OpenCart vs Wordpress?

Eternal1912 · Nov 7, 2016

Greetings,

I'm starting an e-commerce website this week and I'm having a problem choosing between OpenCart and Wordpress. I want my website to have plugins for newsletters, memberships, discounts and similar to these to enchance user's experience. I haven't chosen a Wordpress theme, but if it is OpenCart, then i'll probably go with the Journal Theme #5.

Could you please advice me which platform to choose? What are your thoughts about them and do they have any liabilities?

Regards,
PM

Gogol · Nov 7, 2016

Depends on how many products and attributes you have. If you have more than 500 products and your products have a lot of attributes, go for open cart. Woocommerce isn't really good for these.

Eternal1912 · Nov 7, 2016

Gogol said:
Depends on how many products and attributes you have. If you have more than 500 products and your products have a lot of attributes, go for open cart. Woocommerce isn't really good for these.

I will start with around 50 products due to the fact that i'm starting a clothing line. However, I plan to expand to in the next 6 months significantly. Probably, around 200-250 or something like that.

PHPInjected · Nov 7, 2016

What are the attributes like? All different sizes and colors? You MIGHT want to go with OpenCart, because with Woocommerce (ecommerce plugin for WP) you have to assign variations and attributes for each product. There is a plugin though called Bulk Edit Variations for Woocommerce, but that changes ALL products to whatever you set it as.

Woocommerce has discounts, an account page, and a membership plugin as well.

Gogol · Nov 7, 2016

Eternal1912 said:
I will start with around 50 products due to the fact that i'm starting a clothing line. However, I plan to expand to in the next 6 months significantly. Probably, around 200-250 or something like that.

Go for OpenCart without a doubt. Additionally, I would suggest magento too. If you are serious about expanding the business, consider magento.

Eternal1912 · Nov 7, 2016

PHPInjected said:
What are the attributes like? All different sizes and colors? You MIGHT want to go with OpenCart, because with Woocommerce (ecommerce plugin for WP) you have to assign variations and attributes for each product. There is a plugin though called Bulk Edit Variations for Woocommerce, but that changes ALL products to whatever you set it as.

Woocommerce has discounts, an account page, and a membership plugin as well.

Yeah, different colors and sizes. Does Opencart have all these plugins as well?

Gogol said:
Go for OpenCart without a doubt. Additionally, I would suggest magento too. If you are serious about expanding the business, consider magento.

I'm not experienced with Magento. I want to do the website myself at first, and then in the future hire developers to make something more complex on Magento probably.

tasburrfoot · Nov 7, 2016

Gogol said:
Go for OpenCart without a doubt. Additionally, I would suggest magento too. If you are serious about expanding the business, consider magento.

Magento blows, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

AbanteCart is a nice solution, but between OpenCart and Woo - I'd say go with OpenCart.

iModBot · Nov 7, 2016

I'd take a look at magento if you're dealing with (or will be dealing with) 1000+ products.

Keep in mind withing clothing/apparel each size/colour/design combination will result in 1 new product. With 50 product lines you're probably looking at 1000+ products.

Install MAGMI and your product import should be super simple. It's all done via CSV (including images), its really nice to use and super powerful.

tasburrfoot said:
Magento blows, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

It blows? It's used by the worlds biggest businesses.....

Wilson Fisk · Nov 7, 2016

Wordpress FOREVER.

judaculla · Nov 7, 2016

Eternal1912 said:
Greetings,

I'm starting an e-commerce website this week and I'm having a problem choosing between OpenCart and Wordpress. I want my website to have plugins for newsletters, memberships, discounts and similar to these to enchance user's experience. I haven't chosen a Wordpress theme, but if it is OpenCart, then i'll probably go with the Journal Theme #5.

Could you please advice me which platform to choose? What are your thoughts about them and do they have any liabilities?

Regards,
PM

If you are planning on managing everything yourself at first, I'd definitely recommend a Wordpress/Woocommerce setup. Mainly, because of the overwhelming support for WP and WooCommerce, you'll likely find a plugin for any extended functionality you need. The inherent blogging nature of WP is great for generating active social buzz as well, as you can easily maintain a blog for your site. Once you reach a point of profitability, you'd likely be best served hire a developer to deisgn a customize solution for your specific needs and customer preference.

