Bigcommerce vs Shopify are one of the leading ecommerce platforms in recent years. They’re an amazing solution for businesses which want to start an online store and take part in the eCommerce environment. With the superior features and non stop improvement, Bigcommerce and Shopify want to deliver the best experience for both firms and users. Then it may make you confused when you access it for the first time and don’t know clearly about them. Therefore, we write this blog to give you an overview of the crucial distinction between Bigcommerce vs Shopify in 2022.
A brief overview of Shopify and BigCommerce
First, take a look at Shopify
What is Shopify?
The model working of Shopify is Software as a service (SaaS) or all-in-one commerce platform and operates through a monthly subscription. Because of a cloud-based solution, it makes it easier for you to launch business without taking care of upgrading or maintaining software or web servers. Besides, you only need the internet to connect and manage your business wherever you are. Thanks to the online store themes, you can tailor your online store with the theme and look as you wish.
The pros and cons of Shopify you need to consider
The advantages of Shopify you’ll receive
- You can cut down the design work to do because of the unique theme selections.
- Lots of tools to pick from in a high-quality app store
- With Shopify’s intuitive dashboard, managing your website is a breeze.
The disadvantages of Shopify you can face with
- Scalability choices are limitations because of needing third-party multi-currency apps to get around this.
- If you don’t use Shopify Payments, transaction costs are a problem.
- Whenever you change templates, reformatting your site is necessary.
- The features for blogging aren’t as good as they are served.
- The structure of URLs isn’t great for SEO.
Now, we move to the BigCommerce
What is BigCommerce?
BigCommerce is another ‘software as a service’ (SaaS) solution which you need to pay monthly to use. Because of “hosted” ecommerce solutions, businesses can arrange online stores and sell goods on the web from anywhere.
The pros and cons of BigCommerce
The benefits of Bigcommerce attract you
- There are numerous built-in capabilities for online selling.
- You won’t have to bother about transaction costs, then your revenue can increase.
- There are a lot of good SEO elements that make your rank higher online.
- Scalability is important for businesses who wish to expand quickly online.
- Fantastic ability to market via multiple channels
The disadvantages of Bigcommerce you should consider
- Cutting-edge features have a little bit of a learning curve.
- There isn’t much distinction between the various store themes.
- Shopify’s feature elements are more tailor-made.
After having a good grasp of Bigcommerce vs Shopify, we will give you a key different feature between them
1, Ease of Use
Shopify is more user-friendly than BigCommerce, making it the best option for newcomers. BigCommerce is more impressive, but it’s also more difficult to understand, despite its drag-and-drop builder giving Shopify a run for its money.
Shopify’s User-Friendly Interface
To arrange a shop, a Shopify specialist isn’t necessary; anyone can easily build an online retail store in minutes.
BigCommerce User-Friendliness
On the other hand, BigCommerce is less suitable for beginners due to its usage of a variety of technical jargon. When completing basic actions like adding a product, you may need to find some of the precise phrases to comprehend all of the terminology. BigCommerce is a stronger platform to handle due to the technological burden, but this is due to its rich in-built capabilities, which provide you with a finer level of customization.
2, Themes
Theme Stores
Instead of having 191 themes in the BigCommerce Theme Marketplace, lots of them are variations of the same theme. Furthermore, in many situations, these variances are only a minor color palette differences (e.g. Vault Bright, Vault Cool, Vault Natural), with everything else remaining the same! In truth, the BigCommerce Theme Marketplace has considerably fewer than 191 themes to choose from.
In contrast, with only 93 themes, any variations do not consist of that number. The number would be significantly larger if Shopify checked each variant as an independent theme (like BigCommerce does). With Shopify, the variations of each theme are much more different. Often, each variant appears to be a completely separate theme (e.g. Minimal Vintage, Minimal Fashion, Minimal Modern).
More than 70 themes are available on Shopify, with prices ranging from $150 to $350. BigCommerce offers 150 themes, with prices ranging from $150 to $300. While both platforms have mobile-friendly, responsive themes, Shopify has a prominence for staying one step ahead of the competition in terms of theme design and usability.
Free Themes
It’s unchanging when we look at the free themes available from BigCommerce and Shopify…
There are only 5 different free themes in the BigCommerce Marketplace, in spite of 12 free themes in total. While the Shopify Theme Store has 17 different free themes, 9 of them include two or more versions (which include more than simply color adjustments)! Then, when comparing BigCommerce vs Shopify about theme diversity, Shopify clearly wins.
Theme Customization
But how simple is it to make changes to your themes? It’s common to desire to modify the look of your storefront a little bit, or maybe a lot! Both Bigcommerce vs Shopify include drag-and-drop page editors that let you adjust the layout, color scheme, typefaces, and other page options and widgets, as well as add and remove them.
However, the Shopify editor is a little bit more simple to change, and there are more typefaces to choose from. Only themes created on Shopify’s new Online Store 2.0 architecture, however, are compatible with the drag and drop editor.
