The 21st Century has marked the age of rapid technological developments and advances. More and more people from all over the world are joining the virtual world of the internet. We do so many activities there. From sharing photos, to ordering food, to even purchasing medicines, the internet truly has become a haven and a window through which one can access the entire world without even moving a muscle.
Hence, it is no surprise when we say that all our marketplaces are coming online too. With the huge successes of companies such as Amazon, Flipkart, eBay, etc. more and more companies are trying to bring their market presence online so that they can compete better and keep up with the current trends.
But many people usually are under the assumption that building your own marketplace online, getting logistics to deliver them, etc. are very complicated processes and one needs the help of highly specialized expertise to get things done. But this is not the case at all! There are plenty of platforms online which help to take a person or a company their business to the next level. WooCommerce and BigCommerce are two such examples.
WooCommerce vs BigCommerce
The main difference between WooCommerce and BigCommerce is that WooCommerce has a bit of a learning curve, and requires a few technical skills, while BigCommerce does not require any technical skills and is easy to set up.
Comparison Table Between WooCommerce and BigCommerce
| Parameters of Comparison | WooCommerce | BigCommerce |
| Usability | WooCommerce has a learning curve and one needs to get familiar with the system. | BigCommerce is an easy to use platform which even novices can understand. |
| Cost | WooCommerce is a free and open-source platform. | BigCommerce is a subscription-based service. |
| Payment Gateways | WooCommerce supports a limited number of payment options by default. However, all major options can be added later. | BigCommerce supports a wide array of payment gateways by default. |
| Addons | Since WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, one can access over 55,000 addons present in WordPress. | BigCommerce has a comparatively lesser number of third-party addons. |
| Scalability | Limited scalability. | Highly scalable. |
What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is an online platform that is used to create e-commerce websites. WooCommerce is WordPress centric, as it is used as a plugin for the content management system. WooCommerce aims to make it easier for people to shift to or starting new online businesses as well as providing them huge customizability options so that the user can modify the site to their liking.
As of 2020, WooCommerce has been able to gather a userbase of more than 3.9 million. It was developed by the WordPress plugin developer WooThemes. WooThemes is a market leader in the bootstrap business, and have teams in more than 7 countries. The ability of WooCommerce to handle high amounts of traffic and still provide a good response time has led it to be used by high traffic websites such as the Small Press Expo. It was seen in 2015, that about 30% of all e-commerce sites were running WooCommerce. Also, even though it is being actively used by about three million websites, it has been downloaded way many times, which stands at about 39 million.
It is interesting to note that the developers of WooCommerce have kept their program open source, due to which there are many extensions and addons present for the base product. Up until 2018, there were about 330 extensions and more than 1000 plugins dedicated to WooCommerce. Some of the most significant WooCommerce plugins are WooCommerce Bookings, which as the name suggests, is used for booking time slots, and WooCommerce Memberships, which is used to sell parts of websites that have restricted access.
What is BigCommerce?
BigCommerce is also an online platform that makes it easy for businesses to create their e-commerce websites and operate through them. BigCommerce is headquartered in Austin, Texas, and has more than 600 employees. It was created by two Australians Eddie Machalaani and Mitchell Harper. Although significantly less popular than its gigantic counterpart WooCommerce, BigCommerce has its own advantages, which often suit the need of certain users, who do not want to get into the technological complication WooCommerce brings about.
About 3% of all the e-commerce sites present currently are built using BigCommerce, despite that, there has been a significant rise of interest in BigCommerce over time.
BigCommerce provides a whole package of features that one needs when making an online marketplace. BigCommerce provides everything from design, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Payment Gateway options, design options, etc. in its services. This is the reason why BigCommerce comes under the category of software under a solution (SaaS) because it provides all the features in one platform. The payment method used to pay for the services purchased from BigCommerce is subscription-based.
The biggest selling point of BigCommerce would be its ease of use, which would appeal to users who do not have much technical familiarity.
Main Differences Between WooCommerce and BigCommerce
- WooCommerce is more detailed and technically complicated than BigCommerce.
- WooCommerce services are for free, while one has to buy a subscription to use BigCommerce.
- WooCommerce by default has limited payment gateway options, while BigCommerce provides a wide array of options.
- WooCommerce has a humungous amount of add-ons, while the number of add-ons for BigCommerce is relatively less.
- WooCommerce has limited scalability, while BigCommerce is highly scalable.
Conclusion
It has become really important to have an online commercial presence in these days of high competition. Thanks to companies like WooCommerce and BigCommerce, users can achieve this target more easily than before. Users can always choose between the simple, easy to use BigCommerce, or the complicated WooCommerce, based on their skill level. Either way, the main aim is to move forward.
References
- https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8491621/