eCommerce business is undoubtedly one of the best ways to make money online. According to Statista, In 2019, retail e-commerce sales were 3.53 trillion US dollars globally and e-retail returns are estimated to be 6.54 trillion US dollars by 2022. BigCommerce vs. Shopify is a comparison that sellers often make when considering the best e-commerce platform for conducting business online.
Both of these e-commerce platforms are powerful and popular and are used by most online store owners. Most importantly, they are a one-stop shop for e-commerce platforms, which means that everything you want to start has already been done. The pressure of online store placement, backup, security, search engine optimization, and encryption has been resolved.
That makes it appropriate for a beginner who has fewer coding skills and needs a flexible, suitable platform to set up an online business store, sell products or services, and earn money. These platforms also allow you to utilize a wide range of tools without demanding advanced web development skills for eCommerce Development.
However, if you are thinking of launching your eCommerce business online, you will get to a point where you will have to opt for the perfect eCommerce platforms to use in powering your online store. Here, we will guide you through this in-depth comparison between BigCommerce vs. Shopify and assist you on which one is best suited for your business needs.
BigCommerce vs. Shopify – eCommerce Leaders Weigh In.
The purpose is to guide you to make an informed decision. Since your success in the eCommerce business mainly rely on the eCommerce Development platform you use. But before we dive further, Let’s take an overview of BigCommerce vs. Shopify with some of the key features they have.
BigCommerce vs. Shopify: Overview
Shopify eCommerce Development
Shopify development is an all-in-one eCommerce platform where you can make your online business store. It has been carefully designed to help you start, manage and grow your business. Shopify eCommerce Development has some amazing features that make it simple for you to lead your eCommerce business effectively.
It contains more than 70 well-designed themes that can be used to personalize your e-commerce website. You can also host your website on this platform. A full-featured content management system has been added to your online store.
In the second quarter of 2020, Shopify made a profit of $714.3 million. 71% of the revenue came from new online stores.
Some Key Features Of Shopify Are:
-
- Unlimited bandwidth doesn’t cost you on the basis of the number of users to your online store.
- The shopping cart is integrated into your online store. This way, your customers can shop from your online store when they are busy.
- Shopify Development services support SEO practices to ensure that your potential customers locate your online store easily on search engines.
- Compatible with Google Analytics, you can easily track customer behavior in your store.
- Support for CSS and HTML allows you to easily customize every feature of your online store.
- Custom Shopify Development integrates with popular apps like Inventory Source, Oberlo, Order Printer, ecommHub, Amazon channel, GetResponse, ActiveCampaign, Stocky, etc.
BigCommerce Development
BigCommerce Development is an eCommerce platform designed for merchants who want to use the most modern and profitable technology to expand their business. Originated in 2009, BigCommerce provides services in 120 countries/regions and has 600 employees.
With over 5000 popular apps and design partners, it provides you almost every feature you need to start, run, and expand your online eCommerce business. BigCommerce provides you with attractive themes that can be fully customized using inline HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Some Key Features Of BigCommerce Are:
-
- With the drag and drop editor and page builder visual editor, you can edit pages on your website.
- Custom BigCommerce Development, Customizable SEO URLs, unique meta description, and Robot.txt editing designed to help you generate organic traffic.
- Create multiple storefronts and switch between them using one entrance.
- Dashboards for real-time analysis of metrics such as customer data, orders, and purchases.
- BigCommerce integrates with some popular applications like Route, Threekit, Bolt, QuickBooks Online, Mailchimp, Back In Stock Product Alert, etc.
- Supports Google AMP and Akamai image management, so your store pages can load quickly.
- API and SDK server to customize the checkout experience of your users.
Integration: BigCommerce vs. Shopify
Integration is the most important feature in any eCommerce platform and it is essential that we must check it out for Shopify and BigCommerce Development. It doesn’t matter how effective these eCommerce development platforms are, you can’t grow your online business to the anticipated level without the support of some of the significant apps in eCommerce.
Therefore, you need to integrate some apps with BigCommerce or Shopify, depending on what you want to achieve. Some of these applications are free to use, while others require payment. Let’s compare BigCommerce vs. Shopify based on the integration below:
Integration: Shopify
When it comes to integration with apps Shopify is a giant. It has around 2874 apps on its app store designed for different functions. These applications are organized in simplified categories so that you can easily find what you need.
Integration: BigCommerce
BigCommerce too has a huge amount of apps it integrates with. While there is no precise number of apps that connect with it, its strong enterprise integrations are classified for effortless identification based on the necessity of your e-commerce store.
Both these eCommerce development platforms integrate a variety of applications. But Shopify contains more apps. It also integrates the requirements of the most popular apps and store owners to grow your business, which can be easily found on the App Store.
Ease Of Use: BigCommerce vs. Shopify
Nowadays everybody wants software or applications that are user-friendly. People need something they can effortlessly explore without being tech-savvy or having any coding experience. The same goes for eCommerce development platforms. The capability to run your eCommerce business online on BigCommerce or Shopify simply should matter to you. That way you can manage a better percentage of tasks yourself with no technical assistance.
