In this article, we discuss the differences between Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento 2) and BigCommerce in relation to the checkout. You will see how each system behaves so you can determine which is a better fit for your needs.

Checkout

Terms and Conditions

Many stores require customers to "sign" a purchase agreement.

Adobe Commerce

Terms and Conditions are created per store view (language). Store administrators can also control the content of the checkbox.

BigCommerce

At the time of this writing, BigCommerce provides a text entry for Terms and Conditions. You can include these directly in the checkout if no translation is necessary. Otherwise, you must link to a separate page.

Order Comments

Customers (especially B2B) may need to add commentary to their order to ensure it is correctly fulfilled.

Adobe Commerce

There is no native capability to do this.

BigCommerce

This is native functionality. Better yet, with the B2B suite, Store administrators can add fields (dropdown, text, but not file upload.) to the checkout. These values appear in the Order Comments field in the order display.

Order address autocomplete

Anything we can do to simplify the checkout process is often valuable. A great way to do this is to provide an autocomplete for the customer's address.

Adobe Commerce

There is no native capability to do this.

BigCommerce

This is native functionality.

Multi-address

Adobe Commerce

Adobe Commerce splits up an order into one per destination. Each destination can have a unique shipping method selected. Our experience, unfortunately, is that this is an area of the platform that is rarely used, and is, thus, more prone to bugs.

BigCommerce

This is a nicely-refined area of BigCommerce's capabilities. Customers can select multiple addresses without leaving the checkout process.

Shipping methods

Adobe Commerce

Adobe Commerce comes with the most-common US-based shipping providers: Fedex, UPS and DHL. Others can be installed. Store administrators can also create table rates, flat-rate and free shipping. We will discuss in-store pickup in another section.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce includes a license to the Essentials package of ShipperHQ. This connects with any shipping provider desired, including LTL freight. Additionally, this provides significant capability for package calculations with up to 5 boxes. ShipperHQ has rich capabilities.

Buy-online, pickup in-store (BOPIS)

COVID brought the in-store pickup idea to the forefront. The idea is this makes free shipping actually able to be free.

Adobe Commerce

After enabling the in-store pickup "shipping" method, the Store administrator can enable Source locations as available for Pickup location. Customers are only shown Pick in Store if they are close to the final location. Store administrators can notify that the order is ready for pickup.

BigCommerce

While BigCommerce has BOPIS capability, this is only available through the API. It is not useable on the BigCommerce frontend.

Split payments

How does the platform handle different payments: for example, allowing store credit and a credit card. Or, splitting the order between two credit cards.

Adobe Commerce

This capability does not natively exist in Adobe Commerce.

BigCommerce

This capability does not natively exist in BigCommerce.

Partial invoices

What capability exists to bill in increments? For example, if products are back-ordered, can you bill when each set of products is available to ship?

Adobe Commerce

Store administrators can select Authorize + Capture or just Authorize if a payment provider is online. Invoices represent captured funds. Multiple invoices can be created—each with its own set of associated products. Once all products have been accounted for on invoices, Adobe Commerce defaults to the final remaining amount (to resolve potential rounding errors).

BigCommerce

This capability does not natively exist in BigCommerce. If an order has been authorized, the only option is fully capturing funds. Some 3rd-party options can be utilized and we are more than happy to work with you to determine a best fit.

Digital wallets

Which digital wallets are supported out of the box?

Adobe Commerce

There is no native support for digital wallets. 3rd-party modules have to be installed—with varying quality.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce has made significant investments in payment integrations. This is partially due to the level of responsibility they exert to maintain PCI Compliance. Thus, the most common providers are available out of the box: Google Pay, Apple Pay, Venmo, etc.

Online payment providers

What payments can be configured immediately?

Adobe Commerce

Adobe Commerce has deep payments integration with Paypal and Braintree, out of the box. There are plenty of 3rd-party modules to facilitate almost any other integration desired. We caution against simply installing any provider as the quality of these modules varies wildly. Even reputable payment brands can have some significant flaws.

BigCommerce

A benefit of BigCommerce and its take on SaaS is BigCommerce takes responsibility for payment gateways. Every major gateway is implemented and event many that are not as well known. The downside is if a custom provider needs to be built, this is an extensive process as BigCommerce has to sign off.

See all providers.

Internationalizing payments

What capabilities exist to segregate payment methods given differences in user needs per locale?

Adobe Commerce

Payments are configured at the website scope. We find this is too general. However, this has more implications as currency is also configured at the website scope. Given a merchant effectively uses the website scope, each payment method can be customized as if it was a completely separate payment method.

BigCommerce

Each payment method is uniquely configured per currency. Store administrators assign currencies to a storefront. While this generally is an excellent approach, the only downside is that Store administrators can't select one payment method for Germany and another for Poland.

Currency handling

How do platforms work with currency conversion?

Adobe Commerce

Adobe Commerce has rich currency capabilities.

• The default currency can be set at the website scope (default is global).
• Thus, product prices can be set in different currencies.
• This website currency is also the currency in which an order is billed.
• Adobe Commerce can superficially convert to a different currency on the front end (even though the order is billed in the default currency).
• Customers see they are billed in a different currency at the checkout.
• Currency can be updated daily with current conversion rates.
• Each store can have a default currency, with a selectable list of other currencies.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce has a rich feature set for handling currencies.

• Currencies are enabled and configured in a central place.
• A default currency serves as the reference point for currency conversions.
• Currency conversion rates can be manually specified, but they also can be automatically updated every four hours!
• Other currencies convert based on the conversion rate. These currencies can be toggled to charge in the default or this currency. This is a powerful feature.
• Store administrators attach currencies to storefronts. Each storefront has a default currency.
• Payment methods are configured per currency (if the currency is configured to charge).
• If the currency is being converted (and charged in the default currency), the customer sees a message: