Magento, Shopify, Wordpress... what is REALLY the best choice?

I've heard that about Magento too, have you looked at Opencart?

Themeforest has a bunch of Opencart themes but I also like the idea of Woocommerce, since 2.0. looks good too.

opencart is amazing! Dont knock it because its opensource. We've built 2 sites on opencart and have not run into any problems we cant fix. Not has heavy as magento but at the fraction of the cost.

Opencart is a decent open source solution. The platform is free and the plugin extensions are less expensive (30-50% cheaper) than official Woocommerce plugins for example. BUT, after about 2 years of working with Opencart I can testify that they suck, especially the support -- even for developers. They release updates very rarely and when they do they don't really give developers a chance to participate or get early access. That means that if you upgrade your version and you're using several 3rd party plugins -- which you likely will to have a kickass site -- there's a good chance you'll lose a whole lot of customization work. The Opencart team could care less, so I'd say beware. It's not for everyone -- especially not newbies. Just my opinion.

Shopify for you.

When you're ready for 10k products, switch to Magento

Shopify for sure. Extremely easy to use and it makes attractive websites.

Rocky is it true Shopify takes a % commission per sale?

Shopify is slick, easy to use (for you & customers) & just feels good. The transaction fee is worth it IMO (read more here: About Shopify's Transaction Fees)

There is also Ecwid: E-Commerce Widgets
and next.x-cart.com (hosted x-cart)

Personally, I think it's going to be the one you try first.

I like Wordpress. A lot. Why? Because it's the one I tried first, liked first, and because I've learned it quite well, and had a lot of success with it, I didn't see the NEED to move onto another platform.

I'm unsure that a lot of people that give their recommendations have even TRIED the other platforms. I could be wrong, but I'm not ashamed to say that I haven't tried them - haven't seen the need.

But I will give my testimonial of Wordpress. I know it works well, has a lot of great capabilities, and has a lot of features that I need. I've never come across a 'need' that wasn't met by a plugin.

Hi,zannix
I still recommend WordPress to build websites E-Commerce because wordpress has a lot of Theme or Plugin that can support e-commerce website you become better and interesting.
Thanks

Do any of these interact well w/ quickbooks? for item info, accounting, billing, inventory etc....Thinkin that would be pretty slick to avoid multiple data entry of various information.

Wordpress for less than 100 products , magento for thousands of products.

Personally I like opencart for its simplicity and easy customizability

I personally like Wordpress. Why? Because you can easily find plugins and themes to work with.
I am now trying woocommerce, like the plugin a lot. Creating an online shop with wordpress and woocommerce plugin is really easy.

Cheers

I use Woocommerce. I have Woocommerce sites with thousands of products in them. I particularly like the no ecommerce platform fee with Woocommerce. With the csv import extension, if you have a wholesaler who offers a csv file, importing all the products is very easy. If not, putting them in manually is as easy as posting in Wordpress.

I had a great experience with CubeCart which is somewhat like opencart, but for me it was very user friendly and you can load hundreds of products and it installs right from your cpanel with fantastico.....check it out.

I'm working on my first woocommerce ecomm site....its really easy, not sure about performance so far but easy to mange. I have an existing site with opencart and at no fault of theirs exactly - its not performing as expected. (partially due to my own fault for lack of research. It was my wifes - hobby turned ecomm) None the less it was a great learning experience that has opened other avenues for us...here is my open cart site: Unique Baby Gifts As you can see the visual appeal on the landing page is nice as it is home made. The problem is the inner category pages - pics are small and very boring as a whole. We also lack the flexibility with making necessary changes in terms of optimization and click through rates. Hope this helps.

I think you could use Wordpress for just about everything. It is more flexible in a clean e-commerce solution and almost all features in Magento etc can be achieved with Wordpress. The advantage with a clean magento solution is however that you dont have to deal with a ton of plugins and customizations.

Hi,

Actually I use a prestashop site for less than 500 products, woocommerce for less than 100 products and Magento for more than 1000 products.

For me prestashop site is the best solution also for SEO scope. Infact the prestashop site developed for my customer are all very well visibility.

I used to manage an online store with over a couple million in revenue, which used Magento. Although Magento used to be the "go-to" system to use back in the days, wordpress (with plugins and other open source carts can also be capable.
However, I recommend Magento overall but if you're only starting out Wordpress would still work fine. Feel free to PM me if you need any more help

I highly recommend woocommerce as well. I use it in combination with the woothemes superstore theme and I absolutely love it.

I run a webdesign company.
For small stores of up to 1000 products we use woocommerce or any other wordpress solution.
If your planing on getting bigger, I used to use CREloaded, but now we use opencart, and I will warmly recommend it.

