Do you want to create an online store? Are you confused regarding whether to use WooCommerce or BigCommerce?
If so, then you are not alone.
BigCommerce and WooCommerce are two of the most famous eCommerce platforms in the market. The competition is dangerous, but both of them have their own pros and cons.
In this article, we will compare WooCommerce VS BigCommerce and show the differences between them, so you can pick the best platform for your needs.
What To Look For In Your eCommerce Platform?
Before we start our WooCommerce VS BigCommerce example, let’s cover some great things to look for when picking your eCommerce platform.
- Easy to Use
- The platform you choose should be easy to use and beginner-friendly, so you can quickly handle the issue at the time of need.
- Budget
- If you need to start your store on a budget, then you should check the beginning cost of starting a website. Also, check the recurring expenses.
- Payment Methods
- Check if the platform helps the payment gateways you want to use. It is enough to choose a platform that supports multiple gateways.
- Scalability
- Make sure that the platform has the ability to scale up to meet your needs when your store grows.
- Support
- It should offer good support to solve any problem quickly.
These are the basic requirements that you need to consider when planning to start your eCommerce business, Besides these, you may need extra features to manage invoices, taxes, inventory management, shipping, SEO etc…
That said, let’s analyse how BigCommerce and WooCommerce stack up against these requirements.
WooCommerce And BigCommerce
As we mentioned above, BigCommerce and WooCommerce are among the eCommerce platforms on the market.
WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform that covers 21% of the entire eCommerce market. The same report shows BigCommerce as the fifth popular platform used by 3% of the total eCommerce sites online.
WooCommerce saw fast growth in search trends, but in modern years BigCommerce is picking up. It still has a lot more catching up to do, but it is definitely growing in popularity.
What Is BigCommerce?
BigCommerce is a fully hosted eCommerce platform. It means that BigCommerce gives you a whole package of service including hosting, design, content, SEO, payments and marketing features needed to create an eCommerce store.
It is called software as a solution (SaaS) or all-in-one-platform. You can create a BigCommerce store simply and quickly by buying a subscription plan.
The downside of using BigCommerce needs for customization abilities because you will be restricted to the tools available in the BigCommerce platform.
The biggest advantages come with BigCommerce WordPress plugin which allows you to run a fully functional BigCommerce store along with your existing WordPress site.
What Is WooCommerce?
It is the most famous eCommerce plugin for WordPress. It helps you easily convert any WordPress blog or website into an eCommerce store quickly.
To start a WooCommerce store, you need to purchase and set up web hosting, install WordPress, WooCommerce and many marketing tools yourself. The process may look somewhat difficult at first; however, it is not as difficult as it sounds.
Ease Of Use – BigCommerce VS WooCommerce
Taking an easy to use platform has many advantages. For Instance, you can quickly make changes or fix issues, so you have lots of time to spend on building your business.
If you are a non-techy user, then you need a solution that allows you to simply manage and run your online store without choosing developers.
Let’s compare BigCommerce VS WooCommerce to see which is more comfortable to use.
BigCommerce – Easy Of Use
With BigCommerce, starting and managing an eCommerce store is easy. Since it is a fully hosted platform, you do not need to set up hosting or install any software. You also do not need to think about security, backups and performance issues.
To get started, you can only sign up with their test plan and set up your store in 3 easy steps. All you need to do is contact the address, enter your email, your store’s name and a few details about your store.
It takes a few minutes to set up a store on BigCommerce. Once done, you can view your BigCommerce dashboard with smart options to preview your store, add products and customize.
How to show second product image swap on hover using CSS in BigCommerce
You can start by reviewing how it looks on the frontend. If you want to change its design, then can change the theme or customize your existing theme with the available design options. After that, you can add products to it.
You can discover all other options and settings in the admin panel on the right-hand side. It includes options to manage orders, customers, products, marketing, analytics, apps and more.
If you are starting a completely new business, BigCommerce will provide you with a subdomain for free. A BigCommerce subdomain name looks something like this https://mystore.mybigcommerce.com.
If you run a current WordPress site, then you use the BigCommerce WordPress plugin which enables you to run an eCommerce store with WordPress.
You will be able to use BigCommerce to manage eCommerce while still using WordPress to manage your content.
WooCommerce – Easy Of Use
It is not a hosted platform like BigCommerce. It is a WordPress eCommerce plugin which you need to install in your WordPress websites to work.
If you are beginning a new store, then you need to buy a domain name and hosting account. After that, you are required to install WordPress and the WooCommerce plugin.
If you like a WooCommerce hosting provider, then you will not want to install them manually because hosting services come with WooCommerce.
Once WooCommerce is installed, you can get started by running the setup expert. It helps you to immediately set up your WooCommerce store with necessary things like creating pages, currency, payments, shipping, taxes and more in a few minutes.
Once the setup is finished, you can start attaching products to your store.