In the contest for the greatest themes and versatility between BigCommerce vs Shopify, Shopify comes out on top by a hair. The Shopify themes, in our opinion, are superior to the BigCommerce themes in terms of design. They simply appear to be more current and fresh. However, more crucially, Shopify themes offer more choice, as well as a little more flexibility if you desire to change them using the page editor.
3, Shopping Cart/ Payment Processing
Shoppers on the internet are regularly sidetracked. Store owners may quickly lose potential consumers if the checkout procedure is not quick and straightforward. Then this is the reason why a store’s shopping cart function must be smooth. For a variety of discount capabilities, Shopify depends on third-party apps, such as cart-level discounts, quantity breaks or tiered pricing, and automated discounts for certain customer groups. Without the use of a third-party app, BigCommerce users may generate cart-level discounts and coupon codes, as well as automated discounts for consumers related to customer groups. BigCommerce shows 65 pre-integrated online payment alternatives, whereas Shopify gives over 100 payment providers to help consumers’ preferred payment ways.
4, SEO
Higher search ranks necessitate search engine optimization (SEO). BigCommerce comes with a number of SEO tools, including optimized URLs, unique URLs, embedded micro-data in product pages, and URL rewrites that modify the URL automatically when the name of a product changes. Users can add keywords, change meta titles and descriptions, and change the URLs for blog entries on Shopify.
BigCommerce has qualified reporting tools with all of its plans, whereas Shopify only includes basic reporting with its mid-tier plan and advanced reporting with its most expensive. Google Analytics may appear in both Bigcommerce vs Shopify users for more in-depth statistics on website user behavior. BigCommerce offers a better selection of available third-party apps for SEO reasons, but Shopify owns a superior choice of out-of-the-box SEO capabilities.
5, Apps & Scalability
BigCommerce Apps
Both Bigcommerce vs Shopify have application stores. As a BigCommerce customer, you’ll have access to over 1,000 apps in areas including Accounting & Tax, Checkout, Payment & Security, and more. BigCommerce also includes all of the built-in functionality your business requires to flourish, so you won’t have to depend on third-party apps. As a result, it is the most scalable eCommerce platform available
Furthermore, BigCommerce is ideal for large sellers or those looking to expand their business with an Enterprise package. Because of the adaptability of an open SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) platform, this B2B edition provides endless opportunities to construct, innovate, and develop.
Shopify Apps
Apart from top-quality built-in capabilities, Shopify comes with a variety of over 4000 apps, making it the largest app store on the market. You may easily go through the app store to find popular apps, new and remarkable apps, top new apps, and so on. In another way, you can look through the categories to find more shipping and delivery apps, store design tools, and marketing tools.
Apart from the three basic subscriptions, Shopify also provides the Shopify Plus plan, which is used by over 10,000 of the world’s most well-known brands, consisting of Rothy’s, Heinz, Allbirds, and… As a result, both BigCommerce and Shopify are well-suited to scaling.
6, Pricing & Costs
Free trials are available for both Bigcommerce vs Shopify price levels. They also provide price plans that vary from $29 to $299. But, there are numerous pricing disparities between Shopify and BigCommerce.
BigCommerce Standard vs Shopify Basic Pricing
These are the most basic plans available on both platforms. The prices are relatively close, as seen in the table below, with the BigCommerce plan being a little ($0.95) more costly than the Shopify plan if you pay monthly. When we compare hidden costs and missing features, however, things become more complex!
The default ways of processing credit and debit cards (Shopify Payments and PayPal powered by Braintree for BigCommerce) have similar card processing costs.
If you don’t apply Shopify Payments, the charge will increase to $5.20 due to the additional Shopify transaction fee. That’s a whopping 69 percent more than BigCommerce’s processing costs! This is a significant distinction.
Shopify vs BigCommerce Plus Pricing
When it comes to payment processing fees, you’ll spend $2.90 if you use Shopify Payments and $2.84 if you use PayPal by Braintree with BigCommerce for a $100 order. If it isn’t Shopify Payments, You’ll spend $4.20, which is 45 percent higher than BigCommerce.
BigCommerce, on the other hand, provides a unique feature that Shopify does not have without the usage of an app: a permanent card that allows users to keep track of their shopping basket across several devices.
Shopify Advanced vs BigCommerce Pro Pricing
Product filtering is now available in BigCommerce Pro. You also receive Google Reviews if you purchase an app on Shopify (fortunately, it’s one of the few apps with a one-time cost rather than a regular monthly fee).
On the other hand, in Shopify Advanced, you can now set multiple prices for the same product depending on the country, which you couldn’t do without an app in the lesser price plans.
Shopify Plus vs BigCommerce Enterprise Pricing
BigCommerce Enterprise is available, so Shopify Plus is usable too. These are simply enterprise-grade versions of the features that Shopify and BigCommerce currently provide. The enterprise upgrade, on the other hand, grants you access to additional features such as:
- Server uptime has increased.
