BigCommerce Review

In a Nutshell

BigCommerce makes it easy to setup an online store with a highly-customizable solution that integrates with PayPal One Touch and hundreds of other apps and integrations, while providing secure hosting.

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Pros

• Built-in mobile store support

• 24/7 live customer service

Cons

• Limited free template options

• Maximum annual sales limits

Customization

When it comes to the actual site design of your Ecommerce storefront, BigCommerce has its own strengths and weaknesses. First off, there’s no denying that BigCommerce has an incredibly easy-to-use site building system in place.

With an intuitive interface and an appreciation for simplicity, this company fully understands that most of their clients are Ecommerce retailers—not masters of HTML and CSS coding.

Still, it’s important to recognize where this service struggles. While they have plenty of professional templates to choose from, some of those templates are not fully responsive—meaning they may not display properly on mobile devices with smaller screens.

Don’t let that scare you, though. BigCommerce does support HTML and CSS coding. The design editor gives you full control over the visual customization of your site. You won’t be able to customize the functionality though, as BigCommerce doesn’t allow for the editing of PHP or the code used for actual shopping cart functionality. You can layer in functions, it just takes a little knowledge or you’ll need to hire a developer.

Payment Processing

When you’re managing an Ecommerce store, it’s safe to assume that your customers are all going to have different ways of paying you. Choosing the right site builder for your business is all about determining what kind of payment options you need.

BigCommerce may have been designed with small businesses in mind, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t willing to give you enterprise-level support. With access to PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net, it’s no surprise that BigCommerce is considered to have one of the most well-rounded payment solutions in the Ecommerce market.

As if that wasn’t enough, BigCommerce also happens to be the only Ecommerce platform to date that has PayPal One Touch built-in. Essentially, that lets you offer an instant checkout to the more than 100 million PayPal shoppers. Not only does this increase conversions, but it proves that BigCommerce take efficient payment integration seriously.

SEO Tools

When it comes to digital marketing, SEO happens to be one of the most underappreciated (and complex) techniques to turn potential customers into paying ones. Understandably, most budding Ecommerce retailers would prefer to have a simplified SEO solution.

BigCommerce provides the ability to control the permalinks for your individual product pages and site content. You also have control over title and meta elements. Their themes are all designed to load quickly as well, so that site speed won’t create a ranking problem for your store.

The native SEO features end there but there is an extensive app marketplace within BigCommerce where you may be able to find apps to help with your search optimization, including scoring your current efforts.

Pricing

Below you can compare the various plans and packages available through BigCommerce.

Pricing Chart:

*Prices last updated July 2018

Secure Hosting

Having an impressive storefront might be exciting for your customers, but as an Ecommerce retailer, stability and security should be the things that excite you. Once you look past all of the bells and whistles, it’s crucial to determine how safe your data is.

Fortunately, BigCommerce puts just as much effort into its security as it does into its website design. When it comes to uptime, BigCommerce boasts a 99.99% average uptime (compared to the industry average of 99.5%). Historically, it has managed to deliver 100% availability during Cyber Week. With each store protected by layers of perimeter and server-specific firewalls, file integrity scanners and intrusion detection software, it’s clear that BigCommerce cares about keeping your data safe as much as you do.

Hosted stores are automatically set up under BigCommerce’s native secure socket layer (SSL). Once you set up your own domain you can integrate your own SSL certificate to keep customer data encrypted.

Customer Support

As any experienced Ecommerce retailer can tell you, it’s just a matter of time before you encounter a problem with or have a question about your site. There are just too many variables and moving parts for everything to go smoothly 24/7.

BigCommerce certainly delivers in that department. With a 24/7 support team that can be reached by phone, email and live saveable chat, BigCommerce makes sure that you’re covered no matter what time disaster strikes.

The site also offers access to help articles and tutorials so you can try to troubleshoot issues on your own if you’re comfortable enough to try and tackle them before calling support.

Seamless Integration and Migration Tools

The latest exciting feature in BigCommerce’s toolbox is the ability to integrate with existing Ecommerce platforms. This migration feature provides impressive benefits, and makes this platform the first of its kind to natively support Amazon selling. Merchants are no longer faced with having to pick their favorite Ecommerce platform provider. Thanks to this tool, users can simultaneously list products on their branded BigCommerce site as well as Amazon, Pinterest, and Facebook storefronts. Amazon Ecommerce merchants can integrate with the BigCommerce platform, giving them the power to customize their storefront with the Ecommerce website builder, yet still maintain the benefits of having their products listed with Amazon, Pinterest, Facebook or eBay.

Another major benefit of this new tool is the reduction in the risk of shopping cart abandonment. Thanks to synchronized inventory tracking, the correct stock levels are displayed across all storefronts. By controlling stock levels from a single location, you stop customers from discovering part-way through their order that the product has already been sold on another site. Integrated inventory tracking across your BigCommerce, Amazon, Pinterest, and Facebook storefronts means you can control and display the same inventory, and manage it all from a single, cloud-based interface.

Scalability

BigCommerce helps owners who want to expand their store by offering hundreds of single-click integrations with first-class software. Seamlessly use pre-built integrations by connecting platforms such as Listrak, Bronto, NetSuite and many others that are designed specifically for growing businesses.

BigCommerce Enterprise was launched in 2015 for high-volume retailers, and features advanced security, real-time analytics and much more. Business owners can easily evaluate customer purchasing behaviors, learn to optimize inventory and merchandising and evaluate marketing campaign performances in real time—all necessary tools for scaling a business.

Conclusion

BigCommerce is a reputable and feature-rich Ecommerce platform that has grown to become one of the largest providers in the industry. Its rates are competitive and it provides everything a startup or growing online business needs to attract and retain customers.

About Bigcommerce

Founded in 2009, BigCommerce is an Ecommerce software solutions company that gives retailers a platform to manage, promote and launch their online stores. Among other things, BigCommerce provides integrated business applications and a series of other features (everything from social media/email marketing to SEO and mobile commerce options) to its customers.

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