Category: Platforms

Reasons To Migrate From Shopify To WooCommerce
Looking to take your ecommerce game to the next level, but feeling like you’re being held back by the ecommerce platform you got started with?

It’s actually quite a common problem — one that tends to appear when you’re ready to assume greater control over the finer details you were previously happy to overlook. One of the most common migrations in ecommerce today is store owners going from Shopify to WooCommerce.

As you’re reading this, it’s likely you’re running your ecommerce store on Shopify. While a Shopify store is a great place to get started and a platform with a lot going for it, so is WooCommerce — and you just might find that migrating from Shopify to WooCommerce leaves you in a much stronger position.

Of course, undertaking the migration process can be difficult and confusing, especially if it’s your first time. If you’re not sure you want to migrate and find yourself stuck trying to make a decision, here are some reasons why you should move your store from Shopify to WooCommerce.

WooCommerce is open-source

Credit: Pexels

Shopify is a closed-source system, meaning that you don’t have extensive access to the vital system files and you’re not allowed (or able) to make widespread modifications. This is fine for most people, but if you aspire to fully optimize your Shopify store — making it everything it can possibly be — then you’ll soon start to wish that you had more power.

WooCommerce, being an open-source solution, grants you that power. If you want to completely rework core parts of the plugin, you’re free to do so. If you want to set apart your blog posts from competitor’s and attract a new type of customer, you can. If you want to create a store with a design style that goes completely beyond what can be achieved with a Shopify theme’s customization options, you’re only limited by your imagination. Open source solutions are a creative developer’s best friend.

Consider yourself creative, ambitious and uniquely placed to conquer your marketplace? You might find it very freeing to migrate from Shopify to WooCommerce.

Developers are easy to find

Credit: Pexels

Shopify supports both add-ons and custom development through its Liquid template language, but the possibilities are limited.

Because Shopify has such a focus on convenience (and features being handled internally), there aren’t so many developers out there working on it. If you decided that you wanted a new feature installed on your Shopify store (and you couldn’t find an existing add-on to handle it), then you might have a tough time finding a developer.

WooCommerce, though, has a thriving community complete with an abundance of developers. Beyond the basic functions, so much of WooCommerce had to be developed by the community, and it certainly doesn’t help that WordPress (the underlying platform) is free, extendable, and the most widely-used CMS in the world — itself supported by countless great developers. It won’t take you long at all to find a decent and affordable WooCommerce developer.

It provides access to countless WordPress plugins

Credit: NeedPix

WordPress has a vast library of themes and extensions, built up over years of mainstream dominance. Any respectable SaaS company or integration-capable suite has a dedicated WordPress extension, making it extremely easy to configure anything from email automation tools to customer relationship management tools.

Because WooCommerce is itself an extension for WordPress, it’s compatible with many of these themes and extensions. Quite often, you can use a free extension designed for WordPress to achieve results that you’d have to pay for if you use a Shopify add-on. Shopify cites its strong built-in features as a reason to migrate from WooCommerce, but it’s clear that a WooCommerce store can be just as formidable once you’ve picked out the right extensions.

What’s more, some of the best WordPress plugins have given rise to WooCommerce-targeted revisions, a good example being the Yoast SEO plugin. SEO is critical for ecommerce, and the Yoast plugin is immensely popular for its power and ease of use. And though the original version worked with WooCommerce, it wasn’t a seamless match, so Yoast developed a WooCommerce-centric version. As WordPress and WooCommerce continue to grow, it’s likely that we’ll see this happen more frequently.

You can shop around for hosting

Credit: Pexels

In today’s hyper-competitive ecommerce landscape, having options matters. For a customer, that means the right product categories and variants to choose from. For a store owner, that means the right to choose the best hosting option.

When you run your store on Shopify, you have no choice in the hosting — it’s stored in the cloud, with the specifics depending on your service tier, and you can only trust the company to take care of everything for you. This can be ideal if you don’t really want to get involved and would rather pay for something convenient, but not if you want a choice in the matter.

Using WooCommerce allows you to choose the type of hosting that’s right for you. For instance, you can try ZesleCP Hosting Control Panel to manage your Linux server and install WordPress using their OneClick Apps. You can pay more or less depending on the features you want, so if you don’t anticipate ever needing phone support, you can use a host that only provides email support and get a better deal.

