What is BigCommerce?

BigCommerce is an E-Commerce platform. It hosts businesses that want to have an online store, or who already have an online store but would like to migrate to a stronger platform.

Whether it’s a product you sell digitally, physically or service-based, BigCommerce supports those three types of sales without needing any third-party apps.

It is also a Cloud / Open SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) platform. This means that BigCommerce does not need its users / merchants to purchase any kind of web hosting service, and you do not have to install a piece of software somewhere in order for you to create your online store. You simply sign up for the BigCommerce plan you want (there are four, we’ll outline them a little down below) and as long as you pay, BigCommerce will supply you with its service.

About BigCommerce the company

BigCommerce was founded in 2009 by two Australians named Eddie Machaalani and Mitchell Harper.

Ed and Mitch met in an online chatroom in 2003. Only one year after they met they opened their very first company together which was called Interspire. Their first venture together, Interspire, was essentially the baby steps of what was to become BigCommerce. It initially focussed on offering different products for small businesses to create an online presence.

Interspire set the groundwork for what we now know as BigCommerce. It is said that Interspire essentially evolved into BigCommerce over six years.

BigCommerce now has offices in Australia, UK, Ukraine and the USA. They are a global company and one of the market leaders in E-Commerce platforms. Their main goal is to offer stellar service to their merchants and help their merchants sell more at every stage of their online store’s growth.

They not only put their merchants first, they also simultaneously manage to make their employees a priority too. They have a great ethos, stand for solid values and strongly believe in diversity & inclusion.

If you ask the people at BigCommerce, it is through their incredible hard-work, both with their merchants and with their employees, that they have been able to achieve so much in a relatively short amount of time.

BigCommerce boasts 60,000+ merchants, 1000+ full-time employees, 2,800 agency and technology partners and has customers in 150+ countries. If that wasn’t enough, in 2020 they went public and have not looked back since.

Not bad for a company that has only been around for a bit more than a decade.

BigCommerce Plans

BigCommerce offers a range of plans to suit the needs of as many merchants as possible. We get the impression that they are very keen on carrying that sense of inclusivity throughout their diverse workforce and also the size of the merchants that use their platform.

This is the reason that their goal is to help small businesses, mid- to large-sized businesses and massive enterprises alike.

It is only natural that each of these businesses have major differences in terms on:

• Budget
• Needs
• Features
• Scalability
• Security
• and the list goes on

It is with this in mind that BigCommerce came up with four different plans. All with different prices and different features. If you would like to read the extensive list of what each of these plans has to offer, simply check out the BigCommerce Essential Pricing page here. As we know that businesses often make their decisions mainly based on their budget and therefore also the cost of a service, we have popped the prices of each plan below.

• BigCommerce Standard – This plan, that’s offered for small businesses, will cost you $29.95 per month.
• BigCommerce Plus – This one will cost you $79.95 per month and comes with extended marketing tools.
• BigCommerce Pro – This plan comes with even more extensive features and will cost you $299.95 per month.
• BigCommerce Enterprise – The most advanced plan, that’s specifically targeted at larger and more successful E-commerce organizations, does not have a set price as it depends on your enterprise's specific needs. We’d suggest simply contacting BigCommerce through their sales department to find out all that they can do for you.
  

If you’re not sure about BigCommerce or how it works, then why not try their 15 day free trial! It allows you to get a first impression of how the platform works. You will be able to see first-hand how you engage with the platform and decide whether you can manage creating your own store or if you need a dev team to help you.

The BigCommerce Product and its Features

With BigCommerce, you can build and grow your online store.

BigCommerce is known for its massive functionality and nifty online features for its merchants. This, however, does come with a certain level of complexity that not all tech novices will be able to handle.

Contrary to Shopify, that has a very user-friendly and almost foolproof number of templates set up to allow even the absolute beginners of web enthusiasts to create their own online store.

Shopify has focused more on simplicity and helping businesses get online quickly! Whereas, BigCommerce feels like it’s focussed more on giving their merchants as much functionality as possible, even if that means that it takes a little longer to get online and is a bit more complex.

BigCommerce offers a considerable amount of detailed functionality, but you’ll need to have a more in-depth understanding of e-commerce and potentially even web development to really get the most out of it. It has a uniquely specific design interface and also provides quite specific terms and details to describe certain features that non-professional users might find hard to understand in the beginning.

Don’t let that scare you off if you’re new to this, though! See it more as a massive learning opportunity. To be fair, BigCommerce has introduced some things to make the lives of those less tech-inclined a little easier. For starters, they have a range of templates that you can customize to a certain extent and create your online store with. They also come with a Store Designer Tool, which allows you to immediately see just how the edits you make will look at your online store.

BigCommerce knows how hard it is for businesses to be seen, which is why BigCommerce offers state-of-the-art SEO features. This will allow their merchants to increase their chances of visibility on search engines like google, which in turn will increase their chances of making more sales! When it comes to SEO, examples of this are:

• Unique & Optimized URLs
• Manual management of metadaten
• Detailed 301 Rewrites & URL Rewrites

In addition to this, BigCommerce boasts some serious reasons for bragging rights when it comes to the features they offer. They do all they can to empower their merchants to be the best version of themselves. Features that BigCommerce offers are:

• Great performance, flexibility and scalability due to their SaaS infrastructure
• A focus on Headless Commerce applications and composable architecture, which allows for exciting omni-channel integrations and opportunities
• Dedicated B2B e-commerce features in their B2B edition
• Focus on APIs and integrations for great back office operations
• Strong Security features and European hosting located in Frankfurt, Germany
• Expert Support by BigCommerce themselves and a broad network of agency partners (like us)

If you’d like to dive deeper into the features of BigCommerce, why not take a look at their website here.

Brands Using BigCommerce

We always say that the proof is in the pudding. If BigCommerce is so great, surely big brands would be using them as their E-Commerce partner? Right you are! And big brands are using BigCommerce. We have listed some of them below:

Skullcandy

Sony

Ben & Jerry’s

Toyota

Final Thoughts on BigCommerce

It is clear to see that BigCommerce was founded on some pretty cool concepts. Ed and Mitch obviously had a concise game plan that is now unfolding as well as possible. BigCommerce is a serious contender to Shopify, Adobe Commerce, WooCommerce, Magento etc.

Learn more about BigCommerce, Shopify and Adobe Commerce in our blog '3 Brilliant B2B eCommerce platforms' here.

BigCommerce has managed to become one of the market leaders in E-Commerce in a very short amount of time, and it’s clear why: they offer a high amount of functionality across a wide variety of business sizes. They have pricing that suits all budgets and are experts in their field.

They operate with passion and drive, and we cannot wait to see all the big things they come up with! Should you wish to know more about BigCommerce or if you need any assistance in setting up your very own online store using BigCommerce as your E-Commerce platform, then don’t hesitate to get in touch with us via email on hello@especial.digital or via the contact form on our website.