Everything You Need to Know About BigCommerce

Shopping entailed getting ready, leaving the house, traveling to a store, placing an order, paying for it, receiving the merchandise, and returning home. The entire purchasing experience has transformed as a result of eCommerce. All that is required now is to go online, select the desired product, pay online, and deliver the item to your home.

Millions of shoppers worldwide have been drawn to eCommerce because of its convenience. More and more companies are offering eCommerce options, either in addition to or as a substitute for a physical store. With current platforms like BigCommerce, creating an eCommerce website has never been easier.

BigCommerce is an excellent alternative for searching for an easy-to-use and scalable eCommerce platform. It has a variety of customizable themes, powerful selling tools, analytical support, and much more. Whether you're a freelancer, a start-up, a small business, a medium-sized corporation, or an enterprise-level company, a BigCommerce plan is right for you. BigCommerce has worked with companies in various industries, including apparel and fashion, health and beauty, food and beverage, manufacturing, and automotive.

What is BigCommerce?

BigCommerce is a Software as a Service (SaaS) company that provides hosted eCommerce solutions. It was founded in 2009. BigCommerce has become one of the fastest-growing software vendors in the eCommerce business. BigCommerce is built to expand your business and is fully scalable. It can handle small shops as well as extensive product collections. BigCommerce, as a SaaS, receives regular upgrades for maintenance and ensures that you have access to all of the essential and popular eCommerce features.

The BigCommerce eCommerce platform is used by over 90,000 online retailers in 65 countries. BigCommerce's clients have seen an average increase of 28% year over year. Toyota, Kodak, Martha Stewart, and Ben & Jerry's are among the companies that use BigCommerce. BigCommerce's open-platform flexibility, backed up by specialized services, allows you to focus on your business's growth rather than platform management.

BigCommerce may be used to sell both physical and digital goods. To set up and market your eCommerce business, there are many tools, customizations, and templates accessible. BigCommerce provides best-in-class uptime for online store management, content management, hosting, and online store security. BigCommerce charges a monthly cost for cloud hosting and the eCommerce platform, with four different options based on the size and needs of the company. Switching between BigCommerce plans is easy and maybe done whenever you want.

What Are Its Advantages and Disadvantages?

As an all-in-one e-commerce platform for businesses of all kinds, BigCommerce has a lot going for it. It does, however, have its flaws, as do other platforms. Let's take a closer look at them.

Pros of BigCommerce

When setting up your store, BigCommerce is almost laughably simple to use, which is likely the most significant factor for many businesses. Its streamlined approach assures that your store will be up and running.

Aside from being simple to set up, the platform has the following advantages:

• All plans have unlimited storage.

• Making a simple product listing

• Checkout on a single page

• More than 40 payment options are available.

• Uptime is guaranteed at 99.99 percent.

• Certification for the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)

• Exceptional client service

• The interface is simple to use

• Cascade style sheets (CSS)/HTML customization and mobile-friendly design

• Checkout with encryption built-in

• Marketing tools built-in

• 15-day free trial, with a 30-day free trial after selecting a plan.

Cons of BigCommerce

BigCommerce isn't flawless, and neither is any other piece of software. The following are some of the disadvantages you should expect:

• There isn't a built-in newsletter option.

• Only a few free design templates are available.

• The entry-level plan does not include an abandoned cart function (Standard)

• Customizing templates necessitates a basic understanding of coding.

• On Sundays, there is no customer service available 24 hours a day.

• There is no free version available.

• Transaction fees that vary depending on the payment method

Plans & Costs for BigCommerce

BigCommerce pricing may appear high to companies, as the Standard plan starts at $29.95 per month, significantly more than close competitor Shopify. Furthermore, you can only stay on the Standard schedule if your annual sales are less than $50,000.

Many features are included in the Standard package, including professional reporting. If you earn more than $50,000 per year, you can probably afford the Plus plan, which raises your yearly sales maximum to $180,000.

But before you get carried away with heavenly visions of six-figure revenues, calculate how much it will cost you to launch an e-commerce business on BigCommerce without the extras. It's worth noting that Google Cloud provides BigCommerce's hosting.

What sets BigCommerce apart from the competition?

