Shopify vs NetSuite, which is the right platform for your ecommerce business? If you’re like most of the business owners we work with, the chances are you’re more familiar with Shopify.
After all, it’s one of the most popular ecommerce platform options around.
However, NetSuite does have some unique benefits to offer if you’re searching for advanced customization options and flexibility.
We experimented with both platforms, and assessed the reviews of other consumers to bring you this complete comparison guide.
Let’s dive in.
Quick Summary: NetSuite or Shopify?
Overall, Shopify is our top pick for a few reasons. It’s easier to use than NetSuite for beginners, and comes with a comprehensive app marketplace, making it simple to extend the functionality of your store.
It’s also a little more affordable overall for new ecommerce companies.
Shopify is better if you…
Want access to a comprehensive omnichannel ecommerce solution, with an easy-to-use backend, and exceptional scalability.
You don’t need any technical knowledge to get started, and the value for money is excellent if you’re on a limited budget.
NetSuite is better if you…
Need a highly customizable platform for ecommerce, with comprehensive NetSuite portfolio integrations, built-in SEO optimization tools, and support for complex product configurations.
NetSuite is a great choice for larger, more advanced business owners.
Shopify vs NetSuite: Quick Comparison
| Netsuite | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | Reasonably straightforward platform with a drag-and-drop builder and excellent themes for beginners. | User-friendly platform with an excellent theme editor, dozens of templates, and step-by-step setup wizards for beginners. |
| Design and themes | Useful, mobile-friendly templates, with options for advanced customizations with code (CSS, HTML, JavaScript) | Huge selection of free and premium templates with fantastic website editing capabilities. |
| Sales features | B2B and B2C sales tools, checkout features, payment processing, POS integrations, and pricing management. | Comprehensive omnichannel sales tools, multinational selling capabilities, POS integrations, and business management features. |
| Plugins and integrations | Integrations with CRM, ERP, and marketing automation tools. | Massive app market with thousands of integrations for all kinds of business tools. |
| Marketing tools and SEO | Basic SEO features, integrations with marketing automation tools, and useful customer insights. | Basic SEO features built into the platform, blogging capabilities, and integrations with a huge variety of marketing tools. |
| Customer support | Personalized support for each user, extensive self-help resources, and fantastic multi-channel service. | Live chat, email, and phone support (in some regions), with a comprehensive knowledge base and access to various guides. |
| Pricing | Custom pricing based on modules, integrations, users, and other factors. | Plans starting at $5 for basic sales functionality, or $39 for comprehensive website building, marketing, and sales tools. |
NetSuite vs Shopify: Ease of Use
The Winner: Shopify is definitely easier to use overall. Although both tools are straightforward, you really don’t need any technical knowledge to get started with Shopify. Plus, there are plenty of excellent templates to help you build an impressive storefront.
While NetSuite and Shopify both attempt to give business owners a straightforward backend experience, Shopify stands out for its intuitiveness.
After testing multiple website builders, we still think Shopify is one of the best solutions overall for beginners.
With Shopify, you can build an ecommerce website in minutes, leveraging pre-built templates and one-click integrations with any additional tools you might need.
It’s particularly convenient to get started with this ecommerce solution if you upload your inventory before experimenting with the design of your store.
Once you’ve created your website and product pages, you can handle everything from order management to shipping calculations in one convenient backend, with minimal effort.
NetSuite takes a similar approach to simplicity as Shopify, with a convenient backend dashboard for managing orders, inventory, and other aspects of your ecommerce company.
However, the SuiteCommerce solution does give you a little more freedom to dive into client-side and server-side JavaScript, making in-depth changes to your store’s functionality.
While this is a good thing for companies looking for extensive customization options, you may find there’s a slightly higher learning curve.
If you want to take advantage of all of NetSuite’s unique features, like APIs, and custom code, you’ll need more technical knowledge.
Design Options and Themes
The Winner: NetSuite gives you more granular control over your site’s appearance, although you will need some coding knowledge. Alternatively, Shopify makes it easier to get started with an attractive and mobile-friendly storefront in minutes.
Both NetSuite and Shopify are extremely impressive when it comes to design and theme options. With NetSuite, you can choose from a variety of pre-built, mobile-optimized themes to form the basis of your storefront.
All of these themes come with access to useful features, like alternative images, saved shopping carts, and product comparison options.
