Magento or Shopify – which is the best platform to sell online?

Having been at the top of the Magento and ecommerce regional search results for some months now, it has become apparent that not all clients require the fully comprehensive ecommerce solution that Magento provides. Moreover, not all clients have the turnover to justify the investment.

Shopify is an economical alternative and the fastest-growing online platform* with 9% of the top million sites. This is a great option for potential clients that require a ‘simple’ shopping cart user journey and do not need custom logic, complex third party integration, multiple storefronts, internationalisation or management of a substantial product catalogue.

If you do need this level of functionality then Magento, which has a 13% share of the top million websites*, would be the platform to go for. Despite its recent growth, Shopify is still behind Magento in terms of market share. You can find out more about our Magento builds here.

We can still provide bespoke design to complement your brand, but with Shopify, you get a more stable and secure platform than other similar solutions such as WooCommerce. You also won’t incur a hosting fee because it is a managed service, starting from as little as $9 per month (£7).

Protecting your customers’ data should be one of your primary concerns and from signup, Shopify is completely PCI compliant, with an SSL certificate built into your subscription. This means your customers payment details and address will stay safe.

Shopify offer a variety of paid and free responsive themes to get you started. The themes are designed responsively, meaning they’ll work on desktop, mobile and tablet. Magento is an open source community so although themes are available, we would recommend bespoke planning and design or a design based on our boilerplate theme – developed by us here at Absolute specifically for Magento.

If you are still unsure, Shopify offer a free trial for 14 days, so you can test out if it’s right for your business.

Shopify now supports 9,000+ sites in the UK and with our Shopify sites starting from only £2000, there is no reason why it shouldn’t be the next item in your basket.

So, which is the best platform to sell online? Magento is always the best choice for clients needing an extensible platform, whereas Shopify is better for those with a lower budget who are happy for their new site to work with the many out-of-the-box defaults that Shopify offer.

To find out if Shopify is right for you and see what we can do for your business, get in touch now or call 0115 953 4800

You can also sign up now for a free trial of Shopify here

*Sources: SimilarTech & BuiltWith