Analytics Posts

Magento 1 vs. Magento 2: Two Sides of the Same Coin
09 Nov, 2017 2 Comments

Magento remains the universal e-commerce solution for the online businesses operating in various industries.

Magento 1 vs. Magento 2: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Though more and more merchants prefer to install Magento 2 on their web stores, Magento 1 is still widely used in the e-commerce field. In this article, we will examine the profiles of Magento 1 and Magento 2 and determine their current market positions.

Study Description

In this study, we performed a comparative analysis of the Magento 1 (M1) and Magento 2 (M2) based web stores by six parameters:

  • Languages;
  • Countries (physical locations);
  • Product types;
  • Average product prices;
  • Average loading times;
  • Average Google PageSpeed Insights results.

All the data for the research was obtained from the representative samples built upon the related M1 and M2 databases. In our study, we used the Pingdom Website Speed Tool for testing the loading time and the Google PageSpeed Insights tool to determine the average desktop and mobile optimization rates.

Study Results

Web Stores by Languages

In terms of language usage, Magento 2 is more diversified than its predecessor. Still, English is the most popular language for both the M1 and M2 stores – 76% and 72% correspondingly.

Diagram 1. M1 and M2 Stores by Languages

Diagram 1. M1 and M2 Stores by Languages

In Spain, the e-commerce activity continues to grow, and for now, the Spanish language is used by 6% of the M1 stores and 4% of the M2 stores accordingly.

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Magento vs. Shopify: Different Profiles of E-commerce
17 Oct, 2017 2 Comments

Magento and Shopify are two powerful platforms working for the needs of the e-commerce market.

Though operating in the same industry, these two solutions were developed in different ways. In this article, we will determine the current market position of each platform and consider their future perspectives.

Magento vs. Shopify: Different Profiles of Ecommerce

Study Description

In our study, we performed a comparative analysis of web stores that run either on the Shopify or Magento e-commerce platforms. All the data was obtained from the according BuiltWith databases.

Our research explores five website parameters:

  • Alexa Top 1 Mln rating positions;
  • The profiles of products in catalogs;
  • Average prices per product types;
  • Countries and languages of the studied stores.

Some of the above parameters are provided by Builtwith as it is, while others are derived from the representative samples built upon the related Magento and Shopify databases.

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Who Leads the Market of E-commerce Platforms in 2017?
27 Sep, 2017 2 Comments

Recently, we made an overview of the e-commerce market to determine the CMS most preferred by online stores in 2017.

Who Leads the E-commerce Market in 2017?
Since our last study conducted in March 2016, many things changed. A number of e-commerce platforms made their way in the leaderboard, however, some solutions lost their positions. So, the current standings are presented below.

Study Description

Our findings are based on the data provided by BuiltWith. This service studies the e-commerce market providing the audience with the latest statistical reports in this field. In our overview, we analyzed the same number of most popular online platforms as in 2016 in order we could compare their achievements for the last year.

First, the study goes through the first 10K BuiltWith listing of e-commerce stores. Then, we analyzed the situation in a more global context – for 100K web stores. And finally, we conducted a general overview of the market that includes the one million pool of web stores presented by BuiltWith.

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Magento 2 Migration is a Beaten Track
20 Dec, 2016 2 Comments

Half a year ago we described some available options to migrate from Magento 1 to Magento 2. They offered a real way to complete the transition and enjoy the advantages of better functionality and code provided by Magento 2.

Magento 2 Migration is a Beaten Track

Today we are going to discover the number of Magento 1 stores that found it beneficial to migrate to Magento 2 and how they look and feel now. For the purpose we took a list of Magento stores from Alexa 1 Mln top websites downloaded more than a year ago, back in May 2015 and found out there the stores that currently use Magento 2.

The Profile of Former Magento Stores Migrated to Magento 2

According to our estimations, the share of migrated Magento 2 stores in the whole number of Magento 2 websites contained in Alexa 1 Mln is 36%. These detected stores are currently placed on Magento 2 while in the middle of 2015 they used Magento 1.

