The Best Sites Like BigCartel: What Else is Out There?

If you’re an artist, then you have probably heard of BigCartel! Founded in 2005, the platform has ever since been the Mecca of sellers who want to build the best online stores. It is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms, and over a million creators trust it to make their unique online stores (self-hosted or not.)

This incredible e-Commerce platform has so many things to offer, and customers can sell anything they want, from jewelry and t-shirts to art. However, since BigCartel is meant for experienced designers only, some people find it a bit hard to work with it. That’s why in today’s piece, we are about to introduce you to the best alternatives to BigCartel, and we’ll try to conclude which of them will be the best eCommerce solution for you.

Related: Best E-commerce Website Builders Compared – 2022

What are the Best Big Cartel Alternatives

The best eCommerce platforms like BigCartel compared in today’s article are:

Shopify
BigCommerce
Paddle
3dcart
Oracle Commerce
Ecwid
IBM Watson Commerce
Salesforce Commerce Cloud

They all offer great eCommerce features and plans, and we know you will be happy with the results they provide. These websites like BigCartel are definitely worth the investment and will turn your eCommerce site into a complete success!

Why Should You Consider Big Cartel Alternatives For Your Online Store

BigCartel offers various features and resources that attract business owners. The software used by the company has straightforward eCommerce tools that help users create a unique online store and coordinate the retail process with ease.

This, however, is 100% true only if you have some experience in this area. From what we observed, users with absolutely no knowledge of site-building and eCommerce platforms may have some difficulties with ease of use. That’s why knowing your Big Cartel alternatives available is a good thing!

What Are the Advantages of BigCartel?

If you have some experience in creating an eCommerce website, you could go even deeper and code the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript directly. We also loved that with BigCartel, you can easily adjust fonts, themes, colors, and images, giving your site the universal customization it needs.

BigCartel allows you to track the overall progress of your store via Google Analytics and Inventory tracking. The eCommerce platform also handles the entire process from product selection to delivery. BigCartel’s basic search engine optimization tools are also one of the reasons why so many customers choose this platform to create their eCommerce store.

What Are The Disadvantages of BigCartel?

Up until now, everything has sounded great! However, the truth is that this platform has a couple of cons that customers should consider. The first thing is that BigCartel does not offer so many third-party integrations.

This may not look like a big problem, but let’s take the third-party shipping integrations, for example. They support only a few shippers, and if you have multiple orders to different foreign countries, this WILL be a problem! The fact that BigCartel does not support multiple languages also makes us conclude that international markets aren’t that much of a priority to this e-Commerce platform.

What’s more, this eCommerce platform has no chat support and phone support! The only thing you can use if you encounter any problem in your work process is the company’s email (and, of course, its knowledge base.) Still, for businesses that function 24/7, excellent customer support is essential!

Don’t get us wrong; we are not trying to discourage you from choosing BigCartel for your eCommerce website. This eCommerce platform has a lot to offer! Nevertheless, if you feel uncomfortable about the cons we mentioned above and you want to see the other Big Cartel alternatives, we are here to help you!

Best Overall Big Cartel Alternatives

Shopify

Shopify is the best BigCartel-like eCommerce platform. It can really catapult your growth and is built for all kinds of businesses. This eCommerce platform is not advertised as a tool for artists, but it is easy to use and has plenty of features and apps creative customers can take advantage of.

What does Shopify Offer?

Unlike BigCartel, Shopify is known for its wide number of third-party integrations. Shopify app store offers more than 4,000 apps to add functionality to your beloved online store. You get unlimited products, bandwidth, and customer data. Moreover, all of Shopify’s plans include an integrated marketing platform, multiple payment methods, professional reports, and other eCommerce features.

As an e-Commerce store owner, it is important to provide your customers with a seamless workflow. That way, they will be able to shop through your art gallery with ease and quickly add the desired product to their shopping cart. The best part is that this eCommerce platform allows its customers to coordinate even in-store sales and track individual employees and their performances.

Everything you need, from upselling and cross-selling to custom domain and marketing, is accessible through third-party integrations. If you can’t find some functionality you want, you will probably find it in some app in the app store. Another great thing is that the company benefits from open-source software and has contributed many projects back to the community.

