4 platforms for your online business

Do you want to start a business online and do not know which platform is best for you?

Today I will talk about 4 ecommerce platforms and I will show you a comparison of them with their strengths and weaknesses so that you can choose the one that suits you: Shopify , Prestashop , Magento and Woo Commerce.

Your online store must have a goal

First of all, you should know that the platform you use is important, but it should not be an end in itself. That is, you are not going to set up an online store with certain features at the SEO or marketing level because they are the ones offered by Prestashop or Magento. The first thing to do is to set the objectives of the store that you need to mount and then choose the software on which you will mount it.

My recommendation a priori, and without going into specification, is that:

• Shopifyserves small projects.
• Woo Commercefor small and medium businesses that do not grow too much.
• Prestashopfor small and medium that do not grow to enormous levels.
• Magentoserves all types of projects but is used more for large and medium scalable to large.

Advantages and disadvantages of different ecommerce platforms

We will now see the advantages and disadvantages of each of the particular solutions.

-Shopify

Main advantages

• It is ideal for small projects.
• It is native eCommerce software.
• You do not need a hosting (it is a software in the cloud).

Main disadvantages

• It is a software in the cloud, you can not download and modify it.
• You have to go through the Shopify tube: if there is something that the software cannot do, you will not be able to alter the code to make it work.
  

  -Woo Commerce

Main advantages

• It is ideal for small and medium projects.
• It works on shared servers with no problem.You do not need a dedicated server.
• It is based on WordPress, making it easy to use.

Main disadvantages

• It is based on WordPress, so it is still a plugin that works on a content manager and allows you to sell.It is not native ecommerce software.
• Translations are not easy and depend on a plugin.Making translations in WordPress is often a martyrdom.

-Prestashop

Main advantages

• It is ideal for small and medium-sized projects, and can grow into large (but not huge!) Projects.
• The BackOffice is very intuitive.
• It works on shared servers with no problem.You do not need a dedicated server.
• It is a native eCommerce software, so it includes many modules specifically for this type of applications.
• There are many free templates that you can use and that have a professional look.
• There are also payment templates.

Main disadvantages

• They get a new version with error resolution every 2 months, which means that versions are released for use with too many errors.
• There are many modules included but some important functionalities require buying separate modules.
• Some translations into Spanish that come with the default version are poorly done.

-Magento

Main advantages

• It is ideal for large and huge projects.
• The multi-store, multi-language and multi-currency system works very well.
• It is a native ecommerce software, so it includes many modules specifically for this type of applications.
• In addition, your business is not based on buying modules to cover functionalities, so you really have many included.
• There are many free templates that you can use and that have a professional look.
• There are also payment templates.
• Most templates that exist are responsive.
• The average price of a programmer is affordable (about 40 € / hour).
• It allows integration with external ERPs and software through web services.
• He is very well prepared for SEO.
• Allows you to have several different product tabs without programming.
• The robustness of its core and its database make it better, more stable than other software’s.
• When they get a new version (every year and peak or 2 years) is tested very thoroughly and presents very few errors.

Main disadvantages

• It does not work well on shared servers, you need a dedicated or dedicated VPS server to work fine.
• The BackOffice is complicated to use.
• Some translations into Spanish that come with the default version are poorly done.
• It is not a software thought to test an online business (little expense, rapid development and I dedicate to sell)