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Magento 2 Stores: The First-Year Study
04 Aug, 2016 No Comments

Of course, Magento 2 is far from the product maturity, and in fact it is just getting formed as a standalone product within the market.

But, we are all keen to know everything about those new stores made on Magento 2. How are they? What do they look like? What do they sell? Where are they coming from?… Well, we made some studies and are ready to present you the profile of the first Magento 2 stores below.

Magento 2 Stores: The First-Year Study

Study Description

The study uses the Magento 2 stores data provided by BuiltWith. The data sample value is 1% of all detected Magento 2 stores in operation randomly selected from the pre-filtered M2 stores list.

First Observations

Walking through the list of provided stores we need to notice that it contains a lot of non-operational, purely promotional and sites containing only sample data and default themes. We find it natural as far as many users are just getting acquainted with the platform and we witness their first steps towards the new functionality.

As for other parameters, they are largely similar to Magento 1, but have some naturally grounded differences. Below, we’ll compare two platforms in details and try to explain you, why Magento 2 is cheaper and more english-related.

Magento 2 Stores

By Languages

By languages, Magento 2 is mostly presented in English, in particular it is used in 73% of all investigated stores. According to our previous study, it is more than in Magento 1 EE (71% of all stores) and considerably more than in Magento 1 CE (62%).

 Diagram 1. Magento 2 Stores by LanguagesMagento 2 Stores by Languages

The main reason for that state of things is that we didn’t find any sufficient number of stores in Spain, where Magento 1 is currently pretty popular.

By Countries

We have already mentioned, that Magento 1 is a greatly diversified platform that made a successful leap from the U.S. to Europe and even Asia. Apparently, Magento 2 had no enough time for the same conquest and shows higher concentration in the U.S.

Diagram 2. Magento 2 Stores by Countries

Magento 2 Stores by Countries

The number of detected countries of Magento 2 stores is actually the same or even higher, but they are scarcely represented there, perhaps, except the UK. In Magento 2 we have almost the same enumeration of embraced countries, but their shares are different a bit. For example the Netherlands take a significant share among the early Magento 2 adopters. But, as the platform develops the Dutch share will likely decrease, just because of the population limitations.

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Ecommerce Platforms Comparative Speed Testing
18 May, 2016 6 Comments

Magento performance is a common topic for discussions in different dedicated forums and among end users of the platform. Today we’ll try in to either confirm or debunk the myth that Magento is slower than other ecommerce platforms.

E-platforms Speed Testing

The idea behind the investigation is to compare web site speed tests of four most popular e-commerce platforms, find out the winners and their specific features.

Study Description

This study compares four e-platforms that are already well-known to our readers and most online store owners: Magento, WooCommerce, Shopify, and PrestaShop. In our study we used the Pingdom Website Speed Test tool for testing desktop stores; Mobitest by Akamai for mobile testing and iplocation.net to detect web site domain IP address locations.

In general, we tested 50 random online stores from the Alexa 1 Mln Top websites list in different ways and by multiple parameters, including various test locations, different pages (e.g. main, category, and product pages), desktop and mobile web site versions, domain IP locations, and compared their loading speeds.

The results and our conclusions are presented below.

Speed Test Results

The basic finding we’ve obtained is that the average loading time of a single page is 5.9 seconds. Despite this value is too general to be used for certain purposes it shows the benchmark applicable to ecommerce stores.

Perhaps, it looks pretty slow especially if we refer to the Google recommendations for ecommerce websites asking for 2 seconds and even less. Still, that’s the real state of things. But, as far as the study includes different entrepreneurs, both successful and not, we’d like you to consider this result as the minimum acceptable level.

Still, different pages of the stores have different loading times and funnily enough all the explored platforms show the next same tendency. Main pages show the slowest seconds, while product pages run faster than any other pages. Here are the averages:

  • Main Pages – 7.1 sec.;
  • Category Pages – 5.5 sec.;
  • Product Pages – 4.8 sec.