What’s more, if you have to have an existing business relationship with a hosting company, you can take advantage of any discounts they can offer their customers.

How to migrate from Shopify to WooCommerce

Credit: Flickr

If you’ve decided to migrate your store from Shopify to WooCommerce, you might wonder how to go about it. Well, the answer is simple: use Cart2Cart.

Cart2Cart is an automated migration service tool that does all the work for you. You can get a free demo migration to confirm that it works, then use the pricing estimate tool to see what you can expect to pay for however many products, customers and orders you need to move over.

Considerations to make before you import Shopify to WooCommerce

Before you start the process of migrating from Shopify to WooCommerce, you should consider these considerations and potential challenges.

Is your business ready for the possibility of data loss?

Ecommerce stores are built on robust customer data that informs product selections and website design. The possibility of losing that is enough to scare any store owner away from migration.

To avoid the loss of crucial data when you migrate your Shopify store, make sure you’re paying particular attention to the backup process before you export. You can consider storing your Shopify store data through one of three ways:
- Storing it on a CSV file
- Duplicating your store
- Creating a backup store
It’s better to be safe than sorry. Before you import orders and products from Shopify, make sure you’ve covered yourself.

Can you handle the technical demands of a Shopify to WooCommerce migration?

Credit: Flickr

A Shopify store is fairly easy to manage, even with little-to-no technical knowledge.

However, a WooCommerce store can be significantly more demanding and often require you to have at least a basic understanding of everything from domain hosting to SSL encryption certificates to what an API key is. A little bit more complex than the basics of operating an online store.

To ensure you don’t lose your data from Shopify, do some research into the technical demands of WooCommerce before you find yourself overwhelmed halfway through the migration process.

Shopify is a superb ecommerce platform, make no mistake about that — but it’s far from flawless. Meanwhile, WooCommerce is just as strong in some major ways, and even stronger in others.

If you want to take full control over your store, and have the flexibility to experiment with a huge range of extensions, then migrating to WooCommerce might be the right choice for you and one that pleases your customers in the long-term. Get ready to start the migration process!

And if you want a quick indication of the timescales involved in this migration process then watch the video below.

Embedded video temporarily unavailable. View the original video
May 24, 2019
What You Need To Do For A Secure WooCommerce Site
The average ecommerce startup doesn’t exactly have a huge budget to spend on getting established and building up a base of loyal customers. To begin with, and often for a long time after, money is going to be very tight — that means that frugality is essential. Fortunately, the march of technology has made it possible to get a fully-functional store very cheaply.

How, exactly? Well, WordPress led the way by making it quick and easy to start a blog or a broader website without any experience or the budget to accommodate much beyond basic web hosting, and soon enough dedicated ecommerce systems started appearing to do the same for online retail — then WooCommerce came along to push WordPress ahead again.

The WooCommerce plugin is free and intuitive, making it perfectly viable to rapidly turn a standard WordPress site into an ecommerce store. But that accessibility comes at the cost of the strict security you’d get with a fully-hosted store. Ultimately, the security of a WooCommerce store will come down to the owner — so here’s what you need to do to secure yours.

Adhere to strong password procedures

It doesn’t matter how strong a security system is if you fail to adhere to all the generic password requirements that apply to all forms of digital security, such as:
- Using strong passwords. Don’t settle for the 6-letter name of your childhood dog. You won’t need to hit 30 alphanumeric characters — just hit 8-10 characters at a minimum and avoid using full words that can easily be guessed or brute forced. Try a password generator if you need some assistance.
- Keeping passwords secret. It’s useless having a strong password if you readily mention it to acquaintances, leave it written on a post-it note above your office monitor, or protect it in a password vault which itself has a weak password.
- Changing passwords semi-regularly. The longer you have a password, the more vulnerable it becomes to brute force attacks. Change your passwords on occasion (it doesn’t need to be too frequent) and you’ll avoid this danger.
- Finding and removing any forgotten password vulnerabilities. Because legitimate mistakes do happen, systems need ways to get around forgotten passwords, often using verification details to confirm identity. If you rely heavily on your Mother’s middle name (something anyone could find), then you’re risking the safety of your entire system.
Failing to have secure passwords is simply reckless, and generally a waste of time, effort and resources put towards strong internal security.

