In the era of industry 4.0, many tasks in the working process are automated to increase productivity. As a result, there is a boom in the automation field when several applications are launched. To be a wise user and have the best choice, let’s take a look at our detailed comparison among three most popular automation apps on BigCommerce platform before making your own decision.
Features comparison
Content management
Content is a core part when running an eCommerce site. Although both Atom8 and Alloy focus on eCommerce, only Atom8 can provide you with content management feature. If you wish to display some content for a specific period of time, let Atom8 share the tasks with you. So that you can automatically have your storefront refreshed regularly, remaining attractive to your customers. Moreover, you can make sure not to miss any special occasions to upsell and increase revenue. On Black Friday sales for example, Atom8 will automatically apply hot deal reduction on price in 2 days, then switch it back to normal.
To be specific, Atom8 offers 6 available templates which allow users to schedule banner ads, web page, category page, product visibility, blog post and theme. Those are very user-friendly and convenient to improve your productivity. You can even combine 6 templates into one workflow if you want. Once the trigger conditions are met, your web will change all-in-one.
Product management
Zapier has been trying to make automation available for everyone, therefore, it lacks some important features for eCommerce. Two of them are content and product management.
In terms of product management, Atom8 seems to have more competitive advantages compared to Alloy. It shows a wider range of choices than competitors, making it easier and more flexible for users to control their products. Four features that should be mentioned here are to change product availability, availability text, product sort order and publish price list.
Let’s take the “change product availability” function as an example, Atom8 will automatically change the status of the product into “pre-order” if the inventory drops to 0. It means buyers can still place an order even when that product is out of stock. At the same time, the system will send your operation team notification about the order. This feature is designed to help you optimize the revenue and not miss any potential customers. Read more: Bigcommerce upsell
You may have some options available when creating new workflow in Atom8 as follow:
Real-time notification
All three apps are prepared with Real-time notification feature. However:
- Zapier only sends you notifications when a client submits a new form such as feedback or work request.
- Alloy can notify you in more aspects than Zapier, it does not have the function that lets you know if there is any delayed purchase.
Reminding your buyers about their abandoned cart is also an effective marketing tip. It will reencourage them to take action, hence, increase your revenue. Understanding that mission, Atom8 offers a much more complete real-time notification than the others. In fact, the app will inform your customer service team in case an order has not been completed for N days since it is placed.
For example, you want to get alert when the order is abandoned for 5 days, your workflow should be shown as following:
Plan & Price comparison
Among three apps, Atom8 clearly has a great competitive advantage in pricing.
- Cheaper:
With $50, you can buy the package that allows 2,000 workflow actions from Alloy and Zapier. Meanwhile, Atom8 gives you 3,000 credits at the price of only $44.96.
- Reasonable division in number of workflow actions:
Moreover, the size between the options of Alloy and Zapier has a quite big difference. If you want to upgrade from silver to gold, the number of app actions increases from 10,000 to 100,000 actions. In some situations, it may cause excessiveness and waste of money. The gap among packages of Atom8 seems to be more sensible, from 3,000 to 15,000 and 45,000 credits.
User Experience comparison
Lastly, UX is a very important factor when considering a technology product. Alloy and Zapier require you to open a new portal if you want to create a new workflow or action. That may affect the speed of your device when running several tabs at once. Therefore, Atom8 removes all the inconvenience by allowing you to do everything inside the BigCommerce store control panel. You can set up your workflow more easily and quickly without interruption.
Conclusion
In general, if your priorities are convenience, easy-to-use and economical options, and you need to integrate with some most popular app, Autom8 will be the most optimal one. In case that you demand numerous app integrations, Alloy and Zapier may help you to save time and money. Even though Atom8 does provide the option to connect with any other app by using http requests, it might take time depending on the number of apps you need.
Hope that our analysis of BigCommerce automation apps comparison can make it easier for you to choose a suitable one.