Additionally, NetSuite offers drag-and-drop tools, so non-technical users can update the look and feel of their website, with minimal effort.
Although you will need to dive into code if you want to make more granular changes, it’s not mandatory. You can still build an attractive store to suit a range of business needs without using programming knowledge.
Shopify’s design tools and templates are a little more basic, but excellent for beginners. There are more than 100 user-friendly templates to choose from, designed for small businesses and large companies alike.
The theme you choose will determine which features you can access for your Shopify store, but you can always build out with third-party apps.
Shopify also allows you to create custom templates and themes for your store. However, this does require some technical knowledge, and an understanding of Liquid code.
While Shopify’s site editor is great for beginners, it’s not quite as intuitive as what you’ll get from NetSuite.
Sales and Ecommerce Tools
The Winner: We prefer Shopify for it’s simple approach to omnichannel selling and international sales.
Though you can access comprehensive ecommerce tools with both platforms, Shopify’s solutions are far more accessible to beginners.
Shopify and NetSuite SuiteCommerce both give business leaders all the tools they need to sell a range of products online.
Shopify is one of our favorite omnichannel sales platforms. With this solution, you can sell physical and digital products through your own storefront, marketplace integrations, and even social media channels, without complexity.
Shopify’s built-in payment processors and checkout are some of the best in the business, supporting all kinds of payment methods.
You can also add your own payment processing systems to your Shopify stack, although this can incur extra fees.
What’s more, if you want to move your sales channels offline, you can access Shopify’s own POS tools to sell to customers in-person.
Shopify even offers a huge range of business management tools, from Shopify Shipping and Fulfillment solutions, to Flow for automations, vat and tax management, order, and inventory management, and more.
NetSuite supports both B2C and B2B ecommerce, with all the tools you need to run your online store. You can access real-time inventory data, track invoices, billing, and pricing structures, and even assign specific user accounts to each of your team members.
There are tools for B2B payment processing, like ACH processing, as well as solutions to help you protect your digital products and content.
NetSuite’s checkout is fantastic, with options for all kinds of payment methods, as well as PCI DSS compliance and multi-level fraud protection.
Plus, you can leverage customer data on NetSuite to intelligently recommend items to customers.
The integrations with other Oracle NetSuite tools, such as NetSuite ERP are great for companies with more complex business management and supply chain needs.
You can also leverage other cloud-based ERP systems through connector integrations.
Plugins and Integrations
The Winner: Shopify has a wider range of integrations and add-ons to choose from in its robust app marketplace. However, both tools have excellent levels of flexibility.
If you’re looking for an opportunity to connect all of your backend tools and software in one environment, Shopify is definitely the option for you. NetSuite does have some integration options and API access, however, there are some limitations.
You can connect easily to CRM tools, marketing automation software like HubSpot and Marketo, and ERPs like Oracle and SAP.
Alternatively, Shopify users can access thousands of integrations and apps on the Shopify app marketplace. There are options for virtually every business need, whether you’re looking for dropshipping tools, marketing, accounting, or data analysis solutions.
Additionally, Shopify automatically integrates with Shopify POS, as well as social media channels, and marketplaces like Amazon and Ebay, for omnichannel selling.
Marketing Tools and SEO
The Winner: We chose Shopify as the winner here because it offers more plugins for marketing and promotion through its app store.
When it comes to marketing, both NetSuite and Shopify have a range of options to choose from. For SEO purposes, both platforms are designed to be search-engine friendly. You can customize your meta tags and links, as well as creating Schema.org markups and site maps.
Both solutions come with fast-loading and mobile-friendly templates too, which improve your chances of offering an excellent customer experience and keeping consumers on your site.
Additionally, both tools can integrate with marketing automation solutions for email, social media, and beyond. What gives Shopify an edge here is the wider range of integrations you can use to elevate brand awareness, and increase potential sales.
Shopify has tons of excellent tools (some free and some paid) it can connect with to help you create personalized marketing campaigns or improve your social presence.
You can also use tools like Shopify Inbox to create basic marketing campaigns.
Both solutions do come with excellent tools for tracking customer profiles and segments too. However, NetSuite has a slight edge here thanks to its deep integrations with CRM technologies.
While there are a lot of overlapping features here, Shopify does make it a lot easier to get started with comprehensive marketing campaigns.