It’s is true for all the platforms…

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Magento 2 Contributes to the Global Ecommerce Platforms Market
15 Mar, 2016 No Comments

Often, the result of hard and long-term work can be expressed in just several figures. So, we continue to draw the contemporary ecommerce landscape investigating the forces able to bring changes to our everyday online shopping experience.

Many things have happened since our last study and the Magento 2 release was the most significant event, of course. We found many remarkable changes within the e-platforms market reflected both in pace corrections and new statuses. But, the best ever news of our study is that we found Magento 2 stores in the Alexa 1 Million Top web sites list. So, follow us below.

Study Description

Traditionally our findings are resulting from the Alexa 1 Million Top web sites study detecting ecommerce functionality within the research list. Individual platform shares are calculated basing on the whole set of found ecommerce stores taken as 100%.

tipsNote: The obtained results are accurate only under specific conditions of this study.

Study Results

Magento continues to dominate the market and takes 29.1% of the total market share. WooCommerce, as usual, is slightly behind and its chances to lead the race are currently uncertain. The platform’s expansion slows down rapidly and the latest relative growth rate showing is about only 2% compared to almost 10% just 6 months ago.

Diagram 1. Ecommerce Platforms Popularity, March 2016

Ecommerce Platforms Popularity, March 2016

At the same time, Shopify breaks all records and already takes the third position in our study ahead of PrestaShop, which just recently has moved to the fourth place of our “chart”. Shopify demonstrated an amazing spurt with the 17.4% relative market share growth index achieved since our last study.

The Top 5 in our ranking also includes PrestaShop and VirtueMart. PrestaShop stays near Shopify, while VirtueMart is three times smaller than PrestaShop. In fact, the first four platforms take 75.9% of the market in our study.

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2016 Ecommerce Platforms Analysis and Comparative Report
12 Feb, 2016 13 Comments

The market of ecommerce platforms is changing constantly since ecommerce itself develops steadily embracing new branches, areas and stores.

Ecommerce Platforms Market Share Evolution

Some platforms decline while other ones rise, and this fluctuation gradually changes the entire ecommerce environment and transforms the market structure. As far as we have already accumulated a lot of data regarding platform shares dynamics, it allows us to describe the ecommerce platforms market scene and forecast their further evolution.

Diagram 1. Ecommerce Platforms Share Dynamics, %

Ecommerce Platforms Share Dynamics, %

All the graphs on the diagram obviously belong to three main trending tendencies: stable, increasing, and declining shares.

Magento and PrestaShop are relatively stable saving their market shares through the years. WooCommerce and Shopify rise throughout the whole period of study, but WooCommerce slows down gradually and has seemingly exhausted its growth potential. VirtueMart, Zen Cart, and osCommerce decline along the time slightly reducing the deceleration.

tipsAll Platforms
• Magento – stable;
• WooCommerce – slowing down growth;
• PrestaShop – stable;
• Shopify – growing;
• VirtueMart – decreasing;
• Zen Cart – decreasing;
• osCommerce – decreasing.

So, what makes some platforms more successful and what are their main features? We examined TOP 5 ecommerce platforms within the Alexa 1 Millon Top web sites selection and built their profiles by several key attributes. And, their differences are just clear.

Study Description

This study explores Top 5 ecommerce platform based online stores extracted from the Alexa 1 million top web sites list and their particular features.

Randomly chosen from the parent data set the study examines 1% size samples of all detected Shopify, PrestaShop, Magento CE, Magento EE, and WooCommerce online stores. Magento CE and Magento EE are studied separately since their target audience and price models differ greatly.

E-platform Profiles Comparative Analysis

By Languages

Of course, English is the most popular language worldwide and our investigation fully confirms this assumption. Generally, 59% of studied online merchants use English as the main language in their stores. Spanish is in the second place (8%), and then follows French with the 7% share.

Diagram 2. Ecommerce Platforms by Languages

Ecommerce Platforms by Languages

This structure above looks pretty natural, except Persian, perhaps, presenting surprisingly plentiful Iranian online stores. But, if we further analyze the platforms by their languages, we will find a lot of remarkable discoveries.

