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BigCommerce Review

BigCommerce homepage

Company: BigCommerce

Background: BigCommerce is an all-in-one eCommerce platform with lots of useful features that allow you to create and maintain an online store the easy way. It offers users a complete set of tools for building online stores such payment gateway integration, advanced marketing tools, reliable hosting and security for backing your stores.

Starting Price: $29.95/month

Currency: USD

Visit Online: https://www.bigcommerce.com/

Review Summary & Ratings

4.5

BigCommerce is big on commerce and less towards site building. If you’re looking to sell, I recommend you stick to that and let BigCommerce worry about the technology.

Pros

  • Sync your products to different marketplaces
  • Abandoned cart saver feature
  • Personalized your own promo
  • Zero transaction fees
  • Automated the difficult tasks
  • Grow your store worldwide

Cons

  • Plan designed based on sales threshold
  • Expensive premium themes
  • No lite version

BigCommerce Features

Dedication to a cause is an admirable trait and BigCommerce certainly does with a vengeance. Everything about the site from the time you sign up is all about how to make those sales. By that, I mean that even the ‘Getting Started’ tutorial highlights related items such as analytics, revenue, products and orders.

There are MANY pre-configured marketing e-mails that will help in your sales efforts
There are MANY pre-configured marketing e-mails that will help in your sales efforts

Highlights #1: Sell Everywhere

With BigCommerce, you can integrate your store with different sales channels to boost your sales.

BigCommerce features a useful channel manager named “Omni-Channel“. It lets you connect and sell your products on different marketplaces.

It will import your products into the channels you connect. So you don't need to add product details manually on each channel.

It offers you to sell on:

  • Marketplaces like Amazon, eBay and Google Shopping
  • Social Media like Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram
  • Physical Stores like Square, ShopKeep and Springboard Retail
BigCommerce offers a clean, easy-to-use interface backed by powerful tools
BigCommerce offers a clean, easy-to-use interface backed by powerful tools

When you get a sale on any connected channel, you can process the order from the BigCommerce Dashboard. It saves you lots of valuable time.

Highlights #2: Abandoned Cart Saver feature

BigCommerce Abandoned Carts is a feature worth mentioning. The feature will send up to 3 automated emails to visitors who didn't complete the checkout process. Clearly, this has the potential to increase your revenue from unpaid products in visitors' carts.

Here's where you can set up a series of emails and configure when to send them. This is just a one-time configuration.

Bigcommerce abandoned cart
Recover sales with BigCommerce abandoned carts.

Many site customers will leave our site keeping unpurchased items in the cart. In fact, more than 70% of the eCommerce shopping carts are abandoned before check out. Thus, we may recover them by sending some timely emails.

From BigCommerce statistics, the BigCommerce Abandoned Cart Saver helps merchant recover 15% of lost sales on average.

Highlights #3: Set your own promotion rules

You can personalized coupon codes and discounts for your stores. Plus, you can display banner ads to promote those offers. The native system lets you create and place banner ads more easily.

BigCommerce offers Cart-Level Discount. That means discount will apply to the shopping cart in real time to avoid unnecessary complexity. Deep targeting options are also available in the discount system to show exclusive offers before checkout. Like, buy one more item to get free shipping.

Bigcommerce cart level discount
Bigcommerce cart-level discount.

Highlights #4: Payment gateways and transaction fees The lack of different payment methods can lose your sales.

Customers will look for a comfortable payment method when they are paying. BigCommerce doesn't lock merchants with just a few payment methods.

There are more than 40 pre-integrated payment methods you can find that serve over 100 countries. The platform has native integration with PayPal, Square, Adyen, Stripe, Authorize.net and Klarna and credit card payments (powered by Braintree).

Bigcommerce payment methods
BigCommerce provides you with multiple payment methods.

As mobile wallet options, they are payment methods such as Amazon Pay and Apple Pay.

Depending on the payment gateway you choose, there is a certain percentage of a transaction fee merchants need to pay. Although BigCommerce doesn't charge you any transaction fees, these fees are charged by the payment processing provider.

Do take note, with BigCommerce, there are no transaction fees applied to any of their plans. This is something good and stands out from others.

Also Read

Using BigCommerce Store Front Editor  

Customizing storefront design at BigCommerce
Customizing storefront design at BigCommerce
BigCommerce basic store setup
Basic store configuration.
bigcommerce payments
Adding payment method to online store.
BigCommerce add product
Adding product and details.

BigCommerce Themes Demo

Theme customization options are limited with Bigcommerce but you get plenty of choices at their 3rd party theme store.

BigCommerce atelier
Atelier price: $235
BigCommerce fortune
BigCommerce theme Fortune

BigCommerce Site Performance

BigCommerce test results
I built a dummy store and measure the site's performance using Web Page Test. Results were up to expectation but First Byte Time can be improved.

BigCommerce Plans & Pricing

Plans/PriceStandardPlusProEnterprise
Monthly Price$29.95/month$79.95/month$299.95/monthCustom
Sales ThresholdUp to $50,000Up to $180,000Up to $400,000Custom
Transaction Fees0 %0 %0 %0 %
Abandoned Cart SaverNoYesYesYes
Google Customer ReviewsNoNoYesYes
24/7 Tech SupportYesYesYesYes

What do you get in BigCommerce plan?

Note that BigCommerce plan and pricing are very depending on your store revenue. BigCommerce set a limit on your annual sales based on a different plan. As your sales increase, you are required to upgrade to a higher plan.

Here's the list of all BigCommerce plans offer:

  • Unlimited products, storage, and bandwidth
  • Unlimited staff accounts
  • eBay and Amazon connected
  • Point of sale
  • Social channel integration (Facebook, Instagram, and Google Shopping)
  • Single-page checkout
  • Built-in blog
  • Mobile wallet (Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, and Google Pay)
  • Coupons, discounts, and gift certificates
  • Responsive websites
  • Free sitewide HTTPS and dedicated SSL
  • ShipperHQ shipping rules engine
  • Special credit card rate from Braintree

Success Stories

Toyota Australia

BigCommerce has a wide range of success stories but here we’ll go with a big-name brand that has used it with effect – Toyota Australia.

Given how big the brand is, you can be certain that before choosing BigCommerce there were comprehensive studies done, and it was acceptable. If Toyota is willing to go for it, why can’t you?

 Visit online: shop.toyota.com.au/  

Conclusion: Is BigCommerce Right for Your Business?

BigCommerce is big on commerce and less towards site building.

The concept, design and presentation of the entire product is skewed towards that are to perfection and price-wise, I think it’s a win given that pulling together all those features and components on your own would be horribly expensive, not to mention a complete nightmare. If you’re looking to sell, I recommend you stick to that and let BigCommerce worry about the technology.

Also read – 20+ site builder platforms to create a website

BigCommerce Alternatives

How to Begin with BigCommerce

BigCommerce offers a 15-day risk-free trial to experience the platform yourself. Also, there's no credit card detail required. So, you can be very sure that it won't charge you if you decided not to continue after 15 days.

Here's the link you can follow to setup an online store with BigCommerce.

Create a free trial online store with BigCommerce.
Create a free trial online store with BigCommerce.
Fill in a few details to create your store.
Fill in a few details to create your store.
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Article by Timothy Shim

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