BigCommerce and Shopify are two of the most popular e-commerce solutions known to the world. Both the companies claim to power over 600000 online retailers. Big Commerce is a little younger as it was found in only 2009 but has managed to create an influence in the online retailing world.
If you are someone who is thinking about opening up their own little startup, you need to know a few facts before taking a decision. Both of these platforms have their own very unique features and USPs, but the fact remains that entrepreneurs are shifting from Big Commerce Enterprise to Shopify. Why is that? Does Shopify really have some advantages over BigCommerce.
Let’s take a quick look at all the drawbacks of BigCommerce that Shopify users don’t experience.
A Quick Look at BigCommerce Enterprise: All that it is Cracked Up to Be?
Price is always a big concern for new enterprises, and if you just started, it might just be your number one problem. Big Commerce does offer a wide range of graduated monthly plans, but they can be very expensive. You will see this especially when you choose their Big Commerce Pro option.
The cap that Big Commerce Enterprise places on its sales figures every year. It is common for such platforms to do so but limiting sales can cause a growing business to lose its not well-established reputation and customers. Future transactions can be blocked if sales figures are exceeded which will not look very good for a new business.
Big Commerce provides seven free templates to paying customers which is a very limited range. You are not able to express what your brand is about or may not be able to achieve the persona you’re trying present.
So now to the other question: why is Shopify enjoying larger sales? What is it offering that Big Commerce lacks?
Let’s take a look at Shopify
You will get countless results if you type something such as “Big Commerce vs. Shopify. A lot of these will give you an in-depth analysis of the two, most of which are very complicated if you just stepped into the online industry. So here are all the things that make people pick Shopify Plus over Big Commerce in a very easy to understand way:
- Shopify Plus gives you ten free templates rather than Big commerce’s seven.
- The entry-level plan that Shopify Plus offers is way cheaper
- The number annual sales per year have no limits on them so you can keep your customers satisfied with incessant orders.
- You can add product categories, and it’s very simple.
- You can create customized analytical reports, and there are more options.
- Shopify offers more than 2,000 apps in their store while Big Commerce only has 600.
Usage of Shopify
When it comes to the ease of usage, Shopify wins. It is designed to help its users set up an online store, and it has the all the features to make it convenient for them. Shopify’s dashboard has everything where you want it and also comes with a friendly wizard that will help you through everything step by step. People, in a survey, found it easy to set up their e-commerce site, with the help of Shopify. People were also asked to use Big Commerce and they found the editor quite complicated with jargon-filled sentences.
You don’t want to be Googling every word Big Commerce puts in front of you so if you’re an armature at the moment, you should go for BigCommerce. It was found that Big Commerce was 14% more difficult to use than Shopify Plus. Shopify also has a slightly more mature third-party ecosystem, and while using it, you will come across a more lively community. It is also more beginners friendly so if it is your first time we would suggest that you go for Shopify Plus.
Finally
It is important for everyone to understand that this article was not written to disparage Big Commerce in any way but just to explain with facts why Shopify Plus is preferred over Big Commerce Enterprise. There are still people who favor Big Commerce over Shopify and if you’re one of them then good for you and we suggest that you should stick to whatever that adheres to your version of perfect or helps you fulfill your vision for your business
This was written with the intention of helping new entrepreneurs have a little guidance. If you are a full-time stay at home mother who wants to do something more productive and step into the e-commerce world, then do not hesitate to take the help of this article.
You need to do your homework before stepping into this business. We wish you good luck in all of your business ventures.
This isn’t very accurate:
I do dev work for both platforms, and while Shopify is great for smaller merchants, the transaction fees they add when not using their gateway, lack of core functionality and API limitations make it much more of a small business than enterprise solution.
Shopify Plus starts pricing much higher than BigCommerce (and yes, BigCommerce is one word, not two). Paul Roger has a breakdown of the cost: https://paulnrogers.com/shopify-plus-pricing-cost-ownership/
Summary of the story is that you’re looking at $24k in just monthly fees for Plus alone before you start tossing on the apps you need to make Shopify workable (generally about $3k+ a year).
That’s pretty paltry compared to the cost of a paid theme or using a web developer (which to be honest any business doing more than $50k a year should be doing).