In today’s eCommerce landscape, it isn’t just open-source platforms that can meet the complex development and customization needs of large-scale enterprises, but SaaS platforms are also steadily rising with significant improvements. Among them, two SaaS platforms designed specifically for large enterprises are Shopify Plus and BigCommerce Enterprise.

However, these two platforms have many key differences. This article aims to clarify the pros and cons of each platform and compare the differences between the two platforms to help you — as a business leader — make well-informed decisions. 

Learn more: Shopify vs BigCommerce: Which platform is right for you?

Shopify Plus vs BigCommerce Enterprise: Pros and Cons

Shopify Plus vs BigCommerce Enterprise: Quick Comparison

Shopify Plus vs BigCommerce Enterprise: Detailed Comparison

Ease of Use

Both platforms are recognized for their user-friendliness compared to open-source platforms. Their intuitive dashboard and user-friendly navigation, along with features like drag-and-drop editing, extensive documentation, and 24/7 support, make them accessible for users of varying technical expertise.

However, Shopify, known for its inherent user-friendly design, ensures that users, whether using the Plus version or the regular ones, can easily explore and set up their eCommerce website with efficiency.

Both these two premium solution platforms — which are Shopify Plus and BigCommerce Enterprise — cater to the deployment needs of large enterprises, these platforms offer advanced features and technologies that require some learning.

For example, the ‘Plus’ users need to grasp the Liquid template language, while those opting for the ‘Enterprise’ may benefit from understanding the Google Cloud Platform for optimizing website performance.

BigCommerce, renowned for its built-in features, continues this trend with the ‘Enterprise’ version. Some features may suit specific businesses but might be unnecessary for others. While BigCommerce allows flexibility for customizing and configuring these advanced features, it can introduce complexity and intricacy into the setup process.

Pricing

Similarly to other premium solutions on SaaS platforms, the license fee will depend on the deployment requirements and the current scale of the business. BigCommerce doesn’t disclose the fee publicly, requiring businesses to directly contact the platform for tailored consultation and pricing.

On the other hand, Shopify Plus has a license fee starting at $2000 per month. Once you reach a monthly revenue threshold of $800,000, the platform fee becomes revenue-based, amounting to 0.25% of monthly revenue, capped at $40,000 per month or $480,000 per year. 

Considering transaction fees is also important. While BigCommerce doesn’t charge transaction fees, Shopify Plus charges a 0.15% transaction fee for not using Shopify Payments. 

To estimate deployment costs effectively, you should partner with development agencies and engage in detailed consultations with BigCommerce or Shopify for comprehensive guidance.

Features

• Multi-store management

For large enterprises, the multi-store management feature is crucial and a primary consideration when selecting an eCommerce platform to sell globally. To engage in sales across various markets worldwide, your eCommerce website needs to be crafted to suit the preferences of each target audience in different markets.

This involves addressing issues related to language conversion, currency units, and payment methods with flexibility. Moreover, stores should be administered efficiently in a centralized manner rather than separately.

Shopify Plus allows you to create up to 9 additional storefronts alongside the main storefront at 1000 different inventory locations and 20 additional inventory locations. All these storefronts can be centrally managed through a single dashboard. 

Plus, the Shopify Market feature will help you select the markets you want to sell in. The system will then automatically convert and manage multiple languages, currency units, shipping options, and payment methods based on the user’s IP address. Currently, Shopify Plus supports a range of local payment gateways, and you can refer to the provided list.

BigCommerce Enterprise doesn’t provide many solutions or features for global selling. Instead, it allows you to deploy multiple stores within the platform and then integrate with 3rd-party PIM solutions to manage data across these stores.

Another option is to leverage the BigCommerce Stencil framework to tailor content language for each local market. Also, the Enterprise version supports multi-currency payments through more than 250 local payment gateways.

• Headless Commerce

The demand for adopting Headless eCommerce is on the rise, especially among large enterprises seeking to deliver a seamless and optimized experience for their customers. Both Shopify Plus and BigCommerce Enterprise offer effective solutions for going Headless.

BigCommerce Enterprise allows you to integrate with various frameworks (Next.js, Gatsby.js, Nuxt.js), APIs (REST, GraphQL), and your preferred or previously used tools.

When using Shopify Plus, there are three approaches. You can use the Storefront API to connect and develop with your preferred frameworks, hosting solutions, and tools. Or, you can leverage Shopify Hydrogen framework and Oxygen hosting to facilitate a headless eCommerce website flexibly.

• POS (Point of Sale)

Just like their regular pricing plans, both the ‘Enterprise’ and the ‘Plus’ include Point of Sale (POS) features for eCommerce transactions, catering to both online and offline stores, as well as Omnichannel operations.

POS can be configured on various devices like mobile devices (tablets, smartphones), and other hardware like cash registers and barcode scanners. 

BigCommerce Enterprise offers smooth integration with third-party POS systems like Square, Vend, Clover, and Heartland Retail. It’s good for those who already using POS software from these third-party providers.

For Shopify Plus, beyond the option to integrate with third-party POS systems like BigCommerce Enterprise (Clover, Square, Zend), Shopify offers its own Shopify POS solution, available in two plans:

• ‘POS Lite’ plan, providing basic integration
• ‘POS Pro’ plan,  priced at +$86/month for the first 20 locations for Shopify Plus businesses.

• Automation

Both ‘Plus’ and ‘Enterprise’ offer tools and solutions to help you automate your eCommerce website operations.

Shopify Plus offers an exclusive solution, Shopify Flow, and LaunchPad, allowing you to automate routine tasks and set up automated workflows for tasks like email marketing campaigns or new product launches. 

On the other hand, BigCommerce Enterprise takes a different automation approach which enables you to smoothly integrate with 3rd-party apps. Some of them are HubSpot, Avalara, ShipStation, etc.

• SEO 

SEO plays a crucial role in improving the search visibility of an eCommerce site and attracting potential customers. Both platforms offer features to enhance SEO efforts. 

The ‘Plus’ stands out for its user-friendly interface and an integrated app ecosystem that can enhance SEO, incorporating tools such as Google Search Console and Analytics. However, it comes with limitations in URL control and customization.

The ‘Enterprise’, on the other hand, provides more versatile SEO capabilities, including complete control over URLs and integration with applications like Google Search Console and Analytics. It makes the process more intricate compared to Shopify Plus, involving additional setup operations.

Themes & Add-ons

• Themes

Shopify Plus offers businesses approximately 12 free themes and 147 paid themes, with prices ranging from $150 to $380 per theme. On the other hand, BigCommerce Enterprise provides around 12 free themes and 185 paid themes, with prices ranging from $150 to $400 per theme.

Both platforms offer a wide range of visually appealing and mobile-friendly theme options. While the ‘Enterprise’ themes are characterized by elegant, tidy, and modern designs with highly customizable features, the ‘Plus’ themes can meet higher requirements for user experience, making navigation easier.

• Add-ons

To facilitate efficient eCommerce deployment, the two provide vast app stores and extensions, tailored for ‘Plus’ and ‘Enterprise’ businesses. While both platforms offer free versions, access to comprehensive features requires a modest monthly fee.

Shopify Plus boasts over 6,000 apps and extensions, while BigCommerce Enterprise has around 1,000. This can be explained by Shopify’s widespread popularity among businesses and developers globally, providing them with ample documentation and resources for app and extension development, including the Shopify Plus Certified App Program.

Customer Support

For businesses that are ready to deploy the ‘Plus’ or the ‘Enterprise’ solutions, the demand for technical support and efficient eCommerce website operations is significant.

Both platforms receive high praise for their customer service. They offer 24/7 support via hotline, email, and video available in multiple languages. However, if you need specialized and complex technical support, Shopify Plus may be the preferable choice.

Final Thoughts

In the competitive business landscape, selecting the right platform for launching an eCommerce website is an important decision. Both Shopify Plus and BigCommerce Enterprise offer distinct advantages and cater to various business models.

Regardless of the platform chosen, you should prioritize the development and delivery of an exceptional shopping experience for your customers. eCommerce platforms serve as tools, and the ultimate key to success lies in an effective deployment strategy and great collaboration with a proficient team.

With extensive experience helping numerous businesses deploy diverse eCommerce development projects on both Shopify Plus and BigCommerce Enterprise, SECOMM boasts a team of seasoned experts capable of collaborating to create exceptional eCommerce experiences and help you enhance your brand positioning. 

Reach out or directly call the hotline at 028 7108 9908 to explore how SECOMM can contribute to optimizing the potential of Shopify Plus and BigCommerce Enterprise for enduring your business success.

Baby eCommerce is a promising market experiencing a steady annual growth rate (CAGR 2023-2027) of 9.86%, projected to reach a market value of approximately USD 129.40 billion by 2027. 

To tap into this market, you’ll need to develop a professional and efficient eCommerce website. Here are 10 steps to create an eCommerce website tailored for maternity and baby products.

