Big Cartel Vs Shopify : Which Is Best For Your Online Store?

Many people find it difficult to enter the e-commerce space, and the debate between Big Cartel vs Shopify never ends. Each is a great tool for online companies, providing features like shipping, billing, and CRM.

These two SaaS platforms are similar in that they both provide cloud capabilities and are user-friendly. There are, however, a few distinctions to be aware of. You should definitely pick the greatest e-commerce platform if you want to create an online store that suits your needs and your company.

However, they all offer varying degrees of customization and are tailored for specific kinds of sellers. Read this guide between Big Cartel vs Shopify to determine which platform is ideal for your online store.

Big Cartel vs Shopify: Which is better for small and medium business?

Big Cartel and Shopify are highly distinct from one another, and their target markets are also very diverse.

Big Cartel is a great e-commerce solution for small enterprises or artists who simply require basic functionalities and a small selection of products. It is a simple builder that is excellent for beginners but provides limited customization options for users who choose not to code or who need scalability.

Shopify is a platform that is considerably more adaptable to many types of enterprises. It is the greatest e-commerce platform for larger businesses overall because of its capabilities and ability to personalize designs. Shopify has so much to offer that it’s suitable for everyone, even if you run a small business and also aim to develop and expand.

Big Cartel vs Shopify: Pricing plans

Big Cartel offers three different price tiers:

Gold (Free)
Platinum costs $15 a month.
Diamond costs $30 a month.

If you pay in full for a year, you can receive a 20% discount on the “Platinum” and “Diamond” plans, bringing their monthly costs down to $12 and $24, respectively.
Free themes for store design are included with every Big Cartel pricing plan, and each plan gives you the following features:
Custom domain, sell both offline and online, run sales and promotions, use “Sales Tax Autopilot” to compute sales tax.
Each plan offers 5, 50 and 500 product listings.

Shopify has five distinct price tiers:

Starter: $5 a month.
Basic: $39 a month.
Shopify: $105 with Shopify.
Advance is $399 a month.
Plus: personalized pricing, with monthly minimums of $2,300.
If you buy an annual plan, you can save 25% on the cost of your Shopify plan.

The primary differences among the other plans are:

• The number of individuals that can access an account; on the Basic, Shopify, and Advanced Shopify plans, you can have 1, 5, and 15 staff accounts, respectively. The higher the plan, the more users you can have.
• Professional reporting tools are exclusive to “Shopify” and higher levels.
• Computations of third-party shipping rates (available on the “Advanced Shopify” plan or higher)
• E-commerce automations: these are exclusive to the “Shopify”  and higher plans.
  

Big Cartel vs Shopify: Templates and visuals (Number of themes)

You may start your store off with the help of “themes” from Big Cartel and Shopify. These are pre-made templates whose layouts, colors, and typefaces can be altered to meet your needs.

One must admit that the 17 themes available on Big Cartel is a significant reduction from the multitude of themes offered by rival e-commerce sites.For instance, Wix provides more than 830 templates, BigCommerce provides more than 180, and Squarespace provides roughly 178. One advantage of Big Cartel is that, unlike its rivals, all of its templates are completely free.

Shopify provides 13 free themes overall, therefore Big Cartel’s free offering is less extensive than Shopify’s. 202 paid premium themes are also available, the most of them include three or more variations. These cost anything between $140 to $450.

The customer assistance for certain Shopify premium themes can be scarce, which is something to keep in mind. An additional degree of bother can arise if you find yourself having to deal directly with third-party theme producers in the event that you have issues with your template.

Big Cartel vs Shopify: No Coding needed

Big Cartel and Shopify were built with the common user in mind. To create and launch your website, you don’t need any prior knowledge with web programming.

Customization is the primary distinction between the two platforms in this regard. There’s not much room for customization when it comes to Big Cartel’s pre-made themes. You might not be able to attach videos to your product listings, add the font you wish to use, or position a banner where you want.

Even if you utilize a pre-made template, Shopify gives you more control over the final product’s appearance. To increase your product listings’ conversion rates, you may also include videos.

Big Cartel vs Shopify: Payment Processing

Since Big Cartel doesn’t have an integrated payment processor, you’ll need to utilize one that isn’t linked to your business directly. This implies that you will have to pay the credit card processing fees that your external processor sets. As a platform, Big Cartel does not impose listing fees or deduct any portion of your revenues.

Shopify Payments is Shopify’s in-house, fully integrated payment processor. You can view your payment information in the same location as the rest of your data with Shopify Payments, and there are no transaction costs. In addition to processing fees, you will be assessed transaction fees if you choose to use an outside processor.

Big Cartel vs Shopify: Dropshipping

Big Cartel is an artist-focused marketplace that allows you to dropship products that have your artwork printed on them using Printful and Art of Where. Its dropshipping automations and capacities are rather restricted outside of those two possibilities.

Conversely, Shopify is renowned for being incredibly dropshipper-friendly, and its app store has hundreds of useful apps.

Big Cartel vs Shopify: Domain and Hosting

The web hosting part of creating a website is handled by Shopify and Big Cartel. Purchasing an additional domain name or integrating it will be necessary if you want to avoid having “bigcartel.com” or “myshopify.com” in your URL.

You can purchase a domain name through Big Cartel and link it to your account by purchasing it through a third-party platform like GoDaddy. You can buy a domain through Shopify’s platform or

Big Cartel vs Shopify: Uploading files and creating custom fields

When making a purchase, certain sellers may ask for extra information from their clients. Typically, this information takes the form of text or an image file that has been uploaded. For instance, a t-shirt manufacturer would need an image to print on the shirt, or jewelers might need a copy for an inscription. Big Cartel forbids you from doing this.

You can collect this data with Shopify, but it’s a tedious procedure. You must add some HTML code to your template in order to establish a “line item property” that will allow you to collect more text. Alternatively, you might pay for an app to complete the task.

The decision between Big Cartel vs Shopify is primarily based on your priorities and business objectives. You should choose Shopify if you intend to grow your online store substantially. Big Cartel would be a fantastic option, but, if you’re looking for something free or inexpensive, have a smaller inventory, or don’t require sophisticated customisation. Contact our expert shopify website developers to build your shopify website.