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.
Shopify Pricing
;
BigCommerce Pricing
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.
Thanks for the review Dax.
I’m currently evaluating these two products and appreciate your nuts and bolts review.
The one question I’m left wondering after reading your review is on the SEO front. I read you to be saying BigCommerce has better SEO….. but how much better and can site SEO on Shopify be equivalent with more effort and/or an app added in?
I’m having a bit of a conundrum about which to choose. I’m leaning toward Shopify and here is one of the primary reasons…. warning….this is going to be long winded and in depth……
On BigCommerce(BC) you set up “products” and then in a completely seperate area you set up “product options”. You then assign your available “options sets” to your product. You can also create “rules” in the product to alter things like weight and price based on combinations of options.
If you think that sounds a little bit clunky, it most certainly is. Flipping back and forth between the product and the product options areas, which both have multiple tabs of settings gets a little maddening and confusing. Particularly since the product area has a tab labelled “options” which is also where the “rules” can be set. Whew! Now I’m sure once one gets comfortable with this setup it becomes second nature, but here is a catch…..
Say you have a product that has multiple size options and you want to offer it to your customers in two different packaging options. You create an option for “size” and an option for “packaging”. The second packaging type is more expensive so you’re able to create a rule that adds 1$ to the pricing if they select the premium packaging. The only problem is you haven’t been able to source a supplier for the largest size in the premium packaging.
There is no way that I can find to make the selection boxes dependant, so for instance you can’t tell the platform to not show the premium packaging option if the largest size is selected. What you can do is create a rule that if both the largest size and the premium package are selected then “Make i unavailable for purchase”.
That is all fine and dandy except that the customer won’t find out they can’t purchase that combination until AFTER they try to add the product to their cart!! And they still don’t know why or what other combinations will produce the same result. BOOOO!!!
Shopify on the other hand has a complete and comprehensive single page where you create a product and all its variants based on options. You manually go through and create each possible product option combination. That probably sounds really tedious, but it’s really not too bad since there is a “copy” option, so you can set up one set of product options then copy it and adjust one of the options, repeat and so forth.
This allows you to then not ever have the combination of options that isn’t available, and if you labelled the field for the packaging options something like “packaging available for this size” (yes, I know that’s a little clunky), customers would quickly and easily realize just the largest size doesn’t have that packaging option…. YAY!!!!
I know that’s a nit picky thing, but to me it is HUGE and was the tipping point where I decided I could not work with BC and would use Shopify.
Hey Orson,
I’ll admit, I have no statistical evidence for my support of BigCommerce over Shopify regarding SEO, but you definitely have more out of the box control with BigCommerce (meta tags, SEO titles for products, alt image titles, etc.) With Shopify, you’d need a paid app ($5/mo) to do a lot of the same stuff.
I should also mention that you have longer URL structures with Shopify because they must include the terms “product”, “collection” or” page” depending on what type of page it is for. BigCommerce’s URLs are shorter and “prettier”.
Conventional wisdom says that you’re better off with BigCommerce approach, but to be honest, I don’t worry too much about this since I think Google places more emphasis on other factors today. It still is worth taking into consideration, though.
More anecdotally, I had a conversation with a Web designer I’ve worked with in the past who told me his clients who used BigCommerce seemed to perform better. I wouldn’t make a decision based on this alone, but it is a data point to keep in mind. Also, I’ve had a tougher time ranking with my Shopify site than I’d expected.
Regarding product options, I feel exactly the way that you do, but I the economics are an important factor as well. My products have a lot of options, so I’d be paying a lot more in additional SKU’s with Shopify. I’m frustrated with the way BigCommerce options are structured, but it’s mostly upfront work as it shouldn’t impact your day to day business too much (unless you’re continually adding new products.) I dealt with the inconvenience of not having dependent options by setting up a new product rather than having “phantom” options that a customer can’t order.
As much as these things frustrate me, when I take everything into consideration, it’s hard to justify Shopify over BigCommerce for this particular site. If my needs were a little different, though, I’d probably be using Shopify for both sites.
Each one is good in different ways and I’m hoping to see one of them address their shortcomings to become a real kick-ass solution.
I really appreciate your comments and I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on this because it’s tough to find good feedback from real users.
