Mozello vs. Shopify - which is best suited for your business?

Bruno Veberis
Mozello vs. Shopify - which is best suited for your business?

One of the first steps of building a successful online business is choosing the right ecommerce platform. For better or worse, you're spoilt for choice between Mozello, Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix, BigCommerce, Squarespace, and countless other online store builders.

Choosing one can be a scary decision to make. You will invest a lot of time and resources in creating your store. Discovering that you've made the wrong choice and have to start all over again on a different platform is something that has killed countless businesses before they even saw the light of day.

There is no single “best” platform. Each one offers different features, as well as varies in pricing and complexity. It can be difficult to navigate all the offerings, especially if it's your first time building an online store.

We're here to help – in this article, we'll list 7 things you need to consider when choosing an ecommerce platform and compare Mozello with Shopify as an example.

1. How involved do you want to be in the technical aspects?

If you're building the online store yourself, the platform's complexity is one of the first things you should consider. Though most modern ecommerce platforms are no-code (meaning you don't need to know a programming language to create your store), some are nonetheless more technical when it comes to setup and maintenance than others.

Those include:

  • Hosting – every domain (aka your www. webaddress .com) has to be purchased somewhere, and it has to be hosted somewhere (which is essentially where your data is stored)
  • Maintenance – you'll have to keep up with renewing domains, paying your payment processor fees, fixing little features that break along the way.
  • Marketing tools – adding features such as popups or setting up email marketing, these all require installation and setup
  • Design – changes in your website layout can require changes in code

You have to first understand how hands-on you want (and can) be when it comes down to the technical setup and maintenance of your website. This will then help ascertain which platform is best for you.

Mozello offers:

  • A platform that's built to be used without requiring any technical skills
  • Built-in marketing tools that require no setup

Shopify offers:

  • An infinitely customizable platform through code
  • Opportunity to integrate from thousands of marketing tools, but must be selected, vetted, and installed

2. If you're building a store – what sort of payment processing options would you like to offer?

For ecommerce stores, payment processing is a mandatory component of your website.

There are many different ways you can accept online payments – from credit card purchases and Paypal transactions to direct bank transfers and custom API integrations.

Based on your market preferences and the sort of services you want to offer, you might be better off choosing different platforms.

While both Shopify and Mozello offer the standard payment options such as Paypal and card payments (through platforms such as Stripe and Braintree), Paysera, they do have distinctions when it comes down to the more niche payment options.

Mozello offers:

  • Card payments via an array of payment gateways (e.g. Stripe, Braintree etc.)
  • Account to Account/wire bank transfers for most major banks in the Nordics and Baltics (Swedbank, SEB, Luminor, LHV, Urbo etc.)
  • Invoice-based payments for anywhere in the world
  • Apple Pay, Google Pay (through payment gateway of your choice)
  • Multiple niche payment providers (Klix, Exactly, Decta, MakeCommerce etc.)
  • API gateways

Shopify offers:

  • Shopify payments (available in only some countries), commission includes a fee to Shopify.
  • No A2A transfers are directly available
  • Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, Meta Pay
  • 100+ niche payment gateways

NB! Different payment processors will have different payment policies. Most will charge some form of commission, regardless of which ecommerce platform you're using. This comes on top of store revenue percentage, so be sure to understand total payments you'd be paying (Shopify charges 2.9% of store revenue, Mozello does not charge based on revenue)

Both Shopify and Mozello make it easy to set up payment processing, however, Mozello offers more freedom when it comes to the choice of payment gateway and selection of popular local Account to Account payment options in many European countries. Make sure to take a look at what is available in your region, and what the requirements are to get it set up and running.

3. How many extra marketing features do you need?

There are two main types of people when it comes to starting a website:

  • The type that want full control over every little detail (and are willing to put in the time, effort, and money)
  • The type that just wants the website to work

If you're type A, then you require a website builder with infinite options. This is most suited for Shopify, which can be altered through the website code, and also has access to the app marketplace with thousands of integrations to meticulously comb through and choose from.