For large site I hear Magento is the best, but really by the time you need to use magento, you will have a dedicated server, and so much traffic and sales, that it will be worth it.

Anyway I hope this helps.
Eco

magento


but not if you're not technically inclined or afraid to dive into code. otherwise it's the most powerful and capable system out there imo

Based from everyones input which shopping cart are you leaning towards?

I work with Magento daily. If you can't code at least at a proficient level or don't want to pay a developer for help here and there then expect to be paying for some extensions. Magento is very powerful as people have said but it's not plug and play. Woocommerce is more than capable for what you are requesting.

I have worked with both (and others) and this is my honest opinion: Magento is great for people with resources. Woocommerce is more than sufficient for people without. As sbucciarel mentioned, you should spend the money on the Woocommerce CSV import extension if you plan to increase your product offering. That should be the only extension you will need to buy.

If you're asking this question then you should use Shopify, it's the ecommerce solution that gets rid of all the extra crap and makes your life easy.

Magento is good, but you need to be able to use it on a large scale and furthermore need to be knowledgeable on how exactly to set it up, otherwise it will crater your business.

Wordpress shouldn't even be in this discussion. If you're focused on building a quality site, you need to use a quality solution. Wordpress, while useful for many things, is NOT an ecommerce solution.

I prefer Magento.

Its easy to use even newbies can make Normal shopping cart sites.

I recommend you have a look at Cart66 for Wordpress. It will work with most themes and is pretty easy to set up.

Wordpress would be the easiest and cheapest to setup and maintain. Not to advertise but to put in perspective, I charge $197 for a Wordpress store but over $1000 for a similar magento store. So magento is definitely costlier because web developers try to fleece you and not many know that cms.

xcart is good...I have no experience with others

Which one are you most comfortable with?

Shopsite has my vote. I wouldn't tie myself into a solution that takes a % of sale. Fully customizable, you can buy or lease the software, and then hosting fees are like $30/month (with Lexiconn). Lexiconn's support is top-notch.

The topic I see largely missing from this discussion is security. If you run sites with your own hosting, especially Wordpress, you had better know what you are doing with security or you are pretty vulnerable. The absence of the mention of the word is this thread tells me most people do not even consider it until it happens - HUGE mistake. For this reason alone, the small fees that Shopify charges are worth every cent.

Magento is good for medium size business, opencart will be a good for since you have limited products. You can check volusion as well.

I prefer Wordpress for basic cart websites but for proper ecommerce it may not be the best option.

im gonna give shopify a try.
thank you guys for the information i exactly wanted to decide what direction to go .

Will you outsource or code yourself? For DIY ease is important.

Well I wanted to create my Shopify store this weekend after I get paid on Friday but figured I'd try them out since they have a 14 day free trial. I have to say I really love their system. It's a lot like Wordpress but much simpler. I was worried this would be a bit complicated but it's so simple. Looking forward to getting stuff up online to sell.

I'm using wordpress too. but is it really good to use magento if you have lots of products?

Using wordpress for my small eCommerce site, but i think magento is better if you have large products

Shopify is my favorite. Easy to set up and import a lot of product.

Magento has been done with Zend Framework and is not very easy to handle for newbies but it is the most complete.
Prestashop is easier to use if you want to run around 200 sku's, it can be a good choice...A huge community has done some add-ons to hook to it.
Woocommerce2 is my preferred one, it is a plugin for Wordpress and is really easy to use and to customize to suit your needs.
If you have some knowledges with Wp, I suggest you to give a try to this one

It's all been covered so just briefly:
Magento does have a learning curve but it's a powerful beast. Most people don't require Magento and it is probably a more expensive solution than they need. You will need programmer assistance ($$) if you go this route or else spend months in frustration - unless of course you have the skills yourself.

WordPress - maybe for minimal # of products. Not a huge fan of the clunky backend systems and most things you want your shop to do you will need to spend money on an add-on. If you want to do ecommerce, I urge using a platform designed around that. It does its job on smaller needs though.

Now for my personal favorite for budget-minded ecommerce sites: PrestaShop! Some people have been throwing shouts out to it in this thread already. It's a free solution and you can get a nice looking front-end with free themes. I haven't paid for a single add-on on one of my shops and I have 9000 products loaded on it (all using the system's built-in CSV import). To be fair, there has been some tinkering and getting the import system working properly took some getting used to. I have limited knowledge on programming / CSS but I can scrape by using Google searches and other people's info. The official documentation on PS isn't great but the community has filled in all of the gaps pretty well.