Thanks for this review! My selection is down to these two carts and this was useful and timely. I also appreciate the comment discussion you had with Orson about SEO; good points. One thing I wish you would have discussed more was how your Yoda Yahoo store measured up with the Shopify and BigCommerce features you discussed. Is the Yahoo store simply outdated now?
Scott, it’s funny you ask about how Yahoo fits into the picture. I had started to include them in the review, but they were too far behind, so I didn’t want to clutter up the article and detract from the Shopify vs BigCommerce comparison.
Here’s how Yahoo fits in at a high level:
Design: Yahoo uses a proprietary language called RTML. It’s not as intuitive as Shopify or BigCommerce and it requires a lot of clicks for each line of code, making it very cumbersome to work with. Also, their free templates are just awful and there aren’t any templates you can buy, so expect to hire a developer to design a custom site for you ($3,000 on the low end). The built in templates just aren’t good enough to even use temporarily while you grow your business.
Usability: Yahoo isn’t too bad here. Managing your products and orders aren’t too difficult, but I wouldn’t say they are any better than Shopify or BigCommerce.
Features: Yahoo is far behind in the features department. You can ultimately accomplish most of the same things as Shopify or BigCommerce, but it will cost you more. Yahoo doesn’t have an App store like the others, so you’d have to hire a developer, which generally doesn’t come cheap.
For instance, Real Time Shipping isn’t available at all through Yahoo and a 3rd party developer would cost you about $75/month, plus a couple of hundred dollars to install.
I should really try to put together a chart that compares features across platforms.
Reporting: Yahoo’s reporting I’d lacking. They offer a small table that shows pageviews, unique visitors, revenue, number of orders and average order value. They also offer a variety of graphs so you can quickly see trends for each over time.
If you need any more information about how your site is doing, you’d have to dig into your analytics or use a separate tool for reporting.
3rd Party Apps: As I mentioned above, Yahoo doesn’t have an App store, so you have to hire a developer to add any new features. Ultimately, you can do just about anything, but expect to pay up for it.
Pricing: I’d have to go back and check what you get with each plan, but I found the need to sign up for the $99/month plan early on. If you take into account the 3rd party fees that are required to compete with Shopify or BigCommerce, Yahoo will cost you several hundred dollars per month.
Plus, there’s a 1% transaction fee and the added design costs since their built in templates aren’t very good.
Overall, a lot of Yahoo’s shortcomings are related to cost. You can do just about anything you’d like, but it’s expensive. Their base offering lacks a lot of what you’d expect, so it’s not ideal for someone launching a small store on a budget.
My company is looking to move from WooCommerce to either Magento, Shopify or BigCommerce.
Some of the problems we are having with WooCommerce are as follows: Slow (the backend search functionality had to be disabled to speed up the site), not enough coupon capability (FREE shipping is not a reality as the program was designed in the UK and they don’t understand the difference between the continental U.S. and Hawaii and Alaska), bulk SKU upload issues, lack of Cart design options. We currently have 8,000 SKU’s online and want to expand to 35,000+.
Price wise, Shopify and BigCommerce are appealing, but do you think we need to move up to Magento(much more expensive) or something else to get the functionality we need?
Hi Jim,
To be honest, I haven’t looked closely into Magento, so I can’t really comment on it. However, based on the limited information you provided, I think Shopify or BigCommerce could be sufficient. I’d probably be more inclined to say you should look more closely at BigCommerce, especially if you have the resources to hire a designer. On that note, if you do need a designer when you move, check out EY Studios (www.eystudios.com). I have no affiliation with them, but they do great work across most major ecommerce platforms.
I ended up going with bigcommerce. My items have close to 20 attributes each. So being able to have 100 products instead of 100 sku’s was one of the main factors in my choice. The other factor that swayed my opinion was the real time shipping. That is something I really needed for my store. I looked at a couple of other hosted eCommerce solutions, but shopify and bigCommerce seemed to be the best.
Yes, those are big factors. Shopify is great for simple stores, but BigCommerce becomes more appealing if you need more features or if your requirements are more complex.
I’m in the process right now but one of my big concerns was that neither had blog functionality.
You can associate the site with a blog but it puts it in a sub-domain, and according to SEOmoz, Google ranks sub-domains differently.
What are your thoughts?
Shopify has a backend blog feature that is part of the primary domain. I don’t recall if BigCommerce has the same ability, so I’d have to check.