Follow all software updates

Systems almost never ship with flawless security. Over time, people have the opportunity to look more closely at how they work, prodding and testing them to see how they respond to different approaches — and sooner or later some vulnerabilities will be found. When this happens, the software developer first needs to become aware of it, and then they need to produce and release a patch to remove those vulnerabilities.

But even if this happens very quickly (so quickly that hackers don’t have enough time to take advantage of the vulnerabilities before the update is released), it can’t fully address the problem because updates are almost never mandated. Within a closed CMS that works through the cloud, updates can be fixed, but a local WordPress installation will only update when you allow it, or when you tell it to.

As such, if you leave a WooCommerce store unaddressed for several months, you’ll inevitably return to the admin dashboard to find that there are numerous updates available. And if your store is doing a lot of business, you may be highly reluctant to install updates, knowing that it will cause disruption to your operations and lose you revenue.

Now, not all updates are urgent, but you must install any and all essential security updates. How can you tell? Read the update notes, and follow any relevant news. You’ll be able to see which updates are vital and which are optional, than act accordingly.

Don’t allow unnecessary system access

Even if someone has great intentions, they can still cause enormous damage with admin access, so it isn’t something you should ever just give out without a lot of thought. You can’t always get away with being the only person in your business with admin access, of course — there may be times when you need to enjoy some vacation days, or have other things you need to deal with besides the regular business operations.

The key is to simply make sure that you trust someone fully and believe in their competence before you grant them admin access. They need to not only be reliable but also have a strong understanding of what they can and can’t do. Otherwise, they could get lost on the dashboard and end up accidentally deleting your entire product range (make sure you protect it).

Think of your WooCommerce store as an asset that you need to protect because it’s your livelihood, your passion project, and a potential target for investment. Website valuation is a complex process, yes, but one part that’s extremely simple is security assessment — if your system has several unnecessary admins, how will possible investors, partners or suppliers view the state of your business?

Carefully vet your other plugins

It’s very unlikely that you’ll have the WooCommerce plugin installed in isolation. You’ll probably have themes installed, as well as speed plugins, SEO plugins, image optimizers, review plugins, and numerous other extensions. One of WordPress’s greatest strengths is its flexibility, but it comes at a cost — every fresh plugin you install provides a new point of vulnerability, and has the potential to cause conflict with another plugin.

To avoid any security issues, try to keep your plugin array to a minimum. Only have a plugin active (or even installed) if it’s adding something meaningful to the store. Check up on the developers and confirm that they’re trustworthy: do they update regularly? Post about relevant industry topics? Tell you about compatibility with other plugins and systems? The whole point of SecurityNinja is to ensure that WordPress sites are kept safe, and it’s reflected throughout the content of this website.

And remember that every plugin will need updates, so if you have concerns about updating the basic system, consider that it’s risky to update 20 plugins at the same time — if something goes wrong, you need to disable and reenable the plugins one by one to find the culprit. Keep your set of plugins limited to the high-quality essentials and your security will be far stronger.

WooCommerce is a fantastic ecommerce CMS, particularly for small-to-medium businesses, but its great versatility also constitutes a security concern. Follow these steps, proceed carefully, and listen to security experts — everything should be fine.
March 19, 2019
Best Ecommerce Platforms For Complete Beginners
The Best Ecommerce Platforms For Complete Beginners

Starting up your own ecommerce business can be stressful. There are lots of different things to think about — finances, balancing the books, your branding and marketing strategies… the list goes on. But here is one element that doesn’t have to be complicated — building your own website.

Around 10-15 years ago, building your own ecommerce website was a nightmare. It took a decent amount of coding knowledge, and even then it needed constant TLC.

But times are changing.

Nowadays, the internet is full of so many wonderful free or cheap platforms that will help you to build your website and maintain your ecommerce business. Having all this choice is fantastic, but this is when the option-paralysis kicks in — there are so many different ones to choose from, where do you even begin?

Luckily, I’ve done the heavy lifting for you and checked out a whole load of different ecommerce platforms perfect for complete beginners. (You can have a look at my full-length reviews of each one
here.)

Read on to discover what I think are the best ecommerce platforms for complete ecommerce newbies.

1. Shopify

Overview

Shopify is a hosted, template-based platform. It was one of the first easy-to-use website platforms created — paving the way back in the early 2000s, Tobias Lütke originally built his own ecommerce platform in 2004 to sell snowboards, and this was so successful that it ended up becoming Shopify as we know it. Nowadays Shopify is worth millions, and hosts websites for the likes of Redbull, Budweiser and Lady Gaga.

