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BigCommerce or Magento. Which One is Best

Discussion in 'eCommerce' started by Kiran Kocherla, Feb 20, 2013.

?

Best Ecommerce Solution for Shopping Sites

Poll closed Mar 22, 2013.
  1. Magento

    80.0%
  2. Bigcommerce

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  3. Zencart

    20.0%
  4. Shopify

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
Multiple votes are allowed.
  1. #1
    Hi All,

    Please tell me. Which CMS is best for Shopping Site. I recently heard about Bigcommerce. Its a paid version. where as Magento is Free Version.

    Which one i need to prefer.

    Thanks
    Kiran Kocherla
     
    Kiran Kocherla, Feb 20, 2013 IP
  2. mamnoa

    mamnoa Member

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    #2
    if i were you, i ll use a prestashop
     
    mamnoa, Feb 20, 2013 IP
  3. hasan

    hasan Active Member

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    #3
    No doubt, Magento is the best e-commerce platform so far.
     
    hasan, Feb 20, 2013 IP
  4. mamnoa

    mamnoa Member

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    #4
    could you tell why magento?
     
    mamnoa, Feb 20, 2013 IP
  5. hasan

    hasan Active Member

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    #5
    Enterprise level of structure, EAV database structure, scaleable, sustainable and most feature rich e-commerce platform yet. Thousand of third party extensions.
     
    hasan, Feb 20, 2013 IP
  6. mamnoa

    mamnoa Member

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    #6
    i would say the same about Prestashop,

    magento has a hight hardware requirements
     
    mamnoa, Feb 20, 2013 IP
  7. hasan

    hasan Active Member

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    #7
    hasan, Feb 20, 2013 IP
  8. orangegirl

    orangegirl Greenhorn

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    #8
    Prestahop is free, but if you need some additional modules it may be too expensive.
    Magento has a lot more features included, but it is too confusing to manage.
    So, I would recommend CS-Cart. It is paid, but for usd 345 you'll receive a modern and reliable software which has a number of features included and is really easy to install and manage.
     
    orangegirl, Feb 22, 2013 IP
  9. Xherko

    Xherko Greenhorn

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    #9
    I never used BigCommerce but i have only good experiences with Magento.
     
    Xherko, Feb 22, 2013 IP
  10. davehermansen

    davehermansen Active Member

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    #10
    One thing that people are not considering is PCI compliance. None of the self hosted solutions - free or otherwise - are truly PCI compliant. What may seem like a better deal initially will cost you money down the road when you are having to pay monthly non-compliance fees to a payment processor, that is, if the payment processor will even approve your non-compliant eCommerce store. Of course, those who are only accepting PayPal don't have to worry about this (although if you only take PayPal, you are likely losing a huge amount of orders because a number of people don't want to pay through them, for various reasons).

    It is important to note that while a shopping cart may say that they are PCI compliant, that is only the case at the moment the certification is made and does not account for the relationship between the hosting company and that software. You can have a PCI compliant host and a PCI compliant shopping cart but when you combine the two, they are no longer compliant because neither was designed to work exclusively with the other. If you are not constantly upgrading the software to guard against new threats, what was compliant last week may no longer be compliant this week. And, when the software is upgraded, those changes will affect the sending and receiving of data between the software and the hosting company, making it non-compliant once again. Similarly, when your host company upgrades their servers to guard against new threats, it will no longer mesh with the exact configuration of each individual shopping cart.

    That was one of our main considerations when we went searching for the best shopping cart for our members last year. We downloaded and tested more than a dozen eCommerce platforms and ultimately decided on BigCommerce because they included more in their platform, and had a slightly easier learning curve than Magento. And, they hosted the software on their own PCI compliant servers.

    More to the point, there is no real answer for what is best for everybody. All shopping carts are lacking something and have other things that their competitors don't. The only way to really figure out what the best one is is for you, is to take them up on their free trials and test them one at a time, adding a few products, seeing if you can get product options and attributes to behave the way you want them to and playing with the shipping and payment options to make sure they will work well with your store. In the end, you will find one that is slightly better than the others but none that are absolutely perfect.
     
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2013
    davehermansen, Feb 22, 2013 IP
  11. gotlivechat

    gotlivechat Member

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    #11
    Magento for the open source. You'll need some technical ability to run it; if not, try their GO service (where they host the servers). Then you just add your products to start selling. Does involve fees for the GO service though.
     
    gotlivechat, Mar 5, 2013 IP
  12. Djames86

    Djames86 Peon

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    #12
    If you can allocate a higher budget and you want to maintain flexibility and take advantage of creativity and unique approaches, Magento may be your ideal solution. If you have a limited budget, are happy with a standard features set, and want a faster route to market for your online store, a BigCommerce store would be ideal.
     
    Djames86, Mar 6, 2013 IP
  13. afoley77

    afoley77 Active Member

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    #13
    As per my knowledge and experience i would like to vote for Magent....:)
     
    afoley77, Mar 6, 2013 IP
  14. OSSEO

    OSSEO Active Member

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    #14
    Magento best & free eCommerce platform with huge features .
     