Additionally, Shopify automatically integrates with a range of social media platforms, making it easier to use tracking pixels for attribution, and manage your social campaigns in one place. Plus, there’s an excellent tool for live chat if you need help supporting your customers.
Customer Support and Service
The Winner: NetSuite has a slight edge in terms of customer support and resources. It can provide 24/7 service to all companies, as well as personalized support and onboarding solutions.
If you’re looking for extensive customer support and resources to help launch your business, both Shopify and NetSuite are excellent choices.
We were particularly impressed by NetSuite’s approach to customer support, which combines personalized onboarding and assistance, with online documentation, training sessions, and a comprehensive developer community.
The guides, blogs, webinars, and other resources on NetSuite’s website are fantastic. Plus, there are plenty of ways to reach out to the team through chat, email, and even on the phone.
Shopify also has an excellent range of online resources, including guides, videos, FAQs, business related blog articles, and more.
You can expect step-by-step guides on everything from CSS and HTML editing, to page creation and designing automated workflows.
Shopify also offers 24/7 support over live chat, social media, and the phone (in some regions). Plus, there are some great community forums, and a setup wizard to guide you through the initial steps of creating your store.
However, according to user reviews, Shopify isn’t always as responsive as it could be to consumers on certain plans.
The Pricing Plans
The Winner: Shopify offers more transparent pricing, as well as excellent fees for beginners. Although it’s more expensive than some alternatives, we think it’s great value for money.
Comparing the pricing options for NetSuite and Shopify is a little complex, as NetSuite doesn’t include comprehensive insights into its pricing options on its website.
Instead, you’ll need to reach out to the team and get a custom quote, based on various factors.
The price you’ll pay will depend on the number of users and modules you need, implementation fees, additional charges for training and data migration, and more. SuiteCommerce advanced customizations also come with additional costs.
Shopify pricing is a little easier to understand. There’s a free trial for beginners, and a “Starter” package for $5 per month (with 5% transaction fees).
Notably, however, you can’t build a website on the Starter plan. Instead, you can sell through messaging apps and social media platforms.
Other plans include:
- Basic Shopify: $39 per month with all the store building and marketing tools you’ll need, 1,000 inventory locations, 2 staff accounts and basic reports.
- Shopify: $105 per month with all the Basic plan features, as well as additional sales channels, 5 staff accounts, and advanced reports.
- Advanced Shopify: $399 per month for all the features of Shopify, plus 15 staff accounts, and custom reports.
- Shopify Plus: $2000+ per month for all of the Advanced plan features, plus more customizations, integrations, and expert support.
Notably, there are transaction fees to consider on Shopify’s plans, so you’ll need to take those into account when planning your budget.
Integrating Shopify to NetSuite
Notably, if you want to leverage all of the features of NetSuite for ERP and supply chain management, and build a store with Shopify, you can have the best of both worlds.
Oracle offers a “Connector” option, which combines the two platforms together.
You’ll need to download the Shopify Connector for NetSuite, which can sometimes mean contacting your account manager.
However, once you have your connector, you can link your store with a couple of clicks, using the “Settings” page in your NetSuite admin portal.
Once you’ve entered the name of your shop and your URL, you’ll be directed to the Shopify website, where you’ll receive step-by-step instructions on how to complete the connection.
Notably, you can also access NetSuite integrations on the Shopify app store, which will allow you to add ERP features and other tools to your Shopify account with a couple of clicks.
Which Platform Should You Choose?
Ultimately, we’d recommend Shopify over NetSuite for a few reasons. While NetSuite is excellent for advanced and larger businesses in need of extensive customization, it can be complex for beginners. Shopify gives you all the tools you need for an omnichannel sales experience with minimal effort.
With Shopify, you can build an attractive website, sell through multiple channels, and manage every aspect of your business in a convenient backend without technical knowledge.
Plus, there are a lot more integrations available for extensibility purposes.
FAQ
Yes, the NetSuite Connector can access Shopify through various API calls. There’s also the option to add NetSuite functionality to your Shopify store using one of the third-party apps in the Shopify app marketplace.
Yes, NetSuite supports ecommerce and point of sale solutions for both B2B and B2C companies. These tools are excellent for larger businesses in search of advanced customization options and comprehensive solutions for supply chain management.
Compared to Shopify, NetSuite can be a much more expensive investment, with extra fees for all the licenses, modules, and customization support you need. The pricing varies depending on the number of users you have, as well as various other factors.
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