Shopify vs BigCommerce: Choosing the Best Fit for Your Online Store

Did you know that eCommerce sales are expected to reach $8.1 trillion^[i] by 2026?

This stat is a testament that the eCommerce market will continue to soar.

One major factor that catalyzes the success rate of the digital industry is eCommerce platforms. These platforms boast advanced features to set up, run, and manage your online operations like a pro.

While numerous platforms offer features like online store creation, fulfillment services, payment integrations, and various eCommerce functionalities, BigCommerce and Shopify lead the charts. They stand out for their flexibility, scalability, comprehensive features, and robust support to help you grow your online business.

In this blog post, we’ll analyze the core strengths of BigCommerce and Shopify to guide you toward the ideal solution.

Shopify and BigCommerce: Core Strengths Revealed

Let’s comprehend the features of both platforms:

1. Ease of Use

Shopify: Shopify is renowned for its user-friendly interface, which makes it easy for e-tailers to set up and manage their online stores. The platform offers a simple, intuitive dashboard and drag-and-drop functionality, allowing users to customize their storefronts without needing coding skills.

BigCommerce: BigCommerce excels in ease of use with its intuitive design and well-structured admin panel. The platform provides straightforward navigation and an organized layout, enabling users to efficiently manage their online stores and access essential features without confusion.

2. Design and Customization

Shopify: It offers a vast theme store with a wide selection of beautiful, pre-designed themes that you can choose from to customize your online stores. These themes are designed and optimized for various industries to offer you a quick way to create visually appealing storefronts.

BigCommerce: It provides a collection of customizable themes tailored to your specific brand requirements. The platform provides extensive design flexibility using which you can customize layouts, colors, fonts, and other design elements to create a unique storefront.

3. Product Management & Inventory

Shopify: Shopify simplifies product management with its user-friendly product upload process and organization tools. You can easily add new products, update product details, and organize your inventory using Shopify’s intuitive interface and comprehensive product management features.

BigCommerce: BigCommerce shines in product management with its robust inventory management system and features like product variants, stock control, and inventory tracking. You can efficiently manage your product catalogs and optimize stock management workflows to ensure seamless order fulfillment.

4. Marketing & Sales Tools

Shopify: Its app store offers a wide range of marketing tools and apps. This enables you to enhance your marketing efforts such as email marketing, social media integration, and SEO, which ultimately drives traffic, boosts conversions, and increases sales.

BigCommerce: BigCommerce provides built-in marketing tools that help you promote your online stores and drive sales. The platform includes features such as built-in SEO tools, coupon creation, and abandoned cart recovery to optimize your marketing strategies and recover lost sales effectively.

5. Scalability & Growth

Shopify: The platform offers Shopify Plus, a scalable enterprise-level solution designed for high-volume businesses. Shopify Plus provides advanced features and capabilities, including custom pricing, advanced analytics, and managed migrations, to support the expansion of large-scale eCommerce operations.

BigCommerce: BigCommerce offers a scalable architecture that caters to growing businesses of all sizes. The platform provides advanced features and capabilities that are unlocked at higher tiers to seamlessly scale online stores as their business grows. BigCommerce’s flexible pricing plans and scalable infrastructure make it an ideal choice for businesses seeking long-term growth and success.

Understanding BigCommerce and Shopify’s Pricing Model

Shopify

Shopify offers a range of pricing plans designed to accommodate businesses of various sizes and budgets. Each plan comes with a set of features and functionalities tailored to different business needs. The pricing plans typically include essential features such as website hosting, security, and customer support, with higher-tier plans offering additional advanced features and capabilities. Shopify also offers Shopify Plus, an enterprise-level solution with custom pricing and personalized support for large-scale businesses.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce’s pricing plans are structured to offer a range of features and functionalities suitable for different business needs. Each plan is flexible and comes with out-of-the-box features such as page builder, abandoned cart saver, faceted search, and many more to fuel your business growth. BigCommerce’s pricing plans are scalable and designed to fit businesses, from startups to enterprises of all sizes. Moreover, there are no additional transaction fees involved when choosing BigCommerce.

Final Thoughts

BigCommerce and Shopify both have the potential to be game-changers for your eCommerce business, significantly enhancing the functionality of online stores and driving business growth. However, choosing the right platform for your specific needs can be challenging. While Shopify has more than 2.1 million^[ii] daily active users, on the other hand, BigCommerce has around 1 million^[iii] users. Both of them are leading platforms that are hosting thousands of eCommerce businesses. We’ve rounded up the list of features of both platforms for you, now it’s your turn to pick one.

Looking to Improve Your Online Business Efficiency and Scalability With an Adept eCommerce Platform? Talk to Us!

Frequently Answered Questions (FAQs)

• Who is Shopify or BigCommerce best suited for?

Shopify and BigCommerce are suitable for businesses of all sizes, from startups to large enterprises. Shopify is well-suited for businesses that prioritize ease of use, design flexibility, and a vast ecosystem of apps and integrations. Whereas, BigCommerce is ideal for businesses that seek advanced customization options, robust built-in features, and enhanced scalability.

• Does either platform offer free trials?

Yes, both Shopify and BigCommerce offer free trials to allow users to explore the platforms and test their features before committing to a paid plan. The length of the free trial period may vary, but it typically ranges from 14 to 30 days.

• Does Shopify integrate with popular marketing tools?

Yes, Shopify integrates seamlessly with a wide range of popular marketing tools and apps through its app store. Users can find and install marketing apps for email marketing, social media integration, SEO optimization, advertising, analytics, and more. These integrations help businesses enhance their marketing efforts and drive sales.

• Does BigCommerce offer built-in B2B features?

Yes, BigCommerce offers built-in B2B features and functionalities to support B2B transactions. These features include custom pricing and quoting, bulk order processing, account-based pricing, and advanced account management tools. BigCommerce’s B2B capabilities are designed to streamline the purchasing process and improve efficiency for wholesale and enterprise customers.

Statistical References:

^[i] Manaferra
^[ii] Thesocialshepherd
^[iii] Hotjar