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Masifa Bukhari
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Shopify
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9 April, 2024
BigCommerce vs Shopify – Comparison
However, our research indicates that Shopify has a greater market share than BigCommerce, i.e., 22%, while BigCommerce falls far behind with a market share of 7.41%. Hence, it is more widely accepted among top-tier sites. Moreover, many small and medium businesses have rapidly pursued Shopify because of its immense potential.
In this blog, we will do a thorough BigCommerce vs Shopify analysis so you know what they bring to the table. Let’s dive in!
Dashboard and Ease of Use
Shopify’s Dashboard is popular for its simplicity and intuitive interface. It doesn’t require coding knowledge and has an easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor, allowing users to create a professional-looking online store easily. Its set-up wizard is also easier to follow for beginners.
On the other hand, BigCommerce offers advanced features and customization options. Because of its technical nature, it has a steeper learning curve than Shopify. If you’re an experienced user, you’ll see that it offers more control over store design and functionality but has a trickier set-up wizard that takes a little more time to configure the store entirely.
Integration
Shopify offers an extensive range of high-quality third-party plug-ins and apps. It features thousands of applications across different categories to optimize e-commerce store operations, marketing, sales, and customer support. Shopify offers free and paid apps and plug-ins to facilitate business on different scales. It is also strongly integrated with third-party services; social media platforms, shipping carriers, email marketing tools, and accounting software are popular services in the Shopify store.
BigCommerce’s App Store isn’t as extensive as Shopify’s. It offers a limited collection of good-quality free and paid apps and integrations that facilitate marketing, analytics, shipping, and payment gateways. Although their selection might be smaller, it covers the essential functionalities needed to run the store. BigCommerce is integrated with popular services like Google Analytics, Facebook, UPS, USPS, and PayPal.
Customized Design
Shopify offers a wider variety of free and paid themes, including choices, styles, and layouts for different industries. Its theme editor and HTML access enable you to customize your store’s design to match your branding. You can choose the color, font, and other visual elements. If you know coding or are hiring a shopify developer, Shopify’s liquid templating language offers advanced customization options that can truly set you apart.
BigCommerce offers a smaller range of customizable themes and options for the store. The themes are mobile-friendly and optimized for conversions. It also has access to design tools like HTML and Stencil framework, allowing users with advanced coding skills to design a store according to their branding. BigCommerce uses Handlebars as its templating language, which is more complex than Shopify’s Liquid templating language.
Analytics and Reports
Shopify has a built-in dashboard that gives business owners an overview of the store’s performance. It provides figures for sales, orders, conversion rates, and average order value, as well as reports and visualizations to track the store’s performance over a specific time period. You can also generate detailed reports on important KPIs to optimize your business. It also integrates with Google Analytics and uses its tools to perform an in-depth business analysis.
BigCommerce offers an analytics dashboard that provides a detailed store performance overview. It analyzes the KPIs used in business analysis and offers visualizations and reports to monitor and analyze store performance. Moreover, businesses can also create customizable reports to analyze specific aspects of your business. You can generate reports on products, customers, sales, and any other variable of interest and gain valuable insights. BigCommerce is also integrated with Google Analytics and provides advanced analytics features.
Scalability and Performance
Shopify accommodates businesses of all sizes and is a highly scalable platform. To cater to businesses’ diverse needs and budget constraints, it offers different subscription plans, which are discussed in the pricing section below. Businesses can upgrade their plans to accommodate growing business needs as they scale. Shopify has been designed specifically to cater to high-user traffic; hence, it is an excellent platform for consumer preferences. Moreover, Shopify emphasizes performance optimization and provides reliable hosting, a global content delivery network (CDN), and server-side optimization for a smooth shopping experience.
BigCommerce also provides scalability and allows businesses to expand their e-commerce store. It offers subscription standard, plus, and pro subscription plans to cater to businesses of different scales. BigCommerce’s infrastructure is also highly scalable and can handle a large traffic inflow. It emphasizes performance optimization to deliver fast-loading stores. It has a global CDN, advanced caching techniques, and server-side optimization to ensure optimal performance and a smooth shopping experience.