Either way, I don’t consider that to be a big concern – If you have high value SEO content you want to add, you can always publish on the store domain in the form of a static page.
I enjoyed reading your in-depth review and I too am choosing between Shopify and BigCommerce.
You mentioned that Shopify does not do real-time shipping but in my case, I am planning to use Shipwire for order fulfillment so that should be covered either way.
My main concerns with Shopify are Google ranking and the transaction fee.
For the ranking, are your comments based on the “out of the box” SEO capabilities for each platform? If I would be hiring a contractor to manage my SEO, choosing either platform would not matter?
For the transaction fee, the extra 2% for the lowest plan can be a lot for some vendors like myself who are selling on very thin margins.
Also, does Shopify have an abandoned cart feature like BigCommerce?
I haven’t looked into using Shipwire with Shopify, so I can’t comment on that. I personally think that BigCommerce is probably better for SEO, even with a SEO manager, but that’s a personal opinion. Even so, I think you’d be just fine with either one. It may be worth speaking with a few SEO specialists to get their take on it (I’d also appreciate if you could report back with any feedback).
The margins on my products are pretty good, so even though I don’t like paying transaction fees, I can live with them. If you’re margins can’t support the additional 2%, you may be better off with BigCommerce. Remember, though, that if you move up to larger plans with Shopify, the transaction fee goes down.
Shopify doesn’t have a built-in abandoned cart feature, but I believe they have something in their app store that works by taking a percentage commission of “saved” transactions (no monthly fee).
Thanks for this useful forum Dax. It’s so helpful especially that I’m also stuck and having a hard time making a decision.
My site is currently running on Interspire, which I believe has been acquired by BigCommerce. However, the reason I want to migrate to a hosted solution is because I’m not a techie and just want to rid myself from the stress and expenses of hiring a developer (at least that’s what I’m told hosted solutions offer).
So I’m down to BigCommerce and Shopify mainly based on reviews.
As we are a Canada based business, one of the things we will need on our shopping cart is a Canadian tax calculator. Shopify seems to offer Canadian tax tools by default (they are Canada based too). How do you think we can overcome this issue should we decide to go with BigCommerce? As we’ve never sold to US-based customers before, I’m also not sure if we need a different tax tool to US buyers too.
Your preference to BC is quite clear especially when it relates to features. This is why I’m somehow more inclined to BC. Hoever, our products also have several features to choose from, and hence need a solution that makes it easy for us to define such variables under more than one category (represented by scroll down menues) and have prices adjusted accordingly. I have visited the featured websites that are showcased on the BC site but none of them had the features I wanted to see. What is your take on this?
On a different note, BC claims that they can help us with the migration process and that we would be able to maintain our current site design and features. However, another issue that they haven’t been able to clearly answer so far is if we would be able to add custom features in the future in case we wanted to. Do you think a hosted solution (unlike an open source) would allow us to play with features/codes at will, or everything will be controlled by them?
Finally, if for some reason we decided to change service providers in the future, is it technically easy to switch from BC to Shopify for example?
Thanos,
Thanks for your comment. I can tell you that I think moving to a hosted solution is a good idea – I personally hated the headaches of having to maintain my own server and it just never performed as well.
With respect to your other questions, I’ll address what I can, but in additional to being a Canada-based business, it sounds like you have some unique requirements. With that in mind, I’ll do my best, but it’s hard for me to really provide informed advice since my needs were a little different that yours.
1) Canadian tax calculator: I’m assuming you are only referring to collecting sales tax, right? I’ve never had to collect sales tax in Canada, so honestly I can’t say what either platform offers. However, as a Canada based business, I don’t think you’d be required to collect sales tax at all in the US unless you have a physical presence. I’d recommend you speak to both a tax specialist and someone at BigCommerce to get better information more specific to your needs.
2) Defining variables: I’m fairly certain that this is available but may have to be custom coded. It may be too complex to implement yourself, but should be achievable. The platform is pretty customizable, so you should be able to find a developer who can program whatever specific features you might need. I personally like EYStudios, but try contacting a couple for pricing.
3) Migration and customization: You can definitely add in custom features.
4) Future flexibility: Anything can be done, but I wouldn’t say anything is ever “easy”. The platforms are designed differently, so you may have to have your site custom designed again in order to move over to a new platform. Also, your product data can be imported/exported from either platform, but they are in different formats. So, you’d have to do a lot of data manipulation in order to go through this process. The data manipulation is probably more time consuming that anything else, so that really depends on what resources you have available to you.