So What Are The Disadvantages of Shopify?

We can’t deny that Shopify is one of the fastest-growing platforms for eCommerce. Still, it has its disadvantages, and they are mainly connected to pricing. Shopify has three plans for its customers: Basic Shopify, Shopify, Advanced Shopify. The cheapest plan costs $29/mo, but it has only 2 staff accounts.

The other two Shopify plans cost $79 and $299, and when you add the platform transaction fees, add-on fees, etc., the price gets relatively high. The migration process to a different eCommerce platform is also not as smooth as we would like it to be.

BigCommerce

The greatest advantage of BigCommerce is that it is targeted at all types of trades, including art. This eCommerce platform generally facilitates the listing of products on your main website, eBay, Amazon, and Facebook.

This BigCartel alternative offers shipping management, payment options, and online store customization. BigCommerce is also a code-free website builder, offering various applications, web design, lead conversion, and more.

What Does BigCommerce Offer?

Even though BigCommerce is not meant for creatives only, it offers many things. The web design process includes a wide range of templates, editing tools, and eCommerce features. The templates allow you to sell digital products as well. So what does Big Commerce platform offer? A solution for all artists, including video composers and musicians.

We are also pleased with the platform’s security features that maintain optimal compliance standards and guarantee you won’t experience any attacks. The control panel is easy to use, providing eCommerce store owners with all the needed tools to manage and run an art business. Business owners will easily coordinate and streamline their items, processing and fulfilling orders from a central location.

If you plan on having a holistic marketing framework, you will be glad to hear that BigCommerce is also considerably SEO-friendly, offering out-of-the-box Metadata. You can combine BigCommerce with other third-party apps and enjoy your successful online store.

If you own a WordPress site, you can link it to BigCommerce’s powerful e-commerce engine. The platform is also suitable for brick-and-mortar companies as it allows them to keep in-store sales automatically updated.

So What Are The Disadvantages of BigCommerce?

The biggest con of BigCommerce is its pricing. That, however, is a bit complicated. This e-Commerce solution is a bit expensive for freelancers such as musicians and artists (if you’re a business owner, you won’t find the pricing that high.) Moreover, you won’t be paying only a monthly listing fee. As it turns out, you’ll also have add-on fees for different components and credit card fees on transactions.

3d Cart

3dCart is one of the most affordable Big Cartel alternatives available nowadays. It serves a wide array of online businesses and offers 5 annual plans. We will focus our attention on the annual and not on the monthly plans because the company offers its customers a %10 discount of the first year and 6 free months.

What Does 3dCart Offer?

The cheapest 3dCart plan starts at $11.40/mo and renews at $17.10. It includes unlimited goods, one staff account, and no transaction fees. For $17.40 per month, you can try the Basic Store plan. Its renewal price is $26.10, and you get 2 staff accounts. The other 3 plans, Plus store, Power store, and Pro store, start at $47.40, $77.40, and $137.40.

Aside from no transaction fees, the plans of this platform include domain registration, shopping cart, unlimited orders, Facebook store, unlimited bandwidth, and more. 3dCart provides its customers with all the needed tools for creating an online shop, and it also manages shopping, marketing processes, and payment.

The platform offers free API access in all of its plans, multiple third-party integrations, and various customizable store themes. In terms of optimization, the platform also scores high Your website will be mobile-friendly and optimized for search engines.

We were surprised with the ease of use of the admin panel as well. Actions such as printing numerous orders simultaneously, for example, can be made with 1 single click. When it comes to dropshipping, 3dcart is also very handy.

So What Are The Disadvantages of 3d Cart?

3dCart has two main disadvantages. The first one is the ease of use. To learn how to work with the whole platform effortlessly, customers will have to spend a couple of days, if not weeks, studying it. The second con is the template editing process.

The template editing process is not really suitable for beginners, and you’ll need to have some coding skills to manage your online store. Still, our experience with this eCommerce platform was overall positive, and it definitely deserves to be on our list of the best Big Cartel alternatives.

