How to Identify What Ecommerce Platform a Website Uses

Identifying the ecommerce platform behind an online store is one of the most common technology detection tasks. Whether you are a developer evaluating technology options, a sales professional qualifying leads, or an agency prospecting for new clients, knowing whether a store runs on Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, or another platform shapes your entire approach.

In this guide we cover the most reliable detection methods for the major ecommerce platforms, from manual inspection techniques to automated scanning.

Detecting Shopify Stores

Shopify is one of the easiest platforms to identify. Look for these signals in the page source:

• Script and asset URLs served from cdn.shopify.com
• The global JavaScript object Shopify.theme in inline scripts
• A X-ShopId or X-Shopify-Stage HTTP response header
• Cookie names beginning with _shopify_s or _shopify_y

Shopify Plus stores often expose additional headers such as X-Sorting-Hat-ShopId. These signals together give near-100% confidence in the detection.

Detecting WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the leading open-source ecommerce plugin for WordPress. Since it runs on top of WordPress, you will first see standard WordPress fingerprints such as /wp-content/ paths. WooCommerce adds its own layer of signals:

• Asset paths containing /wp-content/plugins/woocommerce/
• Body CSS classes including woocommerce and woocommerce-page
• JavaScript globals like wc_add_to_cart_params and woocommerce_params
• Cart and checkout pages with WooCommerce-specific markup

Magento, BigCommerce, and Others

Magento sites typically expose Mage.Cookies in inline JavaScript and serve assets from /static/frontend/ or /pub/static/. The X-Magento-Vary cookie is another reliable indicator. BigCommerce stores load resources from bigcommerce.com CDN domains and often include data-content-region attributes in the HTML.

Other platforms like PrestaShop, OpenCart, and Squarespace Commerce each have their own unique patterns. PrestaShop includes a prestashop CSS class on the body, OpenCart exposes /index.php?route= URL patterns, and Squarespace Commerce is identified by the same Squarespace HTML attributes used across all their sites.

Automated Ecommerce Detection with WhatStack

Checking all these signals manually is tedious, especially when you need to classify hundreds of stores. WhatStack automates the entire process. Enter any store URL and receive a complete technology profile that includes the ecommerce platform, payment gateways, analytics tools, CDN, and every other technology in the stack.

For sales teams, this means you can instantly qualify whether a prospect uses the platform you target. For agencies, it means faster audits and more accurate proposals. Browse our technology directory to see all the ecommerce platforms we detect, or try scanning a store right now with the WhatStack scanner.