If anyone has questions about any of these platforms please let me know (post here if it's applicable to a larger audience) and I am always excited to talk ecommerce

Agree on that, every 1% in cost is another point of margin you are losing on every transaction, this also means another point you can't compete with others on. This is vital in all markets and even more so in competitive ones.

To make an ecommerce and shopping cart website with 100 to 200 products, you can choose WordPress eCommerce. As Magento is used when you have large number of products to display. I have personally used magento and wordpress both. But for website of less products you can go for wordpress ecommerce. Shopify is good but not simple as Wordpress.

I used to use Prestashop for everything, and then with an update, I pretty much lost everything. Haven't returned to it since.

Wordpress is great for small sites, it's pretty basic and it will be all you need.

I used to Hate Shopify but when I started teaching others on how they can manage a list of inventory products they were getting from wholesale sources or were dropshipping, Shopify is very new user friendly. I've run into issues with it before on my own sites.

I could write a friggin book about my serious love hate relationship with Magento. I loved it 4 years ago, but now I hate it. The upgrade from 1.3 to 1.4 about killed me. Literally. I had some severe anxiety by having to have development work done during the transition and had hundreds of problems with things such as API. Sometimes I wish I was using Prestashop or Shopify because they are faster. In fact, Magento has hurt my Google ranking claimed a developer I hired 2 weeks ago. I've got a couple recommendations to just switch to OpenCart, so we are looking into that now. As a business owner and poor coder, all I can say is that I've spent a LOT of money on Magento.

Well, I'll recommend WordPress to build E-Commerce websites; WordPress has loads of Theme or Plugin that can help you to work with.

Magento and BigCommerce are great if your store is huge and you know exactly what you're doing- otherwise Shopify is probably what I'd recommend for you.

-v

PM sent , thanks

I have taken time to read all the posts from the first to the last and no one mentioned Joomla and Virtuemart.

I am s cool with virtuemart but learning Magento with Pretashop now.

will have to look into wordpress though.

Shopify is one of the most respected ecommerce solutions on the web. Shopify enables you to build an ecommerce website in seconds, upload or import your products, market yourself and track your growth in a variety of ways and is also user friendly e-commerce platform.

Go for Shopify. Really simple and easy to use. I am using this.

Really depends on your business model and what type of store you're thinking of. Magento, if you want e-Commerce to be the sole purpose of your site, WordPress if you want the store as well as extra functionality like blogging, articles, memberships etc. and finally Shopify if you want to spend the extra recurring cost on a hosted solution with all the technology taken care of in the back end

It depends how motivated you are.
I had a few ecommerce sites that I knew they were tough niches and didn't want to spend money on them. I used Prestashop and loved it. osCommerce or OpenCart are too hard to customize for my level and knowledge.
I also used Volusion and I have to say I had great Customer support.
Shopify has a fee but I think they process CC for you, which is nice, you won't have to bother about ssl certificates and finding cc process gateway.
Good luck.

I like Big commerce. You can also try shopping cart elite. SCE has a alot of built in SEO tools which is great for a novice user. Big commerce was affordable, easy to use and had good customer support.

I think Magento and BigCommerce are excellent if your shop is large and you know exactly what you're doing.

BigCommerce all the way. I have 5 bigcommerce stores currently - it's the best.

FYI, Miva merchant is absolutely AWFUL!! I rate them down with Yahoo Store as the most outdated and limiting cart platforms on the web. If you are on either, I recommend moving to something else ASAP!

i say magento for more than 1k products

Someone asked me to suggest a website builder with shopping cart. I see many websites seem to look like they go straight to shopping cart versus traditional website. I don't have any experience so need some help here as I need to learn anyways....
I buy all my URLs from Godaddy and I know they have a builder and shopping cart, is theirs any good? Is there shopping cart their own or one of the others that may have been mentioned here?

Friend wants to build a website to sell clothing and would build this up overtime as he deals with many distributors that each have 1,000s of pieces.

Thanks.

As per my personal experience, I would suggest Magento. Magento community is growing too fast and people are really making awesome extensions for magento. If you would choose any other eCommerce platform now, you will definitely have to return back to Magento after 2-3 years. So its better to start now..

Thanks,
Rahul

I was lucky enough to have a friend of mine build a custom software. It has all the needed features for an online eCommerce store without all the bloat.

PM me if you are interested in it.

Thanks Young Gun and Rahuljainjp,

Has anyone have any experience or comments for the one on Godaddy. It does seem easy with drag and drop and prebuilt templates BUT is it any good. The price seems right.

Thanks for any help here.

Magento is a incredible Ecommerce Software, but you should have Magento optimized server for better performance.

Shopofy is fast and very good design..
Wordpress is flexible !

