Shopping Cart CMS Comparison

WOO COMMERCE

HIGHLIGHTS

• Very common and widely used application world wide with more than 1.5 million active stores
• Is an Open source add on available for WordPress, hence absolutely free
• Comes inbuilt with a variety of inbuilt features with many free add ons along with paid ones for more advanced features.

FEATURES

• Allows Multiple Product attributes
• Supports selling of physical and digital products.
• Supports multiple payment processors via free and paid add ons.
• Supports Inventory control with flexible shipping settings
• Supports Tax handling on sales, and automatic tax calculations
• Huge bank of free and paid extensions
• Secure, with frequent upgrades being released
• Responsive and mobile friendly
• Search Engine friendly
• Multiple performance tracking add-ons available

 

 

PRICING

Freely available with no per transaction charges

 

 

BEST SUITED FOR

WooCommerce is best suited for Small store owners with not much of long term cost involvement unlike its counterparts

PROS

• One of the most popularly used free Shopping cart application.
• Actively supported and upgraded with each upgrade.
• Multiple ready-made themes available. Free and Paid with in-built add ons.
• Supports One-page checkout with user reviews and ratings.
• Abundant support available by add-on developers and in public Forums and other communities.

CONS

• Not foir beginners. You will need to have some technical knowledge to be able to add WooCommerce to your WordPress store
• More detailed technical expertise required for integration of ready-made or customised themes
• Although absolutely free, many of its extensions are paid.
• Will need to be self hosted on your WordPress site.
• Not as comprehensive as compared to the likes of small eCommerce stores.

SHOPIFY

HIGHLIGHTS

• Records over 500,000 active online stores at present.
• Offers a vast range of eCommerce tools
• Over 1,400+ apps in their App Store.
• Offers 24/7 support via phone, live chat, email.

 

 

FEATURES

• Offers over 100 professional paid and free themes
• Responisve Stores with the ability to directly edit the HTML and CSS
• Offers a site builder with easy accessible tools
• Includes a complete blogging platform
• Offers creation of your own domain name
• Supports about 70 different payment processors in multiple currencies
• Marketing and SEO optimized
• Supports Inventory Management
• Various online storage plans and Unlimited bandwidth
• Site analytics
• Built-in and free available mobile eCommerce shopping cart features

PRICING

Offers 5 pricing plans.

 

 

BEST SUITED FOR

Best suited for both beginners and professionals.

 

PROS

• Easy to set up. Specially for non-techies and beginners
• The admin area is quite user-friendly and modern
• Offers free hosting which comes with your paid account
• Shopify appears to be quite fast
• Is secure when handling payments and sensitive data
• Has a good bank of add-ons available (mostly paid) to allow you to add additional features.

CONS

• Allows display of only three product attributes; size ,color and material.
• Shopify costs money in terms of monthly subscriptions fee and a processing fee for each transaction.
• Addition of other paid apps/add ons that involve monthly subscriptions will further escalate your costs.

BIG COMMERCE

HIGHLIGHTS

• One of the leading eCommerce platforms with over 55,000 online stores.
• No technical know-how required as it comes packed with multiple built in features.
• Supports many additional eCommerce features like gift cards, reviews & ratings, as well as basic marketing tools etc whcih come built in.

FEATURES

• Requires to 3rd party add-ons as most of the required features are in-built in
• No transaction fee for Plus monthly paid subscriptions
• Responsive and mobile friendly
• Mutiple free and paid themes available with customizable CSS/HTML
• Full Stock control over inventory with no need for third party software
• Detailed Reporting
• Supports multiple built in payment gateways from more than 60 different payment processors in different currencies
• Powerful customer support

 

 

PRICING

4 monthly/annual pricing plans available

 

 

BEST SUITED FOR

Best suited for larger stores.

 

 

PROS

• User friendly back-end
• Offers free hosting that comes with the monthly/annual plan.
• Offers a variety of paid and free themes
• Allows HTML/CSS customizations. Includes abilit to code your own theme in a special HTML/CSS editor.
• Solid 24/7 Support staff to deal with all complexities.
• Comes with a host of in-built tools.
• Supports promotions via different social channels.
• Supports marketing via AdWords integration, coupons etc
• Supports multiple payments processors with support for multiple currencies.

CONS

• Offers only 7 free templates which is no match when compared to its competitors
• Paid themes could be expensive
• No support for mobile apps available

MAGENTO

HIGHLIGHTS

• One other very commonly used shopping application trusted by over 250,000 registered merchants,
• Self-hosted platforms
• Huge range of inbuilt feature-set
• Completely customizable but needs a great technical guru. Hence, not recommended for beginners nor for small businesses.

FEATURES

• Fully customizable using templates
• Supports multiple payment gateway options
• Supports API for web services
• Built-in multilingual support
• Detailed Inventory management
• In-built Order processing
• Free and paid Responsive themes optimized for mobiles and tablets
• Handling shipping charges
• Detailed Coupon management
• Has a huge bank of paid and free extensions available
• Built-in SEO features
• Unlimited product attributes
• In-built Content management system
• In-built newsletter management
• In-built Marketing tools
• In-built Site management features

PRICING

2 Options. Community edition is open-source and available for free

Magento Enterprise is paid with 2 pricing plans.

BEST SUITED FOR

Best suited for bigger stores with thousands of products, tons of traffic.

PROS

• The admin area is extensively detailed.
• Completely scalable system with supports for huge inventory.
• Magento is a feature rich and intensive platform.
• Huge support avaiable interms of public forums etc.
• Completely customizable
• Supports multiple payment procssors with multiple currencies via free and paid extensions

CONS

• Not a game for beginners. Needs extensive technical know-how to be able to deal with the multiple files that come with Magento installation.
• Admin section isn’t very user-friendly and might appear confusing
• Self hosted and will need a premium hosting owing to amount of server resource it requires
• Can run quite slow if not properly optimised.
• Its premium plans are hugely expensive.
• Version upgrades might act as a deterrent