BigCommerce VS Shopify: Find Out What’s Really Different

Shopify definitely has more variety in terms of store templates and add-ons. The company offers eight free themes and about 100 paid themes for merchants to choose from. Pricing for paid themes ranges from $140 to $350. You can get a free or paid Shopify theme through a third-party eCommerce developer website such as TemplateMonster, but it may not be fully compatible with all Shopify apps, and you may have trouble getting support if your website starts experiencing issues.

Shopify’s themes are professional, elegant, and easy to navigate. Of course, if you don’t like what you see, you can access Shopify’s code to develop your own theme, using HTML, CSS, and Shopify’s own language, Liquid.

At BigCommerce, you’ll find about 150 themes, called Stencil themes, along with about 500 total variations or styles. You can choose from 12 themes, or 36 styles, for free, or purchase a theme that costs between $150 and $350. All BigCommerce themes are mobile responsive. Stencil themes are easy to edit without dipping into any code, although you can add custom code if you’d like.

Shopify and BigCommerce allow you to list an unlimited number of products on all subscription plans. If you have a straightforward online shop without a huge number of listings, you can pick from Shopify or BigCommerce.

However, if you have a huge, want to offer different price lists for B2B customers/bulk buyers, or have a lot of product variations/sell custom products, BigCommerce is probably a better fit in terms of product listing functions.

BigCommerce has a built-in product search and filtering option on mid-tier and higher-level plans, which makes it easy for customers to search through a lot of options and find what they’re looking for. Shopify merchants will have to add an app to get this function.

BigCommerce allows you to create up to 600 product variations for a single product, while Shopify currently allows you to add up to three to a single product offering (and up to 100 variations total across all products.) If, for example, you sell a shirt with different sizes, colors, designs, and cut/length options, you’d have to split these up into different products in your Shopify dashboard, while BigCommerce would have no issues.

Also, BigCommerce allows you to list several types of variants, including a swatch, radio button, rectangle list, checkbox, and dropdown option. This function can be used for everything from offering different color variants to adding a checkbox that, when checked, allows someone to donate in addition to purchasing an item (great for nonprofits and marketing campaigns such as “Giving Tuesday” campaigns.)

Users shopping on a BigCommerce-hosted site can add their own custom content such as personalized text (great for items such as custom mugs or jewelry), file uploads (great for items such as custom t-shirts or photo books), and different pick list options (great for selling add-ons, such as accessories for a dress).

Lastly, BigCommerce’s price list feature, only available on the highest-level plan, allows you to create different price lists for a single item or variant based on customer groups. Customers may also create accounts to see exclusive product offerings. It makes B2B customers feel more like they’re getting a smooth B2C shopping experience. B2B customers can request a quote as well, so they have even more freedom while shopping on your site.

Both eCommerce platforms can fulfill your standard shipping needs.

BigCommerce offers real-time shipping rate calculators for major shipping carriers on all subscription levels, but Shopify only offers this on higher-level plans.

On the other hand, Shopify has partnered with major shipping carriers to offer shipping discounts to Shopify Shipping users.

Both platforms offer shipping app integrations to major shipping apps such as ShippingEasy and Shippo.

BigCommerce offers a better checkout experience for guests, with a single-page checkout built into all BigCommerce plans. At the mid-tier subscription level, customers on a BigCommerce-hosted site can save their cards for later purchases, have their addresses auto-filled, and their shopping cart will still have items in it, even if they switch from a mobile device to a desktop (and vice versa.)

All these BigCommerce features add up to a fast, easy checkout experience, and translate into more sales on your end.

Shopify has a pretty standard checkout process, although Shopify merchants can offer checkout through Shop Pay for individuals who have already signed up for the Shop app.

Both companies have multiple ways you can display shipping options at checkout. However, BigCommerce shows real-time shipping estimates on all subscription plans, while Shopify only allows this option on higher-level subscription plans.

Both BigCommerce and Shopify allow you to generate buy buttons that you can place in marketing emails, social media posts/profiles, DMs, affiliate marketing posts, blog posts – anywhere you can paste HTML code or a hyperlink.

Shopify has a $5/month Starter plan that only includes a buy button, which is much cheaper and easier to manage compared to BigCommerce’s lowest-level plan. However, Shopify charges a 5% transaction fee for every order on the Starter plan, so the “low-cost” plan might not actually be cheaper in the long run.

With BigCommerce, you can attach a Google Analytics ID to buy buttons to track their performance. This will help you figure out where and when buy buttons work best as a lead conversion strategy.

Otherwise, the two platforms offer about the same level of button customization options.

Shopify has a free built-in point of sale app that every Shopify merchant can use, along with Shopify hardware, to sell at in-person events as well as online.

If you want to conduct in-person sales through your BigCommerce store, you can choose among 18 apps, including Lightspeed and Square POS, to download. The Square-BigCommerce integration is easy and free to use, but it’s an extra step that Shopify merchants don’t have to take.

Shopify and BigCommerce both support international selling, but on the whole, Shopify offers way more features for business owners to build a global sales network.

With Shopify Markets, Shopify’s new international sales solution, merchants can create several copies of one website (in website subfolders, with specific subdomain names) and set specific languages, currencies, product offerings, and marketing campaigns to distribute to different geographical zones.

