Shoppers spent a record $10.8 billion on Cyber Monday (Dec. 2, 2020), marking an all-time high for ecommerce spending and beating last year's $9.4 billion record, according to Adobe Analytics.
US ecommerce sales topped $794.50 billion in 2020, up 32.4% from 2019. The pandemic prompted many shoppers to move to online ecommerce. But experts believe shoppers will continue their online habits long after COVID-19 is a memory.
Magento is hosted by any number of hosting companies including Unleaded’s own hosting service. Version upgrades are needed 4 times a year to stay current. Magento modules and add-ons also need updating to mitigate the risk of hacking.
By contrast, Shopify hosts the platform directly and thus keeps Shopify sites up to date. No version upgrades nor module upgrades are required.
Magento, because of this on-premise architecture, does lend itself to customization. There are some areas of Shopify which are difficult to change, including the checkout process.
To resolve Magento bugs and add-ons, Unleaded typically installs updates. This can cause issues if there is differed maintenance. Some merchants are significantly behind on updates and it can be a challenge to work with historical versions of the core, or add-ons. Once current versions are in place, we then validate the fix. If the issue persists, troubleshooting begins the next phase.
Magento has stopped making updates to version 1.X and is focusing on 2.X. It is a major move to upgrade a site from version 1.X to 2.X. Typically, upgrading to Magento 2 will be double the cost of re-platforming to Shopify. Ecommerce retailers have plenty to weigh when considering a change.
Clients on Magento may be comfortable with the platform and or have other sites or relationships in the Magento ecosystem they want to maintain. Unleaded is poised to help extend the service life of these existing Magento sites.
Shopify won’t allow dispensaries and gambling sites on its platform or hosting. Owners can use the Magento platform for these market sectors.
And site owners who are protective of their data, may not want their data stored in Shopify’s cloud. Keeping control of that data means going with Magento for the eCommerce platform.
Shopify recently flexed politically and publicly shutting off the Donald Trump store.