Identify objectives

The first step is to identify your business goals and prioritize them, forming a plan tailored to develop an effective Baby eCommerce website.

Concerning long-term goals, you may focus on objectives like establishing a strong brand presence, reaching potential customers, and enhancing the efficiency of both online and offline operations.

For short-term goals, businesses can give priority to activities like monitoring, analyzing customer behavior, assessing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, and boosting revenue.

When it comes to timeline, you can decide to deploy quickly to enter the market or proceed gradually to test and adapt to this eCommerce world.

As for the budget, it depends on your business strategy and financial capacity for this Baby eCommerce development project.

Select eCommerce platform

Currently, there are two types of eCommerce platforms to help you build your first Baby website: SaaS (Software as a Service) and Open-Source platform. 

Some popular SaaS eCommerce platforms include Shopify, BigCommerce, Squarespace, and Wix.

In addition, there are premium versions of these SaaS platforms such as Shopify Plus, BigCommerce Enterprise, and Goflow.

Some open-source platforms are widely used: Adobe Commerce (Magento), WooCommerce, OpenCart, and PrestaShop.

Typically, some new businesses choose basic SaaS platforms to save time and budget in the initial phase of the Baby eCommerce website development. After a while, they may switch to a premium SaaS or an open-source platform to develop their baby websites more advanced.

In another case, some businesses opt for open-source platforms to build a basic eCommerce website and then gradually upgrade the system over time to minimize the need for platform switching in later phases.

In-house team or development agency?

Typically, most eCommerce businesses decide to initially partner with a professional development agency and gradually build their in-house team.

For establishing an in-house team, you’ll need to recruit and train IT and eCommerce professionals for expertise on the chosen platform. It’ll take you significant time and budget but allow you to have full control over your resources. You can develop and adjust your Baby eCommerce website according to your needs and wants.

When it comes to partnering with an agency, here are some criteria you need to evaluate:

• eCommerce experience
• High-performing development team
• Clear processes
• Deadline meet 

Partnering with a professional development agency gains you specialized eCommerce knowledge, enhances your technical skills, and above all, you’ll facilitate the eCommerce website exactly what you need, tailoring it to the unique features of the maternity and baby industry.

Design UI/UX

When it comes to UI/UX design, it’s important to showcase the brand image, products, user guide, etc. There are three popular ways to make your design:

• Using ready-made themes: Optimizing interface design costs may limit the brand positioning as ready-made themes can be similar to other websites.
• Customizing themes: Balancing cost savings and adding some brand identity elements such as color, font, layout, etc. However, you’ll need a specialized team to customize themes effectively.
• Designing unique themes: The design will tailored to your brand, but it’ll take your time and budget.

Develop core features

Some essential features that a Baby eCommerce website should have include

• Catalog Management: Control product data, features, categories, prices, inventory quantities, and images/videos for smooth operations and optimal business performance.
• Store Management: Handle product inventory, control the business activities, and manage personnel for each branch.
• Cart & Checkout: Manage the shopping cart and customer checkout information.
• Customer Management: Manage customer information to improve marketing effectiveness, shopping experience, and overall customer satisfaction.
• Marketing Management: Optimize SEO and implement marketing programs using supporting tools to boost sales for the business.
• Sales Management: Establish and operate sales processes, orders, payments, and shipping.
• Content Management: Develop and optimize all content-related aspects for CMS pages, image storage, theme customization, and website design.
• System Management: Administer user roles, and explore best practices in terms of security, maintenance, and system care for the website.
• Analysis & Reporting: Support track, and measure the performance of the eCommerce system and plan for future strategies.

Some advanced features for the baby eCommerce industry:

• Fast delivery: Provides quick delivery services within 2 hours in major cities.
• Personalized Gift Packaging: Gift packages can be designed based on the preferences and needs of each recipient, such as packages for newborns, packages for children, and packages for mothers.
• Buy Now Pay Later: Shop for essential products/services for children without having to pay the full amount immediately, supporting those who may not have the ability to pay a large sum at once.
• Loyalty Program: Allow customers to earn points for each purchase. These points can be used to redeem benefits such as discounts, gifts, or free services.

Fulfill Legal Procedures

After developing features and ensuring a successful testing and website launch, you’ll need to complete the legal procedures associated with eCommerce operations. 

According to Decree 52/2013/ND-CP by the Government of Vietnam, any individual or organization owning an eCommerce website for sales is required to notify or register with the Ministry of Industry and Trade through the online public service portal of the Ministry of Industry and Trade. 

Note: Websites that operate beyond the specified period or fail to register/notify the authorized management agency within the designated timeframe may be subject to administrative penalties as per regulations.

QC/Testing

When QC/testing your eCommerce website, you can leverage either the Waterfall or Agile model to test the entire system.

Using these models helps you review and test your entire eCommerce system, functions, and features within a specified timeframe, ensuring optimal order processing speed and overall website stability. In case of any issues, your in-house team or development partner will help you to address them before officially going live.

Go-live

When the QC/testing process is done, your baby eCommerce website is ready to launch. To ensure a smooth go-live process, here are three steps you should prepare:

• Define the go-live objectives: The aims could be system stability, data backup and recovery capabilities, and customer shopping experience.
• Perform testing and error resolution: Conduct comprehensive system testing to identify and rectify functional errors, security issues, and performance issues.
• Create backup plans: Despite conducting testing and resolving errors, unforeseen issues may still arise during the go-live process. To address these issues, backup plans are a must.

Operate the eCommerce system

Running a baby website is an ongoing effort aimed at ensuring the steady and effective functioning of the system. This involves various activities, including:

• Resource management: Managing the system’s resources, including hardware, software, data, and personnel.
• Process management: Managing all processes within the system, including development, deployment, operation, and maintenance processes.
• Error management: Identifying the causes of errors, quickly and effectively resolving issues, and implementing preventive measures to avoid recurrence.
• Modification management: Assessing the impact of changes on the system and executing modifications safely and efficiently.

Furthermore, you should regularly maintain, update, and upgrade the website system to achieve sustainable growth, adapting quickly to shifts in the eCommerce world or the maternity and baby products market.

Boost eCommerce growth

After a period of operation, you should shift your focus toward eCommerce marketing strategies or Omnichannel to expand your online presence in the market of maternity and baby products

businesses should redirect their focus toward implementing eCommerce marketing strategies or embracing Omnichannel approaches to expand their online presence in the market of mother and baby products.

Implementing Omnichannel involves setting up a seamless sales, marketing, and management system across channels such as the website, social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Zalo, TikTok Shop), and online marketplaces (Shopee, Tiki, Lazada, Sendo) to optimize the customer experience and boost business efficiency.

Developing a comprehensive marketing strategy, centered around key eCommerce marketing channels like Content Marketing, SEO/SEM, Email Marketing, and Affiliate Marketing, becomes crucial for achieving rapid sales growth.

The Bottom Line

In general, the journey of building a baby eCommerce website for the Vietnamese market isn’t an easy task. It requires you to invest a significant amount of time and budget in researching the most fitting strategies tailored to each phase of your eCommerce development. 

Understanding the difficulties and challenges that businesses may encounter when building a baby eCommerce website, SECOMM is ready to provide free consultation on detailed eCommerce solutions.

Reach out or call the SECOMM hotline at 028 7108 9908 to get started!

According to The Business Research Company, the global pharmaceutical eCommerce market is projected to reach $732.3 billion by 2027. This represents a significant opportunity for pharmacies, healthcare service providers, or hospitals/clinics to implement eCommerce and reach a broader range of potential customers. To achieve this, building an online pharmacy on a professional platform is a great idea to address industry-specific challenges. 

Things to keep in mind when building an online pharmacy

When building a pharmacy eCommerce website, businesses must meet numerous criteria to ensure professionalism, safety, and legal compliance within this industry.

Intuitive user interface

The typical customer profile in the pharmaceutical eCommerce sector consists of individuals seeking to purchase medications, medical equipment, and other healthcare products for themselves, family, or friends.

Thus, the website interface needs to be visually appealing, and user-friendly, and prioritize colors such as blue or white to create a sense of safety and cleanliness. 

Other factors, such as layout, font choice, and imagery, should be carefully selected and coordinated to deliver the most professional user experience.

Bespoke features

When building an online pharmacy, beyond default eCommerce features, businesses should focus on developing the following features to address industry-specific needs:

• Prescription Medications: Provide prescription medications based on the doctor’s indications and instructions.
• Consultation Services from Doctors/Pharmacists: Offer health consultation services and online medical examinations on demand.
• Detailed Product Information Display: Furnish comprehensive information about products, including drug names, ingredients, indications, dosage, usage instructions, side effects, warnings, expiration dates, and prices.
• Usage Guidelines: Provide usage instructions and dosage adjustments for all medical products, about the advice of doctors/pharmacists.
• Online Medical Records: Store patient medical records and test results on the system’s information portal.

High security

An online pharmacy is a system that contains various crucial information including personal details, payment information, and the health status of customers. Therefore, the security system of the website needs to be built and deployed carefully to ensure the safety of customer data.