While that is all you need to create an online store with WooCommerce, you will want to do more to make your store useful and powerful.
You can modify a theme to improve the design and use WooCommerce extensions and plugins to add more eCommerce features.
Also, you need to take care of the backup, security, caching and performance aspect yourself.
WooCommerce platform has a part of the learning curve in contrast to BigCommerce. Hence, BigCommerce is the simplest of the two platforms in comparison.
Best WordPress WooCommerce theme for you fully customizable store
The Winner Is BigCommerce.
Cost Comparison: BigCommerce VS WooCommerce
Other critical factors you need to consider while choosing your eCommerce platform is the cost of maintaining and starting your store. Let’s compare the cost of differences between BigCommerce and WooCommerce.
What is the True Cost of Using BigCommerce?
It has a subscription-based-eCommerce platform which comes with several pricing plans. There are largely four pricing plans; 3 essential plans for small businesses and Enterprise plans for large agencies.
The most primary plan is “Standard” which is available for $29.95 per month. This price gives everything you need to begin your online store with a BigCommerce Subdomain.
If you need to use a custom domain name, then you want to buy a domain name. You can purchase a domain name quickly from BigCommerce for about $12 per year or from any domain registrar.
All plans include no performance fees, unlimited file storage, unlimited products, unlimited bandwidth and unlimited staff accounts. However, BigCommerce does have a threshold for your total sales. For Instance, the total sales limit for the “Standard” plan is $50k per year.
What Is The true Cost of Using WooCommerce?
It has an open-source WordPress plugin which you can download and do on unlimited sites free of cost. But, you will require other paid services to set up a WooCommerce Store.
First of all, you will need a domain name, a website hosting account and an SSL certificate. Typically, a domain name costs $14.99 per year, web hosting around $7.99 per month and SSL certificate around $69.99 per year.
When certain costs sum up, the whole amount seems very costly for small-budget startups. But thankfully, there are some hosting companies providing specialled WooCommerce hosting services at an affordable price.
Among them, WooCommerce Hosting is a remarkable option. But it is officially recommended by WooCommerce hosting provider.
If you want to use a premium WooCommerce theme or paid extension, your expenses will go up. But luckily, there are plenty of free WooCommerce themes and free WooCommerce plugins that you can use instead.
In Conclusion, the WooCommerce platform is clearly a more cost-effective platform than BigCommerce when you are first starting out.
The Winner Is WooCommerce.
Payment Options: BigCommerce VS WooCommerce
There are many various payment providers companies in the market. Sometimes, the payment gateway may not be available in your region or your customer’s regions.
This is why it is important to take a platform that offers the payment gateways you need. Let’s take a look at how WooCommerce and BigCommerce compare when it comes to payment integrations.
Payment Options in BigCommerce
It offers plenty of payment options to let you accept payments. It has built-in native integrations with the best payment platforms in the industry, including PayPal powered by Braintree, Adyen, Authorize.net, Square, Stripe and CyberSource.
The processing fee for debit and credit cards starts at 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, but it decreases as your BigCommerce store grows.
Also, it has built-in integrations with popular digital wallets including PayPal, Masterpass, Amazon Pay and Apple Pay. Adding these advanced digital wallets to your store helps to significantly increase your mobile conversion.
Payment Option In WooCommerce
It offers PayPal and Stripe Payments by default. It also supports all major payment gateways through addons and extensions.
Because it is an open-source platform, many regional and less popular payment services have also built an integration for WooCommerce. Hence, you can find a combination of almost any payment gateway you want to use.
Support: BigCommerce VS WooCommerce
Support is a different critical factor you need to check out while choosing your eCommerce platform. You require instant and quality support.
Let’s see how you can get help on WooCommerce and BigCommerce platforms.
Support Options For BigCommerce
As a completely hosted platform, BigCommerce comes with great support options. You can access multiple support options right from your BigCommerce dashboard which includes phone support, email support, community support, chat support and more.
When you go into an issue, you can only click on any of these options and request support. The BigCommerce support is available 24/7.
The BigCommerce help centre is very helpful for finding answers to your questions. It has a rich information base to help you correctly use BigCommerce, Question and Answer community and Blog for the most advanced news on BigCommerce.
Support Options For WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a self-hosted platform and there are various platforms where you can ask for support for your store.
For WooCommerce core plugin related issues, you can visit the WooCommerce support discussion on WordPress.org or the official WooCommerce website. In these support forums, you can see already solved queries and also post new issues.
WooCommerce website has a support page including very extensive documentation, tutorials and guides to let you find solutions by yourself.
If you have an issue regarding your WooCommerce theme and extensions, then you can get support from their particular developers. Your web hosting company will be responsible for helping with any server similar issues.
Conclusion
BigCommerce and WooCommerce are both important platforms that you can use to start your eCommerce store. Since you have to choose one, it comes down to your technical skills, estimated budget and personal choices.