Oh the choices we go through in life! BigCommerce. Shopify. Shopify. BigCommerce. I can understand that the pressure in deciding is almost near impossible to do. Why is that? It’s simple, when you visit the Shopify website, you love what you see, when you visit BigCommerce – It’s the same love you feel deep down inside.

But you have to make a decision – unless of course you have two ecommerce ideas you want to launch. For those of you in that particular boat, do one of each and be done with making a decision.

For the rest of you, this head to head article; BigCommerce Vs Shopify should help you in making a decision.

What’s that? you’re short in time? For those looking for a very simple answer to which one is best, hopefully this one sentence statement about each should send you on your way to making a purchase.

BigCommerce is a very robost ecommerce platform that has all the features you could hope for, with set designs, although you may need to hire a dessigner to make it look sexy

Shopify is a zen like ecommerce platform that has all the features you need, and nothing more, however the design is crazy good and there is an app store for additional functionality.

For those with a little more time (well done for your better time management skills) this next part will walk you through some of the main features between the two:

Design

This is going to sound really bad, and I probably could come up with a better way of saying it, but what the hell; Shopify is like that sexy blonde in the room who – unfortunately has a few lights turned off up stairs. BigCommerce on the other hand is not all that sexy, but a make over is really all this babe needs to have the brains and the body (design)

OK, now let me rephrase. Shopify has a nice, simple web 2.0 design feel. It feels trusting, it feels modern. It probably will not work best if you’re selling nursing home equipment, but if you’re selling just about anything else – shopify gets a big tick… oh and you’ll not need to hire a designer to help make it look better (this is a big big thing)

BigCommerce looks like one of those older styled ecommerce stores we’re use to seeing. It doesn’t stand out. Of course in terms of functionality it works well, but with the rise of so much competition, functionality needs to be closely married to a modern design.

Their templates can be customised though, or you can purchase one from a few places on the Internet. This could be pricey. But worth it in my opinion.

Product Management

The back-end is so vitally important. Adding products, editing products, organising products, tracking inventory and shipping fulfillment can not be emphasised enough. But you need not worry that BigCommerce or Shopify will not live up to your expectations.

They both perform well in this category. Yes BigCommerce offers far more features such as accepting pre-orders (that’s a nice-to-have) having features like that is really great. Knowing you have the feature available to use at anytime is the thing that I like best. I guess I’m a guy who likes a bit of security.

Shopify has an app store – Yes just like the iPhone app store. Where you can bolt things onto your version of Shopify. But I’m concerned about the features that I might need that’s not in the app store. Holy Cow, you mean niche developers like this will charge me how many hundreds/thousands to get that thing developed? …See my point.

It might end up costing a lot of money to add-on. Therefore have a zen like mind with Shopify. Need only what you need.

Marketing

You know you can have the best looking design in the world – I mean this thing could be just flawless, you could also be offering the best product in the world – curing all your life’s anxieties. But if you ain’t in the Marketing game, you ain’t in no game.

Luckily both BigCommerce and Shopify understand this pretty well. So in terms of SEO, Sitemapping, Social networking, in-built discount codes, comparison shopping – both have got you covered well.

Reporting

I’ve mentioned this a few times now, but reporting is where it’s most visible. BigCommerce offers a lot more. Of course, if you’re an Excel whiz, you could download your raw data in any of the two platforms and dissected the data, but why bother when BigCommerce can do it oh so easily for you.

If you’re like me, I run my businesses through looking at reports. I take my reports very seriously. I make time to analyse key KPI’s at the end of every fortnight and if action is needed to be taken, I’ll take it, then go back to the reports to see how successful I’ve been.

Price

Are you judging BigCommerce and Shopify based on price? Of course money is important, and there are a lot of folks out there who are trying to start up an ecommerce website bootstrapped. I understand that very well because I was in the same position.

Let’s break it down. First let’s take a look at Shopify’s Basic package:

• Monthly cost: $29
• Set up fee: waived
• Transaction fee: 2.0%
• Maxing Products: 100
• Bandwidth: Unlimited
• SLL Checkout: Yes
• Adwords credit: $25

… and how about the same stats for BigCommerce:

• Monthly cost: $24.95
• Set up fee: waived
• Transaction fee: $0
• Maxing Products: 100
• Bandwidth: 2GB
• SLL Checkout: Yes
• Adwords credit: $50

The big difference is that Shopify charge you 2% transaction fee on each sale, while BigCommerce charge you half a cent per megabyte over the 2GB allowance.

There you have it. Now let’s turn it over to you. Which one are you going for and why? BigCommerce Vs Shopify