Bigcommerce Review for 2023 (In-Depth Reviews), BigCommerce is much more than an eCommerce platform. It comes with some excellent online store management features that will help your eCommerce company sell more products right out of the box. A large product catalog, customizable shipping & real-time pricing, coupon and discount tools, and more are just a few of the unique native features.
BigCommerce also features Amazon and eBay integrations, as well as social selling tools that allow you to sell on Facebook.
The shipping capabilities of the solution are pretty impressive. The only cloud service with a thorough integration with Shipper, a comprehensive shipment rate calculation and rules engine, is BigCommerce. With this integration, providing real-time shipping costs and applying customized shipping prices is a breeze.
What is BigCommerce, exactly?
BigCommerce is a for-profit, ‘hosted’ e-commerce platform that enables entrepreneurs to create an online store and sell their products online you can also check Best E-commerce Platforms for 2023.
BigCommerce is ‘hosted,’ which means it operates on its own servers and does not require you to purchase hosting services or install anything on your computer in order to use it. You can design and maintain your store from anywhere as long as you have access to the web browser and the internet.
The program includes a variety of customizable templates to assist you in designing your online store; it can be used to sell both digital and physical products, and it also includes marketing tools to assist you in marketing your site.
In-Depth Look at BigCommerce Features
Design Themes That Can Be Customized
Bigcommerce shoppers have access to a large number of themes, all of which have been developed to satisfy the demands of enterprises in a variety of industries or verticals. The platform’s user-friendly design platform makes it simple to create the kind of businesses that engage and convert customers on a large scale.
If you have no coding knowledge, you can still customize any theme you choose. Bigcommerce allows you to include a company logo and branding elements in your store. At the top of your website, you can also highlight featured or best-selling products.
Bigcommerce also features a single-page checkout process. Its powerful SEO provides you authority over your URLs and metadata, which you’ll like.
Professional Search Engine Optimization
The majority of internet retailers cannot afford to employ in-house SEO specialists. Bigcommerce has chosen to handle SEO for its subscribers in light of this limitation. Merchants may use the platform’s tools to dynamically optimize each page for maximum rankings on all of the major search engines.
Bigcommerce creates optimum product page URLs and descriptions based on the product name automatically, but you can still alter them if you like. You can also change the title, header tags, meta descriptions, keywords, and alt tags on your website.
Product descriptions, rich excerpts, and a built-in blogging system are among the additional features aimed to increase reach.
Saver for Abandoned Carts
Bigcommerce’s abandoned cart saver makes it simple for retailers to recoup lost purchases. Merchants may choose when and what they say in their abandon cart email, thanks to customizable settings. Coupons could be utilized to boost conversions as well.
Create an abandoned cart email for your store, customizing the subject lines and email wording that your customers will see. You can build up a succession of emails with more effective recovery tactics that Bigcommerce would send to customers who have abandoned your site.
Payment Options That Have Been Pre-Integrated
Payment methods that have been pre-integrated ensure that customers always have the means to pay, and store owners have the option to choose between multiple payment processors.
Bigcommerce has negotiated lower costs with PayPal for credit and debit card processing, which it passes on to retailers. Authorize.net and Heartland are just a few of the pre-integrated payment methods available to you as a merchant. You can immediately take phone and mail orders in addition to making purchases through your webpage.
Currency exchange
The launch of new multi-currency functionalities, which the firm gives to all customers, is among the most exciting additions to the BigCommerce catalog recently. BigCommerce’s multi-currency capabilities contribute to its position as a top open Saas model.
You can use pricing lists to tailor your pricing at a deeper SKU level with these tools. It is something that other leading companies, such as Shopify, do not allow. Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, have the option of selecting their own payment providers. This is unlike other multi-currency systems, which often force business owners to use in-built payment systems.
Inventory
The inventory is a notable feature because it allows you to upload simple products, set up inventory management, and adjust stock levels in a matter of minutes.
So you don’t get weighed down by a number of rules that only apply to one or two businesses, use the flexible system regulations and inventory tools.
Importing and linking to Amazon
For synchronizing your store’s goods with your Amazon website, many e-commerce sites have Amazon integrations. This is great, but BigCommerce has a feature that allows you to reverse the sync so you can begin to invest in bringing people to your very own website. By doing so, you’ll be able to grow your loyal following while also marketing your own website.
Shipping
The great news seems to be that BigCommerce provides a wide choice of delivery options, featuring real-time delivery pricing for customers who purchase higher-tier goods. If you desire, you can also offer free delivery to your clients and generate shipping labels using BigCommerce’s third-party connectors.
