Bigcommerce vs Shopify: Detailed Comparison for Australian Retailers

Bigcommerce vs Shopify: At a Glance

Bigcommerce vs Shopify are subscription-based eCommerce solutions catering to businesses of all sizes, from solopreneurs to large enterprises. Both platforms provide unlimited products, file storage, and bandwidth across all plans, along with online storefronts, POS capabilities, multiple sales channels, customer support, and gift card options.

While both platforms offer essential eCommerce tools like basic shipping features and SSL certificates for secure online payments, BigCommerce distinguishes itself with a robust set of built-in features. In contrast, Shopify boasts a vast ecosystem of over 8,000 paid and free third-party apps available through its app store.

BigCommerce’s feature-rich environment is scalable but may require a more significant learning curve. Shopify, on the other hand, provides a user-friendly base platform that can expand functionality through integration with its extensive app marketplace.

Bigcommerce vs Shopify In Detailed Comparison for the Australian Market

The eCommerce market in Australia is poised for substantial growth, with projections indicating a significant increase of 9.36% from 2024 to 2029. This growth trajectory is expected to culminate in a market volume reaching US$58.03 billion by 2029. 

As the digital landscape evolves, businesses in Australia are increasingly turning to robust eCommerce platforms like BigCommerce and Shopify to capitalize on these expanding opportunities. Here are comprehensive comparison between these platform:

Bigcommerce vs Shopify Pricing Plans

Bigcommerce vs Shopify offers a range of pricing plans with similar tiers for their services, making them comparable options for Australian businesses looking to establish or enhance their online presence. For B2B customers, advanced and enterprise editions are recommended to manage wholesale orders with maximum convenience and extra features.

Shopify Pricing Plans:

• Basic Shopify: $29/month
• Shopify Standard: $79/month
• Advanced Shopify: $299/month
• Shopify Plus: Starts from $2,000/month (Personalized pricing)

BigCommerce Pricing Plans:

• BigCommerce Standard: $29.95/month
• BigCommerce Plus: $79.95/month
• BigCommerce Pro: $299.95/month
• BigCommerce Enterprise: Personalized pricing

Key Considerations – Transaction Fees:

• Shopify: Charges transaction fees if customers do not use Shopify Payments.
• BigCommerce: This does not charge additional fees besides the annual license fee.

Bigcommerce vs Shopify‘s Website hostings

BigCommerce offers a significant advantage by being hosted on Google Cloud, eliminating the need for additional hosting services. With an uptime of over 99%, as claimed by BigCommerce and confirmed by numerous B2B customer reviews, the platform provides reliable performance.

Additionally, BigCommerce is optimized for faster page loading times, enhancing search result performance.

Conversely Bigcommerce vs Shopify, Shopify uses a content delivery network (CDN) for hosting eCommerce websites. This global network of servers allows seamless access to stores from anywhere in the world. Shopify’s CDN is powered by Fastly, a reputable provider known for its reliability.

Bigcommerce vs Shopify SEO

BigCommerce is well-optimized for SEO, boasting fast loading times, a lightweight and organized structure, and customizable advanced SEO elements like metadata and URLs.

Shopify, however, has some technical flaws in its URL folder structure, requiring customization of categories and taxonomies to fit the platform’s specific requirements. This limitation can be problematic for users who want to change their website URLs. Additionally, issues with canonical tags and other SEO elements persist on Shopify, even with custom tools, without permanent solutions.

Bigcommerce vs Shopify Themes & designs

In Australia, both Bigcommerce vs Shopify provide a limited number of free themes—Shopify with nine and BigCommerce with twelve.

BigCommerce provides greater flexibility in configuration with its drag-and-drop functionality, allowing users to customize their stores more freely.

Shopify, on the other hand, is exceptionally simple to use, enabling new sellers to make minor adjustments and publish their stores quickly.

For paid themes, both platforms offer a wide selection. Shopify has over 70 premium themes, priced between $140 and $160 each. BigCommerce offers around 150 themes, with prices ranging from $150 to $300, providing more options for users to choose from.

Watch more: BigCommerce vs Magento: Key Differences for Australian eCommerce

Bigcommerce vs Shopify Sales features

When it comes to maximizing sales efforts, the debate between Bigcommerce vs Shopify centers on their different approaches to achieving eCommerce effectiveness.

