WooCommerce vs BigCommerce

When starting an e-commerce business, choosing the right platform is one of the most critical decisions you’ll make. BigCommerce and WooCommerce offer two different paths. BigCommerce is an all-in-one SaaS solution, while WooCommerce is a flexible open-source platform.

In this comparison article, we explore the BigCommerce platform and Angry Creative’s Qala WooCommerce solution. We explore the differences between them and what to consider when choosing an e-commerce platform.

BigCommerce vs WooCommerce vs Qala WooCommerce

BigCommerce

WooCommerce

Qala WooCommerce

Features

BigCommerce: BigCommerce is designed to provide a comprehensive e-commerce solution suitable for businesses of all sizes. With features that support omnichannel sales and global expansion, the platform is an excellent choice for companies looking to start selling internationally. It offers advanced solutions for B2B commerce, headless commerce, and the ability to manage group and wholesale trade, making it a flexible option.

WooCommerce: WooCommerce offers thousands of plugins. Users can customize everything from basic e-commerce functionalities to advanced SEO tools and create unique customer experiences using WordPress as a foundation.

Qala WooCommerce: Qala WooCommerce enhances standard WooCommerce with specific features such as ready-made modules, improved payment solutions, intelligent search, quick filtering, and much more. This makes it easy to provide a seamless shopping experience for customers.

Accessibility

BigCommerce: BigCommerce is designed for simplicity, allowing users to get started quickly without technical expertise. The platform offers an intuitive admin panel, powerful built-in marketing tools, and extensive support resources that make it easy for users to manage their e-commerce.

WooCommerce: WooCommerce requires more technical knowledge, especially in WordPress and web hosting management. However, the flexibility offered through WordPress allows for unbeatable, customized solutions.

Qala WooCommerce: Qala WooCommerce aims to simplify the user experience by offering a platform already tailored with ready-made and customized modules to meet your needs. This reduces the need for additional configuration and customization.

Content management

BigCommerce: BigCommerce includes features to manage content, including built-in tools for creating SEO-optimized product pages and blog posts. The platform allows integration with various CMS for more dynamic content management, though not to the same extent as WooCommerce and WordPress.

WooCommerce: As a plugin for WordPress, WooCommerce offers extensive possibilities for content management. WordPress is known for its flexible features, such as Custom Post Types (CPT), comprehensive SEO tools, and the ability to integrate with all leading content management tools.

Qala WooCommerce: Qala WooCommerce enhances WooCommerce’s editorial capabilities by introducing specific tools and features optimized to facilitate all types of content management on the site.

Flexibility

BigCommerce: Offers broad customization possibilities through its API and an extensive app marketplace. This allows users to integrate their e-commerce solution with various external services and platforms, customize their stores, and improve functionality based on their specific business needs.

WooCommerce: WooCommerce excels in adaptability, with access to a vast collection of WordPress themes and plugins as well as the ability to directly modify code to create a completely unique online store.

Qala WooCommerce: With Qala WooCommerce, you get additional customization options specifically aimed at meeting specific requirements and preferences. You get access to ready-made modules, while the open-source code offers great flexibility for personal customizations.

Performance

BigCommerce: BigCommerce guarantees high performance and availability, crucial for businesses that require reliability and the ability to handle large volumes of traffic and transactions.

WooCommerce: WooCommerce’s performance depends on the quality of web hosting and configuration.

Qala WooCommerce: Qala WooCommerce offers specific performance improvements tailored for e-commerce stores who require a stable foundation. This includes optimizations for server configurations and caching, particularly valuable during peak seasons and campaigns, ensuring a smooth customer experience even during traffic spikes.

SEO & marketing

BigCommerce: BigCommerce offers comprehensive SEO features such as automatically optimized URL structures, metadata management, and integrated tools to increase visibility on search engines. The platform also provides a range of built-in marketing tools to help drive campaigns and analyze traffic.

WooCommerce: WooCommerce has access to a vast array of WordPress plugins for SEO and marketing. This includes everything from Yoast SEO for content optimization to Google Analytics integrations for traffic analysis. The customization options here are extremely high, allowing businesses to tailor their SEO and marketing strategies.

