Ecommerce segment has grown phenomenally over the recent years. With a lot of online stores opening up, the trend has stirred a stiff competition among the existing as well as the new players who are vigorously pursuing to grab their fair market share. When you venture into this high potential arena, you will need a great online store that is feature rich and has all the necessary tools and aspects to satisfy the expectations and needs of customers. Now the first question you might have in your mind is which platform should you depend on for your online store whether Opencart or Magento. Here is a discussion on how to approach this topic.
Aspects to ponder
Talking of ecommerce platform, there is no universal solution. Each platform has its own merits and demerits. Several methods and tools can get you some amazing results. However, the best choice depends on a few basic considerations including the size of your online store, design aspects that rule your mind, the budget you have in mind, SEO requirements and the visibility you wish to achieve. Based on each of these aspects, you must consolidate your expectations and choose the right ecommerce platform accordingly. Here we compare the two giant ecommerce platforms namely Opencart and Magento to suggest which one you must bank on for creating your ecommerce store.
The similarities
Both Opencart and Magento are open source platforms and they have a lot in common. Both of them are primarily designed to support ecommerce activities. They are developed on PHP for uploading he products and can be easily administered by non-programmers. Both of them are very rich in resources including add-ons, plugins and extensions that can be easily incorporated in the websites developed to support creative functions. One big advantage the users of both these platforms enjoy is that they both can support multiple currencies and languages and so can be applied anywhere in the global ecommerce scenario.
Other considerations
The hosting platform you choose will also make an immense difference in how your online store performs. Magento consumes a lot of resources and so needs a stronger hosting plan. Due to its light weight, Opencart is cheaper to host and therefore the ideal option for small and medium stores. Magento is recognized worldwide and has amazing customizable options, the highest number of plugins, SEO resources and endless design options. You can do little with Magento if you do not have the knowledge of PHP. Opencart is very easy to program but is less popular than Opencart. If you are a startup looking forward to deliver quickly without any integrations, then this is the best platform you can hope for. With regard to SEO, Opencart certainly lags behind. No doubt it has SEO friendly URLs. However, metadata modification, carrying out actions like 301 referrals and rel canonical are a lot more complex on Opencart. On the other hand, Magento can be banked on for its optimizing titles, URLs and images and connecting a store to your WordPress blog.
Summing up
Looking from several perspectives, it appears Magento is suitable for larger online stores that can afford working with a larger budget. One of the biggest advantages of Magento is scalability to ably support the growth of your business over the years ahead. It has the capabilities to address all of your arising needs from time to time. However, Opencart can be your solution if you are looking forward to independent stores since it is highly intuitive and free to use. If you are visualizing a big growth to your business, you must always consider this aspect with top priority and go for Magento. However, the choice is ultimately yours and how you wish to go about with the project.