Is your eCommerce business generating over $400,000 in revenue each year? Is your brand’s sales volume outgrowing your current service platform?
You need an enterprise-level solution if your eCommerce business is experiencing a high-volume growth. While both BigCommerce and Shopify gained their initial traction by supporting small eCommerce owners, they have widely expanded their services to grow with their clients. Both platforms have developed a sound reputation for their ease of use and reliability. As their customers continued to expand, BigCommerce and Shopify have constantly come up with eCommerce solutions to stay competitive.
BigCommerce Enterprise and Shopify Plus are the answer to resolving the needs of enterprise-level eCommerce businesses. However, which one should you choose if you’re considering an upgrade for your business?
As an expert in eCommerce solutions, we’ve compiled an extensive list of comparisons and ratings so you can have a clear picture of the pros and cons of both platforms.
1) Leading Brands
Which enterprise brands are actually using BigCommerce and Shopify? Both platforms turn out to have an impressive clientele. If million-dollar revenue businesses are using these platforms, you can rest assured your business will be in good hands as well.
BigCommerce Enterprise Clients:
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- Toyota
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- Kodak
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- Paul Mitchell
- Martha Stewart
Shopify Plus Clients:
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- 2 Chainz
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- Budweiser
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- Nestle
- Kylie Cosmetics
BigCommerce Rating: ★★★★★
Shopify Rating: ★★★★★
2) Business Focus
Servicing over 600,000 websites, Shopify is undoubtedly the pioneer and leader of eCommerce platforms. The company has no trouble presenting remarkable statistics that can woo any prospective clients. However, it’s worth noting that Shopify was caught up in a “Get-Rich-Quick Scheme” in 2017. Although Shopify was quick to defend its business model, the scandal shed light on the company’s service orientation. Of all the Shopify clients, only 2,500 accounts were Shopify Plus merchants and most of the rest were micro-businesses. Shopify’s ambiguous allocation of resources and exaggerated marketing claims have certainly obscured the company’s business focus.
BigCommerce, on the other hand, reiterates a clear target audience: fast-growing online retailers. The platform services a smaller client base with around 55,000 websites, but focuses heavily on refining its enterprise features. Although BigCommerce Enterprise was only introduced in 2015, it has already attracted high-profile brands that have over $1 million in annual sales.
BigCommerce Rating: ★★★★☆
Shopify Rating: ★★★☆☆
3) Ease of Use
Both BigCommerce and Shopify have user-friendly interfaces. BigCommerce Enterprise and Shopify Plus employ the same dashboards as their basic plans, making it easy for users to navigate even with advanced features.
BigCommerce Rating: ★★★★★
Shopify Rating: ★★★★★
4) Product Catalog
BigCommerce Enterprise distinguishes itself with a powerful catalog feature, allowing up to 600 product variants and 250 option values. Thanks to the complexity of its catalog and its native faceted search function, BigCommerce Enterprise enables customers to filter and search for specific products by color, sizing, price range, etc. The built-in product filters and the search function can result in a conversion increase by up to 10%.
Shopify Plus provides a much more limited catalog feature, supporting only 100 product variants and three options per product. Users will have to rely on third-party apps to expand Shopify’s catalog and faceted search.
BigCommerce Rating: ★★★★★
Shopify Rating: ★★★☆☆
5) Third-Party Apps & Integration
Shopify Plus comes with almost 1,000 apps and integrations for various purposes like marketing and accounting. In comparison, BigCommerce Enterprise has fewer plugins and add-ons available in its app store. However, the native apps in BigCommerce Enterprise are versatile enough to perform most needs, and more apps are working to integrate with BigCommerce soon.
BigCommerce Rating: ★★★★☆
Shopify Rating: ★★★★★
6) Shipping
Merchants with BigCommerce Enterprise benefit hugely from its built-in shipping rate engine, ShipperHQ. It allows business owners to customize live shipping rates and carriers by different requirements, such as customer group, destination, quantity, etc. Customers can immediately see how much shipping costs in their cart, preventing any unwanted surprise at checkout.
Shopify Plus merchants can enjoy discounted rates when they purchase shipping labels from Shopify directly. They can also use Shopify’s Script Editor to customize shipping rates and restrict certain carriers and zones. However, you’ll need to use a third-party app if you need to customize by product dimensions.
