BigCommerce vs Shopify – A Comparison for eCommerce Enthusiasts

1. BigCommerce vs Shopify – A Comparison for eCommerce Enthusiasts

2. Introduction BigCommerce vs Shopify – This game of ‘verses’ has always been the talk of eCommerce world! Shopify or BigCommerce? Choosing between the two is quite a dilemma! The question pops up whenever an eCommerce store is on the verge of emergence! Both the SaaS hosting solution providers are different yet similar in their own ways. Via this post, we’ve tried to compare the two in an as objective way as possible. The decision does not rely on just the themes or the pricing; there’s much more to it. We’ve covered aspects that are important for eCommerce businesses before landing their choice on one.

3. Let’s get started.... Choosing between the two is quite a dilemma! There are choices that we are regularly required to make; however, there are few of them that determine the course of our lives. If you sell through the internet, the ecommerce platform that you utilize is one such choice.

4. Pricing is an aspect that nobody gives all the attention to, but do not neglect either! Especially when we talk about SMBs, it holds importance to compare the month/annual plan prices. When we talk about BigCommerce vs Shopify price comparison, they aren’t at afar difference to one another, BUT the features are! Pricing Shopify has 5 pricing plans: Lite ($9 / month), Basic Shopify ($29 / month), Shopify ($79 / month), Advanced Shopify ($249/ month), and Enterprise levelplan. BigCommerce has 4pricing plans: Standard ($29.00 / month), Plus ($79.00 / month), Pro ($299.00 / month) and Enterprise levelplan.

5. BigCommerce and Shopify both provide Cart Abandonment Recovery options, but there are a few catches that you need to go through before choosing a platform. Cart Abandonment Recovery The major and probably the most important difference between Shopify and BigCommerce’s cart abandonment recovery feature is its availability on all the plans. Shopify provides this feature to its most basic plan subscribers whereas BigCommerce only has it for its ‘Plus’ plan merchants. Shopify and BigCommerce both have third-party apps for cart abandonment recovery emails (paid and free) for the merchants and the manual email sending provision is there too.

6. Both Shopify and BigCommerce allows eCommerce owners to optimize their store with basic but pivotal SEO features. We tried taking a free trial on both BigCommerce and Shopify for better understanding, and here are the screenshots of SEO optimization features on both the platforms. eCommerce SEO An integral part of organic traffic is the website’s blog section. The frequently updated blogs pull more traffic as they establish good credibility in the eyes of the search engine bots. Here, both platforms provide the basic blog section for eCommerce stores. Shopify’s blog section interface, however, is more user-friendly and easy to understand. They’ve taken care of the basics that help in product search engine rankings. Moreover, another SEO optimization factor ‘Blog’ is also covered on both platforms. Regularly updated blogs play a major role in the website’s search rankings.

7. The URL customization in Bigcommerce is not restricted to any categorization or product list. It lets you bend the URL terms the way you want which Shopify lacks. On Shopify, /products/ and /collections/ are enforced. BigCommerce allows full editing of URLs. But, if we dig a little deeper for the SEO part, the key findings mentioned below changes the whole eCommerce SEO game: The robots.txt files block certain pages for Google bots. The dynamic pages such as carts and search results should take advantage of this feature. Shopify doesn’t allow edits to these files whereas BigCommerce allows all sorts of modifications for your eStore. BigCommerce merchants can make the most out of its in-built Google AMP-enabled themes. Shopify users need to use third-party apps for the same feature. This one here is a major feature eCommerce stores can’t afford to overlook!

8. BigCommerce and Shopify both claim for a 0% transaction fees on the products sold. Shopify shows a 0% transaction fee option but the twist is ONLY when you use their payment gateway ‘Shopify Payment’. Those fees are different in both Shopify and BigCommerce’s cases. Transaction Fees & Credit Card Fees Comparison 1. Shopify Lite: 2.9% + 30c per transaction 2. Basic Shopify: 2.9% + 30c 3. Shopify: 2.6% + 30c 4. Advanced Shopify: 2.4% + 30c Shopify 1. Bigcommerce Standard: 2.9% + 30c per transaction 2. Bigcommerce Plus: 2.5% + 30c 3. Bigcommerce Pro: 2.2% + 30c 4. Bigcommerce Enterprise: 2.2% + 30c BigCommerce

9. The Verdict – Shopify Pricing vs BigCommerce Pricing As clear as it looks, BigCommerce comes out as a promising, convenient, and economical option than Shopify. The pricing comparison of credit card and transaction charges has BigCommerce as its hero. In both cases, BigCommerce charges considerably less than that of Shopify.

