As you’ve probably noticed, I don’t make my stores public on this blog, so to improve readability of this article I’ll simply refer to my existing site (the Yahoo Store) as Yoda and my new site (the Shopify store) as Skywalker (yeah, I know it’s dorky, but it’s my site).

So, in my last post I described how I started a brand new ecommerce store, Skywalker, using a Shopify 30-day free trial and LOVED how easy it was compared to my existing Yahoo Store. Fast forward a few weeks and I’ve since signed up for Shopify’s Professional plan at $59.00 per month. In fact, I liked it so much better than Yahoo’s platform that I started to seriously think about migrating Yoda over to Shopify as well.

Transitioning from Yahoo to Shopify, however; would be a major move, so I thought it warranted at least testing out BigCommerce before I pulled the trigger. My needs for Yoda and Skywalker are a little different and I should point out that I was originally very close to choosing BigCommerce when I decided to build Skywalker. In the end, I selected Shopify because it had a better reputation for being easy, which is what I was looking for with Skywalker. With Yoda, “easy” wasn’t my primary concern as I was more interested in features.

So, let’s dig in.

To help others with the decision making process, I’ve outlined the major points that I’ve taken into consideration when examining a new ecommerce platform, primarily focusing on Shopify vs. BigCommerce.

Note: At the time of this writing (December 2012), both Shopify and BigCommerce were upgrading their systems, so features and capabilities may have changed.

Design

Shopify: Right out of the box, you can have a beautiful looking site with one of Shopify’s free themes. If you want something a little more robust, they also have a ton of beautiful premium themes that don’t break the bank at between $80 and $180. Alternatively, you always have the option of hiring a designer if you’re looking for something custom built and have a few thousand dollars to invest.

For Skywalker, I started with a free Radiance/Minimal theme (which I was very happy with), but ultimately decided to go ahead and buy one of their premium themes (specifically the $140 Flex theme), since it was a nice looking, clean, responsive theme. The free themes are really great, though.

I’ve got moderate HTML/CSS skills, so I can manage to make enough minor tweaks to get the site to an acceptable level without having to spend much money. Their coding system, called Liquid, is very intuitive and easy to grasp. I was able to jump right in and do most of what I wanted without much trouble. I couldn’t accomplish 100% of what I wanted to do, but that has more to do with my HTML/CSS skills than with Shopify. Honestly, you’d be very happy with the end result even without any modifications, so it’s great for anyone who’s afraid of jumping into code.

BigCommerce: I knew BigCommerce would be a little more complex because it had more features, but I still expected it to be intuitive. They are a younger company than Shopify, so I assumed they would have benefited from seeing what other platforms have done before them. Wrong. It’s not an unmanageable platform by any means, but it’s just not as easy as Shopify. I find that I have to dig into the code a lot more often to make small design changes and it just seems clunkier. The developers did an overall great job when putting together they platform, but it feels like the designers got a little lazy when developing the themes. I’m using their free White Classic theme, which is brand new (I think they initially released it in the Summer of 2012), but when I go in to make a design change to one section of the site, sometimes I’ll find that’s it’s also effecting another area I didn’t want to change. For instance, I wanted to change the thumbnail sizes on my category pages, but it also effected the thumbnails in my shopping cart. Ughh. This can all be worked around, but it takes more time and effort, not to mention better HTML/CSS skills. Shopify is more settings-based, so it’s much easier to make design changes without digging into the code.

BigCommerce has a large selection of free themes, but they look a little archaic and…well, free. The only one that has a more modern look to it is the White Classic theme, which is why I chose it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have any sidebars, which kind of annoys me, but it’s better than any of their other free themes, so I’m dealing with it. You might be wondering about their premium themes – well, BigCommerce doesn’t have a marketplace that they officially sponsor, but you can find some third-party marketplaces. They are definitely better than the free themes and reasonable priced, but your options are much more limited and the designs still don’t compare to what Shopify offers.

Winner (Design): Shopify

Usability

Shopify is the clear winner when it comes to design, so what about general ease of use? Well, as I mentioned earlier, Shopify’s system just seems to be a lot more intuitive, but it doesn’t have as many features. Shopify just makes everything they do very easy, even if it’s more limited. Products are managed through what they call “Collections”, but you can think of them sort of like flexible categories. A product can belong to multiple collections, which makes it easy to organize your site to accommodate various product characteristics. You can either specify which Collections a product will belong to, or tag each product with a specific characteristic and create “Smart Collections” based on rules.

For instance, let’s say you are selling large screen TV’s. You could tag a particular TV as follows:

• Samsung
• 55″
• Smart TV
• Wi-Fi Capable
• Plasma

Assuming you’ve similarly tagged each of your products, you could then create Smart Collections based on each tag, allowing your customers to shop by Brand, Size, Type, Price etc.

BigCommerce has more of a traditional way of setting up categories, which is perfectly fine, but you have more flexibility with Shopify in this regard.

Other than design, both platforms do a pretty good job in terms of usability, but I think Shopify has the edge here.

Winner (Usability): Shopify

Features

No system is perfect, but in terms of the basic capabilities you would want of an ecommerce provider, you won’t go wrong with either platform. That being said, BigCommerce definitely has the edge here. Below are a couple of very nice cool-to-have features that are unique to BigCommerce vs. Shopify:

• Ability to compare selected products
• Ability to set custom fields for a product (you can separately purchase an app from Shopify that can provide this capability at an added cost)
• Product Reviews (you can separately purchase an app from Shopify that can provide this capability – some are free, while some have an added cost)
• Better SEO customization
• Gift Certificates
• Gift Wrapping
• Real Time Shipping (this is available through Shopify if you choose their Business plan ($99/month) or above)
• Better handling of returns
• Live chat

While Shopify definitely has the edge with regard to Design and Usability, BigCommerce is the clear winner when it comes to available features. Each have things they are great at and some things they just can’t do, though, so if there are any specific features that are a must-have for you, feel free to post a comment and I’ll look into it. Otherwise, you can always ask pre-sales support from each provider.

I should point out that both Shopify and BigCommerce seem to be pretty good about listening to their user base and trying to add requested features, so keep that in mind.

Winner (Features): BigCommerce

Reporting

There’s not much to say except that BigCommerce is hands down better at this. Shopify is severely lacking in this department.

Winner (Reporting): BigCommerce

3rd Party Apps

Shopify has been around longer and seems to have a larger selection of 3rd party apps to choose from. BigCommerce has better built-in features, so they may not be as necessary, but I still have to give the edge to Shopify. Plus, Shopify’s it’s easier to browse/search through Shopify’s selection of apps.

Winner: Shopify* (Full disclosure: I’ve spent more time playing around with Shopify’s apps, so it may not be a fair comparison)

Pricing

I know this is probably the first thing that most people look at (if not the only thing), but I’ve intentionally left it last since there are so many other things to consider.

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Above, I’ve posted screenshots of pricing for each provider as of the date of this post. At first glance it may seem like it’s easy to compare the two platforms, but there are three very important things I want people to be aware of here.

• Transaction Fees – Alright, I know I probably didn’t need to point this out, since it’s pretty obvious that Shopify charges a transaction fee at lower plan levels. It’s not a large number, especially if you don’t think your sales volume will be that high, but it’s a real cost, so you should absolutely consider it.
• Bandwidth – OK, it looks like Shopify has the obvious edge here, right? I mean, even at the Gold plan, BigCommerce only offers you 500 MB of storage, while Shopify offers you 10x that amount at a lower cost. Well, I’m not sure if I’m permitted to say this, but a BigCommerce representative called me up during the free trial period and offered to provide unlimited storage at the Silver Plan and above if I signed up that day. It may be a hard sell tactic, but keep it in mind if that’s what concerns you about BigCommerce. It was definitely a big concern for me, so I was happy to hear they were willing to do this. I can’t say they will offer this to everyone, but they offered it to me (late November 2012).
• Number of Products – This is something that’s not a simple apples-to-apples comparison. A quick look at the two pricing structures and it might seem like Shopify has the edge here. Well, if you look closely, Shopify limits the number of SKU’s, while BigCommerce limits the number of Products. So, let’s look at an example store here. Imagine you are selling clothing and have 750 products, but each one has 3 colors (Red, White, Blue) and 3 sizes (Small, Medium, Large). The differentiating factor here is Products vs. SKU’s, so if your products have a number of options, you’ll need higher plan. With BigCommerce, 750 products would require the Gold Plan at $79.95. However, if you signed up with Shopify plan, each product would be considered 9 SKU’s because of the multiple options. So, your 750 products equals 6,750 SKU’s, meaning you would need their Business Plan at $99 per month. You can see how it might not be too difficult to bump up against the 10,000 SKU limit, meaning you would need the Unlimited Plan at $179 per month, so make sure you know what you might need down the road.

Winner: BigCommerce (Shopify may be cheaper depending on how many products/options you have and your sales volume, but I much prefer BigCommerce’s simple, transparent pricing structure)

Overall

So Shopify vs. BigCommerce…who wins? I honestly can’t say which platform is better overall, since it depends on your needs, but I can tell you that (as of the date of this post) Skywalker is on Shopify and I plan on migrating Yoda to BigCommerce. At the end of the day, BigCommerce better meets the needs of Yoda, which is a more complex store and requires more features. Plus, I use a number of product options, so I will save a good amount of money using BigCommerce. While the design may not be as nice, it’s good enough and I hope to ultimately have Yoda professionally designed – so with the added features, the customer experience should be better than with Shopify.

On the other hand, Skywalker is a much simpler site, so I don’t mind not having as many features. Unless it really takes off, I don’t know if I’d ever have it professionally designed, so I’m happy with Shopify at the moment. It’s definitely a better solution for anyone who wants a small, simple site that’s easy to set up at a low cost. If you have more complex needs, though, BigCommerce may be the more appropriate solution.

Overall: Umm, well…it depends on your needs, but I hope this helped!

Do you use either platform? Feel free to post your thoughts below.