BigCommerce and Shopify are two of the leading eCommerce platforms capable of creating and managing online stores. There are a few significant differences between the two platforms that can aid in your decision about which is best for you.
To make your selection a bit easier, we’ve curated this BigCommerce vs. Shopify blog post to highlight their significant differences.
Read on to find out the best web builder for e-commerce websites.
Table of Contents
What is BigCommerce?
BigCommerce is one of the fastest-growing eCommerce software market companies. From small businesses opening new online stores to well-known corporations like Toyota, Bliss, and DressUp – the company caters to a wide range of businesses.
What is Shopify?
Shopify, established in 2006, is an all-in-one commerce platform with all the functionalities required for a flourishing company. It manages both the point of sale and eCommerce aspects of the process. You can start over without being an expert.
BigCommerce vs. Shopify: Comparison
There are around 1 Lac Shopify stores, of which 60,000 stores are from Asia, which are supposed to cross $1.5 Billion by the end of the year. On the opposite side, Bigcommerce has approx 50,000 online stores on the web.
While both BigCommerce and Shopify are fantastic in and of themselves, there are significant differences that make one platform more appropriate for particular use cases and user categories. Although some expert assessments claim that Shopify is the best platform, Bigcommerce stands its own ground pretty well.
Let’s go deep into them to know in a better and more elaborated manner:
Pricing
One of the first questions prospective customers ask about BigCommerce vs. Shopify is how much they cost.
Shopify and BigCommerce price levels both offer free trials. They also provide price plans with prices between $29 and $299. However, there are a number of pricing distinctions between Shopify and BigCommerce.
Theme/Design
Shopify offers spectacular and updated themes that technically strong designers design to give them a sophisticated and fresh look. These themes will assist in building the store more appealing. These are undoubtedly beneficial from the business point of view. Against of advantages, there is a disadvantage: the themes are premium, and the cost ranges from $80 to $180. Since it is a one-time investment, it can be worth spending to make the store look attractive. It can be considered a great deal to spice up the visibility and sales to keep the visitors engaged for a longer period.
Bigcommerce provides over 100 themes free of cost; however, once you visit its official site to look at these themes, you will not be able to find any. The strange part is that it does not show any such theme for its potential users. It has 28 new mobile-friendly themes, ranging between $120 to $250, in its updated collection with other paid themes.
eCommerce Tools
Shopify has advanced tools for controlling and producing e-stores, along with all the app store facilities like client speak, product recommendations, and reviews. The paid tools available are free to test for a trial period. This shopping cart has a great feature for payments, i.e., Shopify Payments. It does not require you to enter any separate payment gateway as it offers its gateway to manage the transaction to save time.
Bigcommerce provides a box tool that is available in monthly premium packages. A good collection of advanced tools can be grabbed at an additional price. It is an advantage that Bigcommerce does not require any external App to use the tools.
Support
Shopify has an associate team to support its user 24*7 through emails, live chats, and phones. Since the start, it has provided the best support without any botheration.
Bigcommerce doesn’t fall behind Shopify in this aspect, as it provides support around the clock through the same mediums. Bigcommerce has recently stepped in the 24*7 support to provide a fantastic facility to all its users.
Experts
Shopify is backup by many dedicated technical experts who are sole to handle the user’s queries. Shopify provides the user with the expert who is nearest to them geographically. These experts can be met, and full benefit can be taken of them. These experts can set up your e-store from scratch for the payment of $500.
Bigcommerce has a bit fewer experts for support in comparison to Shopify. The experts do not have fixed quoted amounts, so they can quote freely with their charges for setting up basic services, which makes it difficult for the user to select the best expert.
The Credibility of e-store Builders
Paying Customers: Shopify has more than 1 Lac satisfied and paying customers, whereas Bigcommerece has a count of 50,000+, which is just half of Shopify.
Quantity and Quality of Themes: Shopify is considered best in the quantity and quality of the themes as it offers more than 100 premium and free themes which are updated, modern, and available for the preview without signing up. Whereas Bigcommerce is available with 100+ outdated themes despite the latest paid and free themes. Shopify’s free trial period of Shopify is 14 days, whereas Bigcommerce gives it 15 days.
Marketing
BigCommerce follows a good strategy to advertise your products by contacting clients through email marketing. Recognize that BigCommerce lets you sync your store data with popular email marketing services like NotifyVisitors, MailChimp, G Suite and a few more tools.
The fact that BigCommerce offers capabilities developed to adhere to SEO best practices is another crucial marketing element. This guarantees that all BigCommerce sites have SEO up to par with industry standards.
Shopify email offers you built-in tools to develop strong client interactions. You can choose from various pre-made templates on this platform and use them immediately. Your dashboard allows you to control and evaluate every marketing activity.
Shopify’s SEO promotes on-page optimization by allowing a customized title tag and meta description setting with a simple interface in each product and page editor. Within Shopify, 301-redirects are also simple to set up and are requested automatically if a page’s or product’s URL changes.
Apps & Scalability
BigCommerce has app stores. You can use over 1,000 applications from various categories, including Accounting & Tax, Checkout, Payment & Security, as a BigCommerce user. More importantly, BigCommerce comes equipped with all the capabilities required for your store to succeed without needing other apps. As a result, it is the market’s most scalable eCommerce platform.
Shopify has over 4000 apps, making it the largest app store. You can navigate with ease to select the top new apps, new and noteworthy apps, trending apps, and similar options. If not, you can browse the categories to find more marketing tools, store design tools, and shipping and delivery apps.
Shopify offers Shopify Plus plans for more than 10,000 of the most well-known brands in the world, including Rothy’s, Heinz, and Allbirds, and because of this, the scalability plan is well-designed for both BigCommerce and Shopify.
Payment Gateways
BigCommerce lacks a built-in payment processor, unlike Shopify. Online business owners must integrate their store with a third-party payment gateway to receive payments.
There are 65 pre-integrated payment channels included with BigCommerce, including Amazon Pay, Paypal, Square, and Stripe,… containing more features:
- Zero transaction fees
- PCI Compliance
- Mobile-Optimized
The operation of the BigCommerce payment gateway is illustrated below:
Shopify is the internal payment service provider for Shopify sellers. Every time a purchase is made, Shopify Payment takes the money from the client and transfers it straight to the store owners. Additionally, a fraud analysis is included to look for any questionable activity. Using Shopify Payments, buyers and sellers on the platform can transact quickly, easily, and securely.
Additionally, the following benefits of Shopify Payment may be of interest to you:
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setup and approval in a flash
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complete fusion
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no additional transaction fees, no more costs
Conclusion
If you have any requirements related to Shopify development services, feel free to contact PixelCrayons. Our expert professionals have extensive technical capabilities as they are up to date with all advancements and are always ready to take the challenge from the client to deliver the best solution. You can see our case studies to understand our projects.