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Australian Ecommerce: So Far and so Close to Magento
28 Oct, 2015 1 Comment

Australia is one of the most advanced economies worldwide deeply integrated into the global market.

Ecommerce and Magento in Australia

Still, due to the sustainable financial structure, Australia weathered the global financial crisis avoiding any recession and today it is extremely attractive for most international sellers.

Australian Ecommerce Market

In Brief

In 2015, Global Retail Ecommerce Index Australia takes the tenth position on the attractiveness of the ecommerce market ahead of Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, Netherlands, Sweden, etc. (Source: ATKearney).

Australia is going to surpass the $10 billion annual online market volume benchmark in 2015

According to eMarketer, the Australian ecommerce is going to surpass the annual $10 billion market volume benchmark in 2015 rising by 14.4% this year. The ecommerce sales share is going to take 4.5% of total retail sales providing the country with the 13th position among most online sales wedded economies. In 2016, Australians are going to spend $4.500 on online purchases and this spending amount is the highest within the Asia-Pacific region.

Customers

The internet penetration rate in Australia is more than 90% (Source: SPeCommerce), and amid this 73% of users aged 35-44 shop online (Source: Merlin FX). Even so, the overall digital buyer population is comparatively small, actually the smallest one in the Asia-Pacific region, and is made up of about 12.1 million people. (Source: eMarketer)

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Ecommerce Platforms Popularity, October 2015: Top Five Solutions Take Three Quarters of the Market
21 Oct, 2015 10 Comments

The tectonic transformation of Magento we currently witness happens amid the increasing competition inside the ecommerce platforms market. Some of them rise, while the other ones fall, but what is the place of Magento in this lumpy sea?

We all want Magento to broaden its share or at least keep the status quo. So, this October we conduct our next ecommerce platforms popularity study to discover current competition circumstances.

Study Description

As usually, this study takes into consideration the Alexa 1 Million Top web sites pool and picks out cart functionality sites. Taking this bulk of stores for 100% we determine individual shares of the studied ecommerce platforms.

attention_greenThe obtained results are accurate only under specific conditions of this study.

Study Results

The thing that should have happened is that Magento CE now takes the second position among most popular ecommerce platforms. But, together with Magento EE, it is still bigger than WooCommerce.

Diagram 1. Ecommerce Platforms Popularity, October 2015

Ecommerce Platforms Popularity, October 2015

It seems that no one is able to stop WooCommerce expanding its share within the ecommerce platforms market. Just for five month it grew by 2.3% and brought WooCommrce to the leading position in our study.

Frankly speaking, the WooCommerce relative growth rate (= current growth rate related to the previous study share) is reducing from +14% in May 2015 to +9.9% in October 2015, but it is still absolutely amazing considering its current market share.

Magento CE decreased slightly (-0.5% compared to May, 2015) and now takes the second position of the chart below. However, Magento EE shows a steady growth and its RGR (Relative Growth Rate) is +10.8%.

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Chinese Ecommerce Market and the Magento’s Niche Within It
25 Sep, 2015 4 Comments

This article starts our Ecommerce Markets Overview series, where we’ll evaluate most promising local ecommerce markets and consider Magento perspectives within them.

Ecommerce Market in China

Ecommerce Market Volume

Our first destination is China – the biggest and one of the most rapidly growing ecommerce markets in the world. According to eMarketer, online spending in China will reach one trillion dollars in 2018. Compare, the US online retail market will just exceed 500 billion dollars by that year.

Online spending in China will reach one trillion dollars in 2018

Forrester says that this success will be possible including because of the booming extension of mobile applications used for purchasing by Chinese consumers. All dominating local b2c online operators, including Alibaba and JD.com, recently increased their mobile sales rates considerably and surpass the same rates of their US counterparts.

Furthermore, according to Forbes, JD.com have recently partnered with WeChat, the biggest chat service in China with 468 million active users monthly, which will certainly make mobile sales in China even more accessible.