When someone clicks on your Shopify website, the version they see in search results will either automatically show the user the version of your website that matches their language settings and geographical location, or you can set your store to offer suggested versions of your store based on country. You get to choose, and it depends largely on your SEO strategy and technical skills.

BigCommerce doesn’t have a super sophisticated international selling setup like this, but like Shopify, BigCommerce allows you to sell in multiple languages and currencies. You can also set shipping zones and rules with both store builders, along with tax and duty import fees.

If you’re on the highest-level BigCommerce plan, you can easily set up multiple storefronts in varying languages and let regional managers in different countries operate their own versions of your company’s website. This isn’t an option for Shopify users.

Shopify and BigCommerce both make use of third-party apps to give users dropshipping (including print-on-demand) capabilities. BigCommerce offers most of the best Shopify dropshipping apps, but Shopify offers more third-party dropshipping apps in general.

If you want to sell very niche items from a specific dropshipping site, Shopify is the best option. Otherwise, the two eCommerce platforms are neck-and-neck in this area.

Shopify shines when it comes to item warehousing and order fulfillment. The company has consistently added warehousing locations for merchants to store their items and get orders to customers faster.

The idea behind the Shopify fulfillment network is for Shopify merchants to be able to compete with Amazon when it comes to fast order delivery.

The network suggests what fulfillment center you should ship your products to, based on where your orders are coming from, notifies you when inventory is running low, and offers a custom packing option. You manage everything except the pick and pull from your admin dashboard.

Shopify charges storage fees based on the square footage of space used in their warehouse and a per-item transaction fee. Of course, you can also choose to work with a third-party fulfillment service, which may be more cost-effective in the long run.

While BigCommerce integrates with nearly two dozen third-party fulfillment services, it does not offer an in-house option. Some fulfillment services charge monthly fees and others by the item.

Related: If using a fulfillment service is one of your eCommerce goals, read our post on eCommerce order fulfillment strategy to learn what fulfillment options, if any, are right for your business.

Both BigCommerce and Shopify have built-in blogs. Neither blog builders are very impressive.

If you want to build a more comprehensive/customizable blog, consider using a different web builder to create a blog, or installing a third-party blogging app to your store builder.

If you want to make Instagram posts shoppable, sell on TikTok, and/or sell on Facebook, both eCommerce platforms allow you to do so from within your store admin dashboard.

Shopify offers more social media app integrations through its app store. With buy buttons, though, you can sell on pretty much any social media platform.

Both BigCommerce and Shopify allow you to sell on major marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, and Walmart Marketplace. Again, Shopify has more niche marketplace selling options due to its vast app store offerings.

Bottom line: If you want to integrate your online store with several social media channels and marketplaces, Shopify is your go-to eCommerce builder. If you are only interested in major social media channels and marketplaces, either store builder will work.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a method of improving your website so that it will get listed higher in search results. Websites listed higher in search results are more likely to be clicked on, and more likely to convert potential buyers into customers.

BigCommerce and Shopify have built-in SEO tools, such as custom URLs, lazy-loading pages, mobile-optimized website templates, custom product descriptions, meta descriptions, and robots.txt customizations.

However, BigCommerce does a better job at serving up fast, SEO-enhanced pages to users and Google search bots.

BigCommerce allows you to automatically serve up webpages in Google’s new, faster accelerated mobile pages (AMP) format. Faster-loading webpages are preferred by both Google and users, so making your pages load fast is a high SEO priority. You’d have to install a third-party app to get your Shopify site to serve up pages in AMP.

Shopify nests different versions of webpages in subfolders, which often take longer to load.

Related: To improve your site’s SEO and search results ranking, read our post on how to improve a website.

Shopify is cheaper than BigCommerce sometimes.

If you use Shopify’s Starter plan, which costs $5/month, you’ll get charged transaction fees that may make the “low-cost” plan not worth it.

After that, Shopify and BigCommerce have similar monthly plan pricing.

It’s worth noting that if you don’t use Shopify’s in-house payment processor, you’ll pay transaction fees.

BigCommerce is often cheaper depending on your choice of payment processor.

BigCommerce is better for a large inventory. There are more product customization, variation, and search functions with BigCommerce.

BigCommerce is better for a business that sells digital downloads. With BigCommerce, it’s easier to set up digital products and you have options like digital download expiration dates.

There is not a plan similar to Shopify Lite in BigCommerce (Shopify Lite is now called Shopify Starter.)

Shopify Lite costs $5/month (Shopify Lite is now known as Shopify’s Starter plan) and does not deliver a complete eCommerce solution, just a buy button.

You can create buy buttons with BigCommerce, but you have to sign up for a plan that comes with an online store.

BigCommerce Enterprise costs vary, as pricing is customized for each user. Aimed at businesses with more than $400,000 in annual sales, plans range from $400 to $15,000+ per month.

You can have two Shopify stores, but not with one Shopify account. You’ll have to create and pay for two separate Shopify accounts.

On BigCommerce’s highest-level plan, you can control multiple stores on one account.

Shopify pricing is $5/month up to $299+/month, or you can get custom pricing for Shopify’s enterprise-level plan.

With the $5/month Starter plan, you have to pay a 5% transaction fee on every order. Keep that in mind when choosing between the $5/month Shopify Starter plan and the $29/month basic Shopify plan.