Compliance with legal regulations

Pharmaceutical eCommerce is a specialized business area subject to the regulations of the healthcare/pharmaceutical industry. eCommerce pharmaceutical businesses need to comply with these regulations to ensure that their operations are legal and safe for customers.

Below are some key legal regulations that e-commerce pharmaceutical businesses need to adhere to in Vietnam:

• Pharmaceutical Law: The Pharmaceutical Law regulates the conditions for pharmaceutical business, including requirements for pharmaceutical business licenses, facilities, equipment, personnel, and drug quality.
• Decree 54/2017/NĐ-CP: Decree 54/2017/NĐ-CP provides detailed regulations on pharmaceutical business activities.
• Circular 07/2018/TT-BYT: Circular 07/2018/TT-BYT guides the advertising of drugs, drug ingredients, medical equipment, and cosmetics.
• Circular 04/2016/TT-BYT: Circular 04/2016/TT-BYT guides state management of the pharmaceutical profession.
• Circular 34/2018/TT-BYT: Circular 34/2018/TT-BYT guides state management of drugs and drug ingredients.

In addition, pharmaceutical eCommerce businesses also need to comply with other legal regulations, such as Cybersecurity Law, Consumer Protection Law, and eCommerce Law.

Top 5 eCommerce Platforms to build an online pharmacy

Although this industry has many challenges to deploy, businesses always have eCommerce platforms to create their online pharmacies. Here are the 5 leading platforms for building online pharmacy that businesses may consider.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a cloud-based eCommerce platform operating on the Software as a Service (SaaS) model, enabling businesses to create and manage online stores.

Currently, BigCommerce offers four main solutions, including

Pros:

• Easy to use: BigCommerce is designed to be user-friendly with a drag-and-drop builder to help businesses create and manage online stores easily without the need for technical skills.
• Multi-channel support: BigCommerce allows pharmaceutical businesses to operate across multiple platforms, including eCommerce websites, social media pages, and online marketplaces.
• Security compliance: BigCommerce is committed to adhering to high-level security standards and protects customer personal information and transaction data.
• Pharmaceutical solutions: BigCommerce offers a variety of features and interfaces specifically designed for the pharmaceutical industry.

Cons:

• Ongoing costs: As a SaaS, BigCommerce requires monthly or annual fees for usage. The value of these fee packages may increase depending on the scale of the business and transaction fees per order.
• Limited customization: While BigCommerce allows customization of eCommerce websites, it limits deeper customization. This could be an issue for businesses with specific customization requirements, such as in the pharmaceutical industry.
• Limited scalability: While BigCommerce can scale, for large businesses or those planning rapid expansion in the future, it may be necessary to consider more specialized platforms to handle these needs.
• Platform dependency: Businesses will rely on BigCommerce’s ecosystem to maintain and update their online stores. This could be a concern if a business needs complete control over its system.

Some famous pharmaceutical eCommerce businesses currently utilizing BigCommerce include Victoria Health, Molton Brown, LARQ, and Zyppah.

Shopify

Shopify is a SaaS eCommerce platform established in 2006. To date, Shopify has rapidly become one of the leading platforms in the eCommerce industry, supporting thousands of businesses worldwide to initiate and grow their online ventures.

The cost to use the Shopify platform is quite diverse, including these three solutions:

In addition, Shopify provides eCommerce solutions tailored to businesses with different needs and wants, such as:

• Starter: $5/month, leveraging payment features through social networks and messaging apps for businesses.
• Retail: $89/month, includes employee management features, inventory tracking, and loyalty programs for retail stores.
• Commerce Components: Custom pricing, offering third-party modules for integration into the eCommerce website.
• Shopify Plus: Custom pricing, designed for large enterprises.
• Shopify Hydrogen: Custom pricing, for businesses to deploy Headless Commerce.

Learn more: Top 5 benefits of Headless Commerce 

Pros:

• Easy to use: Shopify is designed with an intuitive user interface, allowing non-technical users to easily create online stores.
• Diverse pricing plans: Shopify offers a wide range of choices for businesses, catering to small, medium, startup, and large enterprises with various customization needs.
• Data Security: Shopify adheres to important security standards such as PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) to keep customer’s personal and healthcare data safe.
• Extensive Feature Set: Shopify provides many features and extensions to meet the needs of building eCommerce websites for various industries, including the pharmaceutical sector.

Cons:

• Ongoing costs: Similar to BigCommerce, Shopify requires monthly or annual fees for service usage, and costs can escalate over time due to transaction fees, expansion of features, etc.
• Limited Customization: Shopify offers a certain level of customization for basic packages like Basic, Shopify, Advanced, Retail, and Starter. If a business requires a highly customized eCommerce website, additional fees must be paid to use other solutions or consider alternative platforms.
• SEO Limitations: While Shopify supports basic SEO optimization, there are some limitations in terms of more advanced SEO optimization and custom URL management.

Healthcare, pharmaceutical, and medical businesses using Shopify include Dr.Axe, 310 Nutrition, Hiya, and BUBS Naturals.

StoreHippo

StoreHippo is a SaaS eCommerce platform established in 2014 in India. Over the years, this platform has consistently updated its technologies to meet the website-building needs of businesses, particularly those in the pharmaceutical eCommerce sector.

Similar to other SaaS platforms, StoreHippo offers a variety of solutions to choose from:

Pros:

• Easy to use: StoreHippo is designed with a user-friendly interface, making it quick and easy for users to create online stores.
• Custom solutions for pharmaceutical eCommerce: StoreHippo provides dedicated solutions for various industries, including online pharmacies.
• Continuous Updates: To address specific functions for each industry, StoreHippo has consistently improved and updated the latest technologies in e-commerce, such as Headless Commerce, PWA, Angular JS, etc.

Cons:

• Limited customization: Although StoreHippo allows businesses to customize their eCommerce website interface, it still limits deeper customization compared to other eCommerce platforms.
• Limited image size: StoreHippo has limitations on the size of images that businesses can upload and use in their online stores.
• Community and Support Limitations: In comparison to larger e-commerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, or BigCommerce, StoreHippo has a smaller user community and customer support, which may slow down the resolution of technical issues or support requests.

Some brands that built their online pharmacy with StoreHippo include WoundProfessional, Kunooz, and On A Healthy Note.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce plugin developed for the WordPress platform, one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) globally. WooCommerce enables businesses to turn their WordPress websites into online stores or integrate eCommerce features into existing websites.

The license fee of WooCommerce depends on the complexity of each project, averaging around $1,000 for a basic eCommerce website and $10,000 for a more advanced eCommerce website.

Pros:

• Free to use: WooCommerce is an open-source platform, so it is entirely free to use and customize. However, associated costs such as hosting, domain, themes, functionality systems, and maintenance should be considered.
• Easy to use: WooCommerce is deeply integrated into WordPress, making the installation and management of online stores straightforward. Users familiar with WordPress will find WooCommerce’s interface user-friendly.
• Third-party integration:  WooCommerce has a large development community and supports integration with various third-party applications and services, including features tailored for pharmaceutical eCommerce
• High customization: Businesses can customize the eCommerce website interface using both free and premium themes. WooCommerce also allows businesses to design their interface to reflect their brand.

Cons:

• WordPress dependency: WooCommerce is essentially a plugin for WordPress, meaning businesses must use the WordPress platform to use WooCommerce. This dependency can lead to challenges such as inconsistent support, slow data retrieval, conflicts between updates, etc.
• Complex customization: While WooCommerce allows customization, implementing complex customizations or integrating specific features may be time-consuming and require high technical skills or support from developers.
• Limited scalability: WooCommerce often faces difficulties in handling large online stores with thousands of products and high traffic.

Brands using WooCommerce to build online pharmacy include Dr. Scholl’s, myLAB Box, Superdrug Health Clinics, and Apothecanna.

Adobe Commerce (Magento)

Adobe Commerce, formerly known as Magento Commerce, is a professional and widely used eCommerce system. Adobe Commerce is part of the Adobe Experience Cloud product line and is designed to assist businesses in building eCommerce websites.

Currently, Adobe Commerce provides businesses with two main versions:

• Adobe Commerce (Magento Commerce): This is the premium version of Magento designed for large enterprises, offering two options: on-premise and on-cloud.
• Magento Open Source: Formerly known as Magento Community Edition, this is the open-source and free version of Magento.

Pros:

• High Scalability: The Magento platform is built with high scalability, allowing businesses to add features and integrate third-party applications as needed.
• High Security: Adobe Commerce prioritizes security, ensuring that customer data and payments are protected securely.
• High customization: All versions of Adobe Commerce have flexible customization capabilities, addressing the complex requirements of various industries, particularly in the pharmaceutical eCommerce sector.
• Adobe Experience Cloud Ecosystem: If a business is using other Adobe products such as Adobe Analytics or Adobe Marketing Cloud, they can integrate them with Adobe Commerce to create a comprehensive system for customer experience.

