Shopify vs BigCommerce
When starting out in ecommerce, the number of platforms you can choose from is truly daunting. Newcomers easily become overwhelmed with choices. Two of the most prominent platforms for ecommerce are Shopify and BigCommerce. While similar in many regards, there are important differences between these platforms.
Here, we’ll break down what each of these platforms are and do thorough reviews of each, helping you find the right ecommerce platform for your business. We’ll do our reviews around the following topics:
- What is Ecommerce?
- What is Shopify?
- What is BigCommerce?
- Shopify vs BigCommerce: Pricing
- Shopify vs BigCommerce: Themes
- Shopify vs BigCommerce: Apps
- Shopify vs BigCommerce: Support
- Shopify vs BigCommerce: Stocks
- Shopify vs BigCommerce: Login
- The Final Word
Skip ahead to the topic that is most relevant to you or get started here with the basics. Whether you’re a seasoned seller or completely new to the ecommerce world, we can help you pinpoint the factors that will make the most difference to you while choosing a platform.
What is Ecommerce?
Ecommerce simply refers to “electronic commerce,” or selling things online. These days, ecommerce is revolutionizing the way people buy and sell. There are fewer and fewer reasons for people to need to leave their homes to purchase goods now. Even things like groceries are moving toward ecommerce with services like Amazon Fresh, which will deliver groceries right to people’s homes.
Some other areas where ecommerce has changed retail includes:
- Online auctions
- Food ordering
- E-books
- Streaming television and movies
- Comparison shopping
- Trading
- Currency
- Advertising
- Banking
- Flower delivery
- Travel
- Pharmacy
Clearly, there is no end to the industries ecommerce can impact. Business has had to adapt rapidly to this shift toward online. Customers expect to be able to use websites like Shopify and BigCommerce to be able to buy just about anything. But ecommerce also impacts business-to-business sales, in which one business buys source materials or other goods from another business directly. No matter what particular field you’re in, understanding and adapting to ecommerce technology is critical toward continuing success.
Now that you understand ecommerce a bit better, let’s look at two specific ecommerce platforms: Shopify and BigCommerce.
What is Shopify?
Shopify has been around for more than a decade and has grown tremendously in that time. In now boasts more than 1 million active users of its ecommerce platform. Originally, the creators of Shopify simply wanted to open their own online store for snowboarding equipment. When they discovered they didn’t like any of the ecommerce platforms available, they decided to build their own.
Thus, Shopify was born in 2006 and today is one of the biggest ecommerce platforms available. They claim to have 500,000 active stores on Shopify that produce $46 billion worth of sales. With offices all over North America, the company has expanded tremendously since its humble beginnings. It is hailed as a cleanly designed, easy-to-use ecommerce platform and that is part of the reason it has remained popular for more than a decade.
What is BigCommerce?
BigCommerce is a similar ecommerce platform. It hasn’t been around quite as long as Shopify, having started in 2009. It is also a slightly smaller company and does $8 billion in sales compared to Shopify’s $46 billion. In addition to its standard BigCommerce platform, it also offers BigCommerce Enterprise for high-volume retailers.
Shopify vs BigCommerce: Pricing
The price you pay for either of these platforms will ultimately come down to what you plan to use them for. Go into your decision knowing how much support and how many services you need. These factors will play a large role in which pricing plan is right for you, regardless of the platform you choose.
BigCommerce offers monthly and annual plans. If you can afford the annual plan, you’ll save up to 10% on their Plus and Pro plans. Here’s a comprehensive view of their pricing plans.
| Plan: | Standard | Plus | Pro | Enterprise |
| Pricing: | $29.95/month | $79.95/month ($71.95/month for the annual plan) | $249.95/month ($224.95/month for the annual plan) | Custom pricing. |
| Features: | ||||
| Responsive website | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Single-page checkout | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Apple Pay | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Coupons, discounts, gift cards | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Shipping label discounts | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Real time shipping quotes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Professional reporting tools | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Blog | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Product ratings and reviews | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free sitewide HTTPs and dedicated SSL | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ShipperHQ shipping rules engine | Available | Available | Available | Yes |
| Customer groups and segmentation | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Abandoned cart saver | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Google customer reviews | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Faceted search (product filtering) | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Custom SSL | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Unlimited API calls | No | No | No | Yes |
| Online sales per year | Up to $50,000 | Up to $150,000 | Up to $400,00 | Custom |
| Service and Support | ||||
| 24/7 live agency support | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Premium account services, express routing, priority support and strategic account management available | No | No | No | Yes |
| Payment Processing | ||||
| No transaction fees to use leading payment gateways | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Optional special credit card rates from PayPal | 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction | 2.5% + $0.30 per transaction | 2.2% + $0.30 per transaction | 2.2% + $0.30 or lower per transaction |
All of their plans include no transaction fees, unlimited bandwidth for products and file storage, and unlimited staff accounts. All BigCommerce plans also include sales channels for: a branded online store, eBay, Amazon, point of sale, Facebook, Pinterest, and Google Shopping.