Shopping on Instagram Stories
Instagram has always been a fantastic tool for promoting an online store. It’s taken a long time to acquire some good selling tools, but they’re on their way. BigCommerce now allows any entrepreneurs on the system to sell on Instagram.
This means that retailers can create Instagram posts and tag products within those posts. The customer follows the link and is directed to the page he wants.
Security
Your consumers won’t have to worry regarding their personal and financial data because all BigCommerce websites are PCI Level 1 certificated. An enterprise-grade network design also protects your company’s infrastructure.
I really like the fact that you may use a shared SSL certificate or purchase your own. More choices like that are needed in life. A sharing SSL essentially means that your check isn’t housed on your own site. Although it appears to be, the client suggests a unique path. It works in a similar way as Shopify.
Customer Service
If there’s one thing BigCommerce excels at, it’s online customer care. Please visit the customer service website and see what I’m speaking about. Online communities, lectures, videos, and a depth of knowledge are examples of this form of support. This is excellent news for anyone who wishes to do their own study.
When you join up with BigCommerce, you’ll have access to the phone, live chat, email, and a community where you can get help. Users, on the other hand, have complained that the phone and live chat aren’t very helpful. Sometimes you can get held on hold for a long time, and other times it appears that the customer service staff isn’t adequately trained.
Analytics and Reporting
For BigCommerce customers, creating a fantastic online store is only the first step on the road to fulfillment. You’ll have to evaluate whether your wonderful store is working as per your expectation after you’ve designed it.
BigCommerce’s reporting and analysis solution is, on the whole, highly dependable and outstanding. The great part about reporting with BigCommerce is that no matter which subscription you choose, you’ll get the majority of the features you need. For competitors like Shopify, this isn’t always the case.
Dropshipping
Many businesses considering BigCommerce today would be interested in learning more about how it manages Dropshipping.
Dropshipping, if you’re unfamiliar with the term, simply implies that you don’t keep the things you’re buying in inventory or in a warehouse. Instead, you take consumer orders, submit the information to a supplier, and then someone else handles the package and delivery.
Dropshipping has the advantage of requiring very little initial investment. You don’t need any inventory before you start.
BigCommerce Point-of-Sale
One of the finest features of BigCommerce is that it isn’t simply for running your online business. You may also use this fantastic technology to access a point-of-sale system.
You’ll need to look into the different options to make sure you’re getting the most out of your new POS system. However, knowing that you’ll have a few options to pick from is beneficial. The majority of other eCommerce solutions don’t use POS at all, and they’re also somewhat limited in terms of the equipment you may utilize.
BigCommerce Pros and Cons
Pros
- Outstanding management tools, such as order management, management consulting, reporting, analysis, and anything else you may think of.
- A marketing module that includes AdWords connection, promotions, and more. In addition, connections with online marketing solutions like Mailchimp allow you to acquire your customers.
- When you count the number of wonderful advantages it offers and the fact that there really is no limit on the number of consumers you can service or the number of products you can offer, BigCommerce is fairly reasonable.
- Customer service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can even receive help figuring out stuff like SEO and advertising fundamentals.
- A wide selection of apps from which to choose: Connect your store with the applications you use the most, such as QuickBooks and other similar services.
- Use the currency that is most convenient for you, including numerous countries at various times.
- No payment fees: BigCommerce does not charge transaction costs, even if you use a 3rd party payment system.
- The abandon cart information tool is great for bringing clients back into your shop when you really need it the most.
- With any package, you can have as many staff identities as you need.
- There are built-in marketing strategies, such as the ability to visit a built-in blog without needing to use anything like WordPress.
- You can sample the item for 14 days free.
Cons
- Themes can be pricey if you want to personalize your store, especially if you’re after something from the premium collection.
- Changing all features of your main page, such as the text content, is tough.
- You’ll need to do some trial and error with the home rotation before anything looks great.
- The design modification options aren’t always as you’d like them to be.
- You must spend a significant amount of money to gain access to features such as abandoned cart capabilities.
- You’re limited to a certain number of online purchases per year. If you go above that amount, you’ll have to upgrade to a more expensive package.
- In the free sector, themes may look extremely similar to one another.
- VAT MOSS prices are hard to manage for digital service sellers.
- Finding dropshipping apps from the app store could be difficult.
Optional Payments
BigCommerce does not really impose any transaction costs, but you’ll have to pay your payment gateway’s standard credit card costs.
You may choose over 65 linked payment methods. BigCommerce makes it easy to get paid including one setup, mobile banking, and many currencies support. Among the payment service companies are:
- PayPal.
- Stripe.
- Square.
- Apple Pay is a mobile payment system.
