What’s the most lucrative business model many entrepreneurs are willing to adopt? Among the few options, eCommerce is one of the most preferred business models for budding entrepreneurs entering the B2C world.
If you are one of the entrepreneurs planning to start an eCommerce store, you must choose the right platform. And that’s where the dilemma begins! Among the top options, OpenCart and WooCommerce plugins for WordPress are the best picks.
But, as you have to rely on only one of the two platforms for starting your eCommerce business, there are specific considerations you must make for sure. This article will help you choose between the two factors.
So, read this article until the end to get insight into the efficacy of both OpenCart and WooCommerce for your eCommerce store. Later, you can decide which platform suits your needs the most.
What is the General Overview of WooCommerce and OpenCart?
Before you get along with the feature differences between WooCommerce and OpenCart, you need to get an idea of the general overview of both platforms.
WooCommerce:
WooCommerce, an eCommerce plugin of WordPress’s most popular CMS platform, allows you to set up a high-performing online store. As most of you know how WordPress functions and its features are, it becomes easier to manage it as an eCommerce store once the plugin is installed.
Upon successfully installing the WooCommerce plugin, WordPress converts itself and offers you all the features or capabilities for managing online orders, monitoring performance, running analytics, and managing inventory, all under one roof. With such sophistication, WooCommerce is considered one of the top eCommerce platforms.
Not only that, but just like WordPress has its plugins for advancing the site functions, WooCommerce also has its plugins, such as OpenAI Image Generator or Review Reminder for WooCommerce. Even though this platform was introduced a few years after OpenCart was brought to action, it still has a more extensive user base and is immensely popular.
OpenCart
OpenCart is an open-source eCommerce platform that works with PHP and MySQL, making it a dependable and scalable solution. It is more like a stand-alone system backed by a robust framework for opening your online store. As WooCommerce depends on WordPress as its core platform, OpenCart is entirely independent.
But you will still need a hosting and domain name to start your online business on OpenCart. Even OpenCart has many plugins or themes available in its official marketplace to add intuitive capabilities and an appealing interface to the store.
What are the Differences Between WooCommerce and OpenCart?
As you are now aware of what the two platforms are known and famous for, it is time to go deeper into the differences between them based on diverse factors:
- Market Share
As you know, market share is one of the most crucial aspects of deciding which platform is more popular. Upon determining the market share, you will get clarity based on which platform helps entrepreneurs with better revenues, stronger competitive position, and better feature integration capacity.
As per the current utilization rate in the market, WooCommerce holds a more significant share among all eCommerce sites, with 23.43% worldwide, compared to OpenCart and many other eCommerce platforms.
Without any second thoughts, WooCommerce wins the comparison based on the market share factor. It means WooCommerce has a better potential to attract an audience towards the stores made on this platform. Thus, you can expect immense growth when you build your eCommerce store using WooCommerce.
2. Themes
WooCommerce comes with more than 2100 free themes and is feasible to allow you to choose from more than 30,000 premium themes. Not only that, but you can also hire a professional WooCommerce developer to build a custom theme to suit your preferences. It is worth noting that for these themes to be accesible to people with disabilities, you’ll need to use an accessibility plugin for WooCommerce.
You have the liberty to integrate SEO-powered themes, ensuring you get an appealing store and a good ranking over search engines. On the other hand, the themes of OpenCart are minimal. You just get around 500 free and paid themes for the platform.
The appeal and functionalities of the OpenCart themes are also standard. But, one thing that’s easy with such themes is you can easily change the look & feel of the site without making many tweaks to the settings.
3. Customization Options
WooCommerce offers you a plethora of customization feasibility, evident because WordPress backs it up. You can integrate various effective plugins to advance the functionalities of your WooCommerce store, out of which some of the best picks include:
SMS Notifications & OTP Verification
Upon integrating the WooCommerce SMS notifications & OTP verification plugin, you can give your customers timely updates on their orders. The OTP verification will add an authentication layer for customers to access the store.
Import-Export Plugin
Upon using the Import-Export for WordPress users and WooCommerce customers, you can easily export and import user or customer data from respective platforms. You won’t lose your customers or users if you want to migrate your business to a fresh website.
OpenAI Image Generator
OpenAI Image Generator for WordPress and WooCommerce is one of the most impressive plugins that helps you create images, product descriptions, and titles and even choose colors for your products on the store. This way, managing the business becomes more accessible.
These are just the best picks while you still have around more than 50,000 plugins to choose from. OpenCart, on the other hand, provides you with approximately 13,000 free & paid extensions in almost all categories.
In terms of customization, both WooCommerce and OpenCart allow you to add custom modules developed by dedicated experts. But depending on the popularity and adoption rate, WooCommerce plugins are in high demand for making the store more functional with a high UX quotient.
Parting Words
This article might be your guide on choosing between WooCommerce and OpenCart for your eCommerce business. Do consider the fact of consistent growth and expansion while choosing one!
You can also use experts’ help to guide you on which platform will align well with your business niche. Depending on the expert’s verdict and your preference, you can consider integrating the WooCommerce plugin for WordPress or OpenCart.