I've personally used Wordpress/Woocommerce with a store listing over 15,000 products, and the performance was decent. Not that you would need that much space to expand, but it's there if you need it. Sign up for some good hosting, and you'll likely save yourself lots of headaches starting out. Buy plugins that are well-reviewed, and don't cheap out. Remember, a $60 plugin is really saving you hundreds, if not thousands, in development costs.

Magento doesn't 'blow' at all, and is a great ecom framework. It definitely has a much steeper learning curve than Wordpress and Woocommerce, but also has a decent amount of support as far as plugins and etc. goes. Hiring a developer to build a site for you on the Magento platform is a nice intermediary step before hiring someone to do a ground up build for you. It's definitely geared for the demands of ecom, and is much more efficient in the way it manages database calls for large amounts of categories, tags, products, or product features. I wouldn't recommend it for any beginner though, especially if you are still working to understand exactly what your specific needs are from a website.

I am biased towards Wordpress, but find that it is an excellent 'decent' solution for a lot of different functions for which a better, specialized solutions exists. Simply put, it can do a little bit of everything, and does it pretty decently with good hosting.

tasburrfoot · Nov 7, 2016

I know SEO said:
I'd take a look at magento if you're dealing with (or will be dealing with) 1000+ products.

Keep in mind withing clothing/apparel each size/colour/design combination will result in 1 new product. With 50 product lines you're probably looking at 1000+ products.

Install MAGMI and your product import should be super simple. It's all done via CSV (including images), its really nice to use and super powerful.

It blows? It's used by the worlds biggest businesses.....

Let me rephrase - It's powerful, but it lacks support & a knowledge base. If you're going to go with Magento currently, make sure you stick with vers 1.9x and don't go with this their more recent "stable" vers, as it has a ridiculous amount of bugs & glitches in it, and I'll reiterate - magento support sucks(getting a hold of them in regards to anything is next to impossible).

If you have a lot of experience working with Magento, or have the money to hire someone familiar with Magento, sure go for it - if this is your first foray into ecommerce I wouldn't recommend Magento, there are other options that are just as powerful, but with a much lower learning curve and better support.

Edit**

Also

It blows? It's used by the worlds biggest businesses.....

That's not a valid argument. Most of the worlds "biggest businesses" use a lot of shit technologies that make you shake your head. Such as Internet Explorer. Wide spread or large scale use doesn't mean quality.

iModBot · Nov 7, 2016

tasburrfoot said:
magento support sucks(getting a hold of them in regards to anything is next to impossible).

and OpenCart and WordPress have a dedicated support centre like Magento do they?.....

I never had issues with Magneto support, it does have a couple of bugs you're right but so does WP and OC.

PHPInjected · Nov 7, 2016

Eternal1912 said:
Yeah, different colors and sizes. Does Opencart have all these plugins as well?

I'm not experienced with Magento. I want to do the website myself at first, and then in the future hire developers to make something more complex on Magento probably.

With Opencart you can set the product discounts and download a membership extension.

I know SEO said:
and OpenCart and WordPress have a dedicated support centre like Magento do they?.....

I never had issues with Magneto support, it does have a couple of bugs you're right but so does WP and OC.

Eh, no offense SEO, but Magento does blow. I've set up a lot of CMS's and Magento/Joomla are just the worst.

Eternal1912 · Nov 7, 2016

I know SEO said:
and OpenCart and WordPress have a dedicated support centre like Magento do they?.....

I never had issues with Magneto support, it does have a couple of bugs you're right but so does WP and OC.

I will probably consider Magento at a later stage when i'm ready to afford an experienced developer. For now, I wonder between Woocommerce and OpenCart. Are there enough plugins for OpenCart shops and is the support good? I don't have much experience with this platform, so I will need a considerable amount of help I assume.

Oh, and what about adding products to Opencart. Is there an easy import plugin to do that or I have to do everything manually?

Eternal1912 · Nov 7, 2016

PHPInjected said:
With Opencart you can set the product discounts and download a membership extension.

Eh, no offense SEO, but Magento does blow. I've set up a lot of CMS's and Magento/Joomla are just the worst.

It's good to know that there are important extensions like these, I will need them for sure.

iModBot · Nov 7, 2016

PHPInjected said:
Eh, no offense SEO, but Magento does blow. I've set up a lot of CMS's and Magento/Joomla are just the worst.