Quite honestly, I think it’s the best one out there for beginners and here’s why. It’s a user-friendly, flexible store-builder that helps you to pick and choose what you want to include in your store, without sacrificing quality or usability of your store. Plenty of 24/7 help is also available from Shopify themselves.

You also have all sorts of different options for add-on apps and integrations, including everything from cart-abandoner pop-ups, social channel integration, product reviews and finances.
PROS

Intuitive and easy to understand

100+ professional website designs/templates to choose from

Can cater for all sizes, from very small ecommerce to large

Scales well, so if your products or volumes of sales or customers increase, you can grow easily

Lots of help from Shopify, external Shopify partners & experts

Community of Shopify store owners for sharing knowledge
CONS

Shopify apps cost extra, so although initial pricing plans are reasonable, you can easily end up spending lots of money

Shopify uses its own coding language called “Liquid,” so you may have difficulty if you do want to do anything more complicated with your store

This also means developers are quite difficult to find and more expensive
Pricing
- $29: Basic Shopify Plan
- $79: Shopify Plan (the most popular one)
- $299: Advanced Shopify Plan
- $2000: Shopify Plus (Enterprise) Plan
Check out Shopify and get a free 14 day trial

2. Woocommerce

Overview

WooCommerce is the choice for anyone with a WordPress website wanting to expand to ecommerce store. It’s essentially a plugin which easily allows you to create a professional-looking online store.

This means it’s well suited for bloggers wanting to expand into ecommerce, or any ecommerce newbies. Because it’s built on open-source WordPress, it’s flexible, customizable and you can easily scale up when you want to increase sales, or add more products or services. This means that if you want to, you can go from blog to decent-sized store pretty quickly.

It may prove more difficult for complete website beginners, however.
PROS

Great if you already know WordPress well but you’re an ecommerce rookie

Strong, supportive community — people work together in forums to exchange exchange knowledge and solve configuration problems (mostly due to poor support from Woocommerce, see below)

It’s open-source which is great for customizing and scalability

It’s compatible with many different WordPress plugins, themes and extensions

WooCommerce’s flexibility means that as a beginner, you can experiment with what you want your shop to look like
CONS

Not as easy to use if you don’t have a WordPress site already so can be frustrating

WordPress does have some security risks so you need to make sure you’re covered

Hosting isn’t free

On-going maintenance is the store owner’s responsibility
Pricing
- Free plugin: $0 per month
- Hosting: $25 a month but varies a lot
- Themes: usually less than $100
Check out WooCommerce

3. Wix

Overview

Wix has grown into a popular alternative to Shopify and WooCommerce in the last few years, with over 119 million users choosing the platform (although some of these are just websites, not online stores). It’s not surprising, considering it’s free, easy to use and can build amazing-looking stores.

Wix is a classic ‘drag and drop’ website builder, which means it’s perfect for complete novices wanting to have a go at creating their own stores. Wix prides itself on its range of attractive and professional-looking templates and layouts, which make for great first impressions whether you’re a small business, restaurant or photographer.
PROS

Intuitive drag and drop is great for beginners — very easy to build a store without any design or coding knowledge

Huge selection of attractive and modern templates

Automatic backup for your store is built-in
CONS

Doesn’t have brilliant scalability — good if you only want a small starter store, but choose another option if you want to scale up or go big

You can’t switch templates, which can be irritating if you change your mind

Wix doesn’t let you export your data, so if you want to move platforms, you’ll have to start from scratch

If you choose the free plan, you have to put up with Wix adverts on your site
Pricing
- $0: Free Package
- $17: Ecommerce Package
- $25: VIP Package
Have a look at Wix

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4. BigCommerce

Overview

BigCommerce is another ecommerce platform option with many similarities to Shopify. It’s simple and effective, with an easy-to-use builder and intuitive interface. It offers a large number of tools and features, and it’s flexible and customizable — ideal if you’re a beginner wanting to have a play with your store. If you’ve got any experience with coding, you can also use this to add your own unique bits to your site.