Inventory Management
Shopify is popular for its inventory tracking features. They help businesses use and manage their inventory effectively. Businesses can also organize their products using collections, tags, and categories. These features help track stock levels via notifications and add products and up to 600 variants of each product. Moreover, businesses can also sync their inventory across multiple sales channels to prevent overselling.
BigCommerce also provides comprehensive inventory management tools to help businesses manage their product inventory efficiently. These tools allow businesses to track stock levels, manage product options and variants, set backorders and preorders, and set low stock alerts. BigCommerce also has inventory syncing algorithms that extend to multiple sales channels. Moreover, business owners can also bulk edit and import/export features, helping them change their inventory in bulk.
Performance and Security
Shopify is very secure and provides a secure hosting environment for e-commerce stores. It offers SSL encryption to ensure all customer data is protected. Shopify regularly updates its software and conducts security audits to address vulnerabilities and ensure safety. Moreover, Shopify is PCI DSS Level 1 certified. Hence, all customer payment information is handled securely and per the industry standards. It also has a high level of uptime and reliability for online stores, and its infrastructure is designed to handle high inflow and outflow of traffic to minimize downtime and optimize page load times.
BigCommerce is also big on security and uses different modes to protect online stores and customer information. It offers SSL encryption and regular security updates and sticks to the industry’s best practices to ensure a safe and secure environment. It is PCI DSS Level 1 certified and has a high level of uptime.
See our latest relevant exploration BigCommerce to Shopify Migration
Pricing
When studying BigCommerce vs Shopify pricing, we found that Shopify is much more affordable than BigCommerce.
Shopify offers a wide range of pricing plans to cater to the needs of different businesses. Here are their pricing plans:
| Plan | Yearly | Monthly |
| Basic (For Solo Entrepreneurs) | $19/month | $25/month |
| Shopify (For small teams) | $49/month | $65/month |
| Advanced (As A Business Scales) | $299/month | $399/month |
Shopify offers a 3-day free trial, allowing users to explore the platform and its features.
BigCommerce offers different pricing tiers, as seen below:
| Plan | Yearly | Monthly |
| Standard | $29/month | $39/month |
| Plus | $79/month | $105/month |
| Pro | $299/month | $399/month |
BigCommerce offers a 15-day free trial so you can test its capabilities and determine whether it meets your business requirements.
Cart Recovery
Shopify has a built-in abandoned cart recovery feature that sends email reminders to customers who left items in their shopping carts. You can customize the emails, set up automated sequences, and track metrics to evaluate the success of your campaigns.
BigCommerce offers an abandoned cart saver feature that sends email reminders to customers who have abandoned their carts. You can customize the email content, timing, and incentives. BigCommerce provides reporting and analytics tools to track the performance of your recovery campaigns.
SEO Compatibility
Coming over to BigCommerce vs Shopify SEO, Shopify has well-structured code that offers customizable meta titles, meta descriptions, and URLs so you can rank on search engines. It also has built-in SEO features like customizable headings, sitemaps, and alt tags. Numerous SEO plug-ins and apps enhance its store’s SEO capabilities. Shopify provides advanced keyword optimization, structured data, automated SEO analysis, and schema markup.
BigCommerce offers a well-structured platform that is optimized for search engines. It also offers customizable title tags, meta descriptions, and URLs so you can rank on search engines. BigCommerce also gives you greater control over the structure and keywords in your URL to create keyword-rich URLs that positively impact your SEO strategy. It is also integrated with Google Analytics and Google Search Console, helping you track and analyze your e-commerce store’s performance.
Payment Gateways
Shopify Payments offers its payment solution, which supports over 100 external payment gateways, such as PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.Net. Shopify Payments allows you to accept credit card payments directly on your store, provides a seamless setup process, and offers competitive transaction rates. Transaction fees vary depending on your subscription plan but are waived on advanced plans.