I will say that I think BigCommerce is probably the best bet for you, especially since you will be migrating from Interspire – this should make the transition much easier for you, but I still recommend following up on the items I mentioned above.
I’m feeling like I didn’t really answer your questions all that well, but hopefully it helped at least a little bit.
Thank you Dax. That was very helpful actually. As you’ve suggested, I will still have to clarify a few things but at least it gives me the reassurance that BC is probably the best solution for my situation.
I hope we can use this platform to share ideas in the future.
Many thanks again!
I started off with Shopify based on reviews, that was the biggest MISTAKE ever!
I ended up switching to Bigcommerce who to me have proven to be more superior in features and service.
Here’s what I turned me off Shopify forever:
1. Responsiveness of support, it took around a week on average before someone got back to me. In many instances I never heard back.
2. Quality of support, when they did try to help in the implementation of features nothing was tested and it came back to me many times not completed properly and having broken other areas of the site. When I brought this issue to their attention including my so called “guru” (account manager) no one responded back to fix what was broken by Shopify staff.
3. Lack of standard features, this was the main reason I needed support in order to implement the shortcomings of Shopify. Many features that are standard across many sites such as sorting products, breadcrumbs, quantity numbers, filtering products to mention a few were not standard. I had to follow tutorials, post messages on the forums which were never answered and going around in circles with their so called support team including the amount of time it took them to respond wasted a great deal of time and money.
At the end of the day it definitely wasn’t value for month especially since they charge transaction fees, I was quite shocked with the lack of features as you can get more using a a free open source option out there.
Hi Lyn,
Thanks for your comments. As noted in my post, I agree that Shopify is lacking in standard features, which is why it isn’t for everyone.
I still strongly believe; however, that it is great for simple sites and I am very pleased with them.
I just started looking ate hosted shopping cart solutions yesterday and quickly narrowed it down to BigCommerce and Shopify. Your review cleared up several concerns of mine, but I still have a couple more that you might be able to help with.
1. User-chosen pricing. Is there a way to have an item’s price be variable based off the user’s choice to pay more or less? Or even an option to have a blank price that the user fills out, like a donation?
2. Order processing. Currently all of our orders are handled with the PayPal shopping cart, but we don’t use PayPal’s shipping tools as we primarily utilize USPS First Class Letters for shipping. We use Breeze OMS (http://breeze.codegoose.com/) to download all of our PayPal orders and export address information to print address labels in bulk. Are there any export options or other order processing functions in either solution that could accomplish the same thing as what we’re currently doing?
Thanks for any insights you may be able to offer.
Hi Jason,
I’m glad you found the Shopify vs. BigCommerce review helpful. The good news is that either cart can meet most of your needs, but here are my comments to your specific questions:
1) Both platforms make it pretty easy to charge a different price depending on the options the customer selects.
I’ve never looked into whether or not you can have a “blank” price, but I don’t think it would be possible. However, I’ve had a similar need in the past when I’ve wanted to charge a specific amount for a custom product, so I’d create a product listing for “units”. Each unit would cost $1.00, so if I had to charge the customer $28.00 I would instruct them to buy 28 units. I’m not sure if that would meet your needs, but that’s what I’ve done in the past. There may also be other ways to accomplish this that I’m not aware of.
2) Both carts allow you to export order information, so you should be able to continue your process of printing address labels in bulk. BigCommerce has an edge with regard to reporting and other backend functions though.
Did/do you use PayPal as your payment solution?
Jason,
I do accept PayPal, but I also use Stripe (https://stripe.com/). It’s seamlessly integrated into Shopify, which is how I first heard about it, but I think the service is great so I stuck with it.
It’s VERY straightforward, which is more than I can say for any other payment processing solution. There are no setup fees, monthly fees, pricing tiers, etc. 2.9% + $0.30 per charge – that’s it!
Since I was starting a new store and didn’t want to pay any monthly fees, my original plan was to only accept PayPal. Stripe turned out to be the perfect solution, though.
The downside is that it can take about a week to actually get paid. However, since it’s a new store with relatively low volume, I was more concerned about cost that timing. I can always switch to another provider if the cash flow drag starts impacting my growth.