- SSL certificates and dedicated IP addresses
- Developers will benefit from advanced API support.
- Enhancements to security elements
There are no set prices for these plans. This is because they allow for some change and the final amount you pay will be determined by that.
Both Shopify Plus and BigCommerce Enterprise, on the other hand, may spend more than $2,000 a month.
The distinction between BigCommerce pricing and Shopify pricing is largely about the features accessible in each plan.
BigCommerce has a benefit over Shopify about transaction fees and unlimited staff accounts with the Standard Plan. Whereas Shopify has additional transaction fees and only 15 staff accounts with the Advanced Plan.
The abandoned cart recovery feature appears in Shopify’s Basic Plan, however BigCommerce requires the Plus Plan, which might be incredibly beneficial to you.
7, Customer support
BigCommerce Support
When you sign up for a free trial on BigCommerce, the platform will schedule a 10-minute conversation with you. BigCommerce will gain a greater grasp of your business as a result of this, and they will be able to provide better advice.
BigCommerce also prioritizes clients who sign up for the enterprise-level package. Onboarding consultants and phone calls from highly skilled BigCommerce personnel will be available to you.
Shopify Support
BigCommerce’s help center is helpful, but it’s not as well-organized as Shopify’s. The distinction parts in Shopify are well defined in depth.
In addition, unlike BigCommerce, Shopify customer service provides assistance via social media. When you ask for help in the Shopify editor, you’ll be taken to the appropriate page in the Shopify knowledge base. This is a fantastic assistance function that puts Shopify ahead of BigCommerce in this regard.
8, Sale Feature
In our investigation, BigCommerce came out on top for its sales features. In second place, Shopify was not far behind. First and foremost, both Shopify and BigCommerce include typical functionality such as:
- Standard tools for shipment – Create your own shipping labels, change rates depending on weight or order value, and print your shipping labels by yourself.
- A secure socket layer (SSL) certificate – This certificate, which stands for Secure Sockets Layer, secures and confirms your store as a secure location to receive online payments.
- Selling through several channels — Sell on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
BigCommerce is the best when it comes to built-in features.
BigCommerce comes with a ton of sales tools built-in right out of the box.
It has some of the most beneficial features that come standard with BigCommerce but are only available via separate Shopify apps:
- Reviews and ratings – Enable buyers to leave product reviews on your website.
- Quotes from third-party carriers in real time – Provide buyers with the most up-to-date shipment information.
- Staff accounts with no limits – As many staff people as you require should have access to your site admin.
Shopify is the best platform for customizing features.
Adding functionality to Shopify takes longer than adding features to BigCommerce. But, Shopify’s app store is far larger than BigCommerce, so you’ll not only have more useful tools at your disposal, but you’ll also be able to be much more selective about which tools you appear on your site, whether it’s curbside pickup or bespoke appointment booking forms.
Bigcommerce vs Shopify Verdict: Sales Features
BigCommerce outperforms Shopify in terms of sales functionality, owing to its larger number of built-in tools. Although Shopify’s sales factors are more tailor-made, BigCommerce comes with more helpful elements out of the box. Both include all of the options that an online store needs!
9, Marketing features
In terms of promoting your firm, marketing tools and functions come in helpful. Let’s compare the marketing features of Bigcommerce vs Shopify in this round.
Marketing for BigCommerce
Using email marketing to reach out to customers is a good way to promote your products quickly. BigCommerce, for example, lets you connect your store information with popular email marketing platforms like MailChimp, G Suite, and a few more.
BigCommerce supplies capabilities that are meant to fit with SEO best practices, which is another crucial marketing element. This assures that all BigCommerce sites have industry-standard SEO constructed in.
301 redirects are made automatically anytime the name or URL of a product, category, or web page is updated in BigCommerce, in addition to having complete control over URLs, title tags, header tags, and metadata.
Marketing on Shopify
Shopify email, in other words, comes with capabilities to help you cultivate long-term client relationships. This platform offers ready-to-use templates that you may select and use straight away. Within your dashboard, you can also control and examine all marketing activity.
Shopify’s SEO features a bespoke title tag and meta description setting with an intuitive interface in every product and page editor, allowing for on-page optimization. Within Shopify, 301-redirects are also simple to set up and are notified instantly when a page or product URL changes. Both Bigcommerce vs Shopify include a built-in blog, which is a simple but efficient content marketing strategy. It aids in the promotion of your products as well as the growth of your audience and store traffic.
Conclusion
With the information we provide for you, we hope you access closer to the comprehensive understanding about two platforms. Both of them give business the outstanding features to make your online store become more attractive and convenient to operate. Besides, when you can consider the difference between them you can choose one which is more suitable for your firm. However, if you want to save your time and get advice from the expert to ensure the success, you can find our Bigcommerce development service. Don’t miss your chance to contact us now.
