February 13, 2018 - by Manan Thakkar
With retail e-commerce sales worldwide projected to grow to a whopping $4.48 trillion in 2021, it is no surprise that every retailer is making the online move. Success of any e-commerce site depends on several variables and business decisions. If you decide to start selling online, it becomes imperative you choose the right platform for your business. And if you’ve already been thriving in the e-commerce market but failing to get the conversions you expect, it’s time to migrate to a more efficient solution. Choosing the right e-commerce platform may determine the success or failure of your online store. Let’s take a look at Magento and PrestaShop and see which would make a better fit for your business.
Platform Overview: Magento and PrestaShop
An e-commerce platform offered with open source and paid versions, Magento is a leading enterprise-class e-commerce platform, empowering over 150,000 retailers. Being the choice for every 1 in 4 businesses, Magento’s impressive solution lineup offers powerful marketing, search engine optimization, and catalog-management tools and a flexible shopping cart system with total control over the look, content, and functionality of the online store. Magento’s key features include:
PrestaShop is a premium business-model open source e-commerce platform that allows businesses to run their online stores on cloud or on-premises. Due to its extensive and robust features, PrestaShop is often a popular choice for small to medium sized businesses looking to start their online store from scratch. PrestaShop’s key features include:
Magento vs PrestaShop: Comparing E-Commerce Platforms
Common Challenges with PrestaShop
The design and features of any e-commerce platform typically determine the success of your store. Although PrestaShop is a popular e-commerce platform choice for businesses from various industries, there are some challenges:
- The number of built-in features is comparatively limited
- Custom modules required for a fully functional e-commerce website are highly priced
- Enterprise version of the platform is not available
- While the platform is ideal for small businesses, scalability is rather limited for medium or large businesses
- The design attributes are relatively poor
- The platform is not very SEO-friendly
Benefits of Magento over PrestaShop
Magento is a highly robust platform with all the capabilities needed to build a powerhouse of an online store especially as e-commerce is becoming more competitive. It’s not to say that PrestaShop is not a worthy contender, but in terms of basic functionalities that an e-commerce platform should possess, Magento wins hands down:
- Magento has more out-of-the-box features than PrestaShop
- While using Magento, developers do not face any compatibility issues
- Magento’s Enterpise version easily integrates with large suite ERPs and other systems when compared to Prestashop which does have an enterprise version
- Magento provides more custom features and options
- Magento comes with a technical support team and a large community of developers, while PrestaShop only provides a forum for support
- The assortment of themes is impressive
- SEO functionality is extraordinary and not found in any other e-commerce solution
- The multi address shipping on single order is one-of-a-kind
- Magneto provides a secure platform by offering powerful plug-ins
- The extremely modular architecture allows for deep customizations of the front-end and back-end
Choose What Works for Your Business
Advancements in the online shopping industry have brought e-commerce platforms and their capabilities to a whole new level. While Magento is a strong e-commerce platform best suited for medium and large scale due to its richness in features and integration options, PrestaShop is ideal for small-scale retailers looking to start their online journey.
Magento is a good fit for businesses that want advanced web stores with full control and higher customization, and PrestaShop is more for retailers who are planning to set up their online store quickly, at a relatively cost-effective rate and with no immediate scalability goals. So carefully analyze each solution, look into features, hosting options, availability of plug-ins, pricing, and support structure of both, and choose what works best for your business!
Learn more about Magento’s capabilities and how Synoptek can help you get the most out of the e-commerce platform.
