription model & are easier to maintain and are kept updated.
They offer several security features and are quick to install. Let us delve into some of the key features of Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce. This MarsDevs article will discuss the in-depth details of Shopify, Magento & BigCommerce websites.
So, let’s get started!
The Shopify editor to create an e-commerce store is robust & facilitates easy drag-and-drop to edit, hide, rearrange, and show sections. A Shopify-powered store loads faster as it compresses all images to the WebP format.
Shopify scores over Magento and BigCommerce has a fully integrated POS solution that handles offline and online sales from a common dashboard. Magento and BigCommerce, on the other hand, focus on online sales.
With Shopify, it is possible to add functionalities like in-store pickup and tipping suitable for offline business. Shopify offers Shopify payments – with no transaction feeds and is used in nearly 22 countries. This allows an accelerated checkout option.
The Shopify App Store offers various functionalities such as automated customer support, branded order tracking, and other loyalty features. Other features that help build online stores for the future include AR shopping, 3D product views, curbside pickup, and more.
The store editor helps create an optimal online shopping experience for coding or designing. However, it also allows editing of the CSS and HTML for added control over the design and features.
The Shopify ecosystem extends to a wide range of sales channels making it a desirable platform for building ecommerce websites. The Shopify App store offers more than 3000 free apps that facilitate customization to suit customized business requirements.
Shopify and BigCommerce facilitate selling on other websites with the ‘Buy’ button. Online sales can be extended to Walmart, Google, Instagram, Amazon, WhatsApp, WeChat & Pinterest. It offers marketing tools like gift cards, blog CMS, automatic discounts, and sales channels to provide a better experience for customers.
With Shopify, it is possible to start a small online business and scale to the enterprise level.
Shopify is intuitive and keeps your website running with a few simple steps. Shopify offers the following reports:
It also offers insights into staff and sales performances. Shopify empowers small businesses with a simple and seamless store creation platform. It doesn’t need coding or design experience. It offers an extensive library of templates and plugins. Customers can avail 24/7 support.
However, some Shopify features come at an additional price, be it professional reporting or abandoned cart recovery. The blogging feature of Shopify is as robust as other content management systems.
Magento is an open-source platform that is most suitable for enterprise brands. Magento is a self-hosted e-commerce platform that is highly customizable. The security measures have to be manually set up.
Magento 2 offers several customization features. The rich feature set includes multiple payments, marketing tools, advanced product management, shipping integration options, and other high-performing tools. Magento 2 has in-built SEO capabilities that can be harnessed for optimization through sitemaps, Meta tags, and customizable URLs.
A widespread Magento community that offers several possibilities for extensions, themes, and integrations. However, learning advanced functionalities and customizable options like Magento requires complex skills. Developing and maintaining a Magento 2 store is more expensive, with initial costs & ongoing expenses.
Magento 2 is highly resource-intensive and works best on a dedicated hosting or cloud solution. Upgrading Magento versions is complex when the application has customized themes or extensions. The process is costly and time-consuming. The additional expenditure and potential complexity might not be suitable for small businesses.
The learning curve for Magento is rather steep and won’t suit new users. It is more expensive than Shopify or BigCommerce. It is feature-rich and slightly complex to use. Magento 2 is stable, robust, and scalable. It’s suitable for enterprises as it can handle complex e-commerce setups, large product catalogs, and high traffic.
BigCommerce is an affordable e-commerce solution that is easy to set up and ramp up. Its user interface is highly intuitive and users can set up a simple shop page. It supports different pre-built plug-ins.
Several hundred customizable templates are available; some are free while others are premium. BigCommerce is cloud-hosted and highly secure as it provides several layers of protection – SSL & DDOS protection.
BigCommerce is popular with those looking for scalability & robustness. It’s as user-friendly as Shopify and has a vast ecosystem. BigCommerce offers varied functionalities like advanced quote management, customer-specific catalogs, and a purchase order system.
Merchants can preview their online store and test the features with multi-language and multi-currency support.
Shopify and BigCommerce offer scalable and affordable solutions. They are cloud-hosted and don’t require much expertise in design or coding. Their fast page loading as they deploy CDNs (content delivery networks) for a seamless and responsive e-commerce experience.
Social media integration is now available on all the ecommerce development platforms. BigCommerce has an integration with WordPress while Shopify has a powerful blogging platform.
BigCommerce offers abandoned cart recovery as a standard feature while Shopify marks it as optional. Mobile responsiveness is another area where e-commerce development platforms rank high. Setting up a Magento store can be daunting as it needs a skilled coder.
At MarsDevs, we’ll monitor customer sentiment & behavior cues to offer highly tailored experiences. Contact us for support on application building at competitive rates.
FAQ
Shopify Plus facilitates the quick and easy set-up of an e-commerce solution. Magento 2 is more suited for large organizations as it is more complex and offers more scalability.
BigCommerce is better suited for big stores that sell different products. Compared to Shopify, it has a sharper learning curve with a seamless setup & usage. However, Shopify requires you to use their payment portal, or a transaction fee on the sales.
BigCommerce offers built-in tools for SEO such as optimizing Meta titles, descriptions, and URLs. The HTML and CSS can be edited for additional SEO capabilities.
