Agilysys InfoGenesis vs. Shopify

The terminals themselves don't seem to be well designed and have the appearance of being put together with off-the-shelf components. Hiding cables can be challenging. The design is slim and svelte enough, but it has the appearance of being more fragile (although it doesn't appear be particularly so). These terminals are best when left in a single location, at least in our implementation as switching revenue centers requires IT involvement.

Incentivized

Shopify allowed us to handle matrix items and combined listings. Both of which we could not do on our previous platform. There was some customization involved but overall, it did what we needed it to. The one downside was that if we want to change anything we would have to reload the entire set of matrix items manually.

Incentivized

• Screen layout/design for various outlets is pretty good and also flexible.
• There are several modules that interact with the platform, making integration easier.
• Stability in the environment is very good and we have very little downtime with the terminals.
• Management of multiple outlets is excellent and there are a lot of options.
• Add-on/value add features are robust.

Incentivized

• It's base security and integration with trusted security partners (such as NoFraud) is a game-changer when it comes to reliability and a "hands off approach" for our IT department. The up-time is also very good.
• It offers a wide range of verified plugins that are (for the most part) easy to install and use for any specific scenario you're looking for.
• It's Analytics area in the admin is actually nice and offers a wide variety of reports that you can run.

Incentivized

• Integration with rGuest Seat is terrible, and it's a companion product. This definitely never lived up to its promise.
• The boot process for the terminals is long and ridiculously unprofessional looking. There are some sloppy defaults for the boot process and the initial setup is needlessly complicated.
• Shift management is confusing for staff, particularly when signing out at the end of a shift. Would like to see more work on this area.

Incentivized

• I would love it if Shopify built an in house app which helped us post UGCs and social proof from platforms such as Instagram, Youtube etc. more seamlessly on our website. Right now, we are able to do it through third party apps but the look and feel is just okay.

Incentivized

Nothing we have used in the past or have seen thus far even comes close to offering what we get with Shopify Plus, especially for the price. You cannot even come close to getting what we are getting at the price we pay. We are beyond thrilled and Shopify Plus meets and exceeds all of our needs and expectations. We love it!

Incentivized

It is fairly easy to use Shopify regardless of what task you are attempting to perform. Most things are customizable to a degree without requiring coding ability. I have very limited coding experience and have still been able to navigate my way around changing features of the website that require edits to the code with the use of AI and trial-and-error. This previously wasn't possible with the WooCommerce platform.

Incentivized

Shopify support is always available when you need them.

Incentivized

Shopify website speed is quite impressive. Even if we integrate couple apps, it does not hamper the site speed.

Incentivized

Support is hit or miss with this platform. If you get a tech that knows the system, the experience is excellent. There have been more instances of escalated tickets going unanswered, which I deem unacceptable. Even if the answer is "I don't know" or "we can't do that" I expect an answer. Contrast this with VMware, who will file a bug report if they can't resolve the immediate issue and then will follow up with you. When it comes to IG support, I don't have confidence that they'll pursue a concern very far and they've been lax with follow-up

Incentivized

In terms of support I give Shopify a 9 out of 10 because they're always very friendly and thorough, and they personally can't solve my problem for me they always point me in the proper direction with the proper information I need to move forward

Incentivized

Shopify offered us several trainings to setup a Shopify store, how to build a brand, SEO, product photography etc. All this content have been super helpful in our journey.

Incentivized

Just start now and make the switch, the sooner the better. You will love it and it is really a simple process

Incentivized

InfoGenesis had a great implementation team and worked with us closely on the rollout to ensure minimal disruption. Micros terminals had better design overall and looked like they'd have lasted for 100 years, but Oracle was not fun to work with. IG's reporting options have made our Finance people happy as well. We were concerned with multiple integrations on the platform it replaced, but all of these turned out to be non-issues and we were able to work with IG staff to get what we wanted out of it. I'd prefer the hardware to be thought out more thoroughly, as it's weak in appearance by comparison despite being very usable.

Incentivized

Big Commerce and SAP Hybris are two other platforms we've investigated and Shopify is by far easiest to use and customize. While it doesn't do everything out of the box, the apps do fill in many gaps. The cost however, is probably the biggest selling point against these other two options.

Incentivized

Shopify has basic to high-end plans. The plans grow with the brand`s growth and I love that about Shopify.

Incentivized

• Our previous platform required more than occasional love and care and was hard to develop solutions for. InfoGenesis terminals don't have a lot of trouble in operation, which leads to more uptime and happy customers.
• I previously mentioned rGuest Seat integration. We never got this to work as promised and got different answers from different resources when asked the same question.
• Server sprawl began almost immediately. We went from a two server design to five in the end and still have occasional problems with kitchen printers.

Incentivized

• It got the store up quickly so the client could start selling. She was previously selling products on Etsy and Facebook and wanted to consolidate everything onto one website, so the main thing Shopify solved was to reduce the store owner's time in managing all her products on multiple sites. Also, we had previously built a website on Wix with all the custom functionality and branding she needed - a truly great, high-end website - but it performed so slowly that it was unusable. So the speed at which Shopify can be set up and then works on the page is appreciable.
• The website was manageable by the client - she could figure the system out herself after a while so she saved money on costs for hiring developers. She did have to hire developers to customize some of the plug-ins but costs are all relative; it wasn't a high investment compared to building a full e-commerce website. With the complexity and size of her product base and the functionality and branding she wanted to have in a website, and the potential of her business, she would have needed to invest well over $10,000 to get to where she really needs to be. In the end she kept the budget under $5000.00.
• Costs kept climbing with plug-ins having to be added with everything. My client became more involved in building the website and began to try multiple plugins, and she did not have the skill base to evaluate the plugins functionalities so she chose plugins that did not do everything she needed, and then ended up paying the plugin developers to customize the plugins. So on one hand, it's pretty amazing to be able to bring up an e-commerce website as quickly as a week or so, but on the other hand if you need anything customized or deeper functionality in regards to product searching and filtering on the web page, and management on the backend, it quickly goes beyond the skills of the average person to manage, and above their expected budget as well. In the end my client really did not get anything close to the functionality for the website we had originally envisioned.
• Shopify was the easiest way we could find to bring the client's products to a global market. We evaluated several other platforms and the functionality simple did not seem to be adequate, so Shopify seemed like the only solution that could do enough of what we needed and still stay within this client's budget. Really the problem in this project was not platform per se but that the budget wasn't large enough. Shopify managed to provide a solution for an ecommerce store with thousands of products on a tiny budget, so in the sense of pure functionality it provided the best value of all the platforms we evaluated. The solution still isn't big enough for this client's business though so, without having insights into this client's post-build sales results, my guess is that because her new website did not make her products easier to sort through, and she likely didn't have much more budget left to invest in SEO and other marketing of the website, her sales probably didn't increase substantially as a result of having built the website. So I think this project all in all did not likely have a high ROI.

Incentivized