Cons:

• High initial costs: Adobe Commerce has a higher development cost compared to other eCommerce platforms, making it preferred by medium and large businesses with complex eCommerce systems or high customization needs.
• Require high technical skills: Adobe Commerce is developed using the PHP programming language, which is relatively complex, requiring technical personnel with expertise and experience to develop projects correctly and effectively.
• Long deployment time: Deploying Adobe Commerce may take more time, especially for highly customized or complex eCommerce websites.

This list is just a few examples for businesses to reference; there are many other robust eCommerce platforms that businesses can consider based on specific needs and available resources. 

With extensive experience in implementing eCommerce for clients in various countries, SECOMM understands the challenges and difficulties businesses face during the deployment of pharmaceutical eCommerce.

Contact SECOMM now or call the hotline at 02871089908 today for a free consultation.

In recent times, SaaS platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce have gained popularity thanks to the growing demand for eCommerce. While BigCommerce currently supports over 45 thousand active online stores globally, Shopify surpasses it with around 4.5 million active websites. Although Shopify and BigCommerce share typical features of SaaS platforms, there are notable differences between the two.

This article will compare the distinctions between Shopify and BigCommerce, providing valuable insights to help you, as a business make informed decisions quickly.

Learn more: Shopify Plus vs BigCommerce Enterprise

Shopify vs BigCommerce: Pros and Cons 

Shopify vs BigCommerce: So sánh nhanh

Shopify vs BigCommerce: Detailed Comparison

Ease of Use

New businesses often find Shopify more user-friendly than BigCommerce when it comes to setup and usage. Adding or removing products, customization, and editing layouts on Shopify are all straightforward tasks.

This doesn’t mean that the user experience of BigCommerce is less intuitive than the other. Both platforms are similar, providing drag-and-drop store editors, detailed documentation, and quick support. However, BigCommerce offers many built-in features that are expandable and customizable.

Users, though, may find themselves completing several different steps for each setup task, which can be overwhelming and time-consuming.

Staff Accounts

Shopify sets account staff limits for each pricing plan. Specifically, the Basic package allows 2 staff accounts, Shopify allows 5 staff accounts, and Advanced allows 15 staff accounts.

In this regard, BigCommerce has a significant advantage by providing unlimited account access for all solution packages. This flexibility can benefit businesses with many employees needing access to the eCommerce website system.

Pricing

• Pricing plans

By using BigCommerce pricing plans, you can enjoy a 15-day free trial. The other offers a 3-day free trial for its 3 pricing plans, followed by a payment of only $1 per month for the initial 3 months. This gives you more time to experience the platform at a highly affordable cost.

• Transaction fee

The transaction fee is a drawback of Shopify. If you opt for third-party payment gateways, you’ll incur a transaction fee of 2%, 1%, and 0.5% for the Basic, Shopify, and Advanced plans, respectively. On the other hand, this fee is waived if you use Shopify Payments. However, Shopify Payments is limited to certain countries, some businesses may not have access. This, in turn, makes BigCommerce more appealing as it doesn’t impose transaction fees on any pricing plan.

Annual Sales Limits

BigCommerce sets annual sales limits to $50k for the ‘Standard’ plan, $180k for ‘Plus,’ and $400k for ‘Pro’, while the ‘Enterprise’ plan can be negotiated. To exceed these limits, you must upgrade to a higher pricing plan. 

However, your business may not need the features offered in higher-tier plans and may be hesitant to pay additional fees for an upgrade. Therefore, the sales volume limit on the BigCommerce platform is a crucial factor that requires thoughtful consideration. In contrast, Shopify doesn’t impose any annual sales limits on any of its pricing plans.

Features

• Point of Sale (POS)

The POS feature isn’t limited to eCommerce transactions but also extends to traditional brick-and-mortar stores. Both BigCommerce and Shopify allow you to implement POS on mobile devices (smartphones, tablets) and other hardware (cash registers, barcode scanners).

To use POS with BigCommerce, you need to integrate with software like Clover, Vend, Square, PayPal Zettle, and others. Hence, if you are currently using a third-party POS system may appreciate the flexibility offered by BigCommerce.

Conversely, Shopify offers built-in POS features, starting with the ‘POS Lite’ plan within its pricing plans. However, to access more advanced POS features, you can opt for the ‘POS Pro’ plan at $89 per month per location, added to the chosen pricing plan. If you choose the annual payment option, the ‘POS Pro’ plan is only $79 per month per location.

Shopify POS solution caters to diverse needs, including single-store transactions, multi-store transactions, event transactions, online and offline sales, as well as omnichannel operations.

• Email Marketing

In eCommerce, email marketing is crucial when it comes to customer attraction and substantial sales growth. Hence, it’s a feature you should prioritize when selecting an eCommerce platform.

Beyond the Shopify POS solution, Shopify offers you the built-in Shopify Email feature, designed for Email Marketing campaigns and automating email processes (Welcome Email, Winback Email, Upsell Email).

Meanwhile, for Email Marketing on BigCommerce, you need to integrate with third-party service providers like Klaviyo, MailChimp, Omnisend, and others.

• Blogging

When you utilize blogging effectively, it can be one of the best sources to attract organic traffic. Both BigCommerce and Shopify come with built-in blogging features at a basic level, offering attractive templates that help you create SEO-optimized blog content to draw in potential customers. Moreover, you can seamlessly integrate with WordPress or other CMS platforms for more advanced blogging features

• Multilingual, multicurrency

Cross-border selling is currently a common goal for many eCommerce businesses. Fortunately, both Shopify and BigCommerce provide features and tools to help businesses expand into the global market

Shopify Markets, introduced in 2021, is a feature that allows you to select the specific markets you want to sell in. It’s an all-in-one feature that helps you centrally manage multiple local domains, languages, currencies, and payment gateways.

Plus, Shopify Markets utilizes the IP address of visitors outside the default ‘market’ that you previously defined to prompt them to select a location and the appropriate currency.

On the other hand, with BigCommerce, you can choose the currency for transactions on your eCommerce website instead of opting for a ‘market’ like Shopify. Additionally, the currency is automatically converted based on the customer’s IP address.

While language conversion capabilities are built into Shopify when the Shopify Markets feature is enabled, for BigCommerce websites, you’ll need to integrate with a third-party service to achieve the same, such as Weglot, which offers free conversion for 1 language and 2000 words. In contrast, Shopify provides free conversion for 20 languages across all pricing plans.

• Mobile app

While BigCommerce has only one app to help you manage sales, interact with customers, and access basic reports, Shopify you up to 3 apps to improve efficiency in eCommerce operations.

• Shopify: The main app for order and product management, along with viewing updated reports.
• Shopify POS: Manages online, offline, and omnichannel sales transactions.
• Shopify Inbox: Facilitates customer interaction, product sharing, and direct sales within the chat interface.

Themes & Apps

• Themes

Both BigCommerce and Shopify offer you a variety of free and paid themes. For BigCommerce, the platform provides 12 free themes, but in reality, there are around 5-6 distinct free themes as the layouts are quite similar. As for paid themes, BigCommerce has approximately 185 themes ranging from $150 to $400 per theme.

On Shopify, the platform offers 12 free themes and 141 paid themes with prices ranging from $170 to $380 per theme. Both Shopify and BigCommerce provide users with drag-and-drop theme editors to modify layouts, colors, fonts, and text sizes and add/remove elements and widgets. 

However, Shopify’s themes, both free and paid, are widely favored for their modern and contemporary styles. Additionally, Shopify offers a diverse selection of fonts for you to choose from. In contrast, BigCommerce has around 8 font options.

• Apps

Alongside their built-in features, Shopify and BigCommerce both offer extensive app stores to help you optimize your eCommerce activities. Both app stores offer free versions of apps, but certain features may be limited. To access the full functionality, you’ll need to subscribe to the paid versions, which often involve monthly fees. The number of apps available on Shopify and BigCommerce differs significantly, with Shopify boasting over 6000 apps, while BigCommerce has over 1000.

Customer Support

In the process of deploying an eCommerce website, both BigCommerce and Shopify offer 24/7 support through hotlines, chat, and email. Plus, if you seek advice and support in addressing specialized issues related to technology, design, and marketing, BigCommerce provides Partner Directory services, while Shopify offers Shopify Experts.

Final Thoughts

Above are the comparisons between Shopify and BigCommerce. However, it’s challenging to determine which platform is the best in 2023 for developing an eCommerce website. The choice will depend on your specific needs and wants.

With years of experience advising and collaborating with numerous businesses both domestically and internationally on implementing eCommerce websites on both Shopify and BigCommerce, SECOMM has gathered valuable insights to help your business streamline your eCommerce development process, optimize your website performance, and swiftly generate conversions. 

Contact SECOMM today or call directly at the hotline 028 7108 9908 for free and detailed consultations.

The first step in the strategy for building and developing an eCommerce website, a crucial consideration for business owners in various sectors, is selecting an eCommerce platform that aligns with their business requirements.

