The Best Shopify Alternative

Last updated on February 6th, 2023 at 01:58 pm.

The Best Shopify Alternative For Building Online Stores

Which is the best Shopify alternative?

If for some reason you don’t want to use Shopify to build your online store, the best alternative to Shopify is BigCommerce. BigCommerce is the top competitor of Shopify.

BigCommerce is a website builder, specifically, an online store website builder. With Big Commerce, you don’t need to buy web hosting separately. Once you sign up for a free trial, you can start building your eCommerce website by adding your products.

As someone new to online store builders, if you are looking for the best website for eCommerce stores, either Shopify or Bigcommerce is an acceptable choice.

In this post I’ll answer various questions a beginner may have. You will also read about various features provided at bigcommerce.com.

Bigcommerce Features list

Top Shopify Alternative

What are some of the features of this online store builder?

BigCommerce features list include the following :

  • Unlimited Products, unlimited file storage and unlimited bandwidth.
  • Responsive website designs that adapt to all screen sizes including smartphones and tablets.
  • No additional transaction fees on all plans.
  • 24/7 customer support via phone, chat, & tickets.
  • Unlimited Staff accounts for you and your employees.
  • Multiple sales channels such as : Your Online storefront / website, Point of sale (connect your offline and online channels), Amazon/eBay/Walmart, Facebook/Instagram Checkout & Google Shopping
  • BigCommerce mobile app for Andoid and iOS : Used to View online store performance, manage orders, products and customers.
  • Drag and drop Page Builder.
  • Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay and other Payment Gateways are available.
  • Multi-Currency support.
  • Promotion features such as Coupons, discounts and gift cards.
  • Setup real time shipping rates.
  • Advanced reporting and performance metrics tools.
  • Blogging tools.
  • Product review and rating system.
  • Free website security via SSL.
  • Reliable shipping rules via ShipperHQ engine.
  • Segment and group Customers in your dashboard.
  • Abandoned cart recovery and Persistent Cart technology.
  • Stored customer payment details for quick checkout.

Related : How to Create Shopify Clothing Store – Free Video Tutorial

Bigcommerce Pricing / Plans

How much does it cost to use BigCommerce? The first 3 merchant plans are listed below. All the features listed above are available in all plans.

Check out the latest Big Commerce pricing here.

The 3 major plans for most merchants are:

Standard : $29.95 p/m

Allowable Max sales per year for the Standard plan is $50k.

Plus : $79.95 p/m

Allowable Max sales per year for the Plus plan is $180k.

Pro : $299.95 p/m

Max sales per year for the Pro plan is $400k

All the plans come with all the features listed above. There are a few differences which can be viewed on the pricing page. The price plans are based upon how much are your total sales in a year. Once you exceed the maximum sales for your plan, you will automatically get upgraded to the next plan.

Bigcommerce vs Shopify

Shopify has always been labeled by most gurus as the best ecommerce platform for beginners. However, BigCommerce being it’s largest competitor, is the best Shopify alternative.

We’ll compare different aspects of Bigcommerce and Shopify.

1. Pricing

Big Commerce pricing

BigCommerce Standard: $29.95 per month

BigCommerce Plus: $79.95 per month

BigCommerce Pro: $299.95 per month

Shopify Pricing

Lite: $9 per month

Basic Shopify: $29 per month

Shopify: $79 per month

Advanced Shopify: $299 per month

It is important to note that BigCommerce has sales limits on each plan, whereas Shopify does not. The limits are 50k, 180k and 400k respectively for the first 3 big commerce plans.

Themes and design

Both platforms have different themes to choose from. They both have free and premium ecommerce themes. You can start with any theme . You can switch themes later on in your design process.

Both platforms provide a drag and drop site builder for designing your eCommerce web pages. You may also customize your design using HTML, CSS and JS if you have the technical know-how. Otherwise, the drag and drop store builder is sufficient for any beginner to use.

Customer Payment Options

Both eCommerce platforms have multiple payment gateways inbuilt into the system. This makes it easy for you to start selling online.

Multiple currencies and languages are supported, so it is safe to say that they are both global companies. They are usable in different locales.

There are lots of payment gateways that you can use depending on where you are and where your target customers are located. Both companies offer options such as Paypal, Credit cards and so much more.

If you can find a Payment gateway to use in your country then , it means you can create your store and sell to your customers in your country even if you are not located in North America or Europe.

A list of Shopify payment options can be found in your dashboard under Payment settings. List of Bigcommerce payment gateways are here.

Marketing and branding Features

– Blogging is one of the easiest ways to bring evergreen traffic to your online store. Both eCommerce software have inbuilt blogging function. You can start adding blog posts as soon as you setup your online shop.

– Abandoned cart recovery : Both have this abandoned cart recovery feature. This allows you to send an email to customers who did not finish checking out.

– They both have Analaytics tools : These are metrics shown on your dashboard to enable you check how your store is performing.

– Both platforms support dropshipping. You can install apps to help you setup your dropshipping store in BigC and Shopify.

– In terms of branding, you may purchase a domain name with both companies. A domain name will help you build your brand if you market it consistently. Instead of buying domains from third party domain sellers like Namecheap or Godaddy, you can order one within your store dashboard.

