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The average business owner has a lot on their plate.

They’ve got to think about managing their budget. Finding ways to attract and retain customers. Keeping up with their competitors. Helping their business survive, and finding ways to grow it. The list of responsibilities and objectives goes on and on.

With so much to do and think about, the last thing you might want is a complicated eCommerce platform slowing you down. Therefore, many users seek a system that is easy to work with, helping them save time and cut out any tricky or tedious tasks.

Shopify’s Ease-of-Use

In the simplicity stakes, Shopify reigns supreme. It’s widely regarded as one of, if not the easiest eCommerce platform to use. It boasts a clean and intuitive design that even total beginners should feel comfortable with. 

Plus, it comes complete with an array of helpful features like a drag-and-drop page builder and preset themes, letting you create a professional, high-end site in a matter of minutes. It even has a personalized, intuitive setup guide to take new users through all the key features and functions.

Magento’s Relative Complexity

In contrast to Shopify, Magento (Adobe Commerce) is notably more complex. Indeed, a lot of eCommerce experts agree that this platform is hard to recommend to those without a good degree of technical knowledge.

That’s not to say that it doesn’t have easy-to-use aspects and helpful features. But it’s got a much steeper learning curve than Shopify, and it can take longer to get your store up and running.

The Verdict

No contest. Shopify is much easier to work with.

It only takes a fraction of a second for users to form an opinion about your website. The vast majority of those first impressions are formed based entirely on how the site looks.

Thus, it’s crucial if you want to succeed in eCommerce to create an engaging, attractive eCommerce store. You can’t run the risk of having a store that users find bland, boring, or ugly. Web design is incredibly important in this industry, especially with more and more new stores springing up all the time.

Both Magento and Shopify provide handy templates and design tools you can use to dress up your online storefront and impress visitors. But you might be wondering about which one does it best.

Shopify’s Impressive Template Library

There are 12 free Shopify themes for users to enjoy without having to spend any money whatsoever, as well as dozens more premium themes, with fees ranging between $180 and $360. Each one is customizable, letting you adjust the aesthetics to suit your needs, altering the colors and adding your own custom banners as desired.

The best part for those with limited technical skills is that you don’t need to be a coding pro to make those changes. Shopify makes it super simple to build the site of your dreams and wow your target audience.

Magento’s Customizable Themes

Magento once again can’t quite compete with Shopify in terms of quantity. It only offers nine themes in total. You can buy custom themes, but those can cost in the tens of thousands.

Of course, if you’re running a big, established brand with a large budget to match, such a high price might not be an obstacle. Magento gives you the freedom to develop a theme that fits your brand and audience down to the tiniest detail, adding animations, product sliders, newsletter options, cross-selling blocks, and more. But, again, this all costs more and is more complex than it would be on Shopify.

The Verdict

Overall, Shopify wins this round. It’s got more options at more affordable prices, and it’s straightforward to work with. But, if you value customization options above all else, Magento may be more appealing to you.

Never underestimate the importance of marketing. Even if you’ve got a world-class product catalog and peerless standards of customer service, you can still struggle to build a successful online store without proper marketing.

It’s often the make-or-break factor that determines if a store lives or dies. 

Therefore, you need to ensure that your chosen eCommerce platform provides adequate marketing tools and functionality, especially in the SEO department.

This chart from Digital Information World proves just how important it is to rank high on Google these days. 

If you can get into that top-ranking spot, the benefits are clear to see. You’ll get way more clicks than the competition, which can easily result in better lead generation, strong conversion rates, and more sales.

Shopify’s Marketing Dashboard

Shopify comes with a built-in marketing dashboard and an impressive selection of marketing tools. It includes a range of KPIs (key performance indicators) that let you track your store’s performance, along with the ability to identify and integrate relevant keywords into your web pages and posts for SEO.

There are also marketing tools to help with automation through Shopify, saving you time when spreading the word about your brand. Plus, it syncs seamlessly with major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and even the Google Merchant Center, letting you market your products to a broader audience.

There’s also a built-in email marketing tool with Shopify, called Shopify Email. This lets you create and integrate email marketing campaigns using a range of attractive templates to reach your target audience via their inboxes.

You also get detailed analytics with Shopify, including automatically generated financial reports and the ability to track sales performance for each product. This makes it easier to see how your store is performing and adjust your marketing accordingly.

Magento’s Advanced SEO Capabilities

Magento, or Adobe Commerce, excels when it comes to SEO. It comes complete with a useful array of SEO guides to help you understand the best ways to boost your site up the rankings, along with many features to enhance your SEO score.

You’re able to edit everything from URLs to image alt tags in order to push your way up the Google results, and there are hundreds of handy extensions to make and manage your SEO and marketing campaigns. However, you might need the help of developers and Magento marketing pros to make the most of those extensions.

In terms of reporting and analytics, Magento provides detailed insights and data to match Shopify. The Reports menu lets you see a range of statistics about your marketing campaigns, audience behavior, and sales performance. High-end Business Intelligence subscribers get even more dynamic, data-rich reports.

The Verdict

The fact that Shopify has built-in email marketing and that it supports integrating social media feeds gives it the edge here. However, from an SEO standpoint, Magento offers more. It’s also got deeper analytics.

One of the best aspects of both Shopify and Magento is that they come with vast extension libraries. There’s the Shopify App Store, for example, filled with thousands of add-ons and extras to enhance your store. Then, there’s the Magento Marketplace, bringing its own broad range of extensions you can install to upgrade your eCommerce brand.

But which one does it best?

The Shopify App Store

The Shopify App Market is huge. In fact, according to the brand itself, the Shopify App Store offers more than 6,000 different apps in total. That gives you so many different ways to customize your store and fine-tune the way it works.

You can add apps to help you get more reviews and feedback from your customers, provide AI-powered messaging, or open up new payment methods. The options are numerous and varied, and Shopify boasts remarkable levels of compatibility with lots of popular tools and apps.

The Magento Marketplace

The Magento Marketplace offers a great number of Magento extensions to rival Shopify apps. Indeed, there are around 4,000 Magento extensions and add-ons in total. So, when we compare Magento and Shopify, Shopify wins in quantity, but Magento is no slouch.

With thousands of paid and premium extensions to play around with, there are lots of ways to upgrade and equip your Magento site. Plus, since it’s such a flexible platform, you can even create custom integrations or hire Magento developers to work on unique apps and add-ons to suit your needs.

The Verdict

In terms of the number of integrations offered, Shopify wins this battle. But Magento’s extensive customization potential should not be underestimated.

Sometimes, you might need a helping hand while using Magento or Shopify. You might encounter a feature you don’t quite understand. Or have to deal with a problem that you can’t quite resolve alone.

That’s where customer support comes in, and it’s an area in which both of these platforms aim to excel.

Shopify’s Round-the-Clock Support

Shopify boasts fantastic and genuinely round-the-clock user support, with 24/7 live chat and phone teams standing by, ready to help. Any time, any day of the week, you can get assistance with this platform.

There’s also social media support, combined with community forums and a comprehensive Help Center containing guides and video tutorials.

The Incredible Magento Community

Adobe Commerce has a ticket system you can rely on to get technical support. It also comes with a detailed library of tutorials and troubleshooting guides in the Help Center. Magento Enterprise (Adobe Commerce Enterprise) subscribers also get more advanced support and assistance.

But the real star of the show with Magento is its community. Thanks to the fact that it’s an open-source eCommerce platform, it’s got legions of loyal developers all over the world who can answer questions and provide guidance.

The Verdict

For the most reliable and rapid support, Shopify takes the win.