If you’re planning on going multi-channel and want to sell on Amazon, eBay and social networks as well as your site, then BigCommerce is a good choice as it integrates with all.
PROS

Really easy to use — intuitive interface and features

Plenty of support channels and help available (phone, email, live chat, BigCommerce University forums and guides)

Built-in blog with same domain also available — great for content marketing

Good option for multi-channel sales as integrates with Amazon etc

Over 40 payment processing options with no transaction fees
CONS

Only 7 free website themes at the moment which means they’re lagging behind competitors like Shopify who offer over 24+

Design customization is not super user-friendly

Store owners can’t check up on store on the move, as mobile app not available yet
Pricing
- $29.95: Standard
- $79.95: BigCommerce Plus
- $199.95: Pro
- Varied: Enterprise
Sign up for a free 15 day trial with BigCommerce

5. SquareSpace

Overview

Squarespace is another a drag and drop website builder similar to Wix that has really built a name for itself over the last few years with its attractive site templates and premium feel.

It’s perfect for beginners with no coding knowledge and no interest in learning — building a highly customized site isn’t necessary for everyone, and Squarespace still lets you create a professional, attractive store using drag and drop.

Squarespace puts emphasis on aesthetics with beautiful shop fronts, and has marketed itself towards creative industries such as fashion, music and art. It’s used by some pretty huge artists, including Keanu Reeves, Leon Bridges, and John Malkovich.

If you yourself are a content creator, you may want to check out Epidemic Sound and take advantage of their ongoing discounts. Epidemic Sound is a music licensing platform offering a carefully curated library of thousands of royalty-free music and sound effects.
PROS

Very simple to use as drag and drop

Beautiful templates place focus on aesthetics — great for visual products and artists

No need for any coding knowledge at all
CONS

Squarespace only offers one payment option — Stripe — which will lead to issues with scalability

Premium feel so more expensive that some alternatives

Not as many integration options as others
Pricing
- $26: Basic Squarespace
- $50: Advanced Squarespace
Have a look at Squarespace’s free trial

6. PrestaShop

Overview

PrestaShop is a freemium open-source ecommerce platform which is quickly gaining traction. It’s hard-working, clever, and one of the cheapest options at the moment to create your online store because of its low set-up costs.

PrestaShop is very popular in non English-speaking countries, and has a wide multilingual support community and built-in multi-language functionality. Ideal if you want to run a multilingual ecommerce store.
PROS

Admin panel can be accessed via smartphone or tablet so you can track your order statuses or make adjustments on the go

Access to 3000+ modules so you can add all sorts of features to your store

Multi-language functionality built in, which is great if you want to run a multilingual store
Cheap option for building site
CONS

It’s not always the easiest software to use, so you may need additional help from a pro or need to watch some tutorials

Sometimes glitches because modules interfere with each other

Costs can rack up as you need to keep buying modules for extra functionality
- $0: Free Software
- Hosting: $6-35 a month but varies a lot
- Themes and modules: between $50 and $530
Check out Prestashop

7. Ecwid

Overview

Ecwid is a really good option if you don’t want to build an entire store from scratch. It’s an alternative platform which allows you to sell your products on an existing site, Ebay, or your social media page (it integrates with Facebook and Instagram). If you’ve got a decent-looking website already that you’d be happy to sell on, then you might want to consider using Ecwid to save yourself time and effort.

Ecwid is another good option for multilingual stores — it auto-translates your storefront based on your visitor’s IP address or browser settings, so you can present your store in one of over 50 different languages.
PROS

Auto-translation available in over 50 different languages is great for multilingual selling

Integrates well with WordPress sites if you want an alternative to WooCommerce

Easy to use for beginners — simple way to turn ecommerce without setting up standalone store

Cost-effective with generous free plan
CONS

No access to SEO tools with free plan

Harder to scale up

Not great if you want to build an online store from scratch — option is available but very basic
Pricing
- $0: Free plan
- $15: Venture plan
- $35: Business plan
- $99: Unlimited plan
Check out Ecwid

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Looking for ecommerce tools?

Running an ecommerce shop takes time and effort: you need to establish your brand, get your company out there and visible, direct that traffic to your site, and convert those leads to actual buying customers.

Luckily, there are plenty of amazing ecommerce marketing tools that will make your life so much easier. There are many different types of ecommerce marketing tools; they can help with all sorts of things from email automation to analyzing data to social media strategy.

We’ve put together a free list of the best ecommerce tools (link below). If you want to sell more, you need them in your life.

