Magento or Shopify? It's often a straight-up choice between the two when businesses are looking at software to sell their products online. For our money though, it's not the software, but how you use it, that accelerates growth - especially if you introduce conversational commerce into the equation.
Read more: Our guide to chatbots and conversational marketing
Both Magento and Shopify are incredibly powerful online storefront platforms, but it would be wrong to assume that they're inherently similar. Both come with key differences:
Magento is open-source software and uses PHP. That means that with coding knowledge and know-how, businesses can alter the code to suit their needs and make their stores as attractive, complex or as functional as they wish.
As a platform, Magento can offer greater flexibility than Shopify - particularly when it comes to ecommerce for B2B businesses - and greater connectivity into business management systems such as SAP and Microsoft Dynamics (to name a few). Ecommerce sites built with Magento also provide more scope to modify and customise the look and feel of the website.
Shopify is a more out-the-box solution where there's a single monthly fee for software costs, hosting, and even payments (which are run through ShopifyPay) - so you can get set up in a matter of hours with a Shopify account. Shopify has limited support for B2B sellers, however, and lends itself more to the B2C arena where brands such as GymShark have seen phenomenal growth.
Those differences are also, essentially, their pros. If you have a digital team available able to produce a stunning storefront in Magento then it's an incredible advantage to have. It's also a great option to save money in the future if you opt for Growth Driven Design as part of your overall inbound marketing for ecommerce strategy.
That freedom also works against Magento, though. If you don't have that team in place then it can be difficult to get to grips with and require significant time and financial investments before you even get your store live.
It's different with Shopify's almost plug-in-like software which, if you've planned properly, can perfectly complement an inbound marketing for ecommerce strategy almost instantly. Themes are responsive and the functionality is there to get started almost straight away.
Shopify doesn't just give that away, though. Only 10 themes are free; for more you'll have to enter into a higher subscription package with them. Shopify also charges variable transaction fees depending on your plan.
The platform you choose should be entirely predicted on your end growth goals. Whichever one you choose though, we think you'll achieve that growth much more quickly by considering HubSpot for ecommerce.
We're adamant there simply isn't a better CRM out there than HubSpot for inbound marketing. Good news too; both Magento and Shopify can connect to HubSpot, giving you an immensely powerful sales and marketing artillery, whichever platform you choose.
HubSpot integration allows you to better target leads, introduce automation into the mix, nurture leads and much more besides. It can also connect with platforms such as Drift; the world's leading conversational commerce and marketing platform.
Conversational commerce is exploding in popularity and can be incredibly beneficial for sales-based businesses focusing on growth. Scripted and live chatbots can engage with consumers as soon as they visit your site, helping you to qualify leads in minutes as opposed to them filling in lengthy forms. Chatbots can also answer customer service queries, book meetings and more.
We think no matter which of the two sales platforms you choose, HubSpot and conversational commerce are essential to accelerating growth. How do we know? Because we've been doing it for ourselves and our clients. Contact Six & Flow today to find out more.