I'd suggest you to check this slideshow Shopping Cart Types
if you are at the cross-roads and don't know which shopping cart to choose.
On my opinion, Magento has many strong sides to make your store profitable. On the other hand, it requires programming skill.
If you're not good at programming, it's better to choose hosted solutions, such as Shopify, BigCommerce, Volusion etc. These shopping carts are easy to install and have user-friendly admin panels.

great ,Woocommerce is a highly effective FREE eCommerce plug-in for WordPress.

If you're starting out, I'd go with something hosted like Shopify. Once you've got selling good at selling inventory, pricing, marketing and off course a customer base, you can move to something self-hosted like OpenCart.

Magento is the undisputed eCommerce web development application. Magento development is considered as the best option due to its uncountable features.Other web development tools do not stand a chance in-front of Magento as it offers a class apart and highly functional shopping cart.

I would advise WordPress.
1. Thousands of free themes for eCommerce. It takes literally some clicks to change appearance of your webstore totally.
2. Perfect for entrance level. User-friendly interface rules.
3. A lot of useful plugins for eCommerce.

This was my first website, which we ran on OpenCart, it worked well for me. approx 100 products. Very simple effective software system. Developers love it because its simple, and you can easily find people on odesk willing to customise it how you want it for a few bucks an hour. That website turned over 800k in its first year, generated profits 700k. Opencart does the job perfectly.

I think we get lost in Ecommerce systems vs. their purpose - to make money. Magento Community Edition is great for driving revenue in Ebay and Amazon (you CAN NOT post 100+ products at a time with WooCommerce.) The biggest point is to get started - sell crap - see what works. I'd experiment with products using BigCommerce just because you should be able to get something live in a few hours.

i love wordpress if the product is below 1k, but if more, better to use magento.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet, unless I missed it. Look out for bandwith limits, they can really add up and I read some horror stories about overage fees, especially with Volusion. I know for a fact BigCommerce and Shopify both offer unlimited bandwith in even their basic plans.

I use wordpress & Woo Commerce with more than 1000 products, without pain! People still thinking we cannot make a good store with wordpress should wake up!

Magento. It can be extremely complicated, but once you get the hang of it, it is hands down the best. You can do literally anything with it ecommerce.

It really depends on what you want, and can work with.

Shopify is great if you want to just get a store up quickly. Wordpress is a good intermediate solution. Platforms like Magneto can be a bit daunting, but there is a lot of documentation out there.

I am an experienced user of shopping cart software. I used to have Magento cart. I have two online stores and I had a person who helped me to set up these stores. Now I use the AbanteCart and I manage all my stores myself! Everything work well!

I think if you are not a tech pro
Shopify magento go bigcommerce may a good option

Take a look at a new shopping cart solution - tictail. It is the tumblr of ecommerce apparently. Looks very like shopify but with no % sale fee. Anyone used it?

According to my point of view, Magento is the best option for developing the eCommerce store. If you have only 200 products for selling or 1000+ products for selling.
None of persons are use WordPress for developing an eCommerce store.
From Magento and shopify, you can choose Magento because below reason...
For more information visit https://medium.com/magento-commerce-...s/debd5fc1b846

WordPress is focused more on blogging and it is not that safe to open an eCommerce website in WordPress Magento is for heavy weight eCommerce website. If you have many products, then you can go for it. Shopify is the best way to develop a eCommerce website easily . OpenCart is also provides you to create a website easily.After developing a website, if you want to customize according to your needs and your target audience expectations, then opt for Agriya's open source customization services.

I suggest you Magento, its open-source ecommerce, its give you lots of features,
it is simple, quick and versatile, which makes it easy for customers to search and purchase products. Magento offers users with highly interactive shopping experience and its SEO friendly.

I use magento. It works great and has lots of extensions. You can export products feed easily, set up google dynamic remarketing, add shareasale tracking code, etc.

I Recommend the wo commerce website this is easy to use and reliable user friendly

another vote for Magento. period.

Look, it comes down to this - 'free and open source' (save money, spend time) or 'paid and hosted' (save time, spend money).

If you want to be handling your site setup, hosting, and other technical details go with free and open source such as Wordpress+Woocommerce or Magento.

If you don't want to do that, you can save yourself the time and hassle, but obviously at a cost, and use Shopify or Bigcommerce.

I don't know why people are putting Shopify and Magento in the same bucket. That's like calling Facebook Ads and Google Ads the same thing because they are both advertising platforms. Different ball games.

I've heard Opencart is one of the best options when it comes to build an eCommerce site. I guess WordPress is pretty good as well, but Opencart was made for that purpose.

