Which CMS to choose for your ecommerce site?

• Which CMS to choose for your ecommerce site? This question is frequently asked in e-businesses and it is especially important when there is a site redesign planned. This choice is crucial because it will determine the functionalities, uses, ease of use, performances, compatibilities, and even possible integrations of the website. Thus, to help with your selection, we made a comparison of the main suppliers.
• Work with an agency or internalize it?
• Example of use cases with Jonak and Wshop.

Prestashop

Price

Prestashop is an Open Source CMS and can be installed for free. For further development, they offer various paid subscriptions, for instance, hosting (€ 8 per month on average), graphic themes (between € 30 and € 130), and other applications. Users are also offered paid customer support services (installation and expert advice) ranging from € 33.25 / month to € 116.58 / month. Importantly, Prestashop does not take any commission on the sales made.

To make it simply, Prestashop requires the provision of a budget for the following elements:

• Web hosting
• The domain name
• The purchase of a template (if relevant)
• The creation of a template in the case of customised sites
• Integration of models
• Adding external features (purchase of modules)
• Maintenance and resolution of bugs (external service provider)

Features

500, is the number of e-commerce features that Prestashop can offer you.

Besides the basic functionalities, here are those in which Prestashop particularly stands out:

• The measurement and analysis of sales
• Inventory and supplier management
• The creation of products and packs
• Management of orders and customer accounts
• Management of different international currencies
• Management of payments and deliveries

Being an Open-Source CMS, the platform offers access to a large catalog of addons and modules: nearly 3,500 possible functions can be added to the basic ones!

Ease

Getting started with PrestaShop is clear and intuitive. Its main quality is the ergonomics of its administration interface. Performance indicators are at your fingertips, within a large panel of easily accessible data. Beyond this ease of use, it is possible to access to Prestashop Support with a price of 100 euros per ticket. In addition, both French-speaking and English-speaking user forums are widely used, which makes it possible to find information or an answer quickly.

One more point about the ease of Prestashop: for multi-channel sellers, there is an export option allowing products to be exported to Ebay, Amazon, Google Shopping and other Marketplaces quickly and easily.

Adaptability

It is possible to modify the source code freely and there are many developed modules, allowing advanced customization of the site. However, on the SEO side, the features of Prestashop do not allow advanced optimization and it is therefore necessary to install additional plugins. Indeed, urls automatically generate stop words and the interface must progress on the responsive aspect. This Open Source CMS is recommended for simple sites, with small targets.

SHOPIFY

Price

Shopify is a proprietary software and its subscription fee is from $ 29 to $ 299 / month. The downside: in addition to the subscription fee, a percentage of turnover will be charged (between 0.5% and 2% of turnover depending on the formulas).

Features

Beyond the primary functionalities of a CMS, Shopify adds many other functions to its “basic” formula, such as the creation of promotional codes, the recovery of abandoned carts, and the unlimited addition of products (including security), even though these are limited to only 2 users in the basic formula.

The other strengths of the platform are:

• For the French market, Shopify provides e-merchants with no less than 33 payment solutions, including bank cards, virtual wallets, and crypto-currencies.
• The possibility of international expansion: Shopify is based on the WordPresse source code, which makes it easier to create a multilingual site.

Ease

Shopify is not an open-source e-commerce solution: the company itself therefore ensures the maintenance of its servers, the speed of your site and data security. There is no need for setup, to handle web hosting, domain name or SSL.

Shopify also has one of the best customer support systems, available 24/7 by email, phone, and live chat. In addition, the platform provides information on its blog, access to the Shopify Academy, and short videos to help you understand different features of the CMS.

Adaptability

On a technical level, the URLs are customisable according to the products and the pages can be loaded quickly, which will improve the ranking of the website on search engines. According to the meta descriptions of your pages, the ALT tags and the H1 tags can also be modified. A special feature of Shopify also allows you to recover abandoned carts.

MAGENTO

Price

As all the other open source software, it is free to install and you will need to pay for a domain name, extensions, and hosting. You should also be responsible for obtaining an SSl certificate to ensure the security and reliability of your site. There are two versions of Magento: a free version, Magento Community, and a paid version, Magento Enterprise, the price of which varies according to the GMV and the average basket or AOV (prices are therefore negotiated on a case-by-case basis).

Features

Magento is a CMS that has the most comprehensive features on the market. It mainly differentiates itself with its infinite customization possibilities. These strengths can be found in:

• Instant purchase
• Elasticsearch integration
• Cross and up selling
• Customer segmentation and personalization of their shopping experience
• Data visualization and business intelligence

In addition, Magento is also distinguished by its multistore possibility, and its excellent prospects in terms of SEO.

Ease

Overall, getting started to Magento is quite difficult and the level of technical skills required is quite high. Indeed, installation and implementation will require the work of a developer or of an e-commerce agency. The Magento for Small Business version makes it easier to get started by eliminating maintenance and recent hosting costs. In addition, Magento offers customer support that differs depending on your version and the community of the platform that exchanges continuously remains important.

Adaptability

This CMS is designed for companies who wish to develop medium to large-scale e-commerce projects because this will require, in particular, the management of several languages, several currencies and several shops at the same time, with a wide range of products. Magento also demonstrates a great adaptability both in terms of functionality and management preferences.

Bonus: Should I switch to MAGENTO 2 or switch to another CMS?

Indeed, Magento 1 has ended providing services since June 2020, which means that no security updates, fixes, or new features are available now. In this case, should we switch to the Magento V2 released in 2015? Find below the advantages and disadvantages of the migration of MAGENTO.

