So you're looking for an e-commerce platform.
Nice!
Of course you've heard of
Shopify, it's the most hyped ecommerce platform in the history of the world.
But
you're a smart merchant.
You're not just gonna make some rash decision based on
hype.
Oh no, you're gonna do your research and you're gonna see how it stacks up
against its competitors and that's why I like you.
In this video, I'm gonna give
you five reasons why you should choose BigCommerce instead.
Pull yourself up a
chair and let's talk about it
In this series we've been exploring reasons why you choose one ecommerce
platform over another.
In the first couple of videos we looked at Shopify
and Magento.
Those two are so fundamentally different that we didn't
even have to get into specifics about functionality.
With both BigCommerce and
Shopify being SaaS platforms (software as-a-service) this discussion is a bit
more nuanced.
What we're trying to do in this series is not a full deep dive into
the platforms.
Instead we want to highlight five high-level things that
make your decision a bit easier.
Then you, the smart merchants that you are, can go
out and do a bit more research about these particular things if they apply to
you.
In this particular video I'm gonna give you five reasons to choose BigCommerce.
Now if that's all I did I really wouldn't be helping you out.
I'd
just be selling you BigCommerce and that's not what we're here for.
So, in
another video that I'll release a week after this one I'm gonna give you the
counter-argument and tell you five reasons to choose Shopify.
I'll link you
to that video at the end of this one if it's been a week and it's ready to go.
Don't rush me, it'll be ready.
Unless you're watching this in the future and
if you are, then there's nothing better than binge watching e-commerce videos.
I'm being sure to mention in all of these videos that no one is unbiased.
Anybody who's telling you they're unbiased is either just lying to you or
perhaps they fooled themselves.
I have my favorite platforms: we're BigCommerce
partners don't do so much with Shopify.
But I'm also not here to sell you
anything.
I want you to end up on the absolute best platform for you.
These are
in no particular order so let's just get into it.
The first reason to choose
BigCommerce versus Shopify are API's.
API's are important if you're
considering a SaaS platform because you don't have access to the underlying code.
API's are how you add all the functionality that you need to add.
Both
of these platforms have pretty good API coverage.
Although I'd argue that BigCommerce
is a bit better but for the most part both are adequate for most
folks needs.
However, the difference in the limits on how fast you can access
those api's is not even a fair comparison.
Shopify limits merchants to two API requests per second and then just
generously doubles that to four for Shopify plus.
BigCommerce on the other
hand gives you 400 API requests per second.
When we were looking at which
SaaS platforms to begin supporting as an agency, honestly, this was one of the
biggest features that led us to choose BigCommerce.
I know what you're thinking
how often do I really need to hit an API.
I mean four times a second is pretty
quick.
Well, if you're syncing data from your PIM or ERP system and you have
thousands of products to synchronize you're hitting it a lot, probably a lot
more than you realize.
25,000 products could take
over four hours to sync on Shopify.
To really drive that comparison home that
same catalog would take about a minute on BigCommerce.
Again, I see those wheels
turning, I know you.
That's a sync in the background that
happens in the middle of the night so if it takes four hours
who cares?
Fine.
However, if you have multiple systems that need to sync data
to your ecom store you can very quickly run out of hours in the day.
To give
you an example that might directly affect your customers and your sales.
Shopify doesn't have a faceted search that includes filtering.
There's a lot of
third-party vendors that provide this functionality so you can add it through
some apps.
However, how do you think they get that data?
The API's.
If they're
hitting those API's in real time while your customer is interacting with the
search, then your customers are in for a hell of a good time waiting on your slow ass
search to load.
And the second reason to choose BigCommerce over Shopify are
better product variants and options.
This is another case where Shopify's focus on
simplicity significantly hinders what you can do with the platform.
Shopify
allows you to create three product options like size color or whatever with
a 100 SKU limit.
For many merchants I'm sure that's more than enough.
If
you're outside of that typical fashion use case you can run through three
product options pretty quickly.
BigCommerce on the other hand allows you to
create up to 250 product options that include up to 600 total SKUs.
Now I
strongly urge you not to put hundreds of options on your products.
That would be a
disaster.
But, if you need four or five options BigCommerce is your choice.
The third reason to choose BigCommerce versus Shopify are better SEO
capabilities.
SEO is critical for any e-commerce business.
I know more and more of
your traffic is coming from social and paid ads but as those channels mature
they become increasingly competitive and expensive.
That's why it's so important
to focus on organic to help increase your profit margins.
You
just don't know when that paid traffic is going to become too expensive to be
viable.
BigCommerce is focused on making a more flexible SaaS ecommerce platform
and that's evident in its SEO capabilities.
You have a lot more options
as far as your URL structure which is especially important if you're migrating
from a different platform.