    OSSEO, Mar 6, 2013 IP
  15. davehermansen

    davehermansen Active Member

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    #15
    I have over a decade of experience in ecommerce and have built dozens and dozens of stores on virtually every well known platform available. On top of that, I have mentored thousands and thousands of people using various cart platforms.

    Truth be told, both of these carts are great! In fact, both of them are on my top 5 list! However, which cart is best for you is totally dependent on your amount of experience, your store and the amount capital you have to invest!

    Magento is a powerful solution, but should ONLY BE CONSIDERED if you are a developer that's familiar with Magento OR you have a serious chunk of money to invest in customization and configuring. IMO, Magento shouldn't even be considered by beginners that are creating their first ecommerce store or someone that's just testing out a market. That platform should be reserved for folks that need a custom store that they are building around a brand in a niche that they've already proven! (FYI, most of the people telling you to go with Magento on websites like this are Magento developers that are hoping you will hire them!)

    BigCommerce is one of the better, if not the best, hosted solutions for beginners and small business owners. You can literally get a store launched in a day or two using BC without any need for customizations or programming. A BigCommerce subscription includes your web hosting and it's 100% PCI compliant as well. This makes BigCommerce the ultimate solution for a newbie or someone that's just wanting to test the viability of a market!

    I hope this is helpful!
     
    davehermansen, Jul 17, 2013 IP
  16. Nigel Lew

    Nigel Lew Notable Member

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    #16
    While I tend to agree with most of what you said this statement is a tad presumptuous.
    I do seem to be at odds with your PCI compliance notion from your previous post though. Who gives a shit? PCI compliance is a job in and of itself. While I have had to deal with some custom payment processors etc. none of this work goes on within Magento, opencart etc. anyway. No one in their right mind without a full blown security department should be storing that sorta data in the first place.

    I do find it interesting that we seem to have a run of folks espousing how kick ass bigcommerce is, who have developed thousands of e-commerce sites over decades and have less than 50 posts lol...

    Just thinkin out loud here. Tenure here is a testiment to a range of things but competency in a particular field is not necessarily one of them lol..

    Welcome to DP. We need more smart folks.
    Nigel
     
    Last edited: Jul 17, 2013
    Nigel Lew, Jul 17, 2013 IP
  17. davehermansen

    davehermansen Active Member

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    #17
    This is just an observation that I've made. A good percentage of the time when someone says "just use Magento!" in a discussion forum like this they end up being a Magento developer. I don't have a problem with promoting yourself by sharing knowledge and discussing topics, but at least give some specific reasons why you feel the way you do!

    PCI compliance is NOT limited to STORING credit card details! It applies to ANY online interface that stores OR transmits credit card details. So everyone who owns a website that takes credit card payments SHOULD give a s&%t! :)

    The only way to be PCI compliant on ANY self-hosted software that stores or transmits CC details is to either use an off-site solution (like PayPal Standard) or iframe in a solution (like PayPal Advanced)!

    OR

    Go through the agonizing process of getting your platform AND your hosting server to pass PCI compliance screening (which is something I've gone through before, and I don't wish it upon anyone!).

    I wasn't aware of the fact that there was a correlation between number of ecommerce sites, level of success and number of posts on DP? I must've missed that announcement! ;)

    For the record, BigCommerce isn't the only cart I like or recommend. I'm a big fan of Magento, Magento Go, WP+WooCommerce and OpenCart too, but each cart serves a different demographic. In my opinion, BC is the simplest cart to get a store off the ground with for someone that's new to ecommerce!

    I wish I understood what you were saying here so I could reply... :)

    I've actually been a member here for a couple years, but I appreciate your "welcome" nonetheless!
     
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2013
    davehermansen, Jul 18, 2013 IP
  18. Jaeger

    Jaeger Banned

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    #18
    Magento and OpenCart both are best user friendly and free eCommerce shopping cart platform. ZenCart is now outdated after popularity of OpenCart.
     
    Jaeger, Jul 19, 2013 IP
  19. Kris0123

    Kris0123 Peon

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    #19
    I've heard good things about Magento as well, particularly customer service and the number iof third party plug ins available to users. While determining which platform to use consider where you want to go in the future. You may not need too much robustness now, but what if you want to expand into international shipping or some other area down the road? Knowing what's available to you in the platform you select now could save headaches from having to switch in the future.
     
    Kris0123, Jul 19, 2013 IP
  20. Matt Cotten

    Matt Cotten Member

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    #20
    This discussion should really about whether you want to choose a hosted shopping cart or open source. They are really two different platforms. Once you have decided the way to go then you choose the software. If you are tech savvy and want to customize the software on your own hosting account then go with open source. But if you don't want to have to deal with installations, plug-ins, upgrades and hosting management then a hosted cart is the way to go. There is a big difference in the setup and learning curve.
     
    Matt Cotten, Jul 23, 2013 IP