HAS SHOPIFY GOT A RIVAL IN THE ‘NETO’ NEWCOMER?

While shopping for anything and everything on the net is as commonplace as taking a daily shower these days, selecting an appropriate ecommerce platform for your business continues to challenge with the fast-changing nature of technology and new offerings. You’ll remember some of our past blogs looking at new ecommerce platforms as they come up, well this article follows on by examining ‘the new kid on the block - Neto’ and how it compares to current. popular frontrunner -Shopify.

Before we get into Neto, we consistently remind you to make sure to audit your business first before embarking on making a choice of ecommerce software. Auditing is crucial because the data you

collect will ensure a choice of software that will fit your business and assist in increasing revenue. Additionally, your chosen platform should also offer you the flexibility and scalability needed to succeed with an online store.

NETO
Neto is a new and Australian hosted ecommerce platform for business owners. It is a B2B and multi-channel software package offering a complete solution for retailers including features like order and inventory management and point-of-sale. Focussing on integration, Neto aims to give businesses an easy way to bring all operations together in one central hub.

It is cloud-based, so stock records, contact lists and inventory data can be easily, and automatically updated with changes happening in the here and now. Built to make scaling your ecommerce business stress-free, Neto assists multi-channel vendors to sell to more channels and lessen expenses with back-end automations.

Offering more than just a purchasing/cart checkout function, Neto has been described as more of a complex platform that manages the integration of all processes involved in running an ecommerce business. It is also purpose-built to fulfil the needs of small-to-medium and multi-channel online retailers. Reasonably-priced and easy to configure, Neto is certainly making its mark in the competitive ecommerce platform market.

A SHOPIFY REFRESHER
Currently, Shopify is globally the most popular ecommerce platform, having grown and made the top by having over one million stores use its program since its launch in 2004.

This platform is an excellent choice for beginners, as you don’t need any experience in coding or website design. As such, you can get started quickly, not having to worry about tricky development/building and configuring processes and be able to simply focus on running your ecommerce business. With Shopify, you can launch an online store in about an hour by using its drag-and-drop website builder tool and the many themes and design templates. For advanced features, you can download third-party plugins to improve sales performance and content marketing functionalities.

THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN SELECTING AN ECOMMERCE PLATFORM
In short you need to look at the following areas when you are auditing /researching before purchasing the most appropriate platform to fit your business.

• Overall business operations all areas (shipping, purchasing and so forth)
• Finance
• Customer profile/needs/marketing
• Future business pathways/targets
• Costs
  
  

For more of a deep look at these points to be ticked off before going in and purchasing the right provider click here and read our blog.

NETO V SHOPIFY
Here is a summary of the points where we can see clear differences between the two programs.

Costs – Shopify comes out A$50 cheaper, at A$29 for a basic plan’s monthly costs, compared to Neto. However, if your plan gets comprehensive and savings are made by choosing Neto, don’t forget it incurs extra fees for Amazon business.

Size – Neto is fairly new so now it is servicing around 3,000 businesses, while as previously mentioned Shopify is king with more than one million ecommerce businesses under its belt. With that many clients, serious expertise is required.

Overall store functionality – Shopify is known for its simple and easy to use program while Neto’s system tends to be thorny and harder to use in general.

Shipping – Shopify has a bigger reach here offering vendors in approximately 175 countries, while Neto offers in Australia, some parts of Asia and currently one other global partner.

Payment options – Neto offers ninety less providers than Shopify, at ten and one hundred, respectively.

Changes to ordering product – Neto is more flexible in this area because it offers order changes through its main platform whereas revisions can only be actioned through an app integration within Shopify.

Store themes – Shopify is forever growing and at present it offers more than one hundred themes compared to Neto’s 40 themes.

Customising to suit needs – Through Shopify, source codes themes can be edited via HTML, however Neto is more complex and demands sound tech knowledge or specialised developers.

Apps – Neto has approximately ninety and Shopify offers thousands.

Customer support – 24/7 fast responding customer service people to help with Shopify while Neto can only assist through slower email and phone options.

For more in-depth analysis on the above comparisons click here to read Hope Factory’s blog.

FOR DIFFERENT SIZED BUSINESSES WHICH IS BETTER – NETO OR SHOPIFY?

Smaller brands

For brands that are on the smaller but growing side of things, Neto’s simple shipping integration and rewards program feature can be useful. However, Shopify’s ability to cater for business growth with multi-channel capacity and its global reach gives this platform the upper hand to be able to meet the needs of online businesses who aspires to keep growing. Additionally, the way Neto has a limit to product listings, the number of annual sales you are allowed can hinder business expansion.

Currently, the Basic Shopify plan costs $29, and with the addition paid apps, the monthly bill can go up to $75 compared with Neto’s same bill totalling approximately $109. So, with all the additional apps and the flexibility this produces when important and big sale days like Boxing Day or Black Friday happen, ecommercers can feel safe with the basic Shopify plan because it won’t be in danger of maxing out like it would do using the Neto equivalent plan.

Medium-to-larger businesses
When it comes to customising the final stages of the purchasing/cart journey, Shopify is a winner with a feature called Shopify Scripts. Also, the different apps and third-party solutions that are available within this platform is impressive at more than 1,000. With so many choices, refining and tweaking to improve business online processes is easier, which in turn allows for greater success. Neto can’t yet compete with Shopify offering 90 apps to retailers. While both platforms offer superb packages for these sized businesses, with added choices to improve website frontends and marketing, Shopify remains trumps in this area.

Mega large businesses
Again Shopify is the best option for large online businesses that are heading for big expansion phases because it has a by far a larger reach with more than one million worldwide stores compared to Neto’s 3,000. With that many clients, Shopify’s expertise is unchallenged and because it can manage heavy traffic going to these websites, some of which are huge through mega busy periods such as Black Friday sale time where hundreds upon hundreds of shoppers take to the net with their credit cards. During such peak times, all mega large businesses wish for is that their websites and carts don’t max out and stay consistent and smooth running. Shopify Plus services popular Aussie brands - Koala Furniture and Nude By Nature who remain loyal to this platform.

For a closer look at each pricing plan for both platforms check out these links here and here.

AND THE WINNER IS...
Both Neto and Shopify are excellent ecommerce platforms. However, from research Shopify is clearly the winner when it comes to offering a vast number of unique features producing high functioning and good-looking websites.

When it comes to sale performance, while Neto doesn’t charge for each sale which means that the larger online business could potentially save on sale costs, because their size sometimes requires different features to serve their more complex needs, they would do better by choosing Shopify.

If we had to choose right now between these two platforms, we would go with Shopify because if aiming to expand business fast then Shopify with its flexibility and 24/7 customer support would be able to make such transitions much easier. With a vast number of global online companies including so many truly trusted brands using Shopify, this is testimony enough that Shopify is the one to trust. But to be fair to Neto, it is still a young company with many years ahead. So, perhaps we can revisit this race again in a few years’ time and see if things have changed because we all know that with tech in general there will always be changes and quick ones at that.