Ease Of Use: Shopify
Shopify Development is the easiest eCommerce platform for a new Shopify developer in the eCommerce world. Although it has effective tools for merchants, you can still set up your online store, add products, and achieve orders without the support of anyone. It contains amazing modern templates that you can customize to match your eCommerce store. Also, the back end is not confusing.
Ease Of Use: BigCommerce
BigCommerce is also user-friendly to some extent but it is not recommended to a new BigCommerce developer who doesn’t know anything about eCommerce. It is best suited for merchants who have little experience in running an eCommerce online store. For example, some beginners find it tough to recognize and apply the language of the editor thus making it hard for them to design their store themselves.
But it’s clear why BigCommerce Development lags in this area. This is because it has some effective in-built characteristics which let you add products to your online store and make changes as well. These features become challenging for novices to set up their online stores easily. However, it released a Store Design Tool to make it relaxed for beginners to form their online store with comfort.
While Shopify is easier to use as compared to BigCommerce development. It is user-friendly and that positions it ahead of BigCommerce which has integral features that lots of newbies find hard to manage.
Transaction Fees: BigCommerce vs. Shopify
As a store owner, you must keep in mind that you’re expected to pay transaction fees anytime you get paid in your store. Some store owners see it as a reduction in their sales. These transaction fees are for the services provided by payment gateways, which is serving to process the payment on your online eCommerce store. So let’s see how Shopify or BigCommerce charges transaction fees?
Transaction Fees: Shopify
Unfortunately, Shopify charges you some transaction fee for Shopify Development if you employ third-party payment gateways such as Stripe, Payfast, 2Checkout, etc. These transaction fees rely on the plan you subscribed to for Shopify development services. However, Shopify has its own payment gateway – which doesn’t charge any sum for store owners that use it as a payment option.
However, it is not available in every region. Only store owners located in countries like Spain, UK, Canada, Austria, Singapore, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Denmark, Hong Kong SAR China, Italy, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, can only use it as a payment gateway.
Read about: Top 8 Payment Gateways in the USA for Ecommerce Businesses
Transaction Fees: BigCommerce
It’s exciting to know that it doesn’t charge you any transaction fee for all its available plans for the BigCommerce Development services, unlike Shopify. But bear in mind that your bank will charge some card fees. These fees go to firms that look after those cards which your customers use in making payments. They differ depending on the country you run your store from and this applies to both Shopify and BigCommerce.
BigCommerce doesn’t charge any transaction fees no matter what your service plan is, unlike Shopify. This will limit the transaction fee you pay when you get paid to only the charges from credit card companies and banks.
Themes: BigCommerce vs. Shopify
The theme is the overall appearance of your online eCommerce store. Whether it is on Shopify or BigCommerce, the layout, color scheme, and style element of your online store rely on the theme you select. The first thing that picks up the attention of any customer who arrives at your online store is your theme.
That will determine if such customers will hang around to surf products and place orders. That first impression matters a lot so don’t make it bad for your first-time customers. Shopify and BigCommerce possess a range of themes on their development platform which you can utilize in your online eCommerce store.
Themes: Shopify
It contains about 73 different themes in its theme store. These themes come in a different number of styles that react seamlessly on any device. They have features that match your online eCommerce store and include search engine optimization, free updates, social media icons, free stock photos, etc. Shopify themes are customizable to match any niche of products you can deal with.
Despite the fact that a few of them are free to use, others want you to subscribe to them. Some of the free themes on the Shopify theme store are Unlimited, Venture, Fast, Debut, Supply, etc. While some of these free themes may lack the advanced tools and features you require to scale your business. That’s the reason it is advisable to aim for premium themes that provide you with advanced tools and features.
Themes: BigCommerce
There is no precise amount of themes on the BigCommerce theme store but it contains pretty awesome themes that are classified as per different niches. They are SEO friendly, have social icons, respond seamlessly on any device, and own other basic features a theme must-have. You can also see the demo of any theme you choose to be certain it will be a perfect choice for your store.
Similarly, some of its themes are free but keep in mind that it does not include the advanced features, tools, and add-ons you require to grow your online store quickly. However, in the BigCommerce theme store, the paid themes are more expensive than Shopify. For example, out of the 64 paid themes on Shopify, none of them is beyond $200. On the other hand, on BigCommerce, the paid themes cost $300.
Both BigCommerce and Shopify have a variety of amazing free and paid themes in their theme stores. However, Shopify contains less expensive themes compared to BigCommerce.
Conclusion
Choosing the right eCommerce platform between BigCommerce Vs. Shopify is a complex yet important decision. BigCommerce and Shopify both are two robust e-commerce platforms where you can set up your online eCommerce store. Now that you are well-informed about the major differences between BigCommerce Vs. Shopify, it’s vital to get to the management part: which platform should you leverage?
Therefore, before deciding on BigCommerce Vs. Shopify for eCommerce Development, we highly recommend considering your business needs and overall eCommerce objectives. Explorate Global is a Shopify Development company providing extraordinary Shopify Development services to help you meet your online store needs while providing the end user an outstanding experience.
Hire Developers
Request A Quote