The Baby eCommerce industry is no exception to this rule. So, what is the ideal choice? The following article outlines and clarifies the pros and cons of the top five eCommerce platforms for the development of Baby eCommerce websites.

Magento

Magento (now owned by Adobe), is an open-source eCommerce platform that grants businesses full authority to develop and manage their online store

For large enterprises in the Baby eCommerce industry with complex requirements for building and developing eCommerce websites, Magento’s high degree of customization and scalability, along with its wealth of outstanding features and extensions, can effectively cater to their needs. However, to fully leverage Magento’s capabilities, businesses should invest in both a specific budget and a requisite level of technical expertise.

Currently, Magento offers two primary versions:

• Magento Open Source: a free version
• Adobe Commerce: a paid version with two options, on-premise and on-cloud.

Key Features:

• Multi-brand solution: Supports multiple languages, currencies, and stores for various business models (B2B, B2C, B2B2C, D2C).
• MSI – Multi-source inventory: Enables the shipment of a single order with multiple products from different warehouses while ensuring delivery times.
• Headless eCommerce: Utilizes the separation between Frontend and Backend for easy customization and website development.
• B2B feature: Provides support for B2B customers, including category sharing, creating business accounts, quick ordering, and customer group creation.
• PWA – Progressive Web App: A mobile application built on web technology, easily discoverable and downloadable from a web browser.

Pros:

• Feature-rich system from basic to advanced, tailored to specific industry needs.
• High customization and scalability compared to SaaS platforms.
• No limits on sales volume.
• Wide range of extensions.
• High security.

Cons: 

• High implementation costs.
• Lengthy implementation time, ranging from 6 months to 1 year.
• Requires a certain level of technical expertise and understanding of Magento.

Pricing:

Brands built their Baby eCommerce websites on Magento including Kids Plaza VN, Bibo Mart, Children Salon, Mothercare VN, Aden+Anais, Hornby, v.v 

Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC)

Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC) is a cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) solution that helps businesses build their eCommerce websites. This platform enables businesses to integrate all their sales channels, delivering a seamless shopping experience for customers.

SFCC offers two key solutions:

• Salesforce B2C Commerce Cloud: A solution for building websites and enhancing the overall shopping experience for retail customers.
• Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud: A solution for building websites and providing a shopping experience for customers engaging in large-volume transactions.

Key Features:

• AI Einstein: Offers personalized search and product recommendations with Einstein Product/Search Recommendations. Provides personalized experiences across all channels with Einstein Recommendations API. Gathers customer insights to boost revenue with Einstein Commerce Insights.
• Headless Commerce: Build headless e-commerce websites and enhance user experiences using SFCC’s Open Commerce API or any developer’s preferred APIs.
• Marketing & Merchandising: Supports design, scheduling, and automated marketing campaigns, optimize SEO to increase traffic, and manages multi-store, multi-language, and multi-currency capabilities from a centralized dashboard.
• Omnichannel: Enables multi-channel sales and provides a consistent customer experience.
• Localization: Allows businesses to create multiple separate websites with different languages, currencies, and strategies for specific target markets.

Pros:

• User-friendly interface.
• Strong support from AI tools during implementation.
• Diverse tools and features.
• Automation of order processing and promotional campaigns.
• Exceptional analytics and reporting capabilities to capture customer insights.
• High security.
• 24/7 customer support service.

Cons:

• The license fee is not publicly disclosed, making it challenging to estimate exact expenses.
• Limited seamless integration with third parties.
• Limited customization and scalability. For high customization needs, businesses may incur additional costs.
• Being a SaaS platform, it carries inherent risks from the provider, and data access limitations cannot be entirely avoided.

Pricing

For Salesforce B2C Commerce Cloud, businesses are offered three solution packages: Starter, Growth, and Plus, and they need to contact Salesforce for specific consultations and pricing.

For Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud, businesses should get in touch with Salesforce for specific price levels and implementation details.

The cost of developing an eCommerce website using the SFCC platform can range from $2,000 to $500,000, depending on each business’s requirements.

Some Baby brands that have developed eCommerce websites on the Salesforce Commerce Cloud platform include Carter’s, Hanna Andersson, OshKosh B’gosh, Chicco, Crayola, Toys “R” Us, Melissa & Doug, and more.

Shopify

Shopify is a SaaS platform known for its diverse features and themes that cater to businesses of various industries and scales, facilitating the rapid and effective development of eCommerce websites.

Shopify offers three standard solution packages (Basic, Shopify, Advanced), tailored for small and medium-sized businesses. Meanwhile, the Shopify Plus solution is aimed at medium to large businesses with elevated development and customization requirements.

Key Features:

• Shopify POS: This feature is available in all solution packages and allows seamless integration of point-of-sale from online to offline, supporting order and inventory management across retail locations, online stores, and other active sales channels.
• eCommerce automation: Automates marketing processes and order execution. Available in the Shopify and Advanced packages, while Shopify Plus businesses have Shopify Flow and LaunchPad.
• Shopify Hydrogen: Allows Shopify Plus and standard Shopify businesses to build custom storefronts using the React-based Hydrogen framework, which can then be directly integrated with the Oxygen in-house hosting. This is Shopify’s new solution for businesses building and developing Headless websites.
• Abandoned cart recovery: Automatically sends email with discount codes to customers in cases of cart abandonment during the checkout process, leaving the website with products in the cart but unpaid, or viewing products without adding them to the cart.
• International commerce: Supports multiple languages, multiple stores, and multiple currencies. However, tax calculation at checkout is only available for the Advanced and Shopify Plus packages.

Pros:

• User-friendly interface.
• Reasonable initial costs.
• Diverse integrated apps and themes.
• 24/7 customer support service.
• Support both online and offline sales.
• High security.
• Ideal platform for opening dropshipping stores. Some Baby dropship stores using Shopify include Posh Peanut, Baby Boxco, Happiest Baby, and more.

Cons:

• Costs increase over time.
• Limited customization and scalability when compared to open-source platforms.
• Limited blogging features and content management capabilities.
• Restrictions on free themes.
• Risks associated with the provider and data access limitations.

Pricing

Shopify serves as the choice not only for Baby dropshipping stores but also for numerous well-known Baby brands that have used this platform to build their online store, including HATCH Collection, Motherhood Maternity, 4moms, Maclaren, Manhattan Toy, Tegu, and many others.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is another platform worth considering for Baby eCommerce businesses due to its ease of use and its ability to cater to the eCommerce website-building requirements of businesses across various scales and industries.

Furthermore, BigCommerce is recognized as a SaaS platform that includes a wide array of features within its solution packages (Standard, Plus, Pro, Enterprise) aimed at fostering eCommerce growth.

Key Features:

• Built-in blog: Enhances SEO rankings and provides an engaging content experience through a blog.
• Professional reporting tool: Offers professional analytics and reporting tools that help businesses evaluate operational performance for informed adjustments.
• Real-time shipping quotes: Provides real-time, accurate shipping cost estimates from various carriers.
• Google customer reviews: Allows businesses to collect and display customer reviews on Google from those who have purchased their products.
• BigCommerce mobile app: Monitor performance, track and update orders, and manage customer journeys with the BigCommerce mobile app. The app is available for direct download from the App Store or Google Play.

Pros:

• User-friendly interface.
• Richly integrated features.
• Diverse solution packages with reasonable usage costs.
• Offers 65 popular worldwide payment solutions with integrated transactions fee-free.
• A variety of themes and extensions tailored for the Baby industry.
• High security.

Cons:

• Sales volume limits.
• Increasing implementation costs over time.
• Limited customization capabilities.
• Provider risks and data access limitations.

Pricing

Brands built their eCommerce websites with BigCommerce: Le Petit Kids, Scentos, Nature’s One, Kids Furniture Warehouse, See Kai Run, Feltman Brothers, v.v

Shift4Shop

Shift4Shop is a SaaS eCommerce platform that equips businesses with the essential tools and features to build and customize eCommerce websites. It presents a range of free and premium themes suitable for marketing Maternity and baby products.

Shift4Shop provides three paid plans (Basic, Plus, Pro) and one free plan, subject to a minimum monthly revenue of $500, designed for U.S. sellers under the End-to-End category.

Key Features:

• Built-in tools: Integrated tools for blogging, SEO optimization, social media integration, etc., aid businesses in enhancing the effectiveness of their marketing strategies.
• RMA system: This feature simplifies the product return and refund process.
• Shopping cart: Allows customers to quickly view and customize their shopping carts. Customers can also choose one-page or three-page checkout options.

Pros:

• User-friendly interface
• Various integrated features
• Reasonable initial cost
• No transaction fees
• 24/7 technical support service

Cons:

• Limited customization and expansion capabilities
• Increasing deployment costs over time, even for the End-to-End package
• Volume limits for paid plans
• Limited and basic selection of free themes
• Vendor risks and data access concerns

Pricing

Brands built their Baby website with Shift4Shop: eLeMeNO-Pee, Sugar Babies, Nicki’s Diapers, Enfant Style, Ideal Baby & Kids, v.v

The above are the top 5 platforms that have been preferred by the majority of Baby businesses for establishing their eCommerce websites. 

