WooCommerce vs Magento vs Custom Development for E-commerce

Online business is an area to get into today’s digital world. Definitely, WooCommerce and Magento are two the most popular e-commerce platforms on the market. Custom e-commerce sites usually take more time to get built and are more costly. However, each of these three web solutions has its strengths and weaknesses. Generally, eBay users vote for Magento, WordPress advocates for WooCommerce, while the pickiest customers choose custom e-commerce development. If you are thinking of setting up an online store, WooCommerce and Magento are two platforms that will appear first on your short list. They are so easy to use and cheap to set up, that their entry barriers are extremely low (custom e-commerce is far more costly). At the same time, custom e-commerce web solutions are more personalized. In this article, we will try to explain the pros and cons of each solution in detail.

WooCommerce vs Magento

WooCommerce and Magento provide basic features. Either within WooCommerce or Magento, you can view Google Analytics to see your business’s success. Magento gives your customers extra possibilities when making purchases. It allows you to further customize an online store. Moreover, it comes with the ability to use advanced filters to navigate your products, add discount codes, compare products, and up-sell or cross-sell them. In addition, if you have more than one shop, Magento provides the ability to manage them all on the same account. WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin which comes with a simple set of features. That is why it is perfect for beginners. You can sale products through the available widgets, feature best sellers, or rate items. The navigation is sophisticated; any other features will require add-ons. At the same time, WooCommerce can work with an array of other WP plugins. It also offers extensions, which are partially free and easy to manage (Gravity forms, Askimet, SEO by Yoast, etc.). Thus, if you prefer more features, Magento comes with more basics. However, WooCommerce is much simpler to use.

Costs

Initially, WooCommerce and Magento are free. A person can download them and get started on creating a store right away. However, if you want to grow your online business, you will find that more payment options are necessary (beyond PayPal). Both WooCommerce and Magento are limited to these options, so adding an extension to them is a necessity. Another thing is hosting. WooCommerce runs using WP hosting, while Magento is more complicated as you will need to use cloud or dedicated servers. Otherwise, your site will have slow loading speed.

What are Similarities?

WooCommerce and Magento are both great for creating an e-commerce store. They both provide the ability to help with SEO, upload an unlimited number of products/manage them effectively, and create a blog in order to add a communication with customers.

Are There Any Differences?

As it was said above, WooCommerce is great for beginners. Due to the variety of plugins available, customizing your website through WP is a piece of cake. If you still have questions on how to setup WooCommerce, there are tutorial videos that can help you. In addition, if you are already a WP user and you need to add e-commerce to a website, it makes sense to choose WooCommerce. The interface of Magento also comes with documentation and tutorial videos, and it is also easy to use. However, it is not so easy to add extensions. In this case, you may need to hire a Magento developer.

Themes

What makes both Magento and WooCommerce attractive to both business people and developers? The answer is predictable – themes. Magento and WooCommerce come with hundreds of free and paid themes to select from. They all have numerous features like demo content or responsive layouts. Moreover, WooCommerce can be easily integrated with many WordPress themes.

Custom Development for Ecommerce

Generally, custom-designed eсommerce websites have a number of benefits. Firstly, a custom e-commerce solution allows you to make any changes you need. You can configure the data feeds and site the way you want. In order to help you make more sales, your shop can be personalized for your market niche. Secondly, the functionality and flow of your site aren’t dictated by the pre-built platform. This gives you greater control of the website appearance and ability to add specific features to keep your customers coming back. It allows you to make decisions how your customers add items to their cart, check-out, find your products, etc. You might also like these:

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Custom-built E-commerce Website Pros and Cons:

Pros:

Integration with other platforms
Extended functionality
Can maintain a uniform appearance
Can handle big transactions and bulk visitors

Cons:

No third-party input
Potentially limited customization and a lack of individuality due to a locked source code

What’s Best?

WooCommerce is not a standalone CMS. However, it is a great solution for people with less developing experience as well as for small business owners. You can create a better experience for your customers by adding the plugins available. WooCommerce will perfectly do the job of selling your products/services. Magento was designed specifically for e-commerce stores. It is popular among larger agencies or companies that manage e-commerce websites on behalf of customers. Magento is scalable and it has a few more basic features. That is why it is great for persons with an existing online shop or grand plans. At the same time, Magento will be more costly to set this shop up. Custom e-commerce websites come with advantages which may often outweigh all disadvantages. They can be easily integrated with other solutions such as CRMs and gateways. Custom e-commerce solutions can handle many visitors as well as bulk products at the same time.

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