Chinese Ecommerce Market Specifics

The main peculiarity of the Chinese online market is that its astonishing growth doesn’t oppress brick and mortar sales, while just pushes the overall commercial activity. Online sales generate incremental consumption within the national economy and shape a new shopping behavior characterized by the combination of online and offline purchasing paths.

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Magento Future Development (Educated Guess)
15 Jul, 2015 2 Comments

Through the years of the Magento market share investigation, we collected a significant data amount, which is interesting to be interpreted as a trend. We believe that this data is able to explain the way Magento is now going and its farther perspectives.

By 2012 and the start of our studies Magento gained its greatest popularity, according to Google Trends. So, our first blog post on the topic indicated that Magento CE had almost 25% of the market share. Since then, its share fluctuates around this mark rising or descending due to the specific circumstances of each investigation, but didn’t change considerably.

Diagram 1. Magento Market Share Dynamics

Magento Market Share Dynamics

Anyway, the fact remains: Magento takes one quarter of the ecommerce platforms market share for 3 years running. It is great since Magento keeps its leadership in a highly competitive and dynamic market.

Ecommerce Platform Shares Study Retrospection

Let’s see the changes, which accompanied the stability of Magento in this period.

Diagram 2. Top 5 Ecommerce Solutions Market Share Dynamics

Top 5 Ecommerce Solutions Market Share Dynamics

2012

The top five ecommerce platforms by the market share in 2012 were the following: Magento CE, Zen Cart, VirtueMart, osCommerce, PrestaShop. Some of them originate from 90-s and are real veterans in the market at this time. As you can see, all of them are open-source downloadable software.

This year is actually the initial stage of development for WooCommerce, an open-source ecommerce plugin for WordPress. Next three years it will make an incredible spurt and stand on a par with Magento in 2015.

2013

Top five sites are still the same, but the balance changes: Magento, PrestaShop, VirtueMart, Zen Cart; osCommerce. This year Zen Cart loses more than others – 56% of the market share and rolls down to the fourth position, while PrestaShop grows considerably (+25%).

Outside the top five we can also notice some moves, where the Shopify’s growth by 50% forces competitors to turn their heads in its direction.

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Magento vs. WooCommerce: Do They Have Any Reason for Competition
30 Jun, 2015 No Comments

The ecommerce software market is changing drastically clashing and stirring leaders and newcomers. Some platforms make tremendous spurts and leave us behind guessing, if it is just an accidental happening or rising of the new star.

Magento vs. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is that black horse, which made us stand still in wonder, but really curious, if it has anything to do with ecommerce or more about blogging. In this post we’ll try to find out the differences of stores made on Magento and WooCommerce and their characteristics as possible competitors.

Study Description

This study explores Magento and WooCommerce based online stores extracted from the Alexa 1 million top web sites list and their particular features. It reveals the differences of the mentioned above site groups by languages, countries, ecommerce functionality, and commercial branches.

Randomly chosen from the parent population the study examines 1% size samples or about 300 web sites based on Magento CE, Magento EE, and WooCommerce. Magento CE and Magento EE are studied separately since their target audience and price models differ greatly, what makes their stores different, as a result.

attention_greenWe’d like to remind you that the data and analysis results are solely collected and interpreted by aheadWorks and can’t be considered beyond the context of this study.

The Study

Alexa Rankings

One of the most discussed topics within the Magento vs. WooCommerce dispute are their web site rankings and other measurements. Using Alexa ranks we’ve found, who is better and to what extent.

Diagram 1. Stores within 100 K Intervals of the Alexa Top 1 Mln Rating, %

Stores within 100 K Intervals of the Alexa Top 1 Mln Rating, %

WooCommercу is really less successful and mostly takes positions from 700 thousand to 1 million. Magento CE is mostly equally spread along the chart positions, while Magento EE is largely situated within the 100-400 thousand positions range. However, on the average Magento CE and Magento EE are not so dramatically different with the 565 241 and 535 475 average positions, while WooCommerce takes only the 727 164th average place.