BigCommerce's most vital advantage is its abundance of native functionality. For crucial components like single-page checkout and customer feedback, other major e-commerce platforms require third-party plug-ins.

The 99.99 percent uptime guarantee and the unlimited staff accounts, storage, and goods are incredibly outstanding. The Standard plan also allows you to combine product variants in a single listing while giving distinct SKUs for each variant, making it easier for customers to purchase and manage your products.

Finally, unlike other e-commerce platforms, BigCommerce does not impose a per-transaction commission fee of more than 2%. Payment processors add transaction costs, but you must pay them regardless of your e-commerce platform.

Is BigCommerce a Good Fit for Your Business?

BigCommerce is a powerful web store builder for eCommerce enterprises that require more than just attractive product pages. In a nutshell, BigCommerce lives up to its name. If you want to do BIG business and have BIG goals for your eCommerce site, this platform is worth considering.

• You have the opportunity to try out and explore the site before committing to a payment plan.

• Management of products and inventory becomes easy. The products given to clients are at the heart of any eCommerce firm. There is no limit to the quantity of physical, digital, and service-based products you can list with BigCommerce. As a result, you have complete control over the scaling of your eCommerce site.

• Product updates are quick, with approximately 24,000 products available in under a minute.

• Each product might have up to 250 variations. The Catalogue API allows you to manage all products in your product catalog from the BigCommerce control panel or an external system.

• BigCommerce-powered sites' frontends can be translated into any language using Apps or third-party translation providers.

• To appeal to international clientele, you can display prices in over 100 currencies, including sales taxes.

• You may quickly customize merchandising and integrate customized product recommendations by dragging and dropping.

• BigCommerce offers an Elasticsearch faceted search option with support for custom fields for sophisticated searches.

• It's also possible to set up bespoke pricing depending on client groups, bulk pricing, and credit authorization.

Without the need for a second site, you may divide clients for different pricing, promotions, and product access:

Tools for SEO and Marketing:

The importance of search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing in running a successful eCommerce business cannot be overstated. While SEO assists in bringing visitors to your website via search engines, marketing are the process of reaching out to customers. BigCommerce recognizes the importance of SEO and marketing and offers several solutions to help.

SEO:

To make URLs, page titles, headers, and meta descriptions SEO-friendly for your niche, BigCommerce allows you to change and customize them. Using product-specific short URLs can help you improve your SEO. The quick loading times of BigCommerce-supported sites, including images, also help with SEO.

Blogging:

Blogs are frequently overlooked in eCommerce, which places a greater emphasis on products. On the other hand, blogs are an excellent method to do inbound marketing, generate traffic, and improve SEO. BigCommerce has an integrated blog section that is adequate for simple blogging while not as sophisticated as WordPress.

Promotions:

Discounts and promotions are excellent methods to increase conversions and revenue. Without scripting, BigCommerce allows you to generate over 70 different types of native discounts, coupons, daily offers, and other promotions.

Integration with the marketplace:

Associating with established large eCommerce platforms is a terrific approach to increasing visibility and brand awareness while increasing revenue. BigCommerce makes it simple to connect to marketplace giants like Amazon, eBay, and Google Shopping.

Use of social media:

Targeting communities or social networks with many potential clients is the most excellent strategy to gain customers. Social media is a robust tool for reaching large groups of people. BigCommerce allows you to add 'Buy Now' buttons to social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, greatly expanding your reach.

Email Marketing:

Email marketing aids in the development of a relationship with potential clients and the enhancement of brand awareness. It's also a terrific way to promote product recommendations and new discounts, which may help boost conversions and sales. You may use BigCommerce's email marketing solutions to combine your eCommerce site with major email marketing systems like HubSpot, DotDigital, MailChimp, Constant Contact, and iContact. BigCommerce's email marketing capabilities can also assist in the creation of intelligent customer lists. BigCommerce also includes the ability to send abandoned cart emails to clients, which can increase website conversions.

Conclusion

BigCommerce is great for store owners looking for a comprehensive, robust eCommerce platform that will help them sell many things and make a lot of money. You won't have to rely on guessing to run your online Ecommerce business because you'll have access to a full service and support team to help you through issues and an entire arsenal of easy shopping and marketing tools. Best of all, BigCommerce's extensive choices are reasonably priced.