BigCommerce offers a 15 day free trial so you can figure out which plan works best for you.
Shopify’s pricing is extremely similar, but lacks the enterprise option that BigCommerce offers. Here’s the full breakdown:
| Plan: | Basic Shopify | Shopify | Advanced Shopify |
| Monthly Pricing: | $29/month | $79/month | $299/month |
| Credit Card Rates: | |||
| Online | 2.9% + $0.30 | 2.6% + $0.30 | 2.4% + $0.30 |
| In person | 2.7% + $0.00 | 2.5% + $0.00 | 2.4% + $0.00 |
| Transaction Fees | |||
| Using Shopify Payments | None | None | None |
| Using external payment gateways | 2.0% | 1.0% | 0.5% |
| Features: | |||
| Staff accounts | 2 | 5 | 15 |
| Number of products | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| File storage | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Retail package | +$49 | +$49 | +$49 |
| Shopify shipping discount | Good | Better | Best |
| Print shipping labels | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 24/7 support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Fraud analysis | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Manual order creation | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Discount codes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Website and blog | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free SSL certificate | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Gift Cards | No | Yes | Yes |
| Professional reports | No | Yes | Yes |
| Abandoned cart recovery | No | Yes | Yes |
| Advanced report builder | No | No | Yes |
| Third-party calculated shipping rates | No | No | Yes |
Shopify offers two other pricing packages complete separate from these main three. One is the Shopify Lite option, which allows you to sell on Facebook and chat with customers in the Facebook Messenger app. For $9 a month you can add products to your website or blog and accept credit card payments.
The other option is Shopify’s enterprise plan, called ShopifyPlus. This is best for high-volume merchants and large businesses who need more services than Shopify Advanced can offer.
Head to head, BigCommerce offers a little bit more at a slightly lower cost. However, there are a lot of extra factors to consider. If you are a small or individual seller, Shopify Lite is a great option that is very affordable. Likewise, if you’re a large company or brand, you may skew toward Shopify due to their additional years and experience in ecommerce.
Advantage: BigCommerce
Shopify vs BigCommerce: Themes
A big part of an ecommerce store is the layout of the website, or theme. Choosing a theme sets the tone of your ecommerce store. It can entice customers, or confuse them and send them away.
BigCommerce offers the ability to customize your website with HTML, CSS and other popular code libraries. This is excellent if you have the coding skills to wrangle your website yourself and don’t want to deal with fussy templates at all.
However, BigCommerce also offers many themes and templates if you aren’t a developer. BigCommerce has many free templates, though others will come at an additional charge. Be warned: BigCommerce offers far more paid templates than free ones. It only has a handful of free templates you can choose from, though each comes with additional styles. The free template will suit your needs if your website is simple and straightforward. However, those who want to customize their ecommerce store more will soon find themselves browsing the premium themes. These can come at a hefty additional cost of another $150 – $200 for your website theme.
Shopify is very similar. It offers full customizability if you have a Shopify Plus account and coding skills. It also has 10 free themes you can choose from with additional styles for added customizability. Choose a free Shopify theme to get started and determine if it offers the right look and feel for your ecommerce store. However, you may soon find that you want more features, and for that you’ll need a paid Shopify theme. Like BigCommerce, Shopify themes cost $150 – $200.
Overall, the difference here between the two sites is very slight. Finding the right theme will be a matter of your taste and needs.
Advantage: Neither
Shopify vs BigCommerce: Apps
App integration can boost sales tremendously when you’re selling online. Many apps are essential for helping you run your store, while others relate to marketing and social media. Both BigCommerce and Shopify offer apps that can integrate with your store to enhance your ecommerce business.
BigCommerce offers a ton of apps for free, including things like MailChimp, Google Shopping and PayPal Marketing Solutions. Some of the paid apps include things like LiveChat, which lets you chat with customers and provides a virtual help desk, and catalogue builders like Now In Store. The price of the paid apps vary depending on who provides them and what kind of services they entail. BigCommerce sorts all apps into categories that can help you find apps that suit your store, though. Whether you’re looking for accounting apps, mobile apps or product sourcing apps, BigCommerce has a wide range of apps, many of which are free.
Shopify also has a mix of both free and premium app plugins that can improve your online store. Many of the same apps you’ll find for free with BigCommerce you will also see listed as free for Shopify. The pricing mostly comes from the app developers and not the ecommerce stores. Free apps include things like Instafeed from Instagram, and NeatTracker, which can help you see which of your products is the most popular.
The app offerings from both of these ecommerce companies are extremely similar. We don’t recommend basing your decision only on apps.