Shopify is ideal for new sellers and small dropshipping businesses, thanks to its extensive app marketplace. This allows sellers to expand and customize their stores extensively with third-party extensions, which can be free or paid.

BigCommerce, on the other hand, excels with its robust built-in features. Even without using marketplace apps or third-party extensions, BigCommerce’s sales features are highly effective. It includes functions such as product ratings, customer reviews, real-time shipping quotes, and company (staff) account management—all of which would require additional apps to achieve similar functionality in Shopify.

Bigcommerce vs Shopify Marketing Features

BigCommerce offers more built-in functionality compared to Shopify, but Shopify’s app store provides a wider range of choices for sellers in both sales and marketing functions. With BigCommerce, you can:

• Create and apply discount codes to specific products.
• Organize and set up URL metadata and other SEO-related properties.
• Integrate with Google Shopping for enhanced performance.
• Personalize shopping experiences with various segmentation tools.
• Automatically send emails to customers who abandon their carts, maximizing engagement.

In contrast, Shopify enables you to gain insights into your products by analyzing how specific products have sold over time. However, Shopify’s basic plans lack comprehensive analytics. To access detailed sales and earnings data, you need to upgrade to a more premium Shopify package.

Bigcommerce vs Shopify Payment options

Both Bigcommerce vs Shopify support a wide variety of payment methods, but BigCommerce offers a more extensive selection. BigCommerce supports over 40 payment methods, including PayPal, Amazon Pay, Authorize.net, Stripe, and others, with few exceptions like SEB or Swedbank.

Initially, Shopify supported fewer options such as PayPal, Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, and Authorize.net. However, Shopify’s extensive app marketplace allows integration with numerous third-party payment extensions, enabling support for almost limitless payment methods.

However, Shopify Payments stands out for not charging transaction fees, but it is available only in certain countries and regions. Despite this advantage, to offer a broader range of payment options to customers, additional transaction fees may apply for other payment methods integrated into the Shopify store.

Bigcommerce vs Shopify Data securities

In the Australian market, data security is crucial for wholesalers, especially during sales and marketing campaigns. Both Shopify and BigCommerce prioritize robust security measures to ensure data encryption and safe transmission.

Shopify maintains PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliance across all stages of credit card transactions online. Shopify ensures all client pages are PCI compliant and secured with SSL certification, encrypting all content transmitted over HTTPS to prevent interception and leakage of sensitive information.

Similarly, BigCommerce is also PCI DSS compliant, offering advanced security features. BigCommerce provides the option to upgrade to a paid SSL certificate, enhancing encryption capabilities, with prices ranging from $59 to $299.

In essence, both platforms in the Australian market uphold stringent security standards to protect wholesalers’ data integrity and customer information during transactions and beyond.

Watch more: Key Comparisons: Shopify vs Salesforce for Australian Users

Bigcommerce vs Shopify Support services

Bigcommerce vs Shopify each offer a wide range of support services including phone support, live chat, and email assistance. Their help centers feature extensive video tutorials and community forums to support users.

BigCommerce structures its help center into user-friendly sections, facilitating efficient information retrieval and navigation through platform features.

Shopify integrates reminders across its dashboard, guiding users to explore features independently through the help center.

Upgrading to the top pricing plans provides sellers with priority support:

• Shopify Plus: Includes access to a dedicated Shopify supporter for personalized assistance.
• BigCommerce Enterprise: Provides access to a dedicated BigCommerce specialist and ensures high-priority support as required.

In summary, Bigcommerce vs Shopify provides robust support ecosystems designed to help users navigate and optimize their platform experiences, with specialized support available at higher pricing tiers.

Conclusion

After reviewing our comparison, it’s clear that  BigCommerce is ideal for wholesalers and retailers seeking comprehensive, scalable solutions. Shopify remains favored by small businesses needing quick, user-friendly eCommerce, customizable through its extensive app marketplace.

When considering Bigcommerce vs Shopify, SmartOSC stands out as a premium eCommerce agency and a leading partner for both the BigCommerce platform and Shopify platform, offering extensive expertise and innovative solutions to elevate your online presence. If you want to know more about this information, please feel free to contact us.