Magento is one of the leading E-commerce platforms in the world followed by Shopify and WooCommerce. According to statistics, Magento powers 31.4% of top 100,000 E-commerce websites in the world. Magento offers several advantages over its counterparts that make it an ideal choice for E-commerce businesses.
It’s customization options and the ability to scale according to your business needs is second to none. Combine that with its mobile friendly configuration and SEO friendliness and its open source nature and you get a perfect blend of features you need. Despite all its advantages, Magento has its shortcomings which deter it from becoming the best enterprise e-commerce platform. It might be a good option for E-commerce but not for enterprises.
In this article, you will learn about seven reasons why you should not choose Magento as an enterprise E-commerce platform.
1. Higher Cost
Surprised to see this on this list? I don’t blame you. You might be thinking that Magento is open source so how it can cost you so much, right. Magento comes in two different versions:
- Magento Open Source
- Magento Commerce
Magento open source is targeted towards the general public hence it is free to download and use. Magento Commerce is basically a premium version focusing on enterprises. Magento Commerce starts at $22,000 per year and if your business gross merchandise value is more than $1 million, it will charge you even more.
Furthermore, Magento offers two different options to its enterprise customers to choose from. They can either go for a cloud-based solution or opt for on premise deployment. If you choose the cloud-based option, it will put a bigger dent in your wallet as it carries a hefty price tag. When you add these costs, you will realize that Magento is more expensive and you should look for cheaper alternatives that could deliver the business value for your enterprise.
2. Open Source
You won’t find many open source e-commerce platforms out there and Magento is one of them.. This means that it carries all the pros and cons associated with open source solutions.
Yes, you might be able to customize it to your heart’s content, but it also means that it is less secure. There are security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by cybercriminals especially if you don’t install the security patches released to fix those loopholes. Keep everything up to date to minimize the risk of cyber-attacks. With the advancement of closed source solutions, you can enjoy the perks of open source without compromising on the security.
3. Slow Support
Magento offers built-in customer support. Unfortunately, it is slow. With more than 1300 tickets open at a given time, you might have to wait in the long queue before your problem can be resolved. If you don’t like to wait, there is also premium support, but it will add to the overall cost but let you bypass Magento support.
Premium Magento support might charge you more but it will give you access to dedicated support specialists who will solve your problem quickly. This can be frustrating to many but more so for enterprises who can not afford to wait for their problems to be resolved. Customer demand real time response to their queries.
4. Resource Intensive
Magento is highly demanding ecommerce platform when it comes to resources. If you are planning to use Magento as your Ecommerce platform then you must keep that in mind. Whether it is storage space or memory, it is resource intensive. This means that you will have to invest in a dedicated hosting or dedicated server to deliver a better user experience to your target audience.
Additionally, you will also have to optimize the usage and minimize resources required for your website to perform well only then you will be able to deliver a better shopping experience to your buyers. Moreover, you will be hard pressed to find a Magneto developer because they are a rare breed. Here is how you can hire ecommerce developer for your projects.
5. Time Consuming
Magento offers a lot of room for customization but these customization takes so much time that you start questioning your decision. It’s slow loading time add insult to injury. What’s worse, the same slow speed will come back to haunt you if you are migrating from another e-commerce platform to Magento.
The painstakingly slow data imports can make the process more of a nuisance. Thankfully, you won’t find similar issues in enterprise version of Magneto, which is somewhat of a relief for businesses.
6. Lack of Future Proofing
The pace at which technology is evolving forces enterprises to opt for solutions that offer them some degree of future proofing. Unfortunately, that is not what they will get with Magento. Internet of things is an ideal test case to justify it. Magento is not built for IoT era. Similarly, it lacks some advanced features that cater to emerging technologies.
In an age where IoT devices are slowly but surely growing in number, having a solution that does not support it will be a big mistake. IoT is the future and we will see its applications in E-commerce, allowing consumers to buy products before they run out of stock. E-commerce businesses must adapt according to the changing dynamics and offer innovative solutions that make the shopping experience more convenient for buyers.
7. Complex Update and Migration Process
Using Magento as an E-commerce platform is like being stuck in a never-ending loop of updates. The complex and tedious update and migration process make things worse. If that is not enough, migration is complex and costly. Magento forces you to update to the latest version even if you don’t want to.
If you don’t want to migrate to the latest version of Magento then you don’t have any choice but to switch E-commerce platforms. Those who have migrated to the latest version of Magento have extensions and themes incompatibility issues because they are not backwards compatible.
Which E-commerce platform would you choose and why? Feel free to share it with us in the comments section below.
Author Bio: Irfan Ak is a digital marketing strategist at Branex web design & a guest blogger on various websites. He is a passionate digital strategist. He has worked with various other brands and created value for them.