If you’ve ever traded in the online space, you’ll know that there are many challenges to face. Setting up your online store requires a lot of planning, forethought, and technical expertise. In the past, businesses have built their platforms from the ground up. This can entail everything from building a product catalog and database, and finding a suitable server, to setting up a functional website and distribution network. As companies expanded and web trends changed, heavy development would need to go into keeping up with the pace. This resulted in bloated systems that were hacked together, being endlessly patched. Larger sellers would find themselves with legacy platforms that strained under the weight of the demands of the market.

In more recent years, things have become far more streamlined. This is particularly true for businesses that are looking to start an entirely new eCommerce site, or transition from an old one. There are now an increasing number of platforms that can help build and deliver an eCommerce infrastructure for your business that is sleek, comprehensive, and functional. One such company that has an ever-growing customer base is BigCommerce. With hundreds of thousands of store fronts on their platform, they’re on of the big players in the market. However, despite the many promises made of a ‘complete eCommerce solution’, this may not be entirely accurate. In this article we’ll examine some of the issues with the platform, as well as some BigCommerce alternatives. We’ll also demonstrate why we think our own platform, Shopping Cart Elite, distinguishes itself among these competitors.

BigCommerce

Texas-based BigCommerce was founded in 2009 and has grown rapidly ever since. Their aim is to provide their customers with a stable platform through which to expand their online presence. They promise to deliver an all-in-one hosted eCommerce platform to brands that are hoping to grow.

However, as we’ve mentioned in past articles, there are definitely some areas in which BigCommerce could improve. The biggest let down seemed to be with their customer service. Many users express frustration with how long it takes for them to get a reply, and how long-standing issues with functionality are not addressed. Another source of frustration is how many extra add-ons are needed to create a fully-functional site. Not only do these drive up the cost, they also have been known to slow site performance.

The issues with the platform are enough that many users or potential customers look instead for BigCommerce alternatives. Below we’ve outlined some of their potential rivals, and some of the pros and cons of choosing them.

BigCommerce Alternatives: Magento

Magento is one of the biggest and oldest BigCommerce alternatives, powering over 200,000 storefronts online. They’re an open source platform, meaning that the PHP-base software can be downloaded for free and customized to fit almost any business. Not only is this good in terms of unique branding, it also means that extra functionality can be added. Below we’ve listed the main pros and cons of Magento:

• Free to download and heavily customizable.
• Good catalogue management tools, allowing for batch updates to products and pricing. The checkout mechanics are fairly well developed too, meaning you can run a wide variety of promotions.
• Magento lets users create multiple sites based on the same infrastructure. This is particularly useful if you have multi-language versions of your site, or require different storefronts that use the same backend.

• Although the Community Edition of Magento is free, serious businesses will need the Enterprise Edition which is not. The yearly costs of this system are not published on Magento’s own website, but some sources claim it ranges from $15,000 to $50,000 a year.
• In order to setup and maintain a Magento site, you’ll need to have a developer with a good working knowledge of PHP. If you don’t have one in-house, you’ll have to rely on freelancers and agencies, which could soon get expensive.

BigCommerce Alternatives: Shopify

The other main rival to BigCommerce in terms of size is Shopify. By their own estimations, they have provided a platform to over 377,000 online stores over the years. Despite their humble beginnings selling snowboard gear online, they now offer an out-of-the-box solution for building an eCommerce site. Much like BigCommerce and Magento, the focus is on individuality and customization.

• They have a good selection of professional-looking themes. This means that you can create a site that looks great and add your unique branding to it. Themes can be found at their dedicated Theme Store, and there are over 100 available.
• Over 70 payment options are available on the Shopify platform. You can guarantee that whatever it is your site sells, they will have payment options to support it. It gives you access to a versatile marketplace.

• Although the base monthly cost of Shopify is generally quite low, the extra fees can soon mount up. Unless you use Shopify’s own payment option, you will be charged a fee for every transaction your site makes. Furthermore, to get a site that’s as functional as you need, you’ll have to install quite a few add-ons. These can also incur a monthly cost.
• Customization is quite hard with Shopify. Even if you have a good knowledge of HTML and CSS, Shopify uses their own coding language, Liquid. Unless you’re well versed in this, you’ll have to hire someone to do the development work for you. Again, this can make the costs add up.

BigCommerce Alternatives: OpenCart

Due to their success in China, OpenCart have also powered over 300,000 online stores since their first software release in 2009. Like Magento, OpenCart uses a PHP-based platform that integrates elements of HTML and MySQL. If you have a server, database and Curl, you can download the software for free and get started with your site.

• The OpenCart community is really strong. Their forums are alive with contributors and backers, making it possible to find a solution for just about anything. You have the freedom to create your site as you see fit, provided you have the necessary skills.
• There is a good amount of flexibility to add functionality to your site. Add-ons of all kinds are available, although as we’ve seen with other sites this is a mixed blessing.

• Some users have commented on how difficult it is to set up OpenCart. If you have a limited knowledge of programming languages, you’ll have to find someone who does.
• Another criticism that often comes from users is the fact that OpenCart’s customer support isn’t the greatest. Unless you buy the expensive support packages, you’re going to have to rely on the community to fix any issues you encounter with the platform.

BigCommerce Alternatives: Shopping Cart Elite

We think that our very own Shopping Cart Elite is the right platform to choose, no matter the size or scale of your business. Our team has worked hard to deliver a complete eCommerce solution that is easy to set up, intuitive to use, and has every feature you need, right out of the box. Below are some of the features we’re most proud of:

Intuitive CMS
We’ve designed the Shopping Cart Elite CMS to be intuitive and easy to use. Effectively managing content is one of the fundamentals of a successful online store. With a simple drag and drop design, you can customize your pages to look exactly how you want them, without the need for lots of additional coding. You can also customize the layout of your pages using the preset columns. Once you’re done, you can be assured that both desktop and mobile versions will look great, without any extra effort.

100 Payment Methods
Above we mentioned that Shopify supports 70 different payment methods. This is important for both you as a business and for your customers to be able to pay in a way that benefits all. That’s why we support 100 payment gateways, covering 99% of the of the world’s merchant gateways. You can choose how you do business, without restrictions.

Beyond SEO Ready
Part of having an effective online strategy is making sure your site is fully optimized to rank in search engines. Knowing this, we ensure that all of the sites on our platform go beyond SEO ready. Not only do we implement all Google Webmaster guidelines, and automate the building of organic SEO, we also use a secret SEO formula. This formula first highlights keywords in your content and then recommends changes you should make to your content. You can be sure you’ll be right up to date in terms of SEO.

TEA Software
Part of an effective SEO strategy is holding paid advertisers, such as Google AdWords, accountable for money spent on your PPC campaigns. We use the innovative TEA software (Threat and Engagement Analytics) to monitor and manage the quality of traffic coming to sites on the Shopping Cart Elite platform. It provides actionable insights for click traffic performance, meaning you’ll get the most out of your campaigns.

Shopping Cart Elite: The Best of the BigCommerce Alternatives

As you can see from everything we’ve covered in this article, there is fierce competition in the eCommerce platform market. Many of the alternatives we’ve covered suffer from similar issues. At Shopping Cart Elite, we’ve learned from the mistakes of others to provide a holistic solution to setting up an online store. The innovative features and technologies we use can deliver fantastic results to your business, regardless of the size and scope.