However, if you're type B, then the combination of simplicity and functionality that Mozello offers could be your best bet to get what you want without the overwhelming selection and need to research and build out your ecommerce store marketing stack.

Because at the end of the day, Mozello offers all of the core features you need to run an ecommerce business: adding unlimited products, creating and selling product variants (ex. different colors or sizes), discount codes, selling digital products, selling physical products, shipping integrations, transactional emails, etc.

Pro tip:

Merchants from the EU can integrate the most popular shipping providers (such as DHL, DPD, Omniva, Venipak and more) directly onto their website.

Mozello offers:

  • All of the basics covered with one functional and already built-in option provided at no extra cost
  • Easy-to-use pop up tool for special offers and discount codes
  • Built-in email collection platform
  • Basic SEO requirements are covered without programming
  • Easy-add Google Analytics tool and Facebook Pixel integrations

Shopify offers:

  • 8,000+ tools in the app marketplace
  • Opportunity to customize your marketing stack
  • Most tools incur additional fees and effort to set up
  • SEO may require some coding

4. Website design – do you want to get involved in the code, or do you just need something that works?

When you start building your website, there are a few things to consider when it comes to the design.

  • Do you have a specific vision of what exactly your website will look like?
  • Are you prepared to hire a designer?
  • Are you prepared to hire a programmer to implement a custom design?

If you answered yes to all of the questions above, then Shopify's customizability will lend itself well to your website project.

However, if you're not in a position to sink a ton of resources into creating a design from scratch (and hey, maybe you don't even need to!) then Mozello's easy-to-use design editor that relies on a selection of pre-made templates as a starting point and easy website constructor could be the choice for you.

You can select a design that speaks to you, change the layout by adding different content blocks, select your colorway, fonts, backgrounds, add images, customize overlays, and more. Discover a design and layout that best suits your website's personality, as well as your business identity.

Discover and design the layout in a way that best suits your website's personality, as well as your business identity.

Bonus:

You can change your design theme on Mozello at any time, whereas with Shopify, once you've chosen a theme, you're stuck with it.

5. Do you expect to have access to customer support?

Things don't always go according to plan, particularly when tech with a lot of moving parts is involved. Moreso, not everyone has the necessary skills to comb the internet and troubleshoot technical issues.

This is where access to customer support becomes a critical consideration.

While both platforms have the standard FAQs and support videos, they have differences regarding one-on-one support.

What Mozello offers:

  • Support email is provided
  • Telephone support
  • Friendly (human) support staff are happy to help
  • Responses usually within 24 hrs

What Shopify offers:

  • No support email is listed
  • Chat bot support
  • Responses will take longer and support staff are less likely to immerse themselves into your problem due to high query volume

Worth mentioning:

Mozello is built so that you don't require technical skills to set up a website or maintain it, which even further reduces the need to reach out to customer support.

6. How much starting capital do you have available?

Any website will incur fees, and this is particularly important to small businesses when they're still at a stage when they're just getting started, and perhaps don't have reliable cash flow yet.

In these cases, it's important to understand what your monthly payments for maintaining the website will be. Here are some of the costs that make up running a website:

7. Do you want to make your store available in multiple languages?

The lingua franca of the Ecommerce world has become English, but only 18% of the world speaks English. For the rest of the world, it's reasonable to prefer to shop in your native language. What's more – offering your store's content in people's own languages opens you up to that much more business. In short – if you can offer your store in multiple languages, then you stand to gain a lot in potential sales.

What sets Mozello apart from Shopify and other ecommerce platforms is that Mozello offers multilingual stores by default.
Shopify has a plethora of localization apps that can be installed, but these incur additional steps (and probably additional costs).

Languages can easily be added, and a language selector will be available on your store for your visitor to choose whichever language they prefer.

Take your time and don't hesitate to test various platforms

Perhaps neither Mozello nor Shopify is what you are looking for. That's fine – you have countless options to choose from and now you know what to look for. If possible, test out various platforms before committing, as it'll give you a more intimate understanding if it's the right solution for you. That's why Mozello offers a free version – see for yourself and get a feel for whether we're a match for you!