Over the last few years, it has been noticed that selling goods online is much more efficient as compared to traditional selling methods, so small startups, companies, merchants etc are interested in selling goods online. Online selling and purchasing can be done using an e-commerce platform but it is really difficult for individuals to make e-commerce stores as it requires a lot of skills and resources. Hence to solve this problem, many organizations have provided e-commerce building platforms which make it easy to create e-commerce stores with advanced functionalities. Two such platforms are BigCommerce and Shopify which provides different services to build e-commerce stores for selling goods online.
BigCommerce is an e-commerce platform which provides different services to its users like creating online stores, hosting websites and web applications, search engine optimization etc. It is listed in the NASDAQ platform list. It was founded by Eddie Machaalani and Mitchell Harper in 2009 for the online selling of products. It became one of the top companies in Australia for providing software as a service.
Advantages of BigCommerce
- It provides drag and drop features to build websites easily.
- It supports multiple currencies to buy and sell goods.
- It provides PayPal integration for payment options.
- It gives AMP (Accelerated mobile pages) the ability to make it responsive for mobile platforms.
Disadvantages of BigCommerce
- It puts a limit on sales according to the plan chosen by the customer.
- It does not have multi-lingual capabilities.
Shopify can be understood as an e-commerce platform which is used to provide customers services to sell their products online without creating their own store. It is a paid platform where users can make their accounts and choose from a number of templates and can build their e-commerce website to sell their products. Shopify provides all the necessary tools and equipment needed to build an online store.
Advantages of Shopify
- It provides an easy interface to build e-commerce stores.
- Setting up and configuring Shopify is very easy and fast.
- It comes with robust tools for customizing templates according to the user’s needs.
- It has advanced SEO features which increase the indexing of the e-commerce store.
- It provides an in-built payment gateway.
Disadvantages of Shopify
- It does not provide free plans, everything is paid.
- It charges a transaction fee if used by a payment gateway other than provided by Shopify.
Below is a table of differentiation between BigCommerce and Shopify:
|
BigCommerce |
Shopify |
|
| 1. | It can be understood as a SaaS platform which is used for creating online stores, SEO, marketing facilities etc. | It is an e-commerce platform which provides services to make an online store to sell goods |
| 2. | It was founded by Eddie Machaalani and Mitchell Harper. | It was founded by Mike Jolley and James Koster. |
| 3. | It provides only 12 free themes. | It provides 8 free templates. |
| 4. | It provides a standard plan for $29.95 and a pro plan for $299.95 | It provides a basic plan for $29 and an advanced plan for $299 |
| 5. | It does not charge any transaction fee on payment. | It charges a transaction fee on payments made through a gateway other than provided by Shopify. |
| 6. | Its interface is difficult to understand due to a large number of functionalities. | It has a very simple interface. |
| 7. | It provides a trial of 15 days for its customers. | It offers 14 days trial to its users. |
| 8. | It provides more marketing and sales features compared to Shopify. | Marketing features are fewer. |
| 9. | It sells 150 themes that range in price from $150 to $300. | It sells more than 70 themes ranging in cost from free to $180. |
| 10. | This platform offers mobile friendly and responsive themes. | Shopify provides more mobile-friendly and responsive themes. |
| 11. | It has 65 pre-integrated online payment options. | It has more than 100 payment options. |
| 12. | It offers several SEO features such as optimized URLs, unique URLs etc. | It allow users to add keywords, modify meta titles and descriptions and edit URLs for blog posts. |
| 13. | It is best with SEO features. | It is best with a selection of available third-party apps. |