BigCommerce Vs Shopify Plus

BigCommerce and Shopify are the two most similar eCommerce platforms. Both as SaaS platforms that are easy to use and implement and have similar price points. They both are great for SMB but can scale to the enterprise. So what’s the difference? How do you choose which one is better for your business? Hopefully, this comparison will help you choose.

Shopify and BigCommerce may seem pretty similar at first glance because they’re both cloud-based eCommerce platforms – and excellent ones at that.

BigCommerce Overview:

BigCommerce started in 2009 and is built for supercharging your store’s growth – a main attraction is that all its tools come built-in, so that you’re not reliant on apps. Bigcommerce can seem complicated at first, but the prebuilt toolset streamlines development and design. Bigcommerce is built for large or fast-growing brands that are looking for a platform that will scale as they grow.

Shopify Overview:

Shopify has been running since 2006, and continues to grow at a stunning rate – today it powers over 1 million businesses across the world. Shopify’s huge app store is its pride and joy, providing users with all the features they could need to grow their stores. Shopify’s massive ecosystems of agencies, developers, resources, and apps provide a distinct advantage over the growing BigCommerce market.

Shopify is best for novice eCommerce users that want to get up and running quickly and easily. Shopify also offers more robust options with higher levels of customizations but isn’t quite as flexible as some other enterprise solutions out there.

BigCommerce Advantages:

• Better for more complicated catalogs
• Faster API
• More features out of the box
• Designed For Headless
• Ability To Customize Checkout
• Out Of The Box More Complex Products
• Out Of The Box Customer Groups
• Out Of The Box Tiered Pricing
• Customer Groups For B2B
• No Cost For Third-Party Payment Providers
• Stronger For Enterprise Needs
• Multistore and in store pick up coming soon!

Shopify Advantages:

• Better Themes
• More Apps
• Larger Partner and App Ecosystem
• Fast Learning Curve & Easy To Use
• They Have A Unified POS Solution
• They Have A Payment Solution
• Building a fulfillment network
• Streamline Checkout With Shop Pay
• Shopify Capital Network for Access To Capital

BigCommerce Disadvantages:

• Fewer themes to choose from
• The smaller community of developers & agencies
• Fewer Apps to choose from
• No POS solution add on or other types of products like Payments

Shopify Disadvantages:

• Not great for B2B use cases
• Not great for large & complex catalogs
• May require many apps to get desired functionality
• Rate limiting on API can be a problem for integrations
• Checkout is highly locked down (limited customization)

In conclusion, I think you have two similar but ever-changing solutions that are becoming more and more different. BigCommerce is aware that Shopify is the bigger player and will win at basic retail etc. They have been focused on developing a more enterprise set of features to compete upstream with platforms like Magento, Salesforce, and of course Shopify Plus. This has allowed them to deliver more out-of-the-box features and more features geared towards complex things like headless commerce and B2B eCommerce.

Shopify has continued to innovate and make the experience better and better for retailers. They are becoming more and more of a full-service offering with payments, POS, a new shipping network that is still being rolled out, and of course new features to the main SaaS platform Shopify. I suspect over time they will become more and more like a Salesforce, an ecosystem of tools for the SMB and enterprise but with a focus on eCommerce.