Qala WooCommerce: With Qala WooCommerce, you can make all the settings imaginable regarding SEO.

Scalability

BigCommerce: BigCommerce is designed to handle scaling efficiently and supports everything from small businesses to larger enterprises with complex needs. The platform offers a robust infrastructure that can handle high traffic and large product catalogs without performance issues.

WooCommerce: While WooCommerce itself can scale to some extent, much of its scalability depends on the underlying hosting solution and how the site is optimized. Larger operations may require significant customizations and optimizations.

Qala WooCommerce: Qala WooCommerce takes scalability into account through optimized performance settings and customized solutions that help you grow without technical limitations. Qala is developed with several unique components and solutions that enable high load and performance.

Pricing

BigCommerce: BigCommerce’s pricing model is subscription-based, with costs increasing with the platform’s features and capacity. This model can be advantageous for companies that require scalability without large initial investments but can become expensive if planning to scale up in the future.

WooCommerce: While WooCommerce is free to use, costs for web hosting, themes, plugins, and custom development may add up. These costs can vary depending on needs and scale.

Qala WooCommerce: Qala WooCommerce offers a cost-effective solution with many advanced features included. Qala entails a slightly higher initial cost but quickly transitions to a cost-effective pricing model, allowing significant growth potential for your e-commerce.

Selling internationally

BigCommerce: BigCommerce supports international sales through multilingual storefronts, local currency, and global payment solutions. The platform is great for companies looking to start selling internationally.

WooCommerce: WooCommerce supports international sales through various plugins that allow multilingual functionality and integrations with international payment options. However, it requires a lot of customization to implement.

Qala WooCommerce: Qala WooCommerce offers a multisite architecture, including features such as integrated translation tools and support for local payment systems tailored to various international markets. This makes it easier to reach customers globally while maintaining a local presence.

Support

BigCommerce: BigCommerce is known for its high-quality support, available 24/7 via phone, live chat, and email. They also offer online resources, including guides, webinars, and a community forum to help users resolve issues and optimize their use of the platform.

WooCommerce: WooCommerce does not offer direct support.

Qala WooCommerce: With Qala WooCommerce, you get continuous support, including maintenance, technical assistance, and consulting.

Brief Summary

BigCommerce

BigCommerce suits small and medium-sized businesses without an existing business system. Its main advantage is the smooth handling of products and orders in one place. The platform does not offer the same customization and tailored solutions as WooCommerce.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a powerful alternative, with much depending on the hosting solution and how the platform is built. As an open-source platform, it can be challenging to build an optimized e-commerce without technical knowledge.

Qala WooCommerce

Qala eliminates complex learning curves and challenges during expansion by offering a ready set of developed solutions, ready to be implemented in your e-commerce.

Qala uses a PIM system for product management. Thanks to Qala’s core in WooCommerce, you also gain access to WordPress, a leading CMS that simplifies all content management on your website.

Content management and accessibility

BigCommerce

A standout feature of BigCommerce is its centralized back-end management. The platform is designed to consolidate everything from product information and customer databases to order management in one place, regardless of the market. BigCommerce offers global blocks that can be displayed on all pages within a site, useful for consistent content like footers and navigation menus.

Their CMS has certain features, but not to the extent of WooCommerce and WordPress. The storefront feature works well for a limited number of markets but becomes less effective when advanced and specific customizations are required.

Qala WooCommerce

Qala offers ready-made modules that enable a quick start and extensive customization options. With WooCommerce, you also get WordPress, an unbeatable CMS highly effective for creating and managing content. Qala supports multiple payment modules and customized checkout processes for local markets, something not possible with BigCommerce.

Product management is done via a PIM system, and thanks to WooCommerce’s open-source nature, you get a highly customizable website.

Selling internationally

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a good platform for businesses looking to expand internationally. The platform offers different storefronts to create customized versions of the website in multiple languages and supports local currencies.

Additionally, BigCommerce integrates global payment solutions, including support for various payment systems and credit cards used in different countries. The global and local blocks facilitate quick translations and minor changes on multiple pages.

Qala WooCommerce

Qala WooCommerce leverages WordPress multisite architecture to offer an optimal solution for international expansion. With multisite, you can easily manage multiple websites from a single WordPress installation, which is especially useful for centralizing the administration of separate and customized websites for different regions or countries.