Rereading my comment, I think it probably sounds suspiciously promotional, so I want to point out that I’m not affiliated in any way with Stripe. They don’t even have an affiliate program, so this is just 100% honest feedback from a happy customer.
What a great post. Like many others, I too have narrowed it down to Shopify and BC. From what I have been reading, BC seems to be the way to go. However, I am looking for a hosted option to recommend to my clients that is easy to use. The product setup for BC sounds so complicated. However, I do not like the way that Shopify can nickle and dime you to add features that in my opinion should be standard. Just my two cents.
Dax, great review, thanks!
Since you mentioned BigCommerce’s offer of unlimited space:
If you’re put off by Shopify’s transaction fees, talk to them and ask for 0% transaction fees if you sign up for a year. In my experience they’re happy to offer it. You still get the 10% off. They will also customize your plan, e.g. real time shipping for an extra fee (but still lower than the next bigger plan).
@Lyn, not that I think Shopify is generally better than BigCommerce, but it sounds like you should have done your research before signing up. Both solutions list their features and are happy to chat before you buy. I would never expect support to help me integrate home-brewed changes into my site. If they did it for you and it didn’t work…. it seems like they did their best. I have experience with both solutions and find that support is fine with either.
Jane,
You pretty much nailed the issues. Shopify is nice and easy, but can get expensive if you have a large shop or if you need extensive customization. BigCommerce has much more built in, but it’s a much more complicated setup.
It’s unfortunate that I can’t call either one the “perfect” solution, but they are both excellent in their own ways. In the end, it’s really up to each person to decide what works for them.
Jim, thanks for the tips. Personally, the biggest issue that pushed me towards BigCommerce for my larger site was how Shopify treated SKU’s. Each different variation counts as a new product for the purpose of calculating which plan you fall under. BigCommerce only counts the number of “parent” items you have, regardless of the number of child variations. Ultimately, this just made Shopify much more expensive for my “Yoda” site. I could have probably managed with the reduced feature set because I like the interface, but it just doesn’t make sense to do this at a higher cost.
Shopify is looking more and mote like a huge mistake! Sure it’s easy to setup a store and with some effort you can customise the store so it looks great. So you do all that and then you have several hundred products online and you open the store. That’s about when the brown stuff hits the big whirly thing. There is no way to update your stock prices and quantities. That’s right no way except by entering every change manually on line or downloading the entire store data as a CSV file then manually editing it (so you might as well do it on line anyway) and then uploading it back to Shopify. Shopify support don’t want to know, they just tell you to use the API. What utter nonsense, a merchant shouldn’t need to become a programmer just to do a daily update of his stock! Nor should merchants have to pay a programmer to implement something that is such a most basic function of online retailing. It should be part of Shopify and it isn’t. Big Commerce has the ability to upload a simple CSV file containing the product SKU, Price and Quantity to keep your store inventory up to date and its easy to automatically produce that file from our MYOB Accounts software so I’m now seriously looking to changing to Big Commerce.
Hi Steve,
I’ve never had trouble updating my Shopify prices in bulk using a CSV file, although I don’t update my prices very regularly. Can you be more specific as to why this isn’t working for you?
Hello,
I am extremely technologically challenged, and have been up (it’s past 7am) trying to work out which to go with! Having done a bit of googling, i too came to shortlist these two options.
Although 2% isn’t a lot, i just don’t like someone else benefitting from my sales! Grrrr!
I am based in the U.A.E, and you mentioned that BC has shipping integrated. Is that only from the US outwards? Or it would be from any country as a starting point? Also, would it be only for those mentioned companies, or could you add another? (my apologies if that is a silly question).
I don’t like the ‘more difficult to set up’ of BC, as you have mentioned, but i guess the only way to make a proper decision is to do a trial with both (still can’t get over the 2% though!)
Support is another factor. For those who are not in the US, and have to make international calls, which one would you think is better?
Also, i have a friend who is a designer, would it take him a lot of work to make the BC site look ‘less tacky’ (this is what is suggested that their basic themes are!)
In the basic plan, does BC also offer Unlimited Bandwith?
I had a few more questions, but can’t think of them right now.
Thanks very very much once again!