After years of eCommerce implementation across various countries, SECOMM has accumulated invaluable insights to expedite the process of website development and growth for Baby businesses.

Get in touch or directly call SECOMM‘s hotline at (02871089908) for immediate guidance on platform selection and eCommerce implementation today

BigCommerce and Magento are trusted names representing two types of eCommerce platforms: SaaS and Open Source. The demand for developing eCommerce websites on these platforms is increasing. However, deciding between the two is a complex task. 

This article aims to highlight the pros and cons of each and provide a thorough comparison, helping you as a business make informed decisions.

Overview

What is BigCommerce?

BigCommerce is a robust SaaS eCommerce platform, boasting an array of integrated features packaged to accommodate businesses of all scales and technical proficiencies. This platform facilitates the swift development of eCommerce websites. Beyond its inherent capabilities, BigCommerce extends a diverse suite of tools and extensions covering sales, marketing, SEO, data analytics, and transformation, empowering businesses to drive eCommerce growth. 

What is Magento?

Magento (now owned by Adobe) is an open-source eCommerce platform that empowers businesses with full control over developing and managing their eCommerce websites. Known for its high level of customization and scalability, Magento offers a wide range of advanced features and extensions, making it an ideal choice for meeting the complex requirements of large-scale enterprises with ample budgets and a certain level of technical expertise. Magento currently comes in two main versions:

• Magento Open Source: the free version
• Adobe Commerce: the paid version with two options, on-premise and on-cloud.

BigCommerce vs Magento: Pros and Cons

BigCommerce

Pros:

• User-friendly and easy-to-navigate interface
• Suitable for businesses of all sizes
• Comes with a rich set of integrated features
• Offers a variety of reasonable pricing plans
• Includes 65 popular global payment methods integrated with BigCommerce at no transaction cost
• Offers a diverse selection of themes and extensions

Cons:

• Sales volume restrictions apply
• Deployment costs tend to rise over time
• Customization options are limited

Magento

Pros:

• Ideal for large enterprises with complex customization needs and ample budgets
• High customization and scalability
• Diverse and advanced built-in features compared to SaaS platforms
• No sales volume limitations
• Wide range of available extensions

Cons:

• Requires a high level of technical expertise
• Lengthy deployment times
• high initial costs

BigCommerce vs Magento: Detailed Comparison

Ease of Use

Ease of use of a platform is one of the primary considerations for an eCommerce business when selecting one. A platform with an intuitive interface that is easy to set up and manage allows businesses to focus on their core operations.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a SaaS platform, making it more accessible for businesses that may not possess technical expertise or have a strong tech background in building eCommerce websites. It eliminates the need for complex programming; businesses simply need to provide basic information to gain access to the BigCommerce dashboard, where they can configure and manage all aspects of their online store, from product additions to layout modifications. 

What’s more, BigCommerce offers a user-friendly drag-and-drop page builder that empowers businesses to create a storefront without the necessity of coding skills. Moreover, themes and extensions can be swiftly integrated with just a few clicks. 

Magento

On the other hand, Magento users should have a certain level of technical expertise to execute tasks during the setup of an eCommerce website, including configuring FTP files and integrating themes into the Magento website, among other things. Tasks like modifying themes, integrating extensions, applying security patches, and optimizing speed require coding skills.

Therefore, many businesses opt to collaborate with Magento agencies to develop and maintain their Magento eCommerce websites. However, following the initial technical setup challenges, businesses can readily customize attributes and functionalities for their websites through the platform’s backend. 

Pricing

BigCommerce

Magento

Hosting

BigCommerce

Being a SaaS platform, BigCommerce offers support for various hosting-related issues, ensuring an impressive average uptime of 99.99%, quick page loading, and minimal website maintenance. 

Magento

• Magento Open Source: Businesses purchase hosting from specialized third-party providers who are responsible for infrastructure setup, security, and maintenance, allowing businesses to focus on core operations.
• Adobe Commerce on-premise: Businesses have complete control over configuring and managing their in-house hosting environment, offering customization options to meet specific needs.

Adobe Commerce on-cloud: Hosting for the business’s Magento eCommerce site is provided, configured, managed, and stored on virtual servers offered by cloud service providers (CSPs) like AWS and Microsoft Azure.

Features

SEO

SEO is a crucial feature that every eCommerce website needs and it’s an important factor for businesses to consider when assessing a platform. Both BigCommerce and Magento offer essential SEO optimization features, which include:

• Google site maps
• SEO-friendly URLs
• URL rewriting
• Meta descriptions
• 301 redirect handling
• Mobile compatibility

However, BigCommerce includes a built-in ‘blog’ feature in its solution packages, while Magento requires businesses to integrate a ‘blog’ extension to use this feature.

Plus, businesses can enhance their website’s SEO by using extensions available in the Magento and BigCommerce marketplaces. It’s worth noting that Magento offers a wider range of advanced SEO tools, although the cost of Magento extensions may be higher than those available for BigCommerce.

Multiple channels integration

With this feature, BigCommerce excels over Magento by pre-integrating the most prevalent sales channels like Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Facebook, and Instagram into all pricing plans. However, if businesses require integration with additional sales channels beyond these pre-set options, they can do so by utilizing apps from BigCommerce’s marketplace. 

On the other hand, Magento offers businesses the flexibility to implement multi-channel sales by integrating various desired sales channels into their eCommerce website, each with its own associated costs. Notably, Amazon integration can be done for free. 

Purchase flow

eCommerce businesses have to ensure a seamless, swift, and user-friendly customer buying journey, encompassing features like product search support and an effortless payment process. Both Magento and BigCommerce provide capabilities to facilitate online shopping, including

• Product filtering
• Product comparison
• Recently viewed items
• Wishlist
• One-page checkout
• Checkout as a member or visitor
• Real-time shipping rate calculation
• Multiple shipping addresses
• Order tracking via registered accounts
• Reordering

Payment options

BigCommerce provides businesses with 65 integrated payment gateways, including popular options like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Amazon Pay, all with no transaction fee.

In contrast, Magento offers only PayPal and Authorize.net for payments, requiring businesses to integrate third-party payment providers for more choices. Magento’s marketplace features over 450 payment-related extensions with various costs, but businesses will need time to select and integrate them. 

Themes & Extensions

Aside from features, themes, and extensions also contribute significantly to the growth of an eCommerce website. Therefore, this is another factor that businesses take into account when selecting a platform.

BigCommerce

The platform provides 266 themes with prices ranging from $195 to $395, including 12 free themes. Businesses can purchase BigCommerce themes on ThemeForest at prices ranging from about $16 to $179.

These designs are modern, suitable for various industries, and offer good responsiveness across multiple screen sizes, including smartphones, tablets, and desktops. However, when compared to other SaaS platforms like Wix or Squarespace, BigCommerce’s customization options and the quantity of both free and paid themes may appear relatively limited. Moreover, the exact count of free and paid themes might not be entirely precise, as some themes share very similar layouts, differing mainly in color schemes.

Magento

Unlike BigCommerce, Magento provides a limited selection of themes, with just 9 options available. Among these, only 3 themes are free, while the rest range in price from $150 to $499 each. If businesses opt to purchase Magento themes on ThemeForest, they can expect prices ranging from $39 to $299 per theme.

Moreover, businesses have the option to create custom interfaces tailored to their unique requirements by partnering with specialized providers, incurring costs typically ranging from $1000 to $5000. 

Regarding extensions, both BigCommerce and Magento offer extensive extension libraries to support businesses in growing their eCommerce stores. However, Magento has a slight edge in this regard.

Customization & Scalability

Customization involves the capacity to adjust any feature, theme, or integrated extensions to meet specific requirements for an eCommerce website. Scalability, on the other hand, refers to the ability to maintain platform performance as the eCommerce site expands. Therefore, these factors play a vital role in platform selection.

Customization

Magento operates as an open-source platform, giving developers full access to and control over the source code.

On the other hand, BigCommerce functions as a SaaS platform, restricting businesses from making backend modifications. While certain frontend interface adjustments are possible with a few code snippets, most modifications need to be done in the backend. Hence, BigCommerce’s customization is somewhat limited compared to Magento. 

Scalability

Both Magento and BigCommerce can handle large website traffic and sales volumes. However, Magento outperforms BigCommerce in this aspect, which is also why Magento doesn’t have sales volume limits. 

Meanwhile, BigCommerce imposes annual sales volume limits based on the pricing plan being used. When businesses reach the sales volume limit of their current pricing plan, they need to upgrade to a higher-tier plan.

• Standard: Up to $50k/year
• Plus: Up to $180K/year
• Pro: Up to $400K/year
• Enterprise: Custom 

Security

Both BigCommerce and Magento are prominent names in the eCommerce industry, trusted by numerous businesses for their security features. Nevertheless, when it comes to providing security-related assistance, these platforms exhibit notable differences.