- You can pay with Amazon Pay.
Pricing for BigCommerce
BigCommerce had a few competitive rates at one point, which was comparable to Shopify’s. However, it appears that, in response to several emails and complaints from our users, they have significantly hiked pricing with their more profitable customers.
This is a big setback for BigCommerce customers as well as our overall opinion of the company. Sure, you’ll still have some of the set costs listed below, but after you reach a certain level of sales, you’ll be hit with astronomically expensive monthly rates.
It’s almost as if BigCommerce is attempting to extort more money from users generally so they can.
Anyway, let’s move on to the various plans available to you. Before you make a choice, you can still try BigCommerce for free for 30 days.
At first sight, all of those rates appear to be very attractive – although there is one thing to bear in mind. If your business grows to a certain size, you would be upgraded. We’ll return to this in a moment.
In the meanwhile, let’s look at the BigCommerce pricing specifics.
When you pay for the entire year at once, you save 10% on every plan. So, on the Standard Plan, you’ll pay around $359 upfront. Another thing to remember is that if you require more capability than the “Pro” plan provides, you will have to seek an Enterprise quote. That’s quite normal in today’s offers.
Standard Plan – For $29.95 a month, you get limitless items, space, and connectivity, as well as credit card and PayPal support and no service charges! To use the Standard plan, you must generate less than $50,000 per year, so it will only be suited for little eCommerce companies. Some additional capabilities, including categorization and abandoned cart recovery, are also missing from the BigCommerce Standard plan.
Plus Plan – For $79.95 a month, you get all of the features of the Standard Plan, with no transaction costs, real-time carrier shipping, great payment processors, an abandoned cart saver, powerful target customers, and a checkout hosted from your own domain. The BigCommerce Plus plan is designed for medium-sized web companies with annual revenue of up to $150,000.
You’ll gain access to a few more additional features if you choose this plan. Here you’ll also find the Abandoned Cart Protector, which allows you to contact users who haven’t completed their purchases.
Pro Plan – For $299.95 a month, you get all of the benefits of the Plus Plan, plus no transaction costs, Google user reviews, product sorting, and a personal SSL. Warning: For less than $400k in internet sales, this package starts at $299.95 a month. For each extra $200k in revenue, they require at least $150 per month. In other words, if you earn more than $400K, they’ll come after you.
Enterprise Plan – You’ll need to contact BigCommerce for unique pricing, but you’ll get all of the capabilities of the Plus Plan and furthermore a dedicated SSL and IP address, installation and system integration, primary needs, item filtering, extensive reporting tools, Google verified stores, and more.
As several of our users have noted, BigCommerce appears to be pressuring many more profitable businesses to adopt this strategy. If you earn more than $125,000 per year, you could be charged somewhere between $900 and $1,500 a month.
Bottom Line
BigCommerce is a well-known e-commerce platform. Our eCommerce builders’ research ranked it third overall. It is a formidable force, thanks to impressive financial data, a large inventory, and the most built-in features of any developer.
It’s ideal for huge, rapidly expanding businesses. This function Object isn’t for you if you don’t want to grow or if you’re a complete newbie.
BigCommerce is like a rocket because of its tremendous features. When you combine it with the proper business, it will catapult you over to the next tax bracket. However, apply it to anything that isn’t striving for the stars, and you’ll be spending lots of money on gas just to travel from point A to point B.
So do not be put off if the company store isn’t the greatest on the marketplace because BigCommerce caters to companies of all kinds and sizes. If you want to grow your business, you’ll easily get the most from this eCommerce builder.
FAQs
Is BigCommerce a free service?
Just because BigCommerce has no transaction costs doesn't imply it's free. You can receive a 14-day free trial period, but you'll have to pay at least $29.95 for the basic plan after that. You may have to improve your subscription even further if you'd like more advanced capabilities.
Shopify or BigCommerce: which is better?
This is a challenging issue to respond to without first comprehending your company's needs and issues. BigCommerce's primary competitor is Shopify. Both products are equally priced and offer a similar set of basic functions. BigCommerce, on the other hand, has a slightly larger number of free options.
What types of items can I sell using BigCommerce?
BigCommerce allows users to create an online marketplace in whatever way they choose. You'll be able to market digital things, physical things, and even stuff offline, regardless of the sector you're in. BigCommerce interfaces with POS systems, drop delivery services, and other services.
Is BigCommerce equipped with a blogging function?
BigCommerce has you equipped if blogging is a must-have function for your business's success. The platform includes built-in blogging capabilities, which are essential for most internal marketing strategies. Although it lacks the capability of WordPress, it should nevertheless assist you in attracting people to your site.