Ecwid

Ecwid is the ideal eCommerce platform for freelancers who can’t afford to pay a huge amount of money to start their empire. This BigCartel alternative works with WordPress, Woocommerce, Joomla, and many others. It is built to power already existing sites with all the needed functionalities, but it is also embedded onto third-party sites.

What Does Ecwid Offer?

If 3dCart was one of the most affordable Big Cartel alternatives, Ecwid is THE MOST affordable site like BigCartel. Why would we say that? Well, the fact that the company offers a completely free plan for all those on a budget speaks for itself.

Yes, that’s right! You can get an online store with all the basic features you need such as Facebook, Google, Pinterest, Snapchat, and other social media advertising, a mobile responsive shopping cart, unlimited bandwidth, 10 products, and more.

With Ecwid, shopping is as smooth as possible due to the 45 global languages this BigCartel alternative supports. All four plans offered (the free plan as well) have no transaction fees and offer advertising, unlimited bandwidth, gift cards, and more. However, only the paid plans include chat support and the option to connect your own domain name.

The Venture Ecwidplan starts at $15 per month, whereas the other two paid plans, Business and Unlimited, start at $35/mo and $99/mo. If you’re a fan of easy-to-use marketing tools such as Mailchimp, then you will definitely enjoy Ecwid and the possibilities it offers. The Ecwid AppStore is also impressive.

So What Are The Disadvantages of Ecwid?

The disadvantages of this Big Cartel alternative are connected mainly to customer support. The free plan does not have any support team, whereas the second plan, Venture, has chat support only. If you want phone support (and, of course, priority support), you will have to choose one of the two most expensive plans. Otherwise, we were pleased with everything else, from social media advertising to the range of eCommerce features.

Oracle Commerce

Oracle Commerce is an eCommerce platform ideal for all those who want to invent and extend to new geographies. It offers a flexible personalization engine and accelerates integration minimizing the corresponding costs and extending to multisite, multicurrency, multi-channel frameworks, and multi-brands.

What Does Oracle Commerce Offer?

Oracle offers both B2B and B2C modules and an advanced segment function. We loved the fact that with this eCommerce platform, we were able to share critical content pieces and business components between interconnected sites.

We could calmly say that this platform is perfectly suitable for a dynamic creative who has a couple of eCommerce websites and income fields. The Oracle Cloud Free Tier is also a great feature that allows you to pay as you go and offers you an autonomous database.

So What Are The Disadvantages of Oracle Commerce?

A drawback we noticed right off the bat was the relatively slow interface of this eCommerce platform. In terms of ease of use, we think the functionality setup is not as simple as we would wish it to be, and a regular artist who cannot code will find it a bit too technical. Some problems with the search tool may pop up as well since its results cover only the products and, unless content is classified as an independent item, it won’t show up.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud

If there is a platform that loves the word “management,” then this is definitely Salesforce. It facilitates channel management, customer management, and inventory management, and the best part is that it does it perfectly!

What Does Salesforce Commerce Cloud Offer?

Salesforce Commerce Cloud is super powerful, and it combines predictive intelligence, digital commerce, and mobile-first point of sale. You get to choose between B2B and B2C, the latter converting more shoppers with AI-powered digital experiences.

We enjoy that Salesforce is scalable, making it suitable for a small art business with a few employees. Big Cartel alternatives such as this one work on the principles of streamlining eCommerce from purchasing to delivering and unifying customer experience. For that reason, Salesforce’s main functions are grouped into 3 categories: intelligence, operations, and experience. Salesforce also offers a lot of add-ons, such as commerce portals.

The interesting thing and the thing that separates this platform from other Big Cartel alternatives is that pricing is based on GMV (Gross Merchandise Value), and plans are tailored specifically for each client.

What creatives will appreciate the most is undoubtedly the fact that Salesforce Commerce Cloud covers all kinds of channels, including warehouses, websites, and art stores. When it comes to Big Cartel alternatives, this one is one of the best options you can make since it systematically connects all of those mentioned above to offer users a well-streamlined shopping experience.

So What Are The Disadvantages of Salesforce Commerce Cloud?