Sam
Hi Dax,
I just read this as well
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To start with, both providers offer a free trial to let you dip your toe in the water and you can cancel at any time if you don’t like what you’re faced with. Shopify’s lowest-value tariff because it offers unlimited bandwidth (Big Commerce will charge you 0.5 cents for every megabyte of traffic you incur over its 2GB limit) but be aware, it does come with a 2.0% transaction fee, so may not be chosen by more prudent small businesses.
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I don’t even know what it means to have 2gb worth of traffic :s
Help!
Sam
Hi Sam,
I’m sorry, but I don’t know much about starting a store from outside the US. I know that Shopify is a Canadian based company, so I imagine that they have some International capabilities. I would also think that Big Commerce has these capabilities as well, but I can’t say for sure…I’d have to look into it further. This may be a question you would want to ask each company directly.
Also, I don’t understand what you mean by “would it be only for those mentioned companies”. Do you mean shipping companies? If not, could you clarify the question?
Regarding the transaction fee, it was tough for me to get over this as well, but in the end I just dealt with it. I was better off choosing a platform that made it easier to get started and paying a 1% or 2% rather than not doing anything. I also felt better about the fact that the transaction fee is reduced/disappears when you upgrade your plan. Granted, the monthly fee would be higher at this point, but I know that if my site grows, I can eliminate this fee. If you aren’t at the point where it makes sense to upgrade past the Basic or even Professional plan, then the fees your paying probably isn’t too much in terms of total dollars.
Big Commerce has better support than Shopify. I can’t say what the difference might be for someone outside the US since it depends on how much you will be using email vs. the phone, but there’s no question that Big Commerce is better in terms of support.
With regard to making a site “less tacky”, a capable designer SHOULD be able to work pretty well with either Shopify or Big Commerce to make your site look nice. However, if you’re designing a site yourself and don’t have very good design skills, Shopify is definitely less tacky out of the box and much easier for a non-designer to work with.
About your Bandwidth question, as you can see when I originally created this post back in November 2012, Big Commerce didn’t publicly offer unlimited bandwidth, but if you look at their site now, it looks like they offer it across all plans, including the least expensive “Bronze” plan. You do still have storage limits, but they’ve increased the limits significantly since I created the post.
If you can tell me a little bit more about the site you will be setting up, I can try to offer some advice. I do feel like I end up recommending Shopify more often, but it really depends on your needs, budget and capabilities.
awesome review!!I used godaddy,, a mistake!! I was considering yahoo. and am now down to BC and shopify.. I think BC is it.. Thanks so much!!!
Based on features, I chose big commerce. However, after about 4 months, I switched to Shopify because big commerce had too many problems. Csv upload should be the easiest thing in the world but B.C. made it so sensitive that I was constantly breaking it. Also, I know a medium amount of html/css but found that the organization of B.C.’s code snippets meant I could not find what I was looking for, even if when I found it I would know what to do with it.
Ultimately, B.C. was so bad, I switched to Shopify. However, while certainly easier, it lacks in basic functions that frustrate me on a regular basis. Examples: no gift certificates, limited SKUs per item (a very big problem if you have a product with multiple variables), and a lack of back end offering functionality.
Right now I’m looking into 3d cart. Does anyone have experience with that one?
Very well said, Mac. Shopify is great if you have basic needs, but Big Commerce can be overly complicated.
I’m not sure what you mean by limited SKU’s per item, though…I use variations on my site. Can you clarify this point?
Dax,
One of the critical elements for many is the ability of the store to communicate with the “back office” or ERP system.
Do you have any thoughts on which of these two has better, REAL TIME integration? I note Mulesoft claims to be able to do either, but at what feels like a high cost.
Thanks for your thoughts.
That’s a very good question, but unfortunately I don’t have an answer to it. I’ll see what I can find out when I have a moment to do some research.
I read your entire post and found it very useful. My feeling is that business is moving away from individual websites and more towards Amazon and ebay to the point where I expect most transactions will be carried out on these platforms within the next 5-10 years.
Therefore my primary concern is the integration of BC and Shopify with multiple sales channels. Not just to the point of importing orders for processing, but for example CRM i.e will I have all customer information and sales records on one page regardless of where the order originated.
I am looking for a real integrated end-end solution for my ecommerce needs looking forward over the next 10 years. Which of these packages or others offer this functionality with the inclusion of 3rd party apps if need be?
I know BC has a recommend app channelunity which seems to add great functionality in this area. I am surprised that I am the first to mention channel integration. Is not everyone else sick of listing on ebay on top of all the other work they need to do?!