As a SaaS platform, BigCommerce includes security support as an integral component of its solution packages. This encompasses SSL certificates, firewalls, backups, and intrusion detection. In case any complications arise during the eCommerce deployment process, businesses can readily access 24/7 customer support for swift assistance.

In contrast, due to Magento’s open-source nature, businesses bear the responsibility for managing the security aspects of their Magento eCommerce websites. This entails tasks such as overseeing SSL certificates, implementing two-factor authentication, and adhering to PCI compliance. Additionally, while Magento periodically releases security updates, the manual update process can pose challenges for users without technical expertise.

Magento’s support options also present limitations when compared to BigCommerce. Businesses can seek assistance during Magento’s specified operating hours or engage with third-party intermediaries, a potentially time-consuming and complex process.

Popularity

BigCommerce and Magento are both leading options for eCommerce businesses, but their levels of popularity differ somewhat.

According to BuiltWith, at the present time, there are 142,010 active websites using Magento, whereas there are only 44,796 active websites using BigCommerce.

Thus, when it comes to popularity, Magento has the upper hand.

Well-known brands such as Coca-Cola, Nike, and Tesla utilize Magento, while renowned brands like Skullcandy, LARQ, and Molton Brown opt for BigCommerce.

After many years of implementing eCommerce solutions for clients all around the world, using both the BigCommerce and Magento platforms, SECOMM has gained invaluable experience in helping businesses develop and operate their eCommerce websites quickly and efficiently.

Contact us or call SECOMM’s hotline directly at (02871089908) for a free consultation on implementing eCommerce websites with BigCommerce or Magento.

In recent years, BigCommerce has achieved a significant milestone as it emerges as one of the preferred platforms for eCommerce website development among numerous online businesses. According to BuiltWith, there are presently 45,952 operational websites utilizing this platform.

This article will highlight 10 notable eCommerce websites from around the world, spanning various industries, that have adopted BigCommerce for their operations.

Skullcandy

Skullcandy opened its first store in 2015 in Park City, Utah, and it remains the company’s exclusive physical retail location in the United States due to its primary online sales strategy. Skullcandy is a technology brand known for crafting headphones and speakers with a youthful and modern style. Their eCommerce website is developed using the BigCommerce platform.

Aside from seasonal promotions, Skullcandy provides customers with diverse payment choices, including PayPal, VISA, MasterCard, and even a Buy Now, Pay Later option through Klarna.

• Industry: Consumer Electronics
• Website: https://www.skullcandy.com/
• Traffic: 1.1M/month
• Ranking: 15,365 (USA) & 58,348 (Worldwide)

BURROW

BURROW is an online furniture brand that specializes in offering seasonal furniture and sofas with a minimalist, modern, and vibrant style. The company’s approach revolves around three key principles to deliver unique value to customers. First and foremost, they have built their eCommerce website on the BigCommerce platform, encouraging online shopping through enticing promotions, illustrative product videos, and free shipping. Secondly, their products are known for their custom designs, high durability, multifunctionality, compactness, portability, and versatility to fit into various spaces. Lastly, BURROW places a strong emphasis on building a community that connects customers from all around and enhancing brand awareness.

• Industry: Furniture
• Website: https://burrow.com/
• Traffic: 699.5K/month
• Ranking: 11,978 (USA) & 64,922 (Worldwide)

LARQ

LARQ is renowned for its stylish and compact reusable water bottles, designed with sustainability in mind. These bottles are manufactured using advanced technologies like PureVis and NanoZero to ensure high water quality. LARQ’s bottles possess self-cleaning capabilities, utilizing UV-C LED lights to eliminate up to 99.99% of bacteria.

These exceptional features led to a significant $1 million investment from Shark Tank. LARQ has developed its eCommerce website using BigCommerce, complete with a dedicated Basq Magazine section where they share valuable insights on hydration with their customers.

• Industry: Consumer Goods
• Website: https://www.livelarq.com/
• Traffic: 421K/month
• Ranking: 75,050 (USA) & 144,129 (Worldwide)

Molton Brown

The premium beauty brand, Molton Brown, hailing from the UK, has also used the BigCommerce platform to build their eCommerce website. Their product range, spanning fragrances, hand washes, essential oils, scented candles, and bath & body products, is entirely manufactured in the UK and is cruelty-free. Their product packaging is crafted from high-quality reusable glass, adhering to eco-friendly standards.

At present, the company exclusively offers online shopping services to customers in the US, Japan, and the majority of European regions. Molton Brown consistently introduces seasonal collections, special occasion sets, gender-specific product lines, and personalized gift recommendations, simplifying the shopping experience for their customers.

• Industry: Beauty and Personal Care
• Website: https://www.moltonbrown.com/store/index
• Traffic: 219.7M/month
• Ranking: 67,310 (USA) & 223,381 (Worldwide)

Tommie Copper

Tommie Copper is a brand that specializes in offering comfortable, lightweight fashion products designed to reduce pain and aid in functional recovery for both men and women. With a strong emphasis on expanding online sales, the company has invested significantly in its eCommerce website using the BigCommerce platform. They have also implemented various customer engagement programs to encourage more shopping. One notable initiative is the Customer Loyalty Program, featuring three tiers: Score, Performance, and Pro-Grade, with detailed and precise instructions on point accrual and redemption.

• Industry: Fashion
• Website: https://www.tommiecopper.com/
• Traffic: 217.8M/month
• Ranking: 34,370 (USA) & 202,065 (Worldwide)

Saddleback Leather

Saddleback Leather is a company specializing in handcrafted leather goods, and they develop their eCommerce website with BigCommerce. Their product range is extensive, encompassing items such as bags, backpacks, belts, and even intricately designed mouse pads. Visitors to their website are greeted with a distinct “Texan” design aesthetic and captivating narratives. Notably, customers can also become part of the Saddleback Club, granting them access to exclusive and appealing member-only offers.

• Industry: Leather Goods and Accessories
• Website: https://saddlebackleather.com/
• Traffic: 167.4M/month
• Ranking: 64,319 (USA) & 266,752 (Worldwide)

Barron Designs

Barron Designs stands as a top-tier brand specializing in the design and provision of premium interior and exterior products crafted from high-quality materials like wood, tiles, and stone. Their diverse product range includes wooden doors, stone fireplaces and chimneys, mailbox posts, engineered wood panels, and more. Barron Designs has developed its eCommerce website using the BigCommerce platform, offering a multitude of features to ensure the best shopping experience for customers. 

When customers browse and click on their favorite products to view details, they can choose colors and select options such as fire resistance and UV protection before placing an order. The production and delivery times typically range from 2 to 4 weeks. For those interested in sampling a product,  they can simply click on the option, and a complimentary mini-size sample will be sent to their doorstep. Furthermore, a discount coupon will be emailed to encourage customers to make a full-size purchase.

• Industry: Interior and Exterior Interior Design & Construction
• Website: https://www.barrondesigns.com/
• Traffic: 138.5M/month
• Ranking: 63,234 (USA) & 365,842 (Worldwide)

SugarBoo & Co

SugarBoo & Co is a well-known BigCommerce eCommerce website that offers a wide range of handmade products for personal and household use. It offers a diverse range of handmade products for both personal and household use, including items like notebooks, decorative pieces, ceramic dishes, baby toys, and more. To provide an excellent online shopping experience, the company offers multiple payment methods, including well-known options like ShopPay and AfterPay.

SugarBoo & Co’s blog section is filled with interesting content, regularly sharing tips on gift selection, the advantages of using ceramic products, home decorating ideas, and more. Plus, during special occasions and holidays, the website provides customers with a selection of discounted shopping suggestions.

• Industry: Retail
• Website: https://sugarbooandco.com/
• Traffic: 43.3M/month
• Ranking: 341,993 (USA) &934,576 (Worldwide)

Autograph Foliages

Autograph Foliages is a prominent brand in the United States, specializing in landscaping solutions for both homes and commercial establishments. The company offers a diverse range of collections, including seasonal and holiday-themed foliage like Christmas decorations, catering to the needs of families and businesses. What sets Autograph Foliages apart is its enduring partnerships with major entities such as Walt Disney World, Universal Studio, Warner Bros, and Seaworld Parks & Entertainment, a testament to the superior quality of its foliage products.

Their website, developed on the BigCommerce platform, prominently displays new and seasonal products. To access the pricing details for specific items, customers must register an account on the website. They can also subscribe to receive weekly newsletters containing valuable tips on plant care, decoration, and more.

• Industry: Artificial Plants and Trees
• Website: https://autographfoliages.com/
• Traffic: 24.9K/month
• Ranking: 260,791 (USA) & 1,441,394 (Worldwide)

 Body Bliss

Established in 1999 and officially launched its products in 2000, Body Bliss specializes in a wide range of personal care items. With over two decades of development, the company has continually researched and refined its products to prioritize customer health, using gentle and environmentally friendly ingredients.