Basically the difference between these are:

Magento:
Magento is a platform that keeps developers and designers in mind. It has a high degree of customizability, and you can do really cool things with it if you have the technical knowledge, which includes intermediate to advanced understanding of HTML/CSS/PHP. Magento Go is a more accessible program that is built to compete with BigCommerce and Shopify, but it has limited template and customization options.

Features

• Multi-store capabilities
• Rapid bug fixes and code updates
• Large library of templates, including third party options
• Advanced and highly customizable
• Excellent reporting and inventory management options
• Large library of plugins, including third party options
• SEO tools: SEO-friendly URLs, meta titles and descriptions
• Marketing tools: email campaigns, targeted pricing and suggested items, integrated email marketing, product reviews
• Conversion tools: Powerful product search, intuitive shopping menus, multiple payment and shipment options
• Mobile device enabled; shopping cart carries over multiple devices
• International shipping, pricing, taxing, etc.

Shopify:
Shopify is one of the easiest-to-use eCommerce platforms on the market. This program is user-friendly and versatile; you can get your shop up and running right away without any trouble. With Shopify, you can easily build a great-looking website that looks excellent across devices, whether it is viewed on a desktop, laptop, tablet, or smart phone. However, when it comes to building a simple store in a short amount of time for the business that is short on time and technical know-how, Shopify is a great program.

Features

• Takes away hosting, SSL & security worries
• CMS capability: it can publish articles and blog posts
• Very easy to set up; drag-and-drop product page and collection page creations
• Easy to make limited customization (beyond that though, watch out for limitations and "Liquid" issues)
• Store automatically updates with new software
• Conversion tools: multiple payment options, Free Shipping coupon tool
• Marketing tools: SEO keyword tag suggestions, SEO meta tags, Google Analytics, email marketing
• Incredibly simple to setup products (customization requires knowledge of "Liquid" so beware)
• A little under 200 templates to choose from
• Conversion tools: Discount codes
• Great customer support, excellent community forums

Wordpress:
WordPress is a popular open source publishing tool and content management system. It is more suited for smaller online merchants, or for selling products within a content-rich website or blog.

Features:

• Budget is limited.
• Only want to sell a small range of products and don't have any specific requirements in regards to order fulfillment
• You already use WordPress and want a store added to it without having to start from scratch
• Your store is only a small part of your website.

Different horses for different courses!! Your needs will be specific to you so it's worth trying out at least 3 trials to see which feels right. Honestly, even if one is technically more suited to your business than another, you'll never get there if you don't like using it, so with all their bells and whistles, it can sometimes come down to which you like best. That's not overly technical, but it is the truth. And you can always change your platform in the future if your needs change--choose what's right for you now, not the one you think you'll need in five years when you're selling millions!!

I would take a look at Bigcommerce and see how you like them.

I'm not sure about your level of experience, but I know that a lot of our clients here at Solid Commerce -- from novices to seasoned professionals -- have had super positive experience using Bigcommerce.

It's very easy to deal with, and they've got a ton of really pretty themes that are simple to install right out of the box. What's more is that many of them are responsive, which is HUGE for an eCommerce site, considering how much shopping is done on mobile devices and tablets these days.

Hope this helps!

I would have few questions:

Im starting up with very few products. Mainly I want to web that people can look at how many products I have and place order. Since my country doesn't support much type of payment so I only want place order without payment, shopify doesn't work in my country, ecwid seems to be ok on my Facebook page. I want something as simple as ecwid on my Facebook page: display the product and place order.

I have no idea about code. I can learn how to use tools. So what website should I use? I didnt pay for shopify because I don't want to pay for something that I can't use.

Much of it depends on your specific needs, technical abilities, budget. There's no overall best for every site. Some people prefer one to another for one or another reason.

However the rule of thumb is that if you run a small to mid size store (up to around 1M bucks), Wordpress is a safe bet through WooCommerce.

A really big store would run better on Drupal or some eCommerce specific CMS like Magento.

Also, if the business also has a click and mortar side, you want some POS integration, and Wordpress suffers from this. Options are average at best.

If you want the closest to "set it and forget it" then Shopify is the best shot.

Personally I'm a big WooCommerce fan and I love it over Magento, ZenCart and others. However I don't have any POS needs so I don't care much about the lack of good options.

Also because WP and WooCommerce themes/plugins are usually optimized from SEO I don't care much about it much. In other eCommerce tools, having good SEO can be quite expensive.

But again, it all depends on your needs. It would be better to address your specific needs and plans for the future to an expert to have a precise recommendation. If you would want mine feel free to PM no strings attached.

