What is BigCommerce? BigCommerce Review

BigCommerce Overview

•BigCommerce is a private technology company that provides a SaaS e-commerce platform. The company was founded in 2009, has more than 600 employees and is headquartered in Texas, USA.

•BigCommerce is a mainstream e-commerce platform that allows you to open an online store and expand new sales channels.

•BigCommerce is more suitable for large or fast-growing businesses and can effectively enhance your competitiveness with peers through a large number of features.

•Some of BigCommerce’s big clients include Toyota Motor, Kodak, and Ben & Jerry’s (American ice cream maker).

•Retailers on BigCommerce see an average annual growth rate of 28%, making it a great fit for small businesses and early-stage brands looking to scale.

BigCommerce Advantages

• Highly scalable e-commerce platform

• Built-in functions are higher than the industry average

•Support sellers to sell on multiple channels such as Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest

• Has user-friendly SEO tools

BigCommerce Tools and Features

1. Website building function

BigCommerce's built-in website building features are of high quality and reduce your reliance on third-party apps. You don't have to pay any extra fees for all the additional features you need to build your website.

2. Product Type

BigCommerce is one of the few independent website platforms on the market that allows you to sell physical products, digital products and services without using an APP. All these sales types are already built into the website editor.

3. Payment method

Unlike some other independent website platforms, BigCommerce does not lock you into its own payment gateway. You can choose the service provider yourself and will not be charged additional fees or transaction fees, which is a huge benefit for sellers.

4. Shipping options

BigCommerce offers you a variety of shipping options. With BigCommerce’s third-party integrations, you can get real-time shipping quotes, offer free shipping to your customers, and print shipping labels.

BigCommerce is a one-stop shop for next-level shipping tools. Simply install the new BigCommerce Shipping App and ship with DHL, FedEx, USPS, and other major shipping providers.

5. Other functions

BigCommerce offers more built-in features than any other independent website platform. This includes SSL security certificates, which can encrypt user data and ensure the security of online payments. This feature is a key competitive advantage in today's world of rampant online fraud.

6. Abandoned Shopping Cart Recovery

Abandoned cart recovery allows you to send automated emails to customers when they abandon the checkout to bring them back to complete their purchase, and BigCommerce allows you to include discount codes in personalized emails to increase conversion rates.

Data shows that these emails can win an average of 12% to 15% additional customers, and the conversion rate of personalized emails is 6 times that of regular emails.

7. Multi-channel sales

With BigCommerce, you can sell anywhere using multi-channel integration. In short, you can sell on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Amazon, and more. And you only need to manage it through one BigCommerce and monitor the operation of the entire sales network.

In addition, you can use BigCommerce’s data reporting tools to track overall sales, including viewing customer trends, tracking store performance, tracking conversion rates, and more.

8. APP

There are more than 600 apps to choose from in the BigCommerce app store. Although BigCommerce may have a limited selection of apps compared to Shopify, it’s because it has built many features into the website builder without the need for additional apps. In addition, you can reduce costs by not having to pay monthly package fees for third-party add-ons.

9. Theme

BigCommerce has over 100 themes to choose from, including 7 free themes and over 100 paid themes ranging in price from $145 to $235.

You can easily search for themes that fit your needs on BigCommerce by industry or the layout you need for your template. For example, you can choose from a grid layout or a design with large images. You can also search by free/paid themes or use the search bar to find more customized results.

The theme styles and features offered by BigCommerce vary by industry. For example, themes in the Apparel category have a product zoom feature, while other categories don’t include this feature.

10. Custom design

Recently, BigCommerce released a new visual marketing tool "Store Design", which saves you the trouble of jumping back and forth between two separate website building interfaces to complete the customization of your store.

Store Design allows you to pick and choose individual parts of the page and customize them (and see the design in action right away). This lets you instantly change things like background color, logo placement, number of featured products, navigation arrow color, and more.

Advantages

BigCommerce is powerful but the backend operations are very simple. As long as you can read English, you can easily complete the basic operation configuration of the BigCommerce website without the need for additional programming code knowledge.

BigCommerce's user growth rate is 28% per year, about twice the industry average.

Online stores on BigCommerce can be online 24 hours a day, and cyber week can guarantee 100% server online rate.