BigCommerce Rating: ★★★★★
Shopify Rating: ★★★★☆
7) Wholesale
Many enterprise-level merchants have a wholesale/B2B channel. BigCommerce Enterprise accommodates wholesale needs particularly well. You can set quantity discounts and variant-level pricing, as well as allowing separate access for your wholesale clients under the same domain. The process of setting up both retail and wholesale in BigCommerce Enterprise is made easy with its intuitive price lists.
With Shopify Plus, you’ll need to create a separate wholesale channel, and it’ll be under a subdomain. The restrictions that come with limited customization and functionality can create a discrepancy in shopping experience between retail and wholesale customers.
BigCommerce Rating: ★★★★★
Shopify Rating: ★★★☆☆
8) Performance
Both BigCommerce Enterprise and Shopify Plus are built to meet a high volume of traffic and transactions. They both provide unlimited bandwidth and reliable hosting, ensuring exceptional website performance even during holiday seasons. BigCommerce boasts an average uptime of 99.99%, with perfect uptime during Cyber Week for the last four years. Shopify Plus also delivers a competitive result with a 99.98% average uptime.
BigCommerce Rating: ★★★★★
Shopify Rating: ★★★★★
9) SEO
Ecommerce merchants live and breathe SEO as organic search remains the biggest driver for new sales. BigCommerce and Shopify both generate URLs that are clean and search-engine-friendly.
The distinguishing factor between the two, however, is the ability to customize URLs. BigCommerce users can fully customize their URLs based on their best SEO practices. Shopify has a stricter URL structure, unfortunately. It’s impossible for Shopify merchants to remove a subcategory from their URLs; like “/products/” or “pages/”. The inflexible URL structure has remained a major complaint among Shopify merchants and it has yet to be resolved.
BigCommerce Rating: ★★★★★
Shopify Rating: ★★☆☆☆
10) Checkout Process
The checkout page is the last step to give your customers an impression of the perfect online shopping experience. With BigCommerce Enterprise’s one-page checkout, you can create a branded, streamlined checkout experience for your customers. The platform also offers a lower fee for credit-card transactions made via PayPal.
Shopify Plus utilizes its own payment gateway, Shopify Payments, a multi-step checkout that allows very few customizations. It also offers lower transaction fees for Shopify merchants. In theory, Shopify Payments is optimized for conversion, but many Shopify users seek to create a better checkout experience with third-party apps and hacks.
BigCommerce Rating: ★★★★★
Shopify Rating: ★★★★☆
11) Pricing
BigCommerce Enterprise’s pricing starts at around $1,000 per month, varying by your average order value and the average number of orders. You can use BigCommerce’s Total Cost of Ownership Calculator to estimate the cost of an enterprise plan based on your business volume.
Shopify Plus doesn’t have any published details on how much the plan should cost. It has a vague pricing model based on four factors: a Shopify platform fee, payment processing fees, app fees, and maintenance fees. The Shopify platform fee starts at a minimum of $2,000 monthly, with a ceiling of $40,000, excluding the other variable factors. If you wish to find out more details, you’ll have to get in touch with a Shopify Plus representative directly.
Keep in mind that both enterprise solutions are meant for businesses with a high volume of sales. Small businesses might not find great values in paying several thousand dollars a month to run their eCommerce operations.
BigCommerce Rating: ★★★★★
Shopify Rating: ★★★★☆
Conclusion
BigCommerce and Shopify are two of the leading eCommerce platforms for enterprise-level businesses.
Overall, BigCommerce Enterprise provides more flexible customizations and utilizes native features without relying too much on third-party apps. It has a well-defined target customer – an established or fast-growing business – which allows the platform to better tailor to unique enterprise needs in the future.
Shopify Plus excels in trying to encompass all the services in eCommerce retail, like payment processing and shipping. It also has a well-developed community for third-party apps and integrations.
At DigitlHaus Agency, we think both of these enterprise SaaS eCommerce platforms have their advantages for serious merchants. Nevertheless, we confidently chose BigCommerce as our exclusive partner with our clients’ best interest in mind. We, too, want our eCommerce clients to grow and succeed online, and BigCommerce ultimately gives entrepreneurs a more competitive edge.
