Magento or OpenCart - which is better, what to choose?

Almost any activity today can be conducted online. The growing number of online stores prompts me to ask a logical question - on which platform is it best to open an e-commerce site?

Let's take the 2 most popular platforms and compare them. Looking ahead, I note that in this article you will not find a clear answer to the question: which is better Magento or OpenCart? After all, it all depends on the purpose of use and expectations. In addition, the factor of subjective feeling - whether it is convenient or inconvenient to use this or that platform, has not been canceled either.

By the way, who would you vote for - Magento or OpenCart  Well, your obedient servant is a true fan of Magento, and therefore we will start with it.

Magento is a new-generation online store management system

Magento is a worthy competitor to OpenCart. The system appeared in 2008, and already in 2011 it was bought by the eBay corporation. Literally, in a couple of years, Magento becomes the most popular online store management system, not only in China, like OpenCart but all over the world.

Most recently, at the beginning of 2017, a quarter of a billion dollars was invested in Magento to develop the Asian e-commerce market.

Developers pray for this platform because it is more flexible, simple, and open to implementing any ideas. But does it meet the requirements of e-commerce today?

Powerful features of Magento

Magento opens for both small online stores and huge portals, supermarkets with millions of goods. The reason for such popularity lies in the wide functionality, although, looking ahead, it is worth noting that Magento will cost you several times more than OpenCart.

The Magento template price is about 180 Dollars, but what does it include? Usually, for this money, the site owner gets a ready-made store with many modern features, but in practice, Magento Developers still have to “finish” the template and implement the necessary features.

So why do people love Magento?

• The implemented high-speed ajax search allows customers to find the necessary goods quickly and efficiently.
• Integration with popular social networks allows you to make your business flexible, open, and accessible. Interaction with users is carried out online. Likes and shares help spread the word about products at the speed of light or even faster.
• Payment for goods takes place over a secure connection and the user is not afraid, since his data remains safe.
• Working with discounts, promotions, and other marketing moves on Magento is implemented flawlessly. On the site, you can set up spectacular advertising so that users see all the promotions on the first page or in the sections that they are interested in.
• Registration on the site and the ability to manage your own personal account is a pleasant privileges for buyers. They will return to the online store again and again to make new purchases.
• Basket consistency is an important factor for buyers who can be classified as doubters. Here they added the product to the cart and then closed the site. The next day or a week later, they went back to the site, and the goods were in the basket. This will be a great motivation to complete the action and make a successful purchase.
• There are a lot of scammers in the field of online commerce, so buyers are attentive to contact information. This includes not only the address, phone, and e-mail, but also the full name of the store, legal documents, and everything that will increase customer loyalty and trust. And, of course, on the contact page, there must be a feedback form and the possibility of an online chat with a specialist. And if your buyer is answered longer than 5 seconds, he is likely to find the store where he will be given advice faster.
• Proper display of products involves more than just using a couple of photos and text to describe. Magento offers Customize the product 360 degrees, see all the details, and scale the image. Also on the product card, there will be reviews, videos, and ratings. Attracting regular customers with the help of high-quality and competent website content is the most correct and long-term strategy that will bring you results.
• Demonstration of related products is not a novelty, but in Magento, this feature is implemented conveniently and harmoniously. For the buyer, this function is extremely beneficial, for the owner of an online store it is also a plus because if a product is not available, it can always be replaced with related products from this category.
• Working with reviews is implemented in Magento simply and conveniently. Reviews, ratings, and reviews help people make informed choices.

Read also: What is better to choose between Magento and Shopify?

Magento software and hosting requirements

Fully Featured Magetique Theme

If you have not decided on the type of activity and do not want to buy a template tied to one business, MagentoBrain is the perfect solution.

MagentoBrain includes a suite of marketing, design, and administration tools. For 200 dollars you get 20 extensions, all of which are in demand and popular. These are both simple modules and advanced settings. 5 different themes for the most common niches in business will help you succeed in any activity.

Pros and cons of Magento

Everything you wanted to know about OpenCart but was afraid to ask

OpenCart is a platform for creating online stores. It is distributed absolutely free of charge and supports additional software features that expand the functionality. The platform software is written in PHP by talented developer Daniel Kerr.

He took the work of Christopher Mann, made in the ancient Perl language, and used them to develop a new engine. OpenCart saw the world in 2009, and after 6 years it has become the most popular solution for Chinese online stores.

In the top three platforms for serving online stores, OpenCart ranks third. More popular are solutions based on WordPress WooCommerce and the Magento platform, which attract with their simplicity and accessibility.

The main updates took place in 2014 and they touched on the design, appearance, and use of modules of our own design.

Ease of installation attracts novice owners of online stores. After installing the system in an intuitive interface, you need to add products and their description, as well as change the design in accordance with the thematic focus of the resource.

You do not need to configure the functionality of the basket; it works immediately after installation. The admin panel allows you to add several payment methods for goods and manage them.

The pricing policy is pleasant. OpenCart templates can be purchased for about 50 Dollars. Incredibly juicy and trendy designs are offered by TemplateMonster, just take a look at the top templates related to the beauty industry.

