It is undeniable that both Shopify and BigCommerce are the market leaders in the eCommerce industry. Both the platforms have pros and cons and have functionalities to support your online business growth. We have performed extensive research on both of these platforms in terms of various features and compared them to find out which is the best platform for your business goals.
Pricing Details
Pricing is the primary factor to consider while picking the right platform for your eCommerce business. There are different pricing plans offered by both BigCommerce and Shopify platforms, varying from basic to Pro plans. Each plan offers certain functionalities increasing with the plan. The basic plan is enough to offer you the standard basic functionalities. If you need an online store with complete functionalities, go for the pro plan.
BigCommerce Pricing Plans
- Standard Plan: $29.95
- Plus Plan: $79.95
- Pro Plan: $299.95
Shopify Pricing Plans
- Basic Shopify Plan: $29.00
- Shopify Plan: $79.00
- Shopify Advanced Plan: $299.00
Ease of use
Providing better usability for the customers is what every eCommerce business owner should target while making a store or website. It represents the easiness to interact with your site. If a user can't find a product on your site, he can't purchase it. A disappointed customer may right away leave your site and never visit again. Optimizing your shop or website based on a user-centric approach results in higher conversion rates.
BigCommece consists of powerful in-built features to provide a greater level of customization to its customers. Thus, it is a little complex for beginners and includes technical terms that need searching to understand the terminology.
Whereas you don’t have to be a Shopify expert to launch the store or make changes anytime. It is highly praised by users for its user-friendly editor. Everything is already available on the platform. Pick up the options from the menu and follow the instructions to set up your store.
Scalability
Any business which solves a problem continues to grow each year expanding its customers and widening its operations. It should be able to handle these without affecting the quality of the product/service being delivered. Thus as a business owner, you need to pick a platform that prepares for the scalability of your business and supports its growth.
BigCommerce contains over 1000 apps from categories like Accounting & Tax, Checkout, Payments, etc to help your business seamlessly perform its operations. The platform has all the in-built features for a business to succeed without any help from third-party applications. It makes the platform the most scalable one in the eCommerce market.
Shopify also has 4000+ applications making it the biggest app store in the eCommerce market. It is easy to navigate and lets you explore different categories for shipping, delivery, and marketing purposes.
Extensions
When you want to manage sales, apply advanced marketing techniques, or process bulk orders, extensions are the one to go for. The extensions add new functionalities and make your website unique and more good-looking.
While both of the platforms already have enough features to help you sell better, adding extensions still promotes usability. The app store at Shopify contains over 500 applications developed at Shopify and other third-party applications. Most of the extensions are available for free whereas premium ones can cost $15-$150 monthly. Similarly, both free and paid apps are available in the BigCommerce App store ranging from $20-$50 per month.
Point of Sale (POS)
This extension is required when you want to process offline transactions. Both Shopify and BigCommerce platforms are mobile-friendly. Anyone can implement facilities like Barcode scanners, receipt printers, label printers, etc using these platforms in the physical stores.
In BigCommerce, if you want to use a POS solution, you should integrate the hardware with the third-party platforms whereas no such arrangement is necessary for POS with Shopify. All the hardware solutions are available in Shopify itself. But, in case you want to make the most of Shopify POS, you need to pay $89 per month and purchase the extension.
Payment Gateways
A payment gateway lets you transact money with the client. The customers can securely transfer money to the merchant by entering credit/ debit card details. Both BigCommerce and Shopify platforms integrate with most of the popular payment gateways. However, Shopify comes with its built-in payment processors whereas BigCommerce needs integration with the third-party apps to perform payments.
Shopify Platform has an in-built payment processor that sends the customer’s money directly to the sellers after making a purchase. It ensures a smooth and secure transaction between the buyers and sellers on the platform. Additionally, there is no extra transaction fee or any hidden fees. The fraud analysis feature alerts you if any suspicious activity is detected.
In the case of BigCommerce, there is no in-built payment processor. Thus, you should integrate with third-party applications to transact money. It comes with 65 pre-integrated gateways that are mobile optimized without any transaction fee and PCI compliant.
Customer Support
Customer Support is how online businesses assist their customers from making purchase decisions to addressing their problems. Irrespective of what you choose between Shopify and BigCommerce, you get support options like 24/7 phone support, email or live chat, video tutorials, a help center, etc.
On BigCommerce, you will get a 10-minute appointment call as soon as you sign up for a free trial. You can discuss your business objectives or express your doubts and queries with the officials. It helps them understand your business better and provides useful suggestions. When you choose the Enterprise-level plan, you will get top priority services like onboarding consultations and phone calls from the executive officials.
However, the Shopify help center is more clearer and sorted than the BIgCommerce help center. Unlike Bigcommerce, Shopify offers support through social media also. Once you request help on the Shopify editor, you are redirected to the corresponding page in the Shopify Knowledge center. As things are well defined in Shopify, you can get help from the available options or fill out the form.
Design
Beautiful designs and attractive themes are what put the customers toward your site. There are numerous Bigcommerce themes sorted by industry, layout, and price. The free themes may look outdated and not very useful for growing your business over the long term. When your business needs rebranding, pick from the paid themes ranging from $150 to $300.
Whereas Shopify themes cover a wide range of industries varying from $100 to $180. You can search via layout, store size, industry, navigation style, etc. Irrespective of free and paid themes, they look stylish and professional which allows the greatest level of customization according to your business needs.
Security
As an eCommerce business owner, you should provide a safe and secure environment for your customers to conduct financial transactions and make purchases. When you follow the right security measures, you protect the privacy of your customers and thus gain their trust. Both BigCommerce and Shopify are top platforms in terms of data security and privacy.
Bigcommerce enables multiple layers of security for all the websites they host. Each server is PCI DSS certified at level 1 to prevent credit card breaches. SSL certification is provided by a trusted third party for your domain. The platform also includes additional security measures like perimeter and server-specific firewalls, 24/7 human monitoring, file integrity scanners, protection from fraudulent and illegitimate activities, etc. It takes measures to secure your web page and keep all the information exchanged between a user and the site private. Whereas Shopify has all of its stores PCI compliant by default to secure your business and customers. The SSL certification encrypts your site’s content and safely publishes it using HTTPS instead of HTTP.
When to Use Shopify and BigCommerce?
Shopify is highly suitable for operating large businesses with complex inventory. You should prefer Shopify when you want more control over your website features and need more options between third-party applications. You should use BigCommerce when you want to run an online business with omnichannel growth. More design functionality is available to utilize for your store branding.
Now that we have provided you with enough details about the two platforms, pick the one that suits your business objectives in the best ways.