Shopify is a good option

I use woo commerce and wordpress, they work fine. I use a theme called Blanco by eight themes good support. You can find them at theme forest.
Welcome to Wear it And Bare It Lingerie

Depends on the business needs and budget but... Magento is a good all rounder.

WooCommerce I personally think is great if you have a low budget or are a small business but it lacks the flexibility and the potential that Magento has.

Magento also offer a free version called community.

Shopify, BigCommerce, ekmPowershop and Volusion are also very popular carts.

You also have other carts like ZenCart, Open Cart, CS Cart, 3D cart; all of which in my early days of ecommerce I was quite a fan off and are still very good.

If you have any ecommerce questions, please feel free to message me and I'll happily give you my advice.

All the best,

Charlie McBroom

e-commerce specialist at Linnworks

Shopify is easy to use and you can be up and running in minutes

I think there is not an answer. It all depends on your knowledge, drive, and how far you want to take your store. I use Prestashop, I am used with it and I like it, can do everything i need. But it really depends. Now is too late, but if I could I would go with Shopify, they process the CC payments and it looks a nice platform to me. If you decide to go with a free cart, keep in mind you'll need a SSL certificate to accept CC (around 70-80 bucks/year). For CC gateway I use Stripe, although majority of my customers use PayPal.
My two cents: make sure you can import and export your items with a csv file, especially export. If one day you decide to change software you'll have all the listings almost ready.

Try this http://www.warriorforum.com/ecommerc...-platform.html

i ve tried osCommerece , not good at all

magento is pretty good

OpenCart is the best for small websites...

OpenCart is "okay" (at best) for small to medium ecomm sites IMO. It's probably the best open source solution out there, but since it is open source you are limited to "iframed in" or off-site payment processors (to avoid PCI compliance issues) and you get to deal with installing plugins & updates.

IMHO small (and even medium) ecomm stores are best off using a hosted solution like BigCommerce or 3DCart where they don't have to deal with anything technical and can focus on user experience and marketing.

Magnento is a cumbersome mess of a platform and should only be considered by bigger companies that need a very customized solution and have the capital to invest in massive amounts of development. Even then I'd still look at a hosted enterprise solution or OpenCart before considering Magento.

Greatly depend on your budget and how far you plan to go.
Hosted solution is a good start as it is mostly straight-forward and user friendly, but as time goes by you will realize it couldn't deliver up to your demand and you just couldn't do anything about it.

If you are not a lone ranger and you do have some skills in code, Open Source is a good way to go.

I will recommend you to use PrestaShop as it's the best for small business. But it will be more beneficial for you to use Magento because there are different companies who are providing hundred of extensions which allow you to modify your store according to your choice just like Top Magento Extensions.

Does anybody here have experience with Drupal Commerce? I have used Drupal for diferent purposes, and also created a Drupal Commerce Store for test, it look easy and powerfull from my perspective, but I am curios to know how successful it would be especially with the Dropshiping method.

I host everything on my own, so I have lots of flexibility.

Thanks
Van Der

Hey gang,

I already have a shared hostgator account, and wondering if some warriors can help me decide whether it would be better for me to use woo-commerce with wordpress on my shared hostgator hosting?.. or get something like BigCommerce(29.95)?

In my wordpress site, I already us the following levels of protection, and speed in my .htaccess file =>

protect from sql injection, Secure Access to WP-LOGIN, block files from being browsed, and WPSuperCache, and Expire images header.

Plus i have flexsqueeze theme, and they just upgraded to a new version which is Woo Commerce compatible...

So, I'm a little torn between choosing from woo commerce(free) or bigcommerce(29.95)..? And if warriors can give their thoughts, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Many Thanks,
Kyle

Thanks for sharing your valuable opinion guys! Since I am a start up with low budget I would love to go with Prestashop.

If you are planning to just starting up, then shopify is good.
If you are planning for middle level, then wordpress is good.
and, yes, if you are planning for the bigger startup with a lot more traffic, then Magento is the best choice.
If you want more information and support in website, then just visit on Nationkart website.

Shopify all the way, it's an absolute monster. You can do so much with it because of all the apps available and it's super stable so you wont have any down time like you might have with your own server if you used Wordpress as an example.

But with Shopify wouldnt you have problems with SEO/Rankings due to all the domains being on their same server ?? Figure for SEO purposes it would be better to run woocommerce

Prestashop is a good alternative.
But if you have too many products you would want to get a reliable software like Magento.

I know a company doing over $20mm per year and they use wordpress and ultracart. The only gripe they have is that it's not great for mobile. They don't have a lot of products though, just a lot of transactions.

I think Word press is best option, because word press is very easy to use and manage. You just need to install some good plug in, then your website will work very good and there is no time consuming feature in word press then install the plug-in wpe commerce. This plug in is very simple to use and this plug in use to manage your product listing.