This is a complete solution for cosmetics, perfumery, or any other goods store. And pay attention to the price! Only 45 dollars!

And you can also buy a ready-made solution, the best of its kind for a specific type of activity. Pay attention to Fooder  - this is an OpenCart template for a restaurant website.

It already has a built-in product constructor, thanks to which visitors can add the necessary ingredients to the order. A well-thought-out delivery system will be appreciated by the owners of businesses related to the transportation of food. Reviews about goods and services can be added directly from the social network profile.

At the same time, you can try the admin panel absolutely free of charge. This is how it will look in test mode.

OpenCart software and hosting requirements

In order for your site to work on OpenCart, you will need to install a web server. Most users opt for Apache. Write in the comments which server you prefer. The database management system recommended is MySQLi. And of course, PHP is required (at least version 5.2).

Why do ordinary users love OpenCart? For importing products via Excel, for the ability to easily install Google Analytics without embedding in code.

Owners of online stores like convenient reporting not only on orders but also on returns. Discount coupons that can be sent to customer databases significantly affect the success of an online store.

OpenCart is ideal for small and medium businesses. If something is not clear, you can always contact technical support or read the comprehensive documentation.

See also:  Top eCommerce Development Companies List

Built-in OpenCart modules

Built-in modules help the developer to use as many useful functions as possible, which are necessary for any online store without exception:

• Customer Reviews – On the OpenCart website, users can leave reviews by logging in to social networks or simply by entering a name.
• Product rating system and the ability to add products to bookmarks without registration and authorization.
• Image resizing system - in online trading, the visual component of the product is very important. It is important for the buyer to see even the smallest details of the product, to examine it from different angles, and only then make a purchase decision.
• The related product display system is a very useful module that allows you to increase the average basket amount by several times.
• The "viewed products" module helps not to lose those products that the buyer is interested in.
• System of discounts and coupons - regular discounts and promotions help maintain customer loyalty and attract new customers.
• The system for choosing a delivery method is a very important parameter, thanks to which the buyer can easily place an order, and with a large number of sales, the seller does not even have to call back and specify the delivery method.
• The ability to specify multiple tax rates is a valuable module for stores that operate with different VAT rates (0%, 10%, and 18%), as well as a useful feature for wholesalers and entrepreneurs who return tax.
• The ability to specify the weight of the product without packaging and with packaging and the dynamically calculated cost is a useful feature for products whose weight significantly affects the cost. For example, for purchases from foreign stores.

Search Engine Optimization

The success and popularity of an online store largely depend on search engine optimization. In order for the pages of a site created on the OpenCart platform to be successfully seen and found by search engines, it is possible to fill in meta tags - title, short description, and keywords.

Statistics and reports

It is very important for the owner of any business to be able to analyze the indicators and parameters of his business. You should analyze not only sales figures but also product characteristics, as well as customer data.

For example, customer location data can help prioritize and offer delivery to areas that need the most purchase. Or data on the age of the average buyer will help highlight an effective marketing strategy.

In Opencart, the owner of an online store receives sales statistics for a certain period, a month, a week, or a working day. Also in the statistics, you can see the most popular products for a certain selected period.

An analysis of product views statistics will help you draw conclusions about which products you should pay attention to and offer to your customers.

Comparison of OpenCart and Magento

The graph shows the dynamics of the popularity of OpenCart and Magento in Google Trends and OpenCart wins significantly. But this is only popularity and trends, which cannot be a decisive factor in choosing. You don't buy your own product just because it's talked about more, do you? Although…

In my humble opinion, OpenCart is easier to set up and cheaper than a Magento subscription. If something went wrong, then technical support will really help, and if there is a problem on Magento, you will have to look for a solution yourself.

But at the same time, Magento has certain advantages, it provides more features, albeit paid ones. Magento is an ideal choice for people who open a small store first, then a second, a third, and scale rapidly. OpenCart is an ideal choice for a conservative owner of one large or medium-sized store with stable and well-established work.

The simplicity and low cost of maintaining OpenCart on one side of the scale and the rich functionality of Magento on the other side. What to choose? Consider what is more important to you. Do not forget that free cheese is only in a mousetrap, and without paying anything, you will not be able to create a normal online store.

Both platforms are free, but you will have to pay for hosting, templates, and extensions. Calculate these costs at the planning stage so that they are not a surprise for you in the future.

And, of course, do not forget that Magento is part of eBay, and the creators of OpenCart are not so famous and experienced in e-commerce. But the majority of brilliant and talented people do not come from the nobility.

Whatever you choose, remember that both decisions are correct and will bring you success. Both platforms are designed for online stores and support multilingualism and multicurrency. Both platforms are popular and you can easily find a specialist who will help you set up the site (if you yourself are not ready to get bogged down and figure it all out yourself).

It is impossible to say exactly which of the platforms is more productive, as it depends on the hosting. Both platforms are powerful and worthy of becoming your assistant in creating an online store!

Which platform is better? Let's just say that they are both good enough to bring profit to the owner of an online store.