| Product | Big Cartel | Shopify |
| Link | http://bigcartel.com/ | https://www.shopify.com/ |
| Description | Big Cartel is a shopping cart software that enables businesses to sell online. It provides users with an easy-to-use interface for managing their products, orders, and customers. Big Cartel also offers a variety of features such as product customization, order tracking, and shipping options. | Shopify is the leading ecommerce software that allows you to create an online store. It is simple to use and has all the features you need to run a successful online business. With Shopify, you can sell products online, accept payments, track inventory, and manage shipping. You can also customize your store with themes and apps to make it look exactly how you want. |
| Gitnux Rating | Great Product | Great Product |
| Pricing Model | Tiered-Pricing | Tiered-Pricing |
| Pricing Rates | Diamond Titanium Platinum Gold | Basic Shopify Advanced |
| Could Be Better | Design templates are limited and not user-friendly. It doesn’t have automatic shipping calculations and phone service appears to be quite limited too. | There is no built-in blog that can be necessary for bringing in traffic and customer support appears to be quite slow at times. The storefront API is also limited when using a custom domain. |
| Key Features | CRM, Templates Mobile Access | Mobile Access Inventory Management Multi-Channel Marketing Returns Management Multi-Store |
| Support | Email Help Desk FAQs Forum Knowledge Base | Email Help Desk FAQs Forum Knowledge Base Phone Support 24/7 (Live Rep) Chat |
| Extended Review | https://gitnux.com/en/catalog/shopping-cart-software/big-cartel | https://gitnux.com/en/catalog/ecommerce-software/shopify |
| Best For | This is best for small start-ups, especially artists. | This is best for small to medium sized companies. |
| Feature | Big Cartel | Shopify |
| Promotions Management | No | Yes |
| Mobile Access | Yes | Yes |
| Templates | Yes | Yes |
| Inventory Management | No | Yes |
| Multi-Store | No | Yes |
| CRM | No | No |
Promotions Management:It is about increasing traffic and converting visitors into costumers. This can involve sale collections, recovering abandoned checkouts, marketing reports, setting up automatic discounts and discount codes. Shopify has all the aforementioned features while Big Cartel doesn’t have one and instead relies on integrations for promotions. Promotion manangement is important because with it you can effectively plan your promotions, manage customer sevice and process orders efficiently espeically for big yearly events like Black Friday. |
Mobile Access:Since more and more people use mobile, it is important for software to be accessible on mobile.This can involve having an app or having the mobile site be responsive and mobile-friendly. Shopify and Big Cartel both have apps and the shops created can be mobile-friendly. The Shopify app can accept in-person payments and manage your digital store. The Big Cartel app does the same with possibility of adding Google Analytics to your site. |
Templates:Guidelines for producing sites and stores, making the process of creating a store much easier. Shopify does not use templates but has a variation called themes which influence the colour scheme and font of a store; some are free while others are paid for while Big Cartel also has pre-made templates which are free but very limited. For both templates can be bought integrated as well. |
Inventory Management:Used for managing stock, so when someone buys something, the inventory immediately goes down by one and alerts be sent out when inventory is running low. Big Cartel does not have one and relies on integrations. Shopify does which inclues inventory tracking, viewing inventory, history of inventory adjustments, and inventory reports. |
Multi-Store:When with one account on an e-commerce platform can host multiple stores. This is important becasue it allows for easy access wihe it comes to adminstration because multiple logins are not needed. You can only host one store on Big Cartel. With the store-switcher feature on Shopify and email verification you can switch between different stores under the same email address. |
CRM:Stands for customer relations management which involves managing and tracking interactions with customers and their requests. This is important so you can easily collect customer data to improve the user experience. Shopify does not have a built in CRM system but allows for integrations with various CRM applications. Big Cartel is the same with no built-in integration. |
