Neto vs Shopify vs BigCommerce Comparison | Get Fact Up #29

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GET FACT UP #29 TRANSCRIPT

Good day, Australia, I'm Chris Hogan, founder and CEO of Me Media. It's time to get fact up. Today we've got the comparison between Neto, Shopify, and Bigcommerce. It's gonna be a long session, but stay tuned, you're gonna love it. So let's get started.

To keep this comparison as brief as possible, I want to do this based on four components. Cost, how many features, speed to get up and running, and how Australian-friendly these carts are.

Let's start with Neto. Their standard plan starts from $39 Australian per month. Neto's standard plan has a 1,000 product limit, one staff user limit, one outlet, five gigabyte data transfer limit, 2% transaction fee, and includes both shop and blog. Site-wide HTTPS is thrown in as well as phone and email support from right here in Brisbane, Australia.

Comparing Shopify, they offer a light plan which is $9 US per month, but we're gonna compare the next plan up, which is their basic plan at $29 a month which equates to approximately $39 Australian per month. Shopify's basic plan offers unlimited products, unlimited file storage, site-wide HTTPS, 2% transaction fee with external payment gateways all free when you use Shopify's payment gateway, and includes both shop and blog.

Jumping across to Bigcommerce, their lowest level plan is at $29 US a month. This standard plan equates to around $40 Australian per month, so let's see what this plan has to offer. This standard plan offers unlimited products, unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, credit card and PayPal acceptance, and no transaction fees, however, site-wide HTTPS is not offered on this plan. So right now we can see the comparative cost between each one of these carts being pretty much on par so long as the Australian dollar stays where it is, or maybe goes the other way. Shopify wins on a few features, that being product limit and data transfer limit. So too does Bigcommerce, but we have to dive in a little bit deeper to see what other features are actually included. This is where Neto throws in a huge curveball. They offer features like cart upsell, cart abandonment, cross-selling, and shipping and post code validation right in their standard plan, so it's all included in that $39 per month. Many of these features aren't available as standard on the other platforms, so we'd have to say that Neto actually wins out on value for money.

So now let's have a look at how you can get up and running as quick and easy as possible on each one of these cart platforms. All of these platforms have themes available. Let's have a look at Neto's. Neto's themes have been categorized into several major industries, including electronics and hi-fi, fashion, health and beauty, nutrition and supplements, wholesale, and more. All the themes visible here are free, however, you can access paid themes once you start a Neto trial. Paid themes are all $140 Australian plus GSD, and that's a once-off fee. And if you need some tweaks to any of these themes, the Neto team can help, as too can agencies like Me Media.

The Shopify theme store is absolutely huge and it is really a merchant stream, so let's have a quick look. Shopify themes are categorized by industry and also list staff picks so you can see which ones others might recommend. There are also free and paid themes, with most paid themes costing between $140 and $160 US as a once-off cost.

Bigcommerce is much the same as the others, so let's have a quick look. Themes are categorized by industry and come in free and paid, from $140 US. They're current, stylish, and mobile friendly and can be customized. With all of these platforms offering an awesome selection of themes, it's hard to pick a winner, and the time it takes for you to install one of these themes, enter some products, and get up and running is also pretty much on par as well. And the inside scoop from the Me Media team is that customizing some of those themes to look just how you want them to look is easiest on Neto and Shopify, so we're still a little bit torn here. I think I'd have to say that the themes on Shopify are definitely the best selection. So Shopify wins out on theme selection.

Lastly, I'd like to review just how Australian friendly these platforms are. Clearly, Neto is the only Australian-owned, hosted shopping cart solution here in this comparison, so of course we'd expect Neto to win hands down. But I think we should just cover off some of the features just in case. Neto's office is in Brisbane, Australia, and has recently been backed by Telstra. Neto has partnered with the Australian Post and plugs in seamlessly with eParcel as well as other popular Aussie shipping companies, like Couriers Please, Fastway, TNT, and more. Neto's ship is a force to be reckoned with, enabling you to streamline order fulfillment and dispatch by automating your shipping, quoting, labeling, and manifesting with their multi-carrier shipping system.

Shopify does have add-ons to help this US-based system become more Aussie friendly, so let's have a quick look. Extensions like what we're seeing here can be plugged in quite easily into Shopify. But the drawback is that all of these add-ons increase the monthly cost of running your store.

And the same thing goes for US based Bigcommerce. They have add-ons available for you to make your website more Australian friendly. ShipIt is probably the best and most popular plug-in available for shipping with Aussie service providers, which also comes at an additional monthly cost.

So in the interest of keeping this episode of Get Fact Up as informative and as brief as possible, we'd have to say that Neto is winning with regards to keeping your store as Australian friendly as possible. The only real area that we've noticed that Neto doesn't really shine in is their free and paid themes, but we're sure that's gonna improve with time. And because Neto's themes are very easy to customize, we're sure that you can have the aesthetic that you're looking for in your site design just by engaging with Neto or an agency like Me Media. Overcoming these design challenges is much easier than having to overcome all those shipping challenges that you might face with using those other systems. So in comparing Neto versus Shopify versus Bigcommerce Me Media have to declare Neto the winner. Good on you, Neto, congratulations. We love a home grown hero.

Thanks for listening, Australia, it's been great, and we'll see you next week with something a little more marketing focused.