Body Bliss’s BigCommerce website follows a minimalist design, featuring well-organized product categories for easy customer navigation. The site also offers appealing incentives such as complimentary gifts and free shipping. Furthermore, the company uses Instagram to engage with customers and it is seamlessly integrated into the website to keep customers updated on the latest updates.

• Industry: Cosmetics
• Website: https://bodybliss.com/
• Traffic: 7.1K/month
• Ranking: 3,416,815 (USA) & 9,843,202 (Worldwide)

This is SECOMM’s summary and review of 10 eCommerce websites that have achieved success using the BigCommerce platform, effectively capturing customers and leading in their industries.

Related content: BigCommerce 2023: Pricing, Features, Pros and Cons

With a wealth of experience helping clients in various countries deploy eCommerce, SECOMM specializes in providing consulting services with professional eCommerce deployment solutions.

Get in touch with SECOMM or call the hotline at 02871089908 today to receive free support and expert guidance.

BigCommerce is one of the most popular eCommerce website-building platforms today. Its flexibility, user-friendliness, cost-effectiveness, and a wide array of built-in tools and features make it a preferred choice for businesses of all sizes.

This article aims to clarify the definition of BigCommerce, its features, pros and cons to provide businesses with valuable insights into the multitude of platforms available for selection.

What is BigCommerce?

Established in 2009, BigCommerce is a user-friendly platform tailored for businesses of all sizes and technical expertise to start developing their own eCommerce websites. Over the years, BigCommerce has emerged as one of the most feature-rich platforms, encompassing all the essentials for website creation, search engine optimization, marketing, and more, all at a cost-effective implementation.

In addition, BigCommerce is known as a SaaS eCommerce solution, which means businesses subscribe on a monthly basis, and the platform takes care of hosting, maintenance, and system security matters.

BigCommerce Pricing Plans

BigCommerce provides three pricing plans tailored for small and medium-sized businesses (Standard, Plus, Pro), priced between $29 and $299 per month, each equipped with essential features. Moreover, the platform offers a customizable plan (Enterprise) for large businesses based on their deployment requirements.

The table below illustrates the cost variations among these four pricing plans and includes some relevant factors:

Despite several differences, all four packages share some common points:

• No transaction fee
• Unlimited bandwidth, products, file storage
• Unlimited staff accounts
• 24/7 customer support
• 12 free themes

BigCommerce Features

Included in all plans

Key features of BigCommerce, available in all four pricing plans, include:

• Point of Sale (POS): Seamless integration of online and offline sales with POS systems like Vend, Square, Clover, and more.
• Mobile-Responsive Design: Websites are designed to adapt and perform well on mobile devices.
• BigCommerce Mobile App: Manage orders, track customer journeys, and monitor performance via the user-friendly BigCommerce mobile app, downloadable from the App Store or Google Play.
• Single-Page Checkout: Simplify the payment process with a single-page checkout, reducing cart abandonment and boosting conversion rates.
• Promotions and Discounts: Easily create and manage coupons, discounts, and gifts without the need for third-party integrations.
• Built-In Blog: Improve SEO and engage customers with a built-in blog.
• Product Ratings and Reviews: Gather customer feedback to enhance products and services.
• Multi-Currency Support: Accept over 100 currencies and local payment methods.
• Professional Reporting Tools: Access professional analytics and reporting tools for performance evaluation and adjustment.
• Real-Time Shipping Quotes: Provide accurate shipping costs in real-time from various carriers.
• Free Site-Wide HTTPS & SSL: Ensure website security with free HTTPS protocol, creating a safe shopping environment for customers.

Features 

The features available in the ‘Standard’ plan are consistent across all four pricing plans. However, there are some advanced features that are not included, and businesses may need to consider upgrading their plan to access these specific features. Here’s a breakdown:

• Plus:

In addition to the ‘Standard’ features, this plan offers:

• Cart abandonment features.
• Stored credit cards for future purchases.
• Customer groups and segmentation for pricing, product recommendations, targeted promotions, and personalized experiences.
• Top social & marketplace: Integration with top e-commerce platforms and social networks such as Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

• Pro:

The ‘Pro’ plan encompasses all ‘Standard’ and ‘Plus’ features, along with:

• Google customer reviews for collecting and showcasing customer feedback on Google.
• Advanced product filtering to enhance the shopping experience.
• Custom SSL integration with third-party SSL services.

• Enterprise:

Designed for large-scale enterprises, this top-tier package includes all features from the previous packages and introduces several advanced capabilities:

• Unlimited API calls, facilitating seamless data sharing between eCommerce websites and third-party applications without any limitations.
• Priority support with personalized assistance, including dedicated API support.

Pros of BigCommerce

Ease of Use

BigCommerce, designed as a SaaS platform, boasts user-friendliness catering to both tech-savvy and non-technical users. It offers a wide range of themes to facilitate swift website development and provides an array of tools for executing promotional campaigns.

Built-in features

When compared to other SaaS platforms, BigCommerce stands out for its capacity to offer a comprehensive set of built-in features and tools across its pricing plans. This results in cost savings for businesses, reducing their reliance on third-party applications and plugins, which can often incur extra expenses. Moreover, these features have been fine-tuned to boost performance and streamline the eCommerce management process.

BigCommerce also provides its users with the BigCommerce mobile app, enhancing the convenience of managing, monitoring, and updating their eCommerce websites.

Reporting & Analytics

Unlike Shopify, which offers a range of reports and analytics based on the pricing plan chosen, BigCommerce provides professional-level reporting and analytics across all its solution packages. These encompass customer reports, sales reports, financial reports, marketing reports, and more. Moreover, for businesses in need of more extensive data capabilities, BigCommerce offers a wide app library for easy integration with third-party software

Multi-store Support

BigCommerce distinguishes itself from competitors by providing multi-store support across all of its pricing plans. This feature is especially advantageous for businesses that operate multiple stores or are active in various segments, such as B2B and B2C. With the Standard plan, a business can create up to 3 stores, while the Plus and Pro plans allow for 5 and 8 stores, respectively. In contrast, Shopify, a leading SaaS platform, offers multiple store capabilities exclusively through its Shopify Plus solution, which starts at a monthly cost of $2,000.

Cost-effective platform

Using BigCommerce helps businesses save costs in various aspects such as hosting, maintenance, updates, and security. BigCommerce handles these tasks, eliminating the need for additional expenses. Regardless of the chosen pricing plan, BigCommerce doesn’t impose transaction fees, provides unlimited bandwidth and file storage without extra charges, and permits the creation of an unlimited number of staff accounts.

In addition, compared to Shopify, where businesses may incur significant costs to integrate third-party apps and utilities for enhanced functionality, BigCommerce includes essential features tailored to each plan. This integrated approach results in significantly more cost-efficient operations.

Cons of BigCommerce 

High Platform Costs

When compared to other SaaS platforms like Shopify or Squarespace, the cost of using the BigCommerce platform seems relatively higher. 

Plus, businesses must continue to pay this ongoing fee along with any charges for third-party services (if applicable) on a monthly basis, without ownership or control over the source code and system data.

On the other hand, open-source platforms such as Magento or OpenCart require businesses to make a one-time payment for both usage and service integration fees, granting them long-term ownership of the source code and system data.

Platform Dependency

Just like other SaaS eCommerce platforms in the market, BigCommerce retains ownership and control over the source code and data of the entire eCommerce website system.

In practical terms, this means that all of a business’s eCommerce data becomes closely tied to BigCommerce’s database. Therefore, if a business wishes to migrate to another platform in the future, it can only access CSV files containing a portion of its data.

Additionally, while it’s exceptionally rare, in the unlikely event that BigCommerce were to suddenly cease all operations, all data related to a business’s activities on this platform could potentially be lost.

Lack of theme

At the time of writing, BigCommerce provides users with a selection of 12 free themes and approximately 180 paid themes. This count is somewhat limited in comparison to other SaaS platforms like Wix or Squarespace.

The free themes come with modern and professional interfaces, suitable for businesses to start their eCommerce website journey. However, these themes are quite similar to each other, differing mainly in color schemes.

In reality, despite the claim of having 12 themes, users often discover only around 5-6 truly distinctive options.

The paid themes, on the other hand, come with a price tag ranging from $195 to $395, and some of them may have similar designs.

However, BigCommerce offers a significant advantage: all the free and paid themes are visually appealing and highly responsive. This means that these themes can automatically adapt their layouts to suit various screen sizes, including smartphones, tablets, desktop computers, and more.

• Related content: 10 Top-notch eCommerce Websites Using BigCommerce

For many years providing eCommerce solutions for clients across the globe, SECOMM has observed a growing trend when it comes to eCommerce website development, particularly on the BigCommerce platform. 

To gain a deeper understanding of BigCommerce and how to deploy it the right way, feel free to reach out to us or call our hotline at 02871089908 for free consultations.