We have used Miva Merchant for a long time now on a separate VPS. We think it is time to move to something else. We like the idea of converting everything over to Wordpress because of the CMS capabilities, and based on the recommendations here. It looks like Wordpress has several cart options, including woocommerce, shopp and cart66. Anyone know what the best/most robust is?

I also wanted to thank sbucciarel for her invaluable feedback. it was really great that she took the time to counterpoint all of the criticisms for wordpress.

BTW, we've had experience running a store since the late nineties, I am just new to the WF.

Magento is really a heavy platform that support developers and creative designers in your mind. Excellent high level of customizability, and you may do great things by using the technical information, including intermediate to superior knowledge of HTML/CSS/PHP. Should you be a newbie, and you simply would like to get your store on the internet, you will probably find yourself dropped. Additionally, it takes additional time and energy to keep your cart.

Shopify is among the easiest-to-use eCommerce systems available on the market. This system is user-friendly and flexible; you will get your shop ready to go immediately with no trouble. Along with Shopify, it is simple to create a great-looking website which looks excellent throughout devices, is it viewed on the desktop, laptop computer, or smartphone. If you are after a simple solution doesn't have to understand lots of code or place a lot of time in designing your web shop, Shopify is excellent.

Have just been provided this with fully covered costs including product sourcing, manufacture, warehousing, shipping and marketing https://www.scribd.com/doc/257909339...e-Architecture

I just recently setup trials with Shopify, BigCommerce and Volusion.

Shopify looked really nice but I don't like the fact that my customers would be re-directed to checkout(dot)shopify(dot)com during the checkout process. Seems like abandoned carts galore.

Right now I'm having a really tough time picking between BigCommerce and Volusion. They both seem really similar.

Well, I would like to prefer Magento for my ecommerce website. The reason behind this is, it is versatile and customized ecommerce platform. Apart from this, it is mobile friendly and is easily operated in Smart phones and tablets as well.

I think, Opencart is the best option for any ecommerce website.Because, the themes of its are customizable and user friendly and you can also open it mobile phones as well as tablets.

WordPress works fine for me. I have a few friends who do well with Shopify, but I guess it all comes down to whatever feels most comfortable for you to work with.

Wordpress is great and really flexible, but then again so is Shopify, and opencart is good as well. So, I'm also for the idea that it's all subjective, what feels comfortable is best!

Wordpress is good to get started (if no experience)
Magento hosted on a dedicated server if you intend on having a large site with lots of products.
Shopfiy. Is good to have a presence on and link it to your other sites.


By choice I would use Magento with a Dedicated Server or Fast High Spec Shared Linux hosting.

There are also these which have recently come online for Magento.

@Pixafy drag-drop installation Magento certified with 7-10s page loads at $1,000 to $5,000/yr
@CommerceKick business install non-certified with 1-2s page loads at $1,000 to $5,000 one time
@Creatuity technical install Magento certified with 3-5s page loads at $4,000 one time

Reference Re: Magento Small Business Program - Page 2 - Magento Forums

Let's get the facts straight before we talk about which is the best ecommerce platform. The main issue is - What is your budget?

Are you a startup on bootstrap? (as in using your own savings?))
Are you a startup with money or better still, angel investors?
Are you a developer trying to start something for yourself or your customer?
Or finally, are you a multinational company with numerous stores and need something to integrate in.

Then the next questions would be
1) What is your technical competency? Do you plan to do the maintenance and development yourself or outsource it?
2) How many features do you actually need?
3) What is your development budget?
4) Self Hosted or not?

You see, there is no simple answer. And no, it's not about which cart can handle more products.

1) If you're on a tight budget but are technically competent in PHP, Javascript and OOP, your best choice would be
a) OpenCart
b) WooCommerce

This is because OpenCart's extensions are the most affordable out there in the market. WooCommerce comes next. Extensions don't get updated all that frequent on OpenCart though, which is a problem if you need to update regularly.

Magento & Prestashop's extensions are among the most expensive in the market.

2) If you are a programming genius and on a absolute budget, then your best choices are
a) OS Commerce

Though it comes in an old legacy system which makes it hard to template, add ons are free of charge. And I've seen really large stores on this. However, you might spend quite a fair bit of time on the backend.

3) If budget isn't a concern and you're not a programmer, then your best choices would be
a) Hosted
i) Shopify
ii) BigCommerce

Shopify comes as a SAAS, which makes it easy for you to focus on your store. With tons of apps, you can easily add functionality as you wish and need. However, be careful of the recurring costs these apps could add up.

