We’re sharing insights from an independent consulting firm to help you choose the perfect ecommerce platform for your business. Learn the pros and cons on five of the leading ecommerce platforms in North America: Shopify, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Adobe Commerce (Magento), WooCommerce, and BigCommerce. Learn about their Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), so you can see how each platform could affect your business’ bottom line. If you’re looking to transform your business, this side-by-side look at these ecommerce platforms is for you.
Large brands are looking for ways to add value to both their teams and their customers by exploring different ecommerce platforms. If you’re one of them, consider choosing a platform that’s able to sell, innovate, scale, and automate with you as you navigate the market. That said, we understand that these features all come at a cost.
Committing to the wrong ecommerce platform can get pricey, complex, and time-consuming to manage, often causing delays and even added fees that you initially didn’t expect. This is where understanding the total cost of ownership (TCO) of each platform’s services becomes your advantage. It helps you answer the big question: ‘Which one is the best fit for me, my team, and our budget?’
To help you pick the best ecommerce platform for your business, we’re sharing research conducted by a leading independent consulting firm focusing on five ecommerce platforms available on the market in North America today: Shopify, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Adobe Commerce (Magento), WooCommerce, and BigCommerce. We’ll dissect each platform’s TCO to shed light on how it can directly impact your bottom line.
If you’re looking to transform the way your enterprise brand does business—this ecommerce platform comparison is for you.
What goes into calculating the cost of an ecommerce platform?
Think of figuring out the TCO of an ecommerce platform as if you’re a detective that has to dig deeper than what’s on the surface. It’s not just about the upfront costs of setting up and starting on a new platform. You also have to uncover the yearly fees, maintenance costs, the use of third-party services, and those unexpected extra charges that can pop up.
Luckily, we’ve outlined an easy way for you to find out. How to calculate TCO depends on the following factors:
- Implementation and setup costs: These are the initial costs associated with setting up your ecommerce store, including the cost of customization, integration of third-party applications, and plugins.
- Platform fees and ecommerce stack costs: These are the ongoing costs of using the platform, including subscription fees, transaction fees, and costs associated with third-party applications.
- Operational and support costs: These costs include hosting, security, maintenance, and support services.
- Gained or lost conversion: This is the potential revenue you could gain or lose based on the platform’s conversion rate.
Four top ecommerce platform price comparisons
In this assessment, we’re putting ourselves to the test too. Let’s dive into a detailed comparison of Shopify with WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Adobe, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud to find out how we line up against each when it comes to TCO.
All information in this article is according to research commissioned by Shopify from a leading independent consulting firm to study TCO across major platforms in North America and understand Shopify’s relative positioning based on objective research methods.
Shopify vs. WooCommerce: TCO comparison
Platform fees and ecommerce stack costs
Shopify users reported the lowest platform costs on average, with WooCommerce users experiencing 32% higher costs on average due to increased support needs and frequent version upgrades.
Operational and support costs
Shopify’s operational simplicity and reduced developer support needs result in the lowest operating costs. In contrast, WooCommerce can incur additional infrastructure costs, such as hosting, leading to 41% higher operating costs on average.
Implementation and setup costs
Implementation and setup on WooCommerce will cost your business 49% more than Shopify’s, on average. Additionally, it’s 41% faster on average to setup a new storefront on Shopify than on WooCommerce.
Conversion
Assuming a 10% margin on goods sold, Shopify’s checkout converts 17% better than WooCommerce, translating to a roughly 1.7% TCO offset when expressed as a percent of TCO.
Shopify vs. BigCommerce: TCO comparison
Platform fees and ecommerce stack costs
Shopify users again reported the lowest platform costs on average, with BigCommerce users experiencing 32% higher costs on average due to limited native enterprise capabilities.
Operational and support costs
Shopify has the lowest operating costs in comparison to BigCommerce’s—which comes in higher with 21% more on average. The difference shows in BigCommerce’s limited native enterprise functionality, which can significantly increase operational costs.
Implementation and setup costs
Implementation and setup on BigCommerce will cost your business 88% more than Shopify’s, on average. Additionally, it’s 36% faster on average to setup a new storefront on Shopify than on BigCommerce.
Conversion
Assuming a 10% margin on goods sold, Shopify’s checkout converts 12% better than BigCommerce, translating to a roughly 1.2% TCO offset when expressed as a percent of TCO.
Shopify vs. Adobe Commerce: TCO comparison
Platform fees and ecommerce stack costs
Shopify users reported the lowest platform costs on average, with Adobe Commerce users experiencing 42% higher costs on average due to less flexible pricing.
Operational and support costs
On average, there’s a 24% higher operational and support cost on Adobe Commerce than on Shopify. This is mainly due to Adobe’s complex legacy commerce platform which can require more internal IT resources or partners for ongoing updates and enhancements.
Implementation and setup costs
Implementation and setup on Adobe Commerce will cost your business 42% more than Shopify’s, on average. Additionally, it’s 40% faster on average to setup a new storefront on Shopify than on Adobe Commerce.
Conversion
Assuming a 10% margin on goods sold, Shopify’s checkout converts 5% better than Adobe Commerce, translating to a roughly 0.5% TCO offset when expressed as a percent of TCO.
Shopify vs. Salesforce Commerce Cloud: TCO comparison
Platform fees and ecommerce stack costs
Shopify users reported the lowest platform costs on average, with Salesforce users experiencing 14% higher costs on average due to less flexible pricing.
Operational and support costs
Shopify comes in at a lower cost in operations and support in contrast to Salesforce’s 6% increase on average. This is mainly due to Salesforce’s complex legacy platform requiring more internal IT resources or partners for ongoing updates and enhancements.
Implementation and setup costs
Implementation and setup on Salesforce will cost your business 16% more than Shopify’s, on average. Additionally, it’s 28% faster on average to setup a new storefront on Shopify than on Salesforce.
Conversion
Assuming a 10% margin on goods sold, Shopify’s checkout converts 36% better than Salesforce, translating to a roughly 3.6% TCO offset when expressed as a percent of TCO.
The clear winner: Shopify
Not only are our customers getting the perks of an innovative, agile, and secure platform, but they’re getting the best in TCO.Shopify’s TCO is up to 36% better than its competitors, and 33% on average., and this research shows our platform consistently outperforms others in terms of cost, ease of use, and conversion rates. It’s the clear winner for businesses looking to maximize their ecommerce potential while minimizing costs.
Wrapping Up:
We at ShopShipShake have been working with businesses like yours with fulfilling experiences. We offer one-stop services, including an efficient supply chain, over 10 thousand of China’s suppliers, over 1,000,000 SKU and more. With a successful track record of over 100,000 clients, we are sure to deliver your orders requirements.
Let’s get in touch to build, sustain, and grow your businesses! If you would like to know more details about us, please contact us: blog.shopshipshake.com. If you are interested in cooperating with us. Please register on: https://shop.shopshipshake.com/shop/register/business
The article originates from: https://www.shopify.com/za/enterprise/blog/ecommerce-platform-comparison