Magento or WooCommerce: Which Ecommerce Platform Best Fits Your Business?

It’s good to know which platform is best suited for your type of business and how it is going to benefit your brand so that you can make an informed choice.

Know Magento platform

To begin with, Magento platform is an open-source e-commerce platform which means that developers can make modifications to its codes as per needs. Such modifications are needed to create customised websites that offer its target customers tailored features and ways of operation for maximum returns. The platform has written in PHP language. It can host itself and comes with a rich Content Management System (CMS).

Magento platform has a worldwide usage running e-commerce businesses of different sizes and capacities. These businesses benefit immensely from the platform’s outstanding design possibilities, payment and pricing optimisation abilities, marketing options, and a host of other built-in features. Magento comes in 2 distinct versions – Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce.

Magento Open Source

Its open-source is available on the market for free download. And comes with loads of features for building successful online store businesses. It has a well-built CMS that is good for business diversification, managing multiple sites and also viewing them for free. There are times when you may feel that the default functions and inbuilt extensions are inadequate for your online business. In such cases, you can simply lookup for paid extensions and templates that exactly fulfil your business needs and integrate them into your website. These are available at the official Magento Marketplace or even with 3^rd party vendors.

The platform comes with an impressive list of features needed to create a well-functioning online store right from the word go. The features include :

1. Displaying unlimited product categories
2. Include unlimited product attributes
3. Shopping cart for buyers
4. Single page checkout for buyers
5. Guest checkout
6. Include free shipping options
7. Customisation of admin dashboard
8. Cross-sell and up-sell related products
9. CAPTCHA use options and many more.

Magento Commerce

is the high-profile version of the platform that comes with unlimited functionalities along with premium support. It’s a fee-based version that is apt to build online stores for mid to large-sized businesses. In fact, it’s the best solution for businesses that have an established presence and are looking to expand their operations.

Opting for the paid Magento version not only gives your business access to all the features of Magento platform but also to almost 50 advanced features. The platform is B2B-friendly to help promote this kind of business. Advanced features included in this platform include:

Sharing customised catalogues with curated customer groups stating individual product prices with specified permissions.

1. Building Progressive Web App (PWA) for cross-browser, mobile responsive online stores.
2. Simple on-site search with Elasticsearch.
3. Buyers can add products to cart by entering product SKU to the Quick Interface.
4. Lets corporate create and manage their accounts with website business admin.
5. Lets authorised buyers initiate price negotiation with reference to their shopping cart.
6. Offline payment methods can be integrated customers’ credit line with the Payment on Account feature.
7. Has a B2B wishlist option named Requisition List that enables easy purchase without removing product records.
8. Cancellation of shipment.
9. Email reminders and several others.

In short, Magento Open Source is for online businesses that are about to start their e-commerce journey and Magento Commerce for the larger and established online businesses moving to include the B2B mode.

Knowing WooCommerce platform

WooCommerce is also an open-source platform that is extensively used across the globe to build e-commerce stores. It is essentially a WordPress plugin making it a free and open-source CMS. Its immense popularity stems from it being a popular WordPress plugin making it home to almost 30 percent of the world’s e-commerce websites.

The platform is best suited for e-commerce businesses that are set to start operations and are in need of an easy to use site that is can be built quickly and effortlessly. The platform is excellent to start with for those that have an understanding of WordPress. But when you need to push your business to a higher level, it is important that you take the help of an experienced developer to make use of the mobile app and other features to the fullest.

Some of the features of WooCommerce include:

1. Unlimited product listing
2. Unlimited accepting of order and selling.
3. Unlimited image listing.
4. Multiple currency, language and unit option inclusion.
5. Advanced inventory management.
6. Adding of coupons and products for promotion.
7. Integration of Google Analytics and many more.

While Magento platform is a strong platform and comes packed with features appropriate for e-commerce, WooCommerce is simpler to install and operate and comes with several plugins. Both Magento and WooCommerce allow payment gateway integration such as PayPal, Braintree, and Amazon Pay with each platform having possibilities of specific platform options too.

Both Magento and WooCommerce offer security updates that are crucial for any online business. Magento platform offers security patches that have to be updated from time to time. WooCommerce offers the major advantage of boosting security with innovative plugins such as WPfail2ban, Wordfence, and others.

Concluding remarks

Magento platform is an ideal choice for e-commerce businesses looking for a strong framework that can be accessed by multiple users too. The platform also offers several out-of-the-box templates and extensions for customised solutions that are not available with WooCommerce. Security in Magento platform is definitely higher than that of WooCommerce. Both platforms have their dedicated users and the choice is basically between a simpler online store platform and a more elaborate one.