When shopping for an e-commerce platform to host your store on, it’s always best to compare options instead of choosing the first one you see.  Like most people, we do our homework to find something reliable and that fits our standards, right? Having a high rated e-commerce platform is important when it comes to running an online store, but it’s also smart to pick one that is right for your business.

Let’s start by discussing what many people are concerned with: price. Both platforms offer free trials (BigCommerce 15 days, and Volusion 14 days), no startup fees, and no transaction fees to use their service. For the same plan (500 products, 3GB bandwidth), BigCommerce is cheaper by just about $1.00 a month. As plans increase both in product upload availability and bandwidth, Volusion becomes more affordable (Platinum plan which has unlimited products and high bandwidth is about a $150 cheaper per month than BigCommerce’s Diamond Plan).

Both offer a variety of free templates to work with if you don’t have design whiz by your side, but BigCommerce definitely takes the cake when it comes to their free templates. BigCommerce not only has more appealing and usable templates, but they are extremely customizable through the use of HTML, CSS, and have an interface which allows you to drag and drop features.

Support is a very important feature when it comes to having an e-commerce platform.  When a client is having issues or questions in regards to something within their store, support may be your savior. Volusion offers their customers support by phone, email and live chat 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In my own experience, Volusion support is awesome – whether by phone, email, or live chat. They also have great tutorials and videos that are very helpful.

Depending on what you’re looking for in an e-commerce platform, both Volusion and BigCommerce offer a variety of options to suit anyone’s needs. Deciding on which platform to choose depends on what you value the most when having an online presence.