I'm not going to get butthurt over magento.

I know I've worked on several stores (500k+ products) where anything but magento would have fallen over and died.

I never had a major issue in 2 years, I loved it

PHPInjected · Nov 7, 2016

I know SEO said:
I'm not going to get butthurt over magento.

I know I've worked on several stores (500k+ products) where anything but magento would have fallen over and died.

I never had a major issue in 2 years, I loved it

Honestly, it's whatever gets the job done. I'll set up whatever, it just annoys me.

Eternal1912 · Nov 7, 2016

I know SEO said:
I'm not going to get butthurt over magento.

I know I've worked on several stores (500k+ products) where anything but magento would have fallen over and died.

I never had a major issue in 2 years, I loved it

PHPInjected said:
Honestly, it's whatever gets the job done. I'll set up whatever, it just annoys me.

Guys! Stay on point

So, between Woocommerce and Opencart, which one do you choose?

judaculla said:
If you are planning on managing everything yourself at first, I'd definitely recommend a Wordpress/Woocommerce setup. Mainly, because of the overwhelming support for WP and WooCommerce, you'll likely find a plugin for any extended functionality you need. The inherent blogging nature of WP is great for generating active social buzz as well, as you can easily maintain a blog for your site. Once you reach a point of profitability, you'd likely be best served hire a developer to deisgn a customize solution for your specific needs and customer preference.

I've personally used Wordpress/Woocommerce with a store listing over 15,000 products, and the performance was decent. Not that you would need that much space to expand, but it's there if you need it. Sign up for some good hosting, and you'll likely save yourself lots of headaches starting out. Buy plugins that are well-reviewed, and don't cheap out. Remember, a $60 plugin is really saving you hundreds, if not thousands, in development costs.

Magento doesn't 'blow' at all, and is a great ecom framework. It definitely has a much steeper learning curve than Wordpress and Woocommerce, but also has a decent amount of support as far as plugins and etc. goes. Hiring a developer to build a site for you on the Magento platform is a nice intermediary step before hiring someone to do a ground up build for you. It's definitely geared for the demands of ecom, and is much more efficient in the way it manages database calls for large amounts of categories, tags, products, or product features. I wouldn't recommend it for any beginner though, especially if you are still working to understand exactly what your specific needs are from a website.

I am biased towards Wordpress, but find that it is an excellent 'decent' solution for a lot of different functions for which a better, specialized solutions exists. Simply put, it can do a little bit of everything, and does it pretty decently with good hosting.

I'm very grateful for this detailed review on the three platforms. I find Wordpress as a decent solution, but recently I got adviced to try my e-commerce with Opencart due to the fact that this platform is better for online shops

AceWallGromit · Nov 7, 2016

I like opencart. Speed of our stores using it is good and the variety of available extensions is decent.

judaculla · Nov 7, 2016

Eternal1912 said:
Guys! Stay on point So, between Woocommerce and Opencart, which one do you choose?

I'm very grateful for this detailed review on the three platforms. I find Wordpress as a decent solution, but recently I got adviced to try my e-commerce with Opencart due to the fact that this platform is better for online shops

That is probably good advice, although I've never had experience with opencart directly before. Opencart is designed to be an ecommerce platform and will likely out-perform Wordpress. However, take into account the following situations in which I feel you would likely find an advantage in using wordpress:

You want an easily-managed Blog (again, no experience with opencart)
You want an automated email responder series to begin sending for every new customer you get
You want to automatically publish new posts and products to your social media websites

These are all very vital functions of websites, and Wordpress handles them (through plugins mostly) very well. There are often 20+ different plugins available for any given task you're trying to accomplish in Wordpress, which makes things very easy and adjustable.

In my experience with ecommerce, albeit very limited, I never got many sells from people that seemed to come to my site to 'browse.' I got sales from direct visits from emails, social media, and organic search results. None of these involved having a good categorical menu structure, an intuitive shop page layout, or other features commonly associated with eCommerce platform advantages. This is obviously not how many larger ecomm sites would describe their experiences, but for a new business just starting out—reaching your customer is going to be more important than having a brilliantly-designed website.

IMO, Wordpress would likely be much easier to manage in this regard.

OpenCart vs Wordpress?

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