BigCommerce, Shopify or Adobe Commerce/Magento – which one is right for you?

There are many eCommerce platforms available to online retailers, each with their own features and benefits which promise to enhance your customers shopping experiences. Each has its place in the market, but which one is right for you?

Are you looking for something that has a bucket-load of features, or one that suits a limited budget? Do you need it to integrate with your current systems or can it stand alone? Do you want to fully customise the storefront design or are you happy to use a standard template?

Here we look at the three of the main platforms—BigCommerce, Shopify and Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento)—and compare their features.

Ease of use

Shopify is generally considered to be a great entry-point for online retailers as it is more user friendly and easier to set up. While initial setup is more complex for BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce, the built-in features, greater flexibility and functionality make these more suitable for established merchants wanting to enhance their customer experience.

Built-in features or add-ons

Shopify tends to rely more on apps and add-ins to provide added functionality, while BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce favour built-in features to offer greater functionality. Adobe Commerce has more advanced built-in features than BigCommerce, including advanced product configuration, merchandising and pricing rules.

Design

Shopify sites are based on their built-in themes, although these can be adjusted to reflect a merchant’s brand. By using templates, users can be confident that their site will be visually appealing and will maintain its integrity. BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce do provide templates, but there is greater scope to flex and customise the designs, but it is recommended that this is done by someone with proper technical knowledge.

Of course, with all eCommerce platforms, there is always the option to go headless and integrate with DeeperThanBlue’s CXOne and CXOne Storefront.

Scalability

All three platforms offer the benefit of scalability. Shopify is preferred by smaller businesses looking to grow quickly, BigCommerce is preferred by medium to larger businesses, while Adobe Commerce is suitable for large enterprises with more complex needs and a team able to keep up with its maintenance.

B2B sites

BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce both offer built-in B2B functionality, but Shopify is less suitable for B2B merchants BigCommerce has a specific B2b Edition with a portal designed to help business-to-business customers user experience and self-service post purchase.

Apps and integrations

Shopify has the most apps and add-ins available to the user, with more than 7,000 plugins and 13,000 apps to customise a store. BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce have 1,200 and 4,000 respectively, but both rely more on their built-in functionality and product roadmap for new feature delivery.

Payment Processing

All three platforms allow you to integrate a vast array of payment gateways. Shopify provides its own payment gateway (Shopify Payments) and charges lower fees 1.35% + 25p per transaction for this than it does for other compatible gateways. There is a transaction administration fee 0.2% with Shopify for using other gateway providers. BigCommerce, however, integrates with more payment gateways and doesn’t charge transaction fees. It does have a pre-agreed preferential rate for Paypal and Braintree of 1.20% +£0.30 but this is optional. Adobe Commerce also integrates with more payment gateways with no additional transaction fees. Note that the gateway will probably charge a setup fee and their own agreed / negotiated transaction fees.

Hosting

Shopify and BigCommerce are both hosted SaaS commerce platforms, and hosting is included in the costs of deployment. Adobe Commerce can be self-hosted, but they also offer a PaaS service known as Adobe Commerce Cloud. Adobe prefer to market to customers with Adobe Commerce Cloud and their roadmap targets releases to this platform over the on-premise model which gets less frequent enhancements and releases.

SEO and Marketing

BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce offer better control over SEO, giving your site a better chance of ranking on SERPs. Some in-depth knowledge of SEO is recommended to make the most of this functionality. However, Shopify offers more marketing tools available through their app ecosystem, and Adobe Commerce provides some marketing campaign features in their editions.

Pricing

The cost of deploying an eCommerce site varies depending on the functionality and complexity needed. As a starter for outline comparison purposes, we’ve summarised some of the prices for different versions of the three platforms.

Shopify

• Basic Shopify plan starts at $29/ £25 month *
• Standard Shopify plan starts at $79/ £65 month *
• Advanced Shopify plan starts at $399/ £344 month *
• Shopify Plus (for larger enterprises) starts around $2,300/month – 3 year term

* 25% discount available on Basic to Advanced plans if you commit to annual payments.

BigCommerce

• BigCommerce Standard plan starts at $29/ month
• BigCommerce Plus plan is $79/month
• BigCommerce Pro plan is $299/month
• BigCommerce Enterprise and B2b Edition have custom pricing – these are normally based on the number of orders, conversion rate and average order value plus growth forecasts

Adobe Commerce

• Adobe Commerce Open Source is free to download. You will have to organise and pay for hosting, security, development and design.
• Adobe Commerce starts at $22,000/year
• Adobe Commerce Cloud starts at £40,000/year
• Enterprise-level pricing can reach $125,000/year

Head-to-head

When comparing BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce, and Shopify, each platform has its own strengths and weaknesses that cater to different business needs and sizes. Here’s a detailed comparison:

BigCommerce

Adobe Commerce (Magento)

Shopify

Conclusion

In summary, the best choice of eCommerce platform depends on your specific business needs, technical expertise, and budget.

BigCommerce offers a good balance of features and is a cost-effective and user-friendly choice for small to medium-sized businesses. Adobe Commerce is ideal for large enterprises needing extensive customisation and scalability, albeit at a higher cost. Shopify offers a balance of ease of use and scalability, making it suitable for a wide range of businesses, particularly for small businesses or those new to ecommerce.

Whichever vendor you choose to go with, we’re here to help you with the implementation. And with the integration of CXOne and CXOne Storefront, we will open the doors to an exceptional experience for your customers.

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