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See the best ecommerce tools

Conclusion

As you can see, there are a range of ecommerce platforms available for complete beginners wanting to build an online store. These are some of my favourite options for newbies, for the reasons listed above.

To be honest, a lot of it is down to personal preference. Do you want an easy, code-free store builder? Go for a simple drag and drop builder like Wix. Are you a WordPress site owner looking to go into ecommerce? Choose WooCommerce. If you’re in a creative industry and you want an attractive storefront, pick Squarespace.

Pick an ecommerce platform that suits you, whether it’s a plug-in for an existing site, or a tool that lets you build a complete online store from scratch.

If you’re still unsure, then Shopify would be a good all-rounder for any ecommerce beginner. It’s very easy to use, intuitive and has lots of options for templates, add-ons and integrations. Plus it’s got great opportunity for scalability, so if you did want to increase the size of your store after a while, you have the flexibility.

There are also lots of affordable ecommerce website design and development companies out there, such as Logicsofts, that can help you to get the most out of your chosen platform and build the foundation for your online business.

And the ecommerce platforms to stay away from?

Platforms such as Magento are best left untouched if you’re a complete novice. Magento has a reputation as the ‘mature’ option for ecommerce platforms — it’s a sophisticated and flexible tool if you’re an established business. If you’re a complete newbie however, we would recommend leaving this one for now. It’s just too complicated for someone learning the ropes of ecommerce.
November 1, 2018
Shopify, Woocommerce & Magento: Ecommerce Community Review
Shopify vs. Woocommerce vs. Magento: Which Has the Best Community?

When you choose an ecommerce platform, you’re not just committing to the CMS and the payment terms— you’re also becoming a part of a broad community encompassing everyone who uses it, talks about it, and gives advice about it.

And since there’s a lot of overlap in functionality between the best platforms, one platform can get the edge over another purely by virtue of having a bigger and more vibrant community and doing what it can to support those users.

So among the three top contenders of Shopify, Woocommerce and Magento, which one has the very best community? Since they’re all competing in the same market, it’s very interesting to see how successful they’ve been in keeping their user bases happy staying where they are. Let’s go into some more detail.

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Introducing the contenders

First up, we have Shopify, an ecommerce site builder that was first released back in 2006. Through it took a while to really make progress, it has seen phenomenal industry-leading growth in recent years, and in many ways has become the ‘default’ option. Still run by its founder Tobias Lütke, the company continues to pursue its original mission of making commerce better for everyone.

Brands that use Shopify include Budweiser, Red Bull, and Colourpop, but the entrepreneurial focus of the software lends itself better to use by startups or SMEs, so you’ll find a very broad range of retailers relying on Shopify.

Next up, we have Woocommerce, a free ecommerce-focused plugin for the massively popular WordPress CMS. Despite being a relative latecomer (having only been launched in 2011), it has swiftly become the most widely-used ecommerce package in the world off the back of the comparable dominance of WordPress.

Because it’s a user-friendly self-hosted solution, Woocommerce is chiefly used by businesses that want to keep complexity and costs down, though it can be scaled up to enterprise level if needed — see brands like Airstream or GhostBed for examples.

Lastly, we have Magento, a powerful and open-source ecommerce platform that was launched in 2008 by Varien, Inc (the company rebranded under the Magento name in 2010). Though there is a self-hosted version, Magento is largely used at an enterprise level, and is phenomenally powerful when used correctly — but it’s far from being the most accessible.

Owing to its complexity and flexibility, Magento is a popular choice for businesses with the patience and resources to completely customize it and thus take advantage of its huge feature set. Numerous top brands rely on Magento for their stores, such as Nike, Ford, and Agent Provocateur.
How these platforms are viewed

Regardless of whether they’re still warranted today after countless updates and revisions, these major ecommerce platforms have all attracted labels over the years that identify them as best or worst at X or Y. Here are the most commonly accepted:

Magento is often touted as the ‘mature’ ecommerce enterprise option.

WooCommerce is considered the most SEO-friendly choice for self-hosted sites.

Shopify is the click-and-build king and the best overall choice for entrepreneurs.

Regardless of the accuracy of these perceptions, they have certainly influenced the circumstances in which these solutions are recommended, thus affecting the communities that have formed around these platforms. As such, there may be an element of the self-fulfilling prophecy at work here, with people advocating for particular systems for certain purposes because they’ve never really tried alternatives.

