Shopify Plus vs BigCommerce for Wholesale and B2B Brands in NZ/AU

Key Takeaways

Both platforms handle B2B natively now. Shopify Plus ships B2B on Shopify as a built-in feature; BigCommerce has offered native B2B Edition functionality for longer. Neither requires a bolt-on app just to take wholesale orders.
The real decision point is ERP and back-office complexity. If you run (or plan to run) a mid-market ERP like NetSuite, SAP Business One or Cin7, BigCommerce’s more open API architecture and lower platform fees at scale can matter more than Shopify’s app ecosystem.
Tiered and custom pricing works differently on each. Shopify Plus uses B2B company profiles with catalogue-specific pricing; BigCommerce uses customer groups and price lists. Both are genuinely capable, but they suit different catalogue structures.
Multi-currency for AU/NZ dual-market brands favours Shopify Plus slightly, mainly because Shopify Markets is tightly integrated into checkout, whereas BigCommerce leans more on third-party currency apps.
Platform choice does not decide your growth. The build is a one-off decision. What drives revenue afterwards is ongoing SEO, conversion optimisation and paid acquisition, regardless of which platform you land on.

If you are a wholesale or B2B brand in New Zealand or Australia outgrowing your current store, you have probably narrowed the shortlist to two names: Shopify Plus and BigCommerce. Both are genuinely capable enterprise-grade platforms. Both claim to be “built for B2B.” And both have salespeople who will tell you their platform is the obvious choice.

This post skips the sales pitch and looks at the differences that actually matter for wholesale and B2B trading in NZ/AU: ERP integration, pricing structures, bulk ordering and multi-currency handling. We are not going to tell you which platform to build on. We are going to tell you what questions to ask, because the honest answer is “it depends on your catalogue, your back office and your growth plan,” not on which platform has the flashier homepage.

Shopify Plus vs BigCommerce for B2B: the short answer

For most wholesale and B2B brands in NZ/AU, the decision comes down to two things: how complex your ERP and back-office integration needs are, and how important a large, mature app ecosystem is to your team.

BigCommerce tends to suit brands with more complex ERP requirements and a preference for open API architecture without per-transaction platform fees on top. Shopify Plus tends to suit brands that want the largest available app and agency ecosystem, a more polished storefront-building experience, and tighter native multi-currency handling for dual AU/NZ trading.

Neither platform is “better” in the abstract. The right one depends on what your business already runs on and where it is heading.

ERP integration: where the real cost differences show up

ERP integration is usually the single biggest factor in total cost of ownership for a B2B replatform, and it is where Shopify Plus and BigCommerce diverge most.

Shopify Plus connects to major ERPs (NetSuite, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Cin7 and others) primarily through its app ecosystem and Shopify Flow for automation, plus its GraphQL Admin API for custom connections. This works well and is a well-trodden path, but middleware and connector apps typically carry their own subscription cost on top of your Shopify Plus plan.

BigCommerce takes a more API-first approach out of the box, with an open architecture that many mid-market ERP integrators favour for building direct, custom connections without routing through as many third-party layers. If your business already runs NetSuite or a similar system and your integration partner has a strong track record with one platform over the other, that existing relationship is often a more reliable signal than either platform’s marketing.

The practical question to ask your ERP vendor or integrator: “Which platform have you connected to before, and what did that project actually involve?” Their answer will tell you more than either platform’s sales deck.

Tiered and custom pricing: company profiles vs customer groups

Both platforms can show different prices to different wholesale customers. They just structure it differently, and the structure that fits your catalogue matters more than which one is “more advanced.”

Shopify Plus uses B2B on Shopify, built around company profiles. You assign customers to companies, and companies to price lists, letting you set catalogue-specific and quantity-break pricing per customer or customer segment. It also supports net payment terms and purchase order checkout natively, which matters for wholesale buyers who do not want to pay by credit card at checkout.

BigCommerce uses customer groups combined with price lists, a model that has existed on the platform for longer. You can assign customers to groups (say, “Tier 1 Wholesale,” “Tier 2 Wholesale,” “Retail”) and apply different catalogues, pricing and even payment methods to each. For brands with a smaller number of well-defined pricing tiers, this is straightforward to manage.

Where it gets genuinely different: if your pricing is highly customer-specific (each account negotiates its own rates, common in trade and industrial wholesale), Shopify Plus’s company-profile model tends to scale that complexity more cleanly. If your pricing is tier-based across a manageable number of customer segments, BigCommerce’s customer groups handle that just as well, often with less setup overhead.

Bulk ordering and the wholesale buying experience

Wholesale buyers do not shop the way retail customers do. They know their SKUs, they order in volume, and a slow or fiddly bulk-order process is a genuine reason B2B buyers abandon a supplier’s site for the phone or a rep.

Both platforms support quick-order and bulk-order forms, letting buyers search or upload a list of SKUs and quantities and add them to cart in one action, rather than clicking through product pages one at a time. Both also support quantity break pricing (buy more per unit, pay less per unit) natively within their respective B2B pricing tools.

The difference tends to show up in customisation depth. Shopify Plus’s B2B storefront building relies heavily on its Liquid templating and app ecosystem, meaning a fully custom bulk-order interface is achievable but often means custom development or a specialised app. BigCommerce’s bulk-order and quick-order functionality is more configuration-driven out of the box, which can mean faster time-to-launch for a standard wholesale ordering flow, with less need for custom build work to hit a functional baseline.

If your wholesale buyers order from a large, complex catalogue (think industrial parts or apparel with heavy size/colour variants), test both platforms’ bulk-order screens with a realistic slice of your actual product data before deciding. A demo with sample products will not surface the friction that shows up with your real SKU count.

