Which eCommerce Platform is Right for You?
Shopify
Shopify is one of the leading eCommerce platforms, running over 1,000,000 businesses across the globe. Shopify offers a set of robust features across all plans, with a plethora of app partners and integrations. Shopify is suitable for users of all technical abilities with easy-to-use themes and customisable CSS, HTML and Liquid code.
Apps & Integrations
Shopify’s app store is robust and offers a solution to practically every eCommerce need. With extensions for everything from optimising conversions to adding products to your Instagram feed, tracking orders, setting up subscriptions, and designing a loyalty program.
Payments
WooCommerce accepts payments via Stripe and Paypal by default with the option of other third-party providers available through add-ons. The cost of additional integrations can add up quickly, as each is billed separately, so keep an eye on the costs.
Pricing
Shopify is subscription-based starting from $29 for the Basic Shopify plan. We recommend the $79 Shopify plan for SMEs or Shopify Plus for larger, high-volume merchants due to the features and functionality.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce offers a similar setup to Shopify with customisable themes, editable with built-in Javascript, HTML, or CSS. It’s relatively new to the eCommerce market but already powered 118,000 online stores. BigCommerce is both a CMS and hosted subscription-based platform, including hosting, domain, SEO tools, analytics and reporting tools.
Payments
BigCommerce currently accepts payments from over 60 payment gateways including PayPal, Stripe, Square, Amazon Pay, and more.
Apps & Integration
There are over 550 apps for BigCommerce on their marketplace for accounting & tax, analytics & reporting, B2B & wholesale, catalogue & order management, CRM & customer service, and more.
Pricing
Offering two levels of service, depending on business size, with each service offering a range of features and plans.
BigCommerce Essentials: the BigCommerce Essentials plan allows you to create eCommerce systems with over 5,000 apps and partners. The standard plan begins at $30 per month and includes unlimited products, unlimited storage and bandwidth, the ability to accept credit cards and Paypal and 24/7 support.
BigCommerce Enterprise: designed for larger businesses, BigCommerce Enterprise offers launch and success services.
WooCommerce
Technically, WooCommerce isn’t an eCommerce platform itself, but is a powerful WordPress plugin that creates a dynamic eCommerce platform using extensions. Because it’s open-source, it offers a comprehensive set of features that enable businesses to customise the store experience. WooCommerce, as a plugin, requires you to have a WordPress account to get started.
WooCommerce allows you to monetise a pre-existing WordPress website, combining WordPress’s CMS with your online store.
While WooCommerce is a powerful solution, you’re on your own when it comes to hosting and it’s a little harder to master, though there’s documentation out there to help you. It generally requires at least a little HTML knowledge to do well.
Apps Store & Add-Ons
Since WooCommerce’s open-source platform is connected to WordPress, users are able to connect their store to WordPress’s collection of apps and add-ons.
Payments
WooCommerce supports over 100 payment gateways including Stripe, Square, PayPal, Amazon Pay, etc. A lot of the extensions though come at a cost as well as ongoing transaction fees and credit card rates.
If your heart is set on WordPress and WooCommerce for selling online, our team of developers are also WordPress Experts. Give us a call to discuss WordPress as an option for your business or to upgrade your WordPress site.
The Verdict
Ultimately, we prefer Shopify’s features, functionality and ease-of-use. It’s why we’re Shopify Partners and New Zealand’s leading Shopify Experts – we believe in the product. For years, we have witnessed the ever-evolving features and benefits offered by Shopify, which position the platform far ahead of the curve as the best option for scalability.
In short, Shopify is the future.