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Ecommerce Platforms Popularity, May 2015: Two Platforms Take Half
25 May, 2015 9 Comments

Currently Magento undergoes multiple changes that modify the platform and ecommerce in general since Magento is its biggest and most influential participant.

In our opinion, most changes are positive, but how do they influence the main success indicator – popularity? The answer is in our traditional study examining the popularity of main ecommerce platforms.

Study Description

The Study explores Alexa 1 million Top web sites and checks the number of online stores built on one of thirty ecommerce platforms included into the survey.

attention_greenWe’d like to remind you that the obtained results are accurate only under specific conditions of this study.

Study Results

Starting from small platforms we can say that several of them made real breakthroughs. For example, Shopware and ECShop increased by 80% and 69% accordingly, which are great results even considering their small segments – below 1%.

Big players usually are not able to increase their shares so fast and show smaller achievements, but we know that their growth is the result of tremendous efforts. So, who is the leader?

The results of the study are not surprising, and Magento CE is leading again as usually, but its “unexpected” competitor is booming. +2.9 to the absolute share from 20.8% to 23.7% – that is the result of WooCommerce since our last study in October 2014.

Diagram 1. Ecommerce Platforms Popularity, May 2015

Ecommerce Platforms Popularity, May 2015

While Magento CE almost did not change and decreased by 0.3% from 25.6% till 25.3%.

Presuming the same pace for WooCommerce we can expect a new leader at the end of 2015. But who are the victims for thus young and ambitious newcomer as soon as Magento keeps its share untouched?

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E-commerce Platforms Popularity Study, October 2014
28 Oct, 2014 6 Comments

Our previous Alexa 1 million top sites survey unveiled an unsurpassable leadership of Magento CE among world top e-commerce platforms.

But things change rapidly in this fast-paced and highly competitive market, and Magento itself undergoes significant changes. So, in order to keep abreast of the latest changes and trends we prepared a new edition of the study.

The current research is updated with new platforms, included into the main sample, and delivers a bit different relative data, but the absolute changes, we discovered, clearly explain the main trends.

Study Description

The study supervises Alexa 1 million top sites and detects the stores, which use one of thirty two e-commerce platforms included into the survey. Compared with the previous study, this edition is extended by 12 new platforms, including WooCommerce, Yahoo Stores, Demandware, OXID eShop, etc.

Note: We’d like to remind you that the obtained results are accurate only under specific conditions of this study.

E-commerce Platforms Popularity Study

Magento CE takes the leading position among the examined e-commerce platforms in Alexa 1 million top sites. The nearest competitor WooCommerce is 5% behind the leader, and thus, together these platforms take 46.4% of the market share.

Ecommerce platforms market share

The great insight here is that comparatively different e-commerce solutions have almost the same popularity and market shares. The only difference, worth to be mentioned, is that the sites based on Magento CE have higher positions in the Alexa rank. For example, Alexa Top 100 thousand sites contain 68% more Magento CE sites than WooCommerce ones.

If we continue to exploit the Paretto principle, we’ll discover that top 7 e-commerce platforms, which constitute 22% of the total quantity, hold 76% of the market share.

Due to the added e-commerce platforms to our investigation, the shares declined, compared to previous study, but, excluding WooCommerce, the leaders are still the same: Magento CE, PrestaShop, Shopify, VirtueMart, Magento EE.

However, their progress since the last study differs greatly. Shopify is still the most progressive, just as in the previous study, and grew by 26.5% since April, 2014. While the total number of sites running Magento CE within Alexa 1 Mln increased by 13.5%, and PrestaShop sites – by only 2.8% over the same period. Below you will find the changes in progress of all platforms in comparison to the previous April’s study.

Ecommerce platforms performance

Expectedly, Magento Go and Magento PE are decreasing and take “leading” positions among the most regressing platforms. However, Magento EE is also rather unsuccessful within the past period and performs the 13.7% decrease.

And yet some noteworthy facts: the OpenCart platform increased by 7.4%, while Volusion and osCommerce decreased significantly, by 7% and 12.3% respectively.

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