BigCommerce requires low costs, does not require you to maintain your own server, and does not require you to update your own software.

cost

Basic version: $29.95/month

Plus: $79.95/month

Professional Edition: $249.95/month

When your sales reach $50,000 within 30 days, BigCommerce will automatically upgrade you to the enhanced version.

When your sales reach $150,000 within 30 days, BigCommerce will automatically upgrade you to the professional version again.

Bigcommerce Cloud Website Building Advantages

1. SaaS cloud-based e-commerce solutions, 99.99% online time allows you to focus your time and energy on promoting your company's business;

2. Support mobile terminals. Responsive design can display product content according to the screen size of the user's device, which can achieve faster loading speed, more accurate search results, and higher conversion rate for mobile terminals.

3. Support one-click synchronous store promotion on Facebook, Pinterest, eBay, and Amazon;

4. Advanced DDOS protection can prevent the website from being attacked;

5. No handling fees, no hidden fees, no custody fees, and no maintenance fees;

6. Average annual sales growth rate of 28%;

7. Extremely fast response time, unlimited bandwidth, no restrictions on the number of goods and storage space;

8. Provide a free trial for the first 15 days;

9. Bigcommerce’s SLA (Service Level Agreement) guarantees a 99.5% uptime for your website.

Financing

In 2011, BigCommerce raised $15 million in Series A funding from General Catalyst Partners, a US venture capital firm.

In 2012, BigCommerce announced yesterday that it had received a huge financing of $20 million from General Catalyst and Floodgate.

In 2013, Bigcommerce received $40 million in funding from Revolution Growth, founded by former AOL CEO Steve Case.

In 2014, Bigcommerce raised more than $50 million in a funding round led by SoftBank Group Corp.

In 2016, BigCommerce raised $30 million in a new round of financing.

Awards

BigCommerce is ranked as one of the best eCommerce platforms for small businesses by the G2 crowd.

In 2014, BigCommerce was named a leader in the SaaS space by the American Business Awards, earning it the title of one of the top software companies in the country.

In 2016, Cloud 100 recognized BigCommerce as a leading private cloud computing company.

In 2016, The stevie selected BigCommerce as the team as a global top performer

In 2016, it was voted one of the best places to work in Australia.

In 2017, it was named one of Austin's best places to work for two consecutive years by the Business Magazine.

Development History

BigCommerce was founded in 2009 by Australians Eddie Machaalani and Mitchell Harper following a meeting in an online chat room.

In January 2012, BigCommerce launched a $2 million integration fund for developers, which the company used to fund 31 apps in the BigCommerce App Marketplace.

In April 2015, BigCommerce first acquired Zing, a Texas-based company that sold checkout software to retailers.

In May 2015, the company launched a new version of its platform, BigCommerce Enterprise, for high-volume retailers.

In June 2015, the company announced a new CEO, with former HomeAway president and PayPal Europe CEO Brent Bellm taking over from BigCommerce co-founder Eddie Machaalani, who remained as executive chairman of the board.

In October 2017, BigCommerce began using their platform to offer in-app shopping through Instagram to merchants in the United States.

In 2019, BigCommerce's revenue was $121.1 million, up approximately 22% from $91.9 million in 2018.

In the first quarter of 2020, BigCommerce's revenue grew to $33.2 million, up about 30% from $25.6 million in the first quarter of 2019.

References

• 1. BigCommerce received awards: official website [reference date 2018-04-16T16:00:00.000Z]
• 2. Bigcommerce received 50 million in financing: SoftBank led the investment to challenge Amazon: Financial Home [cited on 2014-11-21T16:00:00.000Z]
• 3. BigCommerce received $20 million in Series B funding: Souqian.com [cited on 2012-09-04T16:00:00.000Z]
• 4. E-commerce software provider Bigcommerce received $40 million investment to help small and medium-sized enterprises manage e-commerce business: 36kr [cited date 2013-07-03T16:00:00.000Z]
• 5. Bigcommerce is a leading cloud-based e-commerce platform for foreign trade: Sohu [cited on 2017-09-24T16:00:00.000Z]
• 6. BigCommerce, a US e-commerce software provider, raises $15 million: Webmaster Home [cited on 2011-07-29T16:00:00.000Z]
• 7. BigCommerce raises $30 million to help small and medium-sized enterprises enter Amazon: Lieyun.com [cited on 2016-05-08T16:00:00.000Z]