Today Magento and Shopify are the leading platforms to develop online stores. You have to decide which one to use. As it is a major decision you need to know which is better for your purpose. We look at reasons why you should use Magento instead of Shopify for your eCommerce business.

Large Magento community – Compared to Shopify Magento has a larger developer community. So, if you get stuck at some point in using Magento you can approach the large Magento community to help you out. Chances are that somebody has already come up with a solution for your problem. Even if it is a fresh problem it will be solved efficiently in minimum time. The community consists of skilled and experienced Magento developers ready to help you build as well as maintain Magento stores. The Magento forum is huge in terms of size and eager to help out newbies.

More freedom – Magento offers more flexibility and freedom in the design of your store. So, you can come up with a store having a personal touch as well as originality which will stand out from the crowd.

Less cost – Magento is an open source platform. Hence it is free to use. So, if you are a start-up or small business with a limited budget Magento is the obvious choice economically.

Superior B2B features and functionality – Magento comes with a host of useful B2B capabilities. It is significantly ahead of Shopify in this area.

Scalability – No business remains of the same size forever. With the passage of time there will be more customers and the business needs to grow its capabilities as well as size accordingly. Magento scores over Shopify in terms of seamless scalability.

Templates and Themes – Magento has a higher number of templates and themes available than Shopify. As a result, Magento sites can have variety in terms of appearance and ease of navigation.

Better for large online stores – Magento is designed for different sized online stores. Shopify is hindered by restrictions as compared to Magento.

SEO – Magento is superior to Shopify in terms of SEO friendliness. Your store needs to rank higher than competitor sites to capture as well as retain business.

Performance and speed – Potential customers are quick to desert a site if the loading speed is slow. Hence your online store should offer fast loading speed in order to survive in the intensely competitive market. Magento has CDN (Content Delivery Network) setup as well as advanced cache mechanisms enabling it to offer superior speed and performance over Shopify.

Designed for global market – Today online trade spans multiple languages and currencies. Magento is more suitable for the international market than Shopify.

As you have learnt Magento development has an edge over Shopify development. Remember that a small advantage can be the difference between success and failure in the eCommerce space.