10. How the eStore looks, is definitely the major concern for any owner! After all, aesthetics and visual appeal matter the most! When we talk about the eCommerce store setup, both the platforms provide enough theme variants to choose from. eStore Themes and Templates If we straight go by the numbers, sure BigCommerce shows a bigger picture in terms of theming options for both paid and free categories. But, if we go by the actual amount of variations in styles, Shopify has better provisions. BigCommerce theme variants are basically with minor changes of colors and image resolution, wherein Shopify has more styling variations in a single theme. This is the major comparison difference that stood out when we compared both!

11. Additional Points Shopify themes represent a more modern approach when it comes to designing, and on the other side, BigCommerce is with professional-looking and contemporary theming. Another major comparison point that we observed is the ‘AMP Enabled’ themes by BigCommerce. With Google collaboration, they have a separate category for AMP-enabled themes which Shopify lacks. Of course with the help of tools, developers, and Shopify App Center, this arrangement can be done, but embedded enablement of AMP is quite a star for us. With search engines providing major preferences to AMP websites, having an eCommerce store on this category sure helps the rankings! The paid themes on both the platforms are no doubts come with more styling, optimizing, and layout options. But we recommend free themes more as there are ample amounts of variants you get in here too. A point that is worth noting is the way Shopify has designed its theme offering page. With various styling choices, they’ve made sure to point out navigation, product page, homepage, marketing, and other essential aspects that affect an eCommerce store. Anyone new to the online biz. world would get the most out of Shopify’s simple, hassle-free eCommerce store setup mechanism.

12. Fraud prevention plays a major role when it comes to chargebacks. Especially for the small and medium-sized businesses, the suspicious order detection is essential. eCommerce Fraud Prevention Shopify has an in-built functionality of fraud-analysis which uses machine learning algorithms to help bring suspicious orders to your attention. For the Basic Shopify plan, then fraud analysis includes indicators and support for third-party fraud apps. On the BigComemrce’s hand, fraud prevention functionality is only available through third-party app integrations. They recommend two of the apps (Signifyd and Klarna) for eCommerce fraud prevention while numerous other app integrations are already available on their app store.

13. When it comes to setting up an eCommerce store, the ease of access is something that these hosting platforms should never miss out on. Most of the time, people who have negligent to basic knowledge about HTML, JAVA and other coding languages come on board. let’s look at what other comparisons have to say and what the Google trend shows for BigCommerce vs Shopify. Ease of Use Shopify clearly has more simple, detailed, and easy-to-understand explanations of what the merchants might look for. BigCommerce is considered quite difficult to use when tried by beginners, whereas, setting up an online store on Shopify is fast and uncomplicated.

14. A crucial aspect when we compare Shopify vs BigCommerce is the mobile app availability. With all the generations turning to smart devices, how can we not mention this? Extra Pointer Shopify has a mobile application for merchants who want to run and scale their eCommerce store from their phones. The Shopify App allows us to manage basic aspects of the eStore like fulfilling the orders, add/edit products, and view reports. BigCommerce, on the contrary, does not provide any official mobile app for merchants. And, the third-party smartphone apps available, can’t expect support from BigCommerce.

15. Is BigCommerce better than Shopify? Or Which is better, Shopify or BigCommerce? These questions are natural but not totally justifiable. Both eCommerce hosting solution providers have their own star offerings and get low at some point or the other than the rival. BigCommerce is considered quite difficult to use when tried by beginners, whereas, setting up an online store on Shopify is fast and uncomplicated. We compared BigCommerce and Shopify and the above story is what we want to present to you.

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