@Atif, that’s a great question and is something that’s been on my mind a lot recently.
First, I agree that online commerce is moving more towards large marketplaces like eBay and Amazon, and away from smaller, independent websites. I’ve been focusing my own efforts to these marketplaces over the last year because for exactly these reasons. (You may have noticed in some of my more recent posts that the bulk of my revenue is generated through Amazon).
That being said, I’ve got the same concerns as you. As much as Amazon is doing very well for me, I worry about concentration risk, so I’d like to keep other distribution channels, while taking advantage of Amazon fulfillment (since that’s where all my inventory is).
I have not implemented this yet, but my plan is to utilize a 3rd party app like ShipStation (there are a few others, but ShipStation looks to be the best option for me based on my research). This will link to my Amazon account and centralize my inventory management. So when an order arrives through other channels (like eBay or a Shopify/BigCommerce site), the order will automatically be prepped and just require a click of a button to ship. Tracking info will then automatically be updated.
I somewhat agree with your comparison, but I like the fact that you are not stuck with tons of certain baked in features that Bigcommerce has. With Shopify, you have the choice to choose from multiple products that can allows you to offer the same thing (from free to paid)
Just because some apps are paid doesn’t mean it should be a con. Sometimes the app on Shopify compared to a baked in feature on Bigcommerce has far more advanced features which is why Shopify users do end up seeing the benefit of paying for an app sometimes.
Bigcommerce’s navigation can be unnecessarily annoyingly taskly to do something. On a trial, I keep having to go back and forth to too many things to actually do one or two little tasks, that would take me a much shorter time on Shopify. Honestly, ease of use is a huge seller for me than just offering extra pretty things.
An e-commerce software program can help you with SEO, but overall it is how you write your product details, categorize everything and continually attempt to be social and what not that gives you higher ranks on google. But I do like the webinars that Bigcommerce offers, although you really don’t have to be a member to sign up. Shopify has an awesome Ecommerce help section and their blog is the most social ecommerce blogs around.
Bigcommerce’s help section seems outdated as well. Plus, I hate how their support system works with the ticket number thing. I keep having to go all the way to my account page to find the code to be able to have live chat and submit a ticket to Bigcommerce.
Also you might want to update this review, as all Shopify plans allow you to sell unlimited products now, so the SKU and product options between the two makes no sense.
I do wish Shopify had more product options that Bigcommerce already has, but I can understand how incredibly complicated it can be to have too many product options and variations for just one product. The importance is the ease of use for me, the merchant and the ease and simplicity of purchasing for the customer.
Overall, I am still hooked on choosing Shopify as sky is the limit on how you want your site to overall look. Some sites look extremely different from any theme on Shopify that you really can’t tell which one the store chose (for eg. hardgraft.com)
The transactions fees can be a slight pain though although you can agree to use Shopify’s payment gateways (which has amazingly good rates per plan) to get rid of having to pay the transaction fees or advance to the Unlimited plan.
Shopify has unlimited bandwidth for all plans which I find a huge plus for me.
Overall I choose Shopify.
Thanks for the comment…I think you pretty much nailed it from a user experience perspective.
BigCommerce CSV product import is poor at best. It is riddled with bugs. A product import or update through a CSV does not work. These are the problems I have been facing for 7 days in a row:
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(1) The CSV import will add only a few products, not all
(2) If you remove products and start fresh, the import message window will say that there are duplicate products (although you ask to overwrite existing products)
(3) Product field values (description, shipping etc.) will not update for all products or not update at all or it may update just for a handful products
(4) What I have seen time and again is only 7 product are imported each single time
(5) Every time you contact BigCommerce Support, you will get a different answer. Support is poorly trained and learning on the job. Also they often will give an answer to a question that you did not ask. For example, instead of telling why my product CSV (Based on Bulk Import template) does not work, they will tell you how to create a sample product by hand and export a bulk import template – which does not work in my case. I have 5,000 products to import
(6) If you are moving from Magento for its complexity and expensive developer cost or Shopify or any other…. stop there. You will be making a mistake to hope that BigCommerce is easy and bug free
(7) BigCommerce is riddled with bugs… they have gone to market prematurely
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BigCommerce Sales will not tell you about any of these problems. Once the sale is made, sales will not even answer you calls or e-mails.