Shopify vs. BigCommerce: E-Commerce Combat

Shopify and BigCommerce are amongst the all-time online shopping cart platforms bachelor today. Both offering free trials, elevate-and-drib site editing, and 24/seven back up for all customers. Even so, there are several major differences between these 2 manufacture leaders.

Before deciding which software to purchase, make sure you determine your goals, preferences, and requirements. Once you have a clear understanding of what you'd like to accomplish (across just selling massive amounts of product), yous'll be able to decide which platform is right for you. To assistance you make this pick, we broke down the major differences betwixt Shopify and BigCommerce.

Price

BigCommerce and Shopify offer xv- and 14-day complimentary trials, respectively. Once that time runs out, both companies force yous to choose between 3 unlike packages.

BigCommerce's Standard programme costs $29.95 per month with 1.5 percent transaction fees. Transaction fees are waived for the $79.95 Plus bundle and the Enterprise bundle (the latter of which is only available in customized pricing plans). The Plus program includes a feature that contacts customers after they abandon their carts. The Enterprise programme features a dedicated Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate and IP address, likewise as priority back up, one-on-one proficient setup and migration, and advanced reporting tools.

Unlike BigCommerce, Shopify does charge transaction fees for its high-level plans:

The Basic plan is $29 per month and charges 2.nine percent and 30 cents added for every online transaction, and 2.seven percent added for every in-person transaction.
The Professional programme is $79 per calendar month and charges 2.5 percent and 30 cents for every online transaction and ii.4 percent for every in-person transaction. This programme lets you lot offer and procedure souvenir cards, generate reports, and abased shopping cart recovery.
The Unlimited plan is $179 per month and charges ii.25 percent and 30 cents for every online transaction, and 2.15 percent for every in-person transaction. This plan offers advanced reporting and shipping rate calculation. Edge: BigCommerce.

Interface

Shopify offers an attractive array of gratis theme templates you tin can browse and demo before you commit. Odds are you'll find something to your liking among the free templates. Yet, if you're not satisfied with them, you tin can browse more than 100 additional templates, some of which cost extra.

BigCommerce doesn't offer as many templates as Shopify does, and the ones that it offers aren't as bonny. Because of this, you'll probably want to pay for a premium BigCommerce theme rather than settling for the mediocre free versions.

Shopify also provides an attractive and seamless customer and site manager experience. The manager dashboard features left-side navigation along clearly marked fields that open up onto the screen when clicked. You can easily drag and driblet fields within your dashboard to alter the look and feel of the front end of your site.

BigCommerce's dashboard is as easy to navigate. It features comprehensible left-side navigation and elevate-and-driblet editing. There'south a bit more than white space on the dashboard, which makes information technology more than banal-looking than Shopify'southward user interface (UI), just this shouldn't really cistron into your final decision.

Ane major difference here: When customers begin to enter payment, Shopify directs them to its own payment page, which is a fleck annoying. BigCommerce allows y'all to buy your own SSL Document in order to keep users on-site. This is a minor detail. Both options are secure and quick enough; all the same, your customers might find going from your site to Shopify'south to make a payment a bit confusing. Edge: Shopify.

Customer Support
Unfortunately, BigCommerce doesn't offer point-of-sale (POS) support, which means you'll have to figure out your POS failures on your ain, or become through the general support aqueduct. Our experience with client support was a chip frustrating; alive chat was unavailable at times, and the representative with whom we continued didn't appear to know much about the platform.

On the other mitt, Shopify delivered ideal customer support. We establish information technology easy to get through to conversation and phone support, fifty-fifty during off hours, and the representative with whom we spoke was incredibly knowledgeable. Edge: Shopify.

Features
Users will admittedly dear BigCommerce'southward unlimited storage, which is available at all plan levels. Shopify only offers unlimited storage at the Unlimited programme level. In terms of addition tools, Shopify integrates well with hundreds of applications. Unfortunately, most of these apps require an additional monthly payment. BigCommerce offers more complementary apps than Shopify, but in that location are fewer available.

Other than those small-scale feature differences, both systems are remarkably like. Neither company offers a free version of its software, and neither volition refund your money if y'all forget to suspend your subscription. On the plus side, both provide a developer application programming interface (API), one-page checkout, and unlimited bandwidth. Border: Tie.

Bottom Line

BigCommerce and Shopify are excellent online shopping cart options. They provide avant-garde characteristic sets, piece of cake-to-use customer and managing director interfaces, and competitive pricing. BigCommerce doesn't charge transaction fees for its college-level plans, but it'due south the less attractive arrangement and its customer support is a flake spotty. Shopify does accuse transaction fees, but information technology features an abundant option of gorgeous site templates too as incredible customer support. If yous're willing to spend a bit more money on transaction fees and third-political party apps, Shopify is the meliorate choice for you lot. Recommendation: Shopify.

This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.