– Shopify has a new Email Marketing tool that allows you to send email campaigns to your customers. This is not yet available in Bigcommerce, however you may use Email marketing companies such as Getresponse to handle your email Marketing tasks.

Products publishing features

– In both platforms you can sell both physical and digital products.

– You are able to create product categories and product variants in both. Bigcommerce offers more options in terms of product variations.

– You may import and export products using CSV file in both eCommerce platforms. In Big Commerce you may also use XML files to upload your products.

Is Bigcommerce better than shopify?

Bigcommerce is used by lots of merchants globally, and so is Shopify. If I was the one building my store I would pick either. Both ecommerce software can help you get online and start selling faster than WordPress.

For someone who doesn’t want to use Shopify, then, BigC is definitely your top choice. It has lots of great features that compete with and in some areas even beat the Shopify features.

The answer to this question, ‘Is Bigcommerce better than shopify?’ is , no. It is competitive with Shopify . They can go toe to toe when comparing their features and functionality. I have a post here for why I recommend Shopify. This post might as well have been titled ‘Why I recommend BigCommerce’. The points I made in that post are transferable to BigC as well.

Ultimately, BigCommerce is the best Shopify Alternative. There are other ecommerce Software one may use, such as WooCommerce, Squarespace, Wix, PrestaShop, Magento and so on. With that said, BigC is the best Shopify alternative and you shouldn’t look any further if your aim is to create an online store.

If you’d rather use Shopify, check out my free tutorial for how to create an online store using Shopify.

How does Shopify work – All About Shopify – For Beginners

Quick Questions and quick answers about this eCommerce software.

Is BigCommerce free ?

It is NOT free. However there is a 15 day free trial. Claim your free trial here.

What is Bigcommerce platform?

It is an ecommerce platform / ecommerce software where you can create an account and build a fully working online store. It enables you to sell either physical or digital products online.

Is bigcommerce the best Shopify Alternative?

Yes. It is definitely the best Shopify alternative. It is the largest Shopify competitor.

Is Bigcommerce legit?

Yes. Bigcommerce is a registered eCommerce Company listed on NASDAQ. There are multiple merchants using it to grow their online businesses.

Is Shopify better than Bigcommerce ?

Shopify is more popular than BigCommerce, but that does not mean that is better. You can use one or the other. However, most people usually just pick Shopify because it is heavily marketed and it has a huge affiliate network.

Is Bigcommerce the best website for eCommerce

You can either use Shopify or BigCommerce. They are both reliable and have great customer service.

Why should I use BigCommerce?

You should use BigCommerce because it has great theme designs and creating your store is quick and simpler than using other ecommerce software such as WooCommerce, Magento, PrestaShop , etc.

What stores use BigCommerce?

Honestly, it doesn’t matter which big stores or big companies use it. All you have to consider is that there is a huge number of satisfied Merchants currently using the platform to make money via their online shops.

Video Captions for this Best Shopify Alternative video

Hi and welcome to this video. In this video let’s answer the question, ” Which is the best Shopify alternative ? “

So the best Shopify alternative is BigCommerce. If you want a platform that runs the same as Shopify, provides almost the same features, works in a similar manner. You don’t have to do anything, all you have to do is create your account, then you should go with Bigcommerce because they are similar platforms but built with different technologies.

In the description I will add a link and you can use that link to get your free one month offer. You can get one month free when you pick a plan. And you’ll also get a free trial. You can try BigCommerce for 15 days. I will put the link in the description.

Let’s look at the pricing for these two and just see what you’ll get on BigCommerce and how that applies to Shopify as well. If you come here to bigcommerce pricing you’ll see the prices.

The pricing for Big Commerce is almost the same as the ones on Shopify . Actually they’re just the same. If you click here and you go to pricing on Shopify you’re going to see that the pricing is almost the same. And you can see the features that are provided right here.

You can compare the features which are available here and then look at the features which are here. Something that you need to take note of when you’re using BigCommerce is that these different plants will have different capacity, different caps for sales annually.

If you scroll down you’re going to see that there is this, up to 50k, up to 180k and up to 400k. This is the amount of sales that you can do in a year within that plan. If you exceed this you’ll get about a thousand or about two thousand more sales before you will need to upgrade. But usually when you get to this, roughly this amount you’ll need to upgrade your plan.

That’s something that you you need to bear in mind because in Shopify this does not exist. In Shopify you can sell as much as you need to. Most other features are just the same. Everything is almost unlimited; unlimited products, unlimited file storage, unlimited bandwidth. You’re going to get almost the same things as you’d usually get on Shopify.

If you don’t want to use Shopify for whatever reason. Then you can just go with BigCommerce. Okay.

On shopify it’s also important to note that you can start with a $9 plan which will allow you to create links for your products. What this offers is a link, whereby you can add a link on your blog. You can even add them on Facebook. You can use Shopify to process those orders.

That’s it for this video but before I end the video, there is an article for this as well. You can come here and read this article where I did some basic comparison. And I also answered various questions here that you may have.

I will put the link in the description. I’ll put the link for the Big commerce pricing in the description and Shopify as well. You can find all that in the description.

If you do have any question about this too let me know. And finally if you want to use Shopify to build your online store, I do have a free Shopify tutorial on Udemy. I’ll put the link in the description as well.

That’s it for this video. I will see you next time in a different video.

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