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Businesses thrive online. And yours should too.
If your business sells products in a brick and mortar store and is looking to expand into selling online, you want the transition to ecommerce to be as smooth as possible to ensure a quick ROI. And you also want web development that can grow with your expanding product line.
But, if you’re like many businesses, you only sell a handful of products and you focus all of your content marketing around promoting a smaller product line.
In either case, your business is faced with a critical decision early on.. Which ecommerce platform will be the best for your immediate and long-term goals? Two of the most popular options for ecommerce platforms are WordPress and Magento. We love designing and developing websites on both, but for different reasons.
Which web development platform is right for your business?
If you’re weighing your options for the first time, it’s easy to find similarities between WordPress and Magento. They are both content management systems built on open source platforms, designed to put you in control of your content. They are both highly customizable to suit virtually any business. They are also both designed for easier search engine optimization to get your online store found and frequented by those looking for your products. Of course, each has a unique advantage.
WordPress
WordPress powers more websites than any other platform. In fact, as many as 1 in 6 websites online today are built on WordPress. One of the main advantages to WordPress web development is the ease of use it gives to the end user. Once a website is designed and coded, WordPress admin allows anyone to update content and create new articles and pages instantly. Although not designed specifically for ecommerce, the platform is cost-effective and highly customizable. Through available third-party plugins, WordPress development can fully support ecommerce functionality.
WordPress is better suited to the second hypothetically scenario outlined in the beginning of this article. That is, WordPress works best for business that have a small number of products, and a strong focus around promoting an existing product line. WordPress is a breeze to manage, and the platform has no issues supporting a few dozen product SKUs while allowing you to easily manage pages and publish content around your products.
Magento
Unlike the swiss army knife that is WordPress, Magento is a web development platform that was purpose-built for ecommerce. With that, your business gets near infinite scalability, and doesn’t rely on third-party plugins for your ecommerce functionality. Built into Magento are powerful options for product management, pricing, payments, inventory, shipping and many more. The platform is often more secure, and can easily support thousands of products. It’s no newcomer either — over 150,000 websites run on Magento (that’s an estimate 1% of the internet). Included in this massive number is a third of the top 30 ecommerce websites online today. Magento leads commerce, and if your business sells more products than you can remember, this platform is absolutely your best option online.
Both Wordpress and Magento can help you list and sell products online. The optimal web development platform really depends on your product breadth and content strategy.
If you’re looking to grow in ecommerce, give us a call or drop us a line. We’d love to give you a free audit of your website and show you which tools and platforms can help you get there. Anything is possible online — check out our recent work!