Advantage: Neither
Shopify vs BigCommerce: Support
Support is important. Problems with your ecommerce site can literally cost you money. So you need to know not only that your website will work, but that someone will be able to help the moment anything goes wrong.
BigCommerce offers a range of support features, including: a community forum, a support center and partner and affiliate programs. The community is an interesting feature. It allows fellow business owners to help each other and crowd source questions and issues. This is especially good for things that aren’t bugs or problems, such as layout, design and user interface. Having the support of a community in your same field can be a huge source of support while building your ecommerce business.
BigCommerce also offers a “university” with how-to videos, guides to help you learn about features and the “partner marketplace,” where experts can help explain things like SEO and app building. In addition, they have live chat, phone support and email support, though these take a little digging to actually get to. You will have to click through a couple pages to actually reach a phone number you can use to call for support.
Shopify has a support contact phone number right at the bottom of their site. That does make Shopify support more accessible compared to BigCommerce support. However, similarly to BigCommerce, if you go to the actually Shopify support page, you will have to do a bit more clicking before you find a phone number. It seems possible that people could miss the phone number on the bottom of the page and then get frustrated digging for it on the Shopify support page.
Shopify support offers other help features, though. The Shopify community is similar to BigCommerce’s community. However, considering how much bigger Shopify is, you will likely find a more active community with them. Shopify support also includes video tutorials and webinars to provide guidance.
Both sites are fairly typical when it comes to support. The contact information to reach an actual human is somewhat buried on both websites, but accessible after a couple clicks. Shopify has an edge when it comes to hosting a support community simply because it is a larger ecommerce site than BigCommerce. However, BigCommerce has more diverse options for offering help and support. On BigCommerce you can live chat with support to get assistance.
Advantage: BigCommerce
Shopify vs BigCommerce: Stocks
How many products do you have? Depending on how large your stock is and how often it is updated, BigCommerce and Shopify will have different offerings for you.
Some ecommerce businesses never deal with stock at all. This is referred to as drop shipping. Drop shipping is when someone doesn’t actually have any stock in their store. Instead, when someone orders from them, they order the product from a third party. They never actually handle the product themselves, but rather serve as a sort of middle man between a customer and supplier.
This can be a beneficial situation as it makes it easier to get started and requires less investment. You can order products as needed rather than holding on to a large stock. However, it does come at the cost of having to rely on an outside supplier and lower margins, so consider carefully before going this route.
No matter how you offer products to your customers, Shopify and BigCommerce offer various stocking options. Shopify allows you to display an unlimited number of products on your website, as does BigCommerce.
If you are using drop shopping, third-party shipping rates may be a concern. Shopify offers to calculate third-party shipping rates only with Shopify Advanced accounts. BigCommerce gets the edge here, offering unlimited products, file storage and bandwidth on all accounts, even the standard one. This is going to be much better for stores with large stocks of inventory and many products they want to display. If you are working with lots of products and a lower budget, BigCommerce will give you more flexibility.
Advantage: BigCommerce
Shopify vs BigCommerce: Login
Your store login for Shopify or BigCommerce is more important than it sounds. It will impact the URL of your store, for one thing.
Ecommerce business owners want to login quickly and simply. Both Shopify and BigCommerce offer standard logins with password and username support if you misplace your information. However, Shopify also has an app that makes it slightly easier to update and monitor your store on the go. Having this option makes a big difference. Being able to keep track of your business from your phone no matter where you are makes a massive difference when you’re a busy ecommerce store owner.
That’s fine for your own login. What if you want to make customers login to your ecommerce site?
That will take a little more technical knowledge. Even with the themes offered by Shopify and BigCommerce, you may want more out of a customer login function. This tutorial is a great help for ecommerce businesses trying to create a login:
Be wary, logging in is not right for all ecommerce stores. Businesses tend to like having customers login because they can track purchases and gain more insight about buying habits. However, many customers are annoyed by logins that slow down their process. Many people come to online shopping because they want things to be easier, not more complicated. So think carefully before adding a login function to your Shopify or BigCommerce store that might put off some customers who don’t want the hassle.
Advantage: Shopify
The Final Word
It’s hard to definitively state which ecommerce platform is right for any individual business. There are factors beyond what we’ve analyzed in our reviews that will impact your decision. How big is your business? What kinds of products do you sell? Do you already have a website or are you starting from scratch?
This chart breaks down some of the overall pros and cons of both platforms.
| Shopify | BigCommerce | |
| Pros |
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| Cons |
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| Tied |
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As you can see, Shopify and BigCommerce share a lot of similarities. Our best advice would be to start a free trial at the site that sounds best to you and your business’s needs. Test out any many features as you can during the free trial in order to discover how well the site you chose meets your expectations and solves your ecommerce challenges. Either way, you can’t go wrong offering your customers the convenience and ease of ecommerce.
To read more articles like – BigCommerce vs Shopify: Reviews of the Top Ecommerce Platforms, visit logicinbound.com
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