Additionally, BigCommerce's product
categories allow you to manage your products in a more traditional category
to subcategory relationship this makes creating complex navigational structures
easier, especially if you're managing a large number of products.
In Shopify, you
can fake a deep category structure using some apps but this is really working
around how their collection system was designed.
BigCommerce also includes
Akamai which will automatically optimize your product images to help improve your
page load times.
I can't tell you how many times over the years that I've had
a new customer complained that their site is slow only to find out that
they're uploading huge 300dpi product images.
With Akamai, it helps eliminate
much of this hassle... which sucks for me, I
guess, because those customers won't be
looking for new developers.
But, you know, we'll figure it out.
And the fourth
reason to choose BigCommerce over Shopify is additional functionality.
They're just
things BigCommerce will do out of the box that Shopify doesn't have.
Again, much
of this can be added to Shopify with apps if you're already leaning that
way.
But, be sure to factor that into your ongoing cost as well.
Here are a few
examples of things that BigCommerce can do that Shopify cannot, at least without
some additional apps.
Shopify claims to do B2B e-commerce but it's pretty
limited because it's not really what the platform was designed to do.
I'm sure
with their acquisition of the team at Handshake they have plans for B2B but as
of this moment it's pretty basic.
With BigCommerce, however you have more
options.
With their price lists you can get more creative with your pricing, you
can create tiered pricing, and give those high-volume customers the pricing breaks
they demand, and show or hide categories based on customer groups.
There's also
some solid marketplace offerings on BigCommerce for taking your b2b
functionality up a few notches if you need to.
Another feature of note is
multiple currencies.
I know Shopify is telling you that they
handle multiple currencies but really all they're doing is converting one
currency to another for display to your customers
and then allowing you to transact in that currency.
Those are useful features
no doubt.
However, that's all it really does and it only works if you're using
Shopify payments which is restricted to certain countries.
You can't do things
like charge a different price for that particular currency and then all your
settlements are in your primary currency so you have the cost of conversion fees
to deal with.
With BigCommerce, you have all of those options at your disposal.
If
you want to charge those foreigners more or less, do it.
If you have a soft spot in
your heart for your grandparents native land and you want to give them a better
price, have at it.
Do all of this with any payment gateway that supports multiple
currencies and then have it all settled in that same currency as the transaction.
And let's roll through the last few interesting BigCommerce feature
advantages: out of the box you can use accelerated mobile pages to improve your
page load speeds; You also get functionality like being
able to upload a file with a product purchase, useful if you're doing
customized products; and you have unlimited staff accounts if you have a
lot of folks that need to log in to manage your store.
Now we can debate
whether or not having a ton of staff accounts is a good idea or not, it's not,
but if you need it BigCommerce has it.
And the fifth reason to choose BigCommerce
versus Shopify are their lack of transaction fees and lower credit
card rates.
Shopify has low monthly fees but that's not where they make most of
their money.
No, they take a cut of every transaction one way or another.
Oh yeah, Shopify is gonna get paid.
You either use their gateway so they can
take a cut or you don't and they hit you with transaction fees to make up for it.
At first it's not a huge deal but once you start reaching scale those fees
become a significant nuisance.
With BigCommerce they don't force you into a
particular processor.
You have more choices and that leads to better credit
card rates.
If you're comparing the two be sure you're including your credit
card fees into that calculation or you'll end up with a surprise on where
your actual real-world costs end up.
So to recap, five reasons to choose
BigCommerce over Shopify include more generous API limits; more product
variants and options; better SEO capabilities; some additional
functionality that doesn't require apps like better multi currency, better b2b,
accelerated mobile pages, file upload with product ordering, and unlimited
staff accounts; and you have the flexibility of payment
gateways without transaction fees.
With BigCommerce and Shopify you really have
to get into the weeds a little bit to understand the differences in the two.
Which is best really is dependent upon your needs.
Hopefully this gave you a
little insight as to the benefits of BigCommerce and helped you make that
decision.
As promised, I'm also gonna give you five reasons why Shopify might be
better for you.
If it's been a week since this video's release I'll pop it up on
the screen here at the end of this video along with another one that might be of
interest to you.
if you're considering these two platforms then give that video
a watch and hopefully it'll clarify the other side of the argument made here.
If
you've watched both and you still aren't sure which is the right fit for you and
you're having trouble narrowing it down and just want to talk about it, head over
to Jamersan.com, shoot me a message and we can schedule some time to discuss.
A link
is in the description of this video.
Otherwise, let me know your thoughts in
the comments.
Do not let my opinion be the only one that's heard.
I'm definitely
not always right, most of the time maybe, but not always.
So let me know your
thoughts.
I appreciate you watching if you're interested in staying up to date
and the latest in enterprise e-commerce or taking your e-commerce skills to the
next level then consider hitting that subscribe button
tapping that notification.
I look forward to seeing you in the next video.