Benefits of migration :

● Enhanced code security due to the integration of a large battery of automated tests

● 50% faster loading time (add to cart 2x faster, 20x more catalog pages for example)

● Implementation of more streamlined and incentive order tunnels (supporting the management of taxes and all French payment methods)

● A much more intuitive administration panel, including a now responsive back end, which allows e-merchants to better manage their orders from the mobile

● Significantly reduced bugs during Magento 2 updates

● New customer features: A new verification process was developed, which requires less customer information and can be completed in fewer steps to reduce the cart abandonment rate. In addition, faster and more convenient mobile navigation was developed for customers.

● Native integration of technologies was recognised and approved by the community, including: composer, part of the source code in Symfony, RequireJS / Knockout.js, HTML5, CSS3, compatible with the latest versions of PHP 7

Disadvantages of migration :

● A notable delay on the Front Office part, which makes it difficult to build a personalised user experience

● The slow down of "monolithic" architecture makes innovation difficult

● Microservices, APIs and headless solutions are emerging, but they are expensive to implement

● To migrate your e-commerce site and make necessary adjustments, it is necessary to have a team of developers specialised in the Magento 2 solution. (as a reminder, the source code of the architecture of Magento 1 and 2 is different)

● The disappearance of some Magento extensions

● The risks that referencing (SEO) and indexing problems arise

To conclude, to successfully migrate from Magento 1 to Magento 2, you need to keep in mind that this is not a simple upgrade but a redesigned project under a new technology. The business stakes are great, and the pitfalls are numerous. Therefore, it is important to be accompanied by professionals in this CMS. Otherwise, you can find 3 other CMS solutions to switch to in this article, considering their advantages and disadvantages.

WOO COMMERCE

Price

It's free to download and install, but there are a few additional costs: the domain name, hosting, apps, the cost of maintaining your online store, and the cost of the theme. It takes between € 30 and € 60 for themes offered by developers outside of WooCommerce, € 40 for themes offered directly by WooCommerce, or € 400 for access to all themes.

Features

Woocommerce is not technically an e-commerce site, it is a specialised plugin for the WordPress CMS. This application allows you to create an efficient and easy-to-use e-commerce store while benefiting from the advantages of the WordPress CMS. This e-commerce CMS is open-sourced and is the leading solution in terms of registered users.

In terms of functionality, most Woocommerce sites will require the installation of many extensions to develop them.

The strengths of WooCommerce

• As a plugin for WordPress, obvious functions of WooCommerce are to create a multilingual and therefore multi-currency site, create the choice of authorised countries, as well as the application of different tax rates.
• At the SEO level, as this is a plugin affixed to a site with content, your site will be more likely to stand out in search results. In addition, there are many extensions that allow you to improve your SEO.

Ease

In terms of use, it is generally accessible. However, regarding to the customization and management of a WooCommerce site, technical skills will be required about installation, hosting and deployment.

Considering the number of users, it is therefore easy to find user forums to seek the answer for a question or the solution to a problem.

Adaptability

One of the most powerful e-commerce plugins: Woocommerce can support a very large number of products. In addition, it is ideal for a project leader who is already familiar with WordPress (because it will be easier to handle and familiar with plugins).

* These are standard Shopify subscriptions. For specific development and high traffic sites, you will have to choose Shopify Plus which starts at €2,000 / month for license fees.

Use case Jonak with WSHOP

After launching its site under Magento, this year the Jonak brand renewed its contract with WSHOP (partners for 3 years) which is specialised in fashion and retail, and it took the opportunity to make a complete UI / UX overhaul with in particular the deployment of new innovations:

• New tunnel (desktop and mobile)
• New login page (desktop and mobile)
• Express purchase on “associated products”, product sheet and “last viewed”
• Amazon Connect

According to Lisa Nakam, Associate Managing Director at Jonak, WSHOP “knows everything that is going on” and their requests are generally always anticipated by the CMS due its knowledge of the market. This agency (WebPopulation which owns the Wshop tools) is paid only by a percentage of the site's turnover. Collaboration is ongoing, on one hand, WebPopulation make the choice of selecting the tools for emailing or even CRM purpose. On the other hand, it is possible for Jonak to request the implementation of services from complementary companies on the ecommerce website (paid service).

The Wshop tools therefore allow them to have access to sales management services, purchases, catalogs, stocks, sales analysis service, commercial animation service, and the exports and stats service.

A true example of optimizing and maximizing brand performance with the help of the WSHOP omnichannel solution.

Go through an agency or do it yourself?

It is normal to ask the question: do I entrust the creation of my e-commerce site to an agency or do I take care of it internally?

If you decide to go through a web agency, you will be able to obtain expertise for each of the design stages: integration, design, development, advanced features, etc. A web agency also provide you with technical skills to optimize and streamline your site. In addition, it allows you to establish a strategy that will be built and fueled both by the knowledge and experience of the agency and by your own vision. Going through an agency is obviously a save of time, but it will need investment.

The other alternative is to build your own website. It is certainly a more advantageous solution from a financial point of view, though there are several things that must be ensured: firstly, to be ready to invest the time and to have the necessary skills. Indeed, creating a site without going through an agency requires in particular:

● Reserve the domain name

● Choose the host and configure the hosting

● Install the CMS

● Choose the plugins that will allow your site to function well

● Customize the site design to adapt it to your visual identity

● Put the site online

If you don't have these skills, you can learn them for sure. But as said above, it will then be necessary to invest time to create an optimised site which has all the functionalities required for effectiveness on the market.