Shopify Discussion

I guess this would really depend on the features you need for your project. What do you feel is missing that you will need for your project?

The best you can do is try both. BigCommerce has a 15-day trial, and Shopify a 30-day free trial on all plans. 

it seems a lot of features are missing from Shopify.

As long as what is missing is not what you will be missing, and as long as what you need is taken care of extremely well, then you'll be fine - with either solution that gives you what you need.

The list of features BigCommerce throws at you is a marketing ploy. When you've taken off the fluff, the list comes down to a reasonable size. It still delivers a punch, but I despise their tactics.

From my former free-lancing experience, I can tell you that Shopify is much easier and fun to theme and customize. It also has a wonderful Restful XML API that lets you do anything you want, except 1) create orders (but you can capture payments, fulfil items, close, and re-open orders with that API) and 2) generate discount codes. Everything else goes. It also has an AJAX API that returns JSON. Shopify integrates with FEDEX, UPS, USPS, Amazon, etc. It integrates with all these payment gateways, using open-source ActiveMerchant which is also used by other e-commerce platforms. Shopify contributed Liquid and ActiveMerchant as open-source projects. Liquid was inspired by Django, and is currently the best templating engine in the world (yeah, me saying).  

Shopify scales very well. You have to pay more with BigCommerce to be able to sustain high traffic. With Shopify, you don't have to. Also, we use a Content Delivery Network, this means that pages load as fast anywhere in the world - and that for me is a must.

Shopify has a great theme store with lots of great free themes, its own app store (very reasonably priced apps and many free apps, by Shopify and independent developers like yourself).

I think that it is best for any independent designer / developer to know 2 solutions well in whatever field he/she specializes in. Try and make those 2 favorites not solutions that are too smilar. For example: Shopify and Spree could be a good killer match in an e-commerce-oriented toolset.

Thanks for your quick responses. I will definitely download the trial and give it a shot. 

Does shopify offer support for downloadable products? I used magento before and they had support for related products, email to a friend, wishlists, and customer reviews, does shopify support any of these natively?

Another question I had were what other applications are typical to install along with shopify to run a proper e-commerce site?

I know some packages come with CRM systems, accounting systems, newsletters, etc. I'm not too worried about using different systems for the various tasks, eg. mailchimp for newsletters, salesforce for CRM, ExpressionEngine for the CMS, etc.

I've never ran an online store before, so if you could give me some insight, that would be great, especially in regards to a typical "flow" through the e-commerce purchase.

Much appreciated.

Hello

This is my first online store and all I can say about it is wonderful things. Shopify is a great product because the people behind it are great. The overall value vs other products is great.

There is nothing to download as it is hosted on their servers. The support is fantastic and quick.

My store (thepamperedparrot . com) is a hacked theme that cost me $14.00! You can't beat it and customization is simple.

I use Paypal website payments pro, users never leave my site for check out and the shipping integration is seamless.

As the other poster stated there are many apps, some free, some low cost, and others more expensive. Their API makes it the best option available on the market IMO!

Hi 22 & Sunny:

May I suggest that you have a look at App Store. You will find all kinds of Apps that will add the functionality you are looking for. Have a look at Fetch, Grapevine, Chimpified...

You can add all the components you need for your unique workflow.

Cheers,

Aurelien