Qala also includes integrated translation tools and supports local payment systems, allowing you to offer the most popular payment methods in each market.


Pricing structure

BigCommerce

BigCommerce uses a subscription-based pricing model that varies depending on features and capacity. This allows scalability without large initial costs, which is beneficial for smaller businesses looking to grow gradually.

However, costs can quickly increase as the business expands and needs more advanced features.

Qala WooCommerce

Qala WooCommerce is a cost-effective solution that balances price and performance. Initially, Qala may have higher startup costs compared to BigCommerce, but over time this investment becomes more cost-effective.

Once your e-commerce platform is established, the ongoing costs are relatively low, and the model supports sustainable growth without escalating running costs.

Features

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is designed for global expansion and omnichannel sales, making it a good choice for businesses looking to reach international markets. The platform supports advanced B2B functions and allows easy integration with payment portals, logistics providers, and CRM systems, which is critical for an effective omnichannel strategy.

You don’t have the same customization options as with WooCommerce. However, you get a user-friendly interface and powerful administrative tools, making it easy for businesses to manage their website without extensive technical expertise.

Qala WooCommerce

Qala WooCommerce offers pre-configured modules for quick implementation and easy customization. Integrated payment solutions enable smooth transactions across multiple markets. Features such as intelligent search and fast filtering improve the user experience and increase the efficiency of the website.

Qala provides great customization options and is particularly effective for optimizing the customer journey and ensuring a smooth shopping experience, regardless of the customer’s geographical location.

SEO and marketing tools

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is heavily focused on optimizing SEO and offers powerful features to improve website visibility. The platform automates the creation of SEO-friendly URL structures and allows for metadata customization. BigCommerce also offers efficient campaign management.

Qala WooCommerce

Qala WooCommerce uses the WordPress platform to provide access to extensive marketing features. This allows users to effectively improve their website ranking and optimize marketing campaigns with various tools tailored to different needs.

Support

BigCommerce

BigCommerce offers high-quality support available around the clock via phone, live chat, and email. In addition to direct support, there is a wide range of online resources, including guides, webinars, and a community forum.

Qala WooCommerce

We are constantly attentive to potential challenges and opportunities for improvements. We also regularly maintain your website to ensure everything works correctly. As our customer, you always have the opportunity to continuously suggest improvements or adjustments.

By providing dedicated support, we help our users effectively manage any challenges that arise during operation.

Scalability and performance

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is built to grow with your business. This means that the platform can not only scale up smoothly but also maintain high performance during periods of high traffic and large product catalogs.

This combination of scalability and performance makes it possible for BigCommerce to offer a reliable platform for businesses aiming for growth without compromising on speed or availability.

Problems can arise with BigCommerce when you start to scale and sell to multiple different markets. Since there is no multi-store function, everything must be managed from a single website, which can become problematic when you need to customize many different storefronts.

Qala WooCommerce

Qala WooCommerce offers features that promote growth and efficiency, including a multisite architecture. This structure provides great flexibility for each individual site and market, which is crucial for global expansion. With the introduction of WooCommerce 8.2 and High-Performance Order Storage (HPOS), the handling of large volumes of customer orders is streamlined. Server optimization and advanced caching solutions improve performance, critical during peak seasons and campaigns.

For more information about Qala and how Angry Creative can help your business, schedule a meeting with our expert, Amy Slade!

FAQ

What are the key factors to consider when choosing between BigCommerce and Qala WooCommerce?

It’s important to assess how your business needs will evolve in the future. Do you plan to scale up your operations and expand globally? These are crucial questions to answer before making your choice.

How customizable are BigCommerce and Qala WooCommerce for unique business needs?

BigCommerce offers a good and stable platform to get started with, but it can become limiting when unique solutions are required. WooCommerce, together with Qala, provides a ready-made framework that allows for a quick start while offering an open-source environment for any customizations you might need.

WooCommerce vs BigCommerce: What’s the biggest difference?

BigCommerce is a somewhat simpler platform that is a convenient option for getting started quickly. WooCommerce is an open-source platform that requires more technical knowledge, allowing you to tailor your website to your unique needs.