Unlike Big Cartel, which has a good interface, we were not really pleased with the interface of Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Many customer reviews state that too many inconsistencies affect layout and intuitiveness. Moreover, some of Salesforce’s API integrations slow down the loading process.

Paddle

Paddle has been the number one choice of more than 2,000 software businesses. If you do not deal with physical products and sell digital products such as music, ebooks, videos, and other products, you know how hard it can be to find a good eCommerce platform for digital goods.

What Does Paddle Offer?

This eCommerce platform helps your business scale up, operate, and, most importantly, compete! It is an eCommerce site that manages subscriptions, analytics, licenses, checkouts, promotions, and more. It is precisely meant for subscription-based ventures and facilitates selling e-Commerce software.

We are really pleased with how many features the company offers to affect the customer experience in a positive way. This Big Cartel alternative has relatively good pricing, and you can quickly boost your customer satisfaction rates and conversion, customize your online shop, prevent fraud, provide free trials, and so much more.

So What Are The Disadvantages of Paddle?

Although there is an adorable digital cat named Kino, which controls the live chat, we aren’t happy with the fact that there is no number on which you can call 24/7 to contact customer support. In addition, the transfer of admin rights and users is too difficult.

Some customers also complain that the admin panel could have been better organized. We’ll know that ease of use is essential when we talk about Big Cartel alternatives and eCommerce platforms in general.

IBM Watson Commerce

IBM Watson Commerce is a powerful artificial intelligence engine that will streamline your online site, tracking its visitors, establishing individual trends, and patterns and boosting delivery. It offers smart sequencing, digital experiences, order management and delivery, and omnichannel eCommerce.

What Does IBM Watson Commerce Offer?

IBM Watson Commerce works with Db2, Hybrid Cloud, SPSS Statistics, IBM Cloud, and more. It is one of the best Big Cartel alternatives in terms of a smooth delivery process. Moreover, it supports cognitive sourcing, which is very useful when talking about real-time inventory utilization.

The best part is that the engine is connected to an advisor that provides suggestions that help you maintain an everlasting lead over your customers. Your clients will also be able to shift between different sales channels with the same shopping pipeline. Isn’t that cool?

Evidently, this BigCartel alternative is perfect for artists and sellers who want to know more about their customers since it generates relevant customer insights from all data gathered. That way, you get a smart opportunity to beat your competitors.

So What Are The Disadvantages of IBM Watson Commerce?

Unfortunately, this BigCartel alternative is a bit more expensive than the others included in our list of the best Big Cartel alternatives. However, it has so much to offer, including add-ons, training courses, tutorials, and everything else you need to learn how to manage the best online shop.

Read Further: The Best Free Ecommerce Website Builders for 2022

What Other eCommerce Platforms Can You Choose?

Aside from the above-mentioned eCommerce software and cloud-based storefronts we mentioned, you could also check out these BigCartel alternatives:

Magento

Magento is not really famous for its ease of use. Yet this eCommerce platform offers so many features and apps that you can’t hate it!

Check our Magento vs WooCommerce comparison and find out which is the best e-Commerce platform?

Volusion

Although Volusion does not have as advanced an ecosystem for apps as BigCmmerce or Shopify, this eCommerce platform is very affordable. Volusion plans are ideal for customers on a budget.

Squarespace

Squarespace offers various eCommerce features and add-ons. Its plans are quite impressive, but unlike Volusion plans, a bit too expensive.

PrestaShop

If you want a self-hosted eCommerce store, this amazing platform might be the best option for you and your products. It is easy to use and will make you feel right at home!

Wix

Wix is a great website builder that offers stunning templates and an impressive app market. With Wix, you can take advantage of Wix chat, analytics, SSL certificates, and more. The cheapest Wix plan costs $4.50/mo.

Related: Wix Ecommerce Review 2023: Is the Online Store Any Good?

Wrap Up

The bottom line is that all of the BigCartel alternatives we mentioned are worth it! Still, your choice will depend solemnly on your own needs and desires. Since we have to announce a winner comparing the best BigCartel alternatives, we would say it is Shopify! However, don’t forget to check out our other eCommerce alternatives, such as Volusion and Wix.