BigCommerce offers payment gateway options, including PayPal, Stripe, Square, and Authorize.Net. It also has built-in payment options like PayPal powered by Braintree, simplifying the payment process. BigCommerce does not charge transaction fees, but payment gateways may have their own fees.
Customer Support
Shopify offers 24/7 customer support through live chat, email, and phone. Their support team can always assist with any technical issues or questions. They also have extensive documentation and guides to help business owners navigate the interface and address problems that the store undergoes. There are step-by-step tutorials, video and image guides, and active representatives that cater to user needs. Merchants also have priority access to customer support services.
BigCommerce also provides 24/7 support to users via live chat, phone, and email. They have a very talented customer support team that addresses any and all inquiries and problems. It also offers a Help Center and guides you on how to navigate the platform and resolve any common and uncommon problems. Depending on your subscription plan, you can access more personalized assistance and strategic guidance.
Multichannel Selling
Shopify seamlessly integrates with different sales channels, including Amazon, eBay, and Etsy. It also supports social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, allowing you to sell directly to these channels. These integrations enable you to manage inventory, product listings, and orders across multiple channels from a single dashboard. Moreover, Shopify offers a strong POS that helps businesses sell their products via physical stores. It helps businesses devise an omnichannel strategy, integrating digital and physical stores. You can also create custom sales channels and synchronize your inventory and orders across these channels.
Big Commerce integrates with different sales channels, enabling you to expand your reach beyond your online store. It is integrated with Amazon, Walmart, and eBay, as well as with social media platforms from Meta for direct selling through these channels. It also offers headless commerce functionality and omnichannel features.
Mobile Responsiveness
Shopify offers mobile-optimized themes for a seamless experience across devices. They have a mobile app for iOS and Android that’s optimized for smaller screens. The app lets you manage inventory, view analytics, and process orders. Shopify’s checkout process is user-friendly for customers using any device.
BigCommerce offers mobile-optimized themes with responsive design principles, ensuring your store adapts well on mobile. The mobile app for iOS and Android allows you to manage your store on the go, including inventory management, order processing, and analytics. The checkout process is optimized for mobile devices, providing a seamless experience for customers.
BigCommerce vs Shopify – Which Platform Should You Choose?
So, is BigCommerce better than Shopify? Or is Shopify better than BigCommerce?
The competition between these platforms is very close. The winner for one business might not be the winner for the other; the winner completely depends on a business’s individual needs.
BigCommerce is the better choice if you want a platform with built-in features without the hassle of installing or paying for them separately and better SEO capabilities. If you run a purely online business looking to grow across multiple channels, BigCommerce is the best choice for your strategic goals.
On the other hand, Shopify is better if you want more control over your website’s aesthetic features, more choice between third-party apps, and multichannel selling to expand your growth.
However, our research found Shopify to be the winner because of its ease of use, sales features, design functionality, and help and support options.
We can help you build a scalable and functional website for your business. See our Shopify Development Service
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Shopify offers a highly scalable solution that lets you sell your products across multiple channels. It is SEO compatible and offers a lower price point for the best of the best features.
As an entrepreneur, you should look for ease of use, integration, functionality, analytics, scalability, inventory management, performance, pricing, SEO compatibility, customer support, payment gateways, and mobile responsiveness.
BigCommerce inherently isn’t free to use. However, it does offer a 15-day trial that lets users test-drive the entire platform and build your site. You don’t even need a credit card when signing up. After your trial, you can choose between its three plans, i.e., standard, plus, and pro.
Masifa is a Content Specialist with a bachelor’s degree in marketing and over three years of experience in content marketing and the IT industry. She is passionate about writing and talking about website and mobile app development, e-commerce, and advancements happening in the IT Industry. She creates engaging and user-centric content to optimize digital experiences for these niches. When she is not creating content, you can find her buried in a good book.