Unless you are satisfied using the basic Shopify/BigCommerce, having an advance store could cost you hundred of USD every month.

4) If budget isn't a concern and you don't mind spending yearly on development fees, then go with
a) Magento

Though it is highly recommended by developers on this forum, extensions are priced for renewals every 3 months or so. Major updates breaks the site and it becomes frustrating. Full page cache requires you to have a full Magento Enterprise license, which costs USD 20k/year.

As such, if you run a million dollar store and need a powerful site to link between your physical and online store, going with software like Demandware makes more sense.

Here's the estimated breakdown of costs, both initial and yearly for each platform
1) OpenCart
Cost of Software = 0
Cost of Extensions = USD 3k
Yearly Renewals for certain extensions = USD 200/year
Server Costs = USD 240/year or more, depending on traffic
Maintenance = Moderately Easy, 7/10
Cost for developed site = USD 3k to 10k
Rating of Costs = A

2) WooCommerce
Cost of Software = 0
Costs of Extensions = USD 4k
Yearly renewals of extensions = USD 2k/year
Server costs = USD 360/year or more
Maintenance = Easy, 8/10
Cost of developed site = USD 8k to 24k,
Rating of Costs = B+

3) OS Commerce
Cost of software = 0
Cost of extensions = 0
Yearly renewals of extensions = 0
Server Costs = USD 240/year or more
Maintenance = Moderately hard, 4/10
Cost of developed site = USD 3-5k
Rating of costs = A

4) Prestashop
Cost of Software = 0
Costs of Extensions = USD 6k
Yearly renewals of extensions = USD 4k/year
Server costs = USD 360/year or more
Maintenance = Moderate, 6/10
Cost of developed site = USD 10k-20k
Rating of costs = B-

5) Shopify
Cost of Software = USD 350/year or more
Cost of apps = USD 10.5k/year or more
Maintenance = Easy, 10/10
Cost of developed site = USD 10k - 70k
Rating of costs = C-

6) Magento Community
Cost of Software = 0
Cost of extensions = USD 7k
Yearly renewals of extensions = USD 5k/year or more
Server Costs = USD 960/year or more
Maintenance = Hard, 3/10
Cost of developed site = USD 25k - 100k
Rating of Costs = E

Btw, upgrading major Magento versions (like from 1.8 to 2.0), would likely break your site. As such, you would need to hire developers that charge you about USD 50-150/hour. Expect to spend quite a fair bit on upgrading That's why you see so many "helpful" Magento developers on this thread. It is easy money for them

p/s: I've seen friends losing their site when they tried upgrading their Magento carts themselves. Talk about a lack of experience and backups

Full disclosure: I work at Bigcommerce. The advantage of a SaaS platform like Bigcommerce is that they handle all the backend, maintenance and security (PCI complaint) complexities for you, so that you the store owner can focus on doing what you do best. Marketing your store, getting new customers and collecting and shipping orders. For instance, Bigcommerce offers free and premium responsive themes, flexible product management, optimized checkout, best-in-class analytics, as well as seamless integrations with dozens of third-party apps.

I will choose WordPress because it is very easy to make website with it and also it takes less time than others. A newbie can also easily create website in WordPress.

This is a really nice article from Elegant Themes that breaks down the big differences between WooCommerce and Magento. http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/re...-right-for-you Ultimately, I would say that Magento is the greater platform, but WooCommerce is nice if you are familiar with WordPress. The key to Magento is a good host that knows what they were doing. Check out their preferred partner's page for some suggestions there. I have experience with Nexcess and they fit all the requirements of a great Magento host. Hosting Partners | Magento Partner Directory

zen cart's dashboard is quite nice.

Definitely a big fan of WordPress and WooCommerce.

Very simple, not too bulky and a lot of plugins to enhance its functionality.

Shopify seems like your best choice for right now. It will be easy to integrate everything you currently have. There are also options on Shopify, which makes shipping your products very easy. Once you get more products I would look at switching, but this will be a great starting point.

You should make your website with Openkart as it is the best platform for making small ecommerce websites. Magento is also good, but it is better for large websites.

You can absolutely try Shopify for tiny online store (Around 100 - 150 products)... But there is one SEO related drawback of Shopify....
Means,
- You can't edit robots.txt file. It will be auto generated.
- You can not even edit sitemap.xml
- You will have to also face some problems at the time of domain varifyication (Like on pinterest, some coupon code submission sites.)

But after all if you have small amount of product and if you want to find some easy way to build it then Shopify is best compare to other platforms.

Hope it will help.

Opencart is best among all the three platforms. It is developer friendly and easy to customize.

It depends upon your business requirements.
Would you compare Apples with Oranges?