Multi-currency for AU/NZ dual-market brands

If you sell into both Australia and New Zealand (or plan to), multi-currency and multi-region checkout is not a nice-to-have. Displaying prices in the customer’s local currency at checkout measurably reduces friction and cart abandonment for cross-Tasman buyers.

Shopify Plus has an advantage here through Shopify Markets, which is natively built into the platform and handles currency conversion, localised checkout and region-specific pricing rules without needing a separate app. For a brand running one store serving both AUD and NZD wholesale customers, this native integration is one of Shopify Plus’s clearer strengths.

BigCommerce supports multi-currency too, but historically has leaned more on third-party currency conversion apps rather than a fully native, checkout-integrated solution. It is workable, and plenty of AU/NZ BigCommerce merchants run dual-currency stores successfully, but it is worth scoping exactly which currency app you would need and what it costs before comparing total platform pricing.

If AU/NZ dual-currency trading is a top-three priority for your business, weight this factor accordingly. If you trade in a single currency and multi-currency is a “maybe later,” it should not be a deciding factor either way.

What actually matters more than the platform itself

Here is the part that gets lost in platform comparison content: the replatform is a one-off project. What happens after launch is what actually drives revenue, and that outcome depends far more on your SEO, site structure and paid acquisition strategy than on which of these two capable platforms you chose.

A wholesale or B2B brand that replatforms without a plan for preserving search rankings during migration can lose meaningful organic traffic in the transition, regardless of which platform it moves to or from. URL structure, redirect mapping, and technical SEO fundamentals need to be planned before launch, not patched afterwards. Our search engine optimisation services cover exactly this kind of migration planning for brands moving platforms.

Once the new store is live, conversion rate matters just as much as platform choice. A B2B buyer navigating a bulk-order form with confusing tiered pricing will abandon the cart regardless of whether that form sits on Shopify Plus or BigCommerce. If you are investing in a replatform, it is worth pairing it with a proper look at your conversion rate optimisation so the new checkout experience is actually tested against real buyer behaviour, not just assumed to be better because it is new.

And for brands running paid acquisition into wholesale or B2B funnels, our ecommerce ROAS benchmarks for NZ 2026 is a useful reference point for what realistic returns look like by campaign type, so you can set expectations for post-launch paid performance independent of the platform decision.

A practical framework for making the call

Rather than starting from “which platform is better,” work through these questions in order:

What does your ERP or back-office system look like today, and in three years? If you are on, or moving to, a mid-market ERP like NetSuite or SAP Business One, talk to your integration partner about which platform they have delivered successfully before spending time on demos.
How many distinct pricing tiers or customer-specific price books do you actually manage? A handful of clean tiers suits either platform. Highly individualised, per-account pricing tends to favour Shopify Plus’s company-profile structure.
How complex is your bulk-order use case? Test both platforms’ quick-order tools with a real sample of your SKUs, not the demo catalogue.
Do you trade in both AUD and NZD today, or will you within the next 12 to 18 months? If yes, weight Shopify Markets’ native multi-currency checkout more heavily.
What is your total cost of ownership over three years, not just year one? Factor in platform fees, required apps or connectors for your specific ERP and pricing needs, and any custom development your bulk-order or pricing requirements demand.

Answer those five honestly and the “right” platform usually becomes clear without needing to declare an overall winner.

Frequently asked questions

Is Shopify Plus or BigCommerce better for B2B wholesale? Neither is universally better. Shopify Plus tends to suit brands prioritising a large app ecosystem, highly customer-specific pricing, and native AU/NZ multi-currency checkout through Shopify Markets. BigCommerce tends to suit brands with more complex ERP integration needs, a preference for open API architecture, and tier-based pricing across defined customer groups. The right choice depends on your existing back-office systems and catalogue structure.

Can both platforms handle net payment terms for wholesale buyers? Yes. Both Shopify Plus (through B2B on Shopify) and BigCommerce support purchase order checkout and net payment terms for approved wholesale accounts, alongside standard card payments for retail-style transactions on the same store.

Does replatforming to either system hurt SEO rankings? It can, if the migration is not planned properly. Moving platforms changes URL structures, and without a thorough redirect map and technical SEO checklist, you can lose organic rankings and traffic during the transition. This risk exists regardless of which platform you move to or from. Plan redirects and crawl the old site’s URL structure before launch, not after.

How long does a Shopify Plus or BigCommerce B2B replatform typically take? Timelines vary significantly based on catalogue size, the complexity of pricing and ERP integration, and how much custom development the bulk-order and pricing setup requires. A straightforward catalogue with standard B2B needs moves faster than one with heavily customised, per-account pricing and a legacy ERP integration. Get a scoped timeline from whoever is handling your specific build rather than relying on generic estimates.

Which platform is cheaper for a growing wholesale brand? Cost comparisons need to include more than the base platform fee. Factor in ERP connector or middleware costs, any apps required to replicate your specific pricing and bulk-ordering needs, and transaction fees where applicable. A platform that looks cheaper on its list price can end up costing more once you add the apps needed to match the other platform’s native functionality, and vice versa.

Do I need to choose a new platform to fix declining online wholesale sales? Not necessarily. Before assuming a replatform is the answer, it is worth ruling out simpler causes: poor product findability, a clunky checkout, weak organic visibility, or paid campaigns that are not reaching the right buyers. A conversion rate optimisation review or an SEO audit often surfaces fixable issues that cost far less than a full replatform and can be addressed on your current platform first.

Whichever platform you land on, the growth work starts after launch, not before it. If you want help planning a replatform-safe SEO migration, sharpening conversion rates on a new B2B storefront, or setting up paid acquisition that matches realistic ROAS benchmarks for your category, our paid ads and SEO teams can help you get the marketing side right regardless of which platform you choose.