Buy Now and get important discounts

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Buy Now and get important discounts

BUY NOW

READ REVIEW

Buy Now and get important discounts

BUY NOW

READ REVIEW
Their user communities

From a community standpoint, Shopify’s industry-leading 24/7 customer service might seem like a double-edged sword. On one hand, a user’s subscription provides them with access to expedient expert support and a huge array of resources — on the other hand, the ubiquity of the support service isn’t conducive to conversations, as people who can get their questions answered through a live chat system don’t need to discuss them on forums!

That said, this arrangement actually serves to bolster the community through freeing it up to focus on ecommerce strategy in general and specific things that can be achieved through Shopify. Through official Shopify forums and countless Shopify-focused Facebook groups, users have plenty of options for getting some feedback on their tactics.

Woocommerce has a lively built-in community derived from its WordPress base. While there is a basic support system in the form of a facility to submit a support ticket, it isn’t all that great, and users primarily congregate in forums and social media channels to solve configuration problems and exchange tips.

Something that really helps the Woocommerce user community is the open-source nature of the software, because anyone with a good suggestion or a fix for a lingering bug can submit their proposal to the community and possibly see it implemented through democratic approval.

Lastly, Magento (with its two configurations) has a fairly diverse user community, ranging from tech-savvy self-starters to conglomerates with expansive budgets. Subscribers to the paid Magento plans do receive good tech support directly from the company, though it isn’t quite on the level of something like Shopify.

You’ll find that almost everyone using Magento has to rely on support from the community or a dedicated developer from time to time because official documentation isn’t great — with so many old versions still around and supported, it can be hard to tell when you have the right information.

Their developer communities

Every one of these three systems can be manually extended, and each has a robust development community, though Shopify brings up the rear in this area because it’s not open-source and can’t be completely stripped down (it uses a custom-made templating system called liquid to allow users to add to their stores).

While Shopify and Woocommerce have partner programs to encourage web developers to focus on (and advocate for) their platforms, Magento has more in-depth developer certifications — as such, though it takes longer to become a Magento developer, the typical developer is going to have a very strong understanding of the system.

Woocommerce developers are the easiest to find owing to the overlap with WordPress. Magento is open-source, and thus developer-friendly, but the complexity and number of versions still in use (plus the ability of big corporations to use in-house developers) can make it tricky to find a good Magento developer.

Their community events

Each one of these CMS companies has invested substantially in both large and small-scale community events — hosting busy national conferences on occasion, and arranging myriad local meetups and forums.

Shopify hosts a huge developer and partner conference called Unite on an annual basis, recapping progress, announcing plans for the coming year, and generally giving Shopify merchants and associates a chance to get together. Because Shopify has a strong marketing department and positive word-of-mouth, its events tend to be very well-attended.

Woocommerce sometimes runs a conference called WooConf — it has taken place three times so far, with the inaugural edition in 2014 and two subsequent instalments in 2016 and 2017. Despite its immense popularity, it’s a little unclear what future plans are for the event, as there will be no WooConf in 2018.

Magento presents an annual conference called Imagine (the first was held in 2011), and since the company is now owned by Adobe, it’s reasonable to assume that it will get bigger in future. In addition, there is a nonprofit organisation called Meet Magento that works to arrange local Magento Live events to introduce people to the platform.

Which of these platforms has the best community?
There really isn’t a satisfying answer to this question, because it entirely depends on what your intentions, interests, skills and inclinations happen to be:
- Are you looking for general entrepreneurial support and advice on how to grow your business? The Shopify community is your best bet for that.
- Do you want to build your store piece by piece and figure it out as you go? The Woocommerce community is full of people who’ve done just that.
- Confident in your basic level of technical understanding (or simply in possession of deep pockets)? You’ll find a lot of value in the Magento community.
Every one of these three leading ecommerce systems offers a strong community with a unique set of strengths and weaknesses, so there’s no disastrous choice. Just think carefully about what you want, and pick the system (and the community) that will suit you best.
October 10, 2018
6 Features Of Shopify Plus To Get Excited About

6 Features Of Shopify Plus To Get Excited About

Shopify is highly renowned for its Facebook integration and pioneering commitment to AI, but is it really the best option for your rapidly growing ecommerce business? Well, it depends….

Entrepreneurs can easily build an online store with Shopify’s Lite and Basic plans, but as your sales increase in volume and your customer base grows, you might find yourself needing an enterprise-level plan such as Shopify Plus.

With big names like Gymshark and 2 Chainz using Shopify Plus to expand their business and boost their brands to stratospheric heights, it’s a plan that both supports and fosters business growth.

But what’s all the fuss about, and why should your business consider the move to Shopify Plus? Read on to find out…

Pioneering augmented reality

One of the most exciting features of Shopify Plus is their augmented and virtual reality technology. While this is still in its beta testing phase, Shopify are looking to roll it out to all Shopify Plus Partners this year.

Image Shopify

This includes the development and implementation of augmented reality mobile apps. You might have seen these before: notably IKEA’s Place app for testing out home decor from the comfort of your own home, and Sephora’s Makeup, Hair and Beauty app for makeup trials without ever leaving your chair.

Shopify are actively encouraging their merchants to get involved with the initiative to explore the AR field, so if you think your store could benefit from this pioneering technology, let them know.

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Empowering businesses with offline retail

Shopify isn’t just about ecommerce. They know the value of brick-and-mortar sales, and Shopify Plus customers can bridge the gap between online and offline retail with their dedicated POS system.

Pop-up shops and ecommerce go hand-in-hand, and Shopify makes it easy to incorporate omnichannel into your brand strategy. The Shopify POS device is intuitive and user-friendly, and any sales made through it automatically sync up with your central Shopify dashboard.

That means your inventory, product range, and customer data remain up to date to help monitor your business’s growth. For a growing enterprise brand, a solid omnichannel strategy is a must-have and it’s great to have a platform that makes it so easy.

Professional, responsive themes

One of Shopify’s main draws has been their commitment to providing attractive, professional, and responsive themes to its merchants.

Shopify offers a truly democratized theme marketplace, with functional and attractive themes available for business owners of any size

There’s a huge range of slick, high quality designs are available to customers, and not just for those who are willing to shell out for them.

Shopify’s free options can be just as attractive and polished as paid versions, without their UX suffering for it either. Each one is user-friendly and responsive across all devices, delighting your customers at each step of their shopping experience.

There’s a huge range of slick, high quality designs are available to customers, and not just for those who are willing to shell out for them.

Shopify’s free options can be just as attractive and polished as paid versions, without their UX suffering for it either. Each one is user-friendly and responsive across all devices, delighting your customers at each step of their shopping experience.

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Buy Now and get important discounts

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Buy Now and get important discounts

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Ecommerce automation with Shopify Flow

Another feature worth getting excited about is Shopify Flow, an ecommerce automation tool that is only available to Shopify Plus merchants. You may well be thinking: I’ve already got my marketing automation down, why do I need Shopify Flow? But this handy feature doesn’t just automate your marketing — it automates everything.

Shopify Flow lets you create workflows for all the menial, repetitive tasks that eat into your time and stop you from focusing on growing your store. These include automatic reordering of low stock to prevent any missed sales, as well as ending promotions when your stock has been depleted. You can even arrange for high risk orders to be flagged instantly for fraud prevention, helping you avoid chargebacks and sticky conversations with banks and customers.

Campaign planning with Launchpad

Another exclusive for Shopify Plus users is their Launchpad tool. This useful feature lets merchants create campaigns, flash sales, and product launches at the touch of a button.

International ecommerce capabilities

Ecommerce already has the potential to reach customers from all over the globe, with most online store builders, so the promise of international ecommerce might not impress you. But Shopify Plus is designed to help your business grow. As you expand your reach across borders into new countries, Shopify Plus offers all the tools and features you need to expand with ease.

Shopify Plus provides tailored language, location, and currency selectors within their themes, so you can do business with virtually any major foreign market in the world. Included in this plan is over 100 options of payment methods, so your business can cater to the growing number of gateways that your customers are using.

Setting up an online store can often be daunting when it comes to the financial minutiae of dealing with overseas regulations. But Shopify Plus also includes Avalara’s Compliance Cloud, providing tax calculations for 70,000 legal restrictions. It makes it easy to automatically calculate tax for each invoice according to regional specifications, regardless of your background or expertise.

Shopify Plus gives merchants the freedom to grow their business significantly, joining the likes of 100% Pure and MVMT to become big players on the global ecommerce stage. Shopify cares about helping their merchants to grow, and their Shopify Plus plan has a range of exciting and useful features that will help you get there.

October 4, 2018