BIGCOMMERCE REVIEW: WHAT IS BIGCOMMERCE?
BigCommerce is a huge name in the all-in-one ecommerce store space. Started back in 2009, BigCommerce has customers all over the world, making it a solid choice for international selling.
As you probably know, BigCommerce’s business model is software as a service (SaaS). This means for a single monthly subscription, you can use BigCommerce’s platform to establish your very own ecommerce store and sell an unlimited number of products, either physical or digital, to your own customers.
If you choose to go with BigCommerce, you’ll be in good company, as this platform powers some of the biggest ecommerce brands in the world, including Toyota, Payless, and Martha Stewart!
BigCommerce’s biggest direct competitors are Shopify and Magento. BigCommerce feels like it’s built for an audience with a little more experience working with the web, while Shopify is probably better for the marketing noobs among us. (As for Magento Commerce, it’s owned by Adobe now and really only targets enterprise-level businesses, with the minimum fee clocking in at $22,000 per year!)
While you’re thinking about different ecommerce options for your business, I definitely want to point out that all-in-one solutions aren’t the only option…
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IS AN ALL-IN-ONE ECOMMERCE SOLUTION BEST?
One valid discussion is whether you should pick BigCommerce vs Shopify for your ecommerce store, but before I dig into BigCommerce as a possible solution, it’s worth looking at whether you want to go with an all-in-one platform at all!
If you have a WordPress website right now, you’re halfway to having your own ecommerce store already. For example, you can easily pair a theme like Thrive Themes with an ecommerce plugin like WooCommerce – this is just one of many possible WordPress theme and plugin combinations that would help you build your own store.
Here are some questions to ask yourself:
- Do I already have a website and hosting?
- Am I comfortable getting my hands dirty with WordPress?
- What kind of features do I really need?
The bottom line is, your business may already have the infrastructure it needs to start offering products for sale on your main website. It may not be worth duplicating that functionality with a self-hosted store on one of the ecommerce platforms like BigCommerce instead.
But if you’re still starting out or just want to get a store going quickly, an all-in-one ecommerce platform might be just what you need. With that said, let’s take a deep dive into BigCommerce!
BIGCOMMERCE FEATURES
The idea that BigCommerce offers an “all-in-one” solution means there will be a LOT of features. Rather than go through every single one, I’m going to pick some of the most notable ones – the features that are most relevant for readers of Niche Pursuits.
With that said, here are some of the highlights you can expect with BigCommerce.
VERSATILE STORE BUILDER
The store builder in BigCommerce is excellent. Like in WordPress, you’ll start with a theme, and then you can swap out text, images, pages, and sections until your website is uniquely yours.
Below is how the default store looks, before you’ve made any changes or replaced it with a different theme.
The result is a fully featured website, but with an emphasis on ecommerce options. Keep in mind that BigCommerce also has full blog functionality built-in. This means you can make a full website right in BigCommerce, while also listing and selling products directly.
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PROFESSIONAL THEME STORE
Part of the appeal of a service like this is that it allows you to get going quickly. One reason for this is the availability of professionally designed BigCommerce themes, which save you a lot of time as you build your storefront.
If you want a new theme, you can easily get one with the BigCommerce Theme Store! Just expect to bring your wallet with you, as I only counted twelve free templates as of this writing – the rest of the themes are premium, with some costing as much as $250!
You only have to cover this expense one time, but it’s still something to be aware of when you’re thinking about how much it’ll cost to get your store started.
NO TRANSACTION FEES
A huge benefit of BigCommerce is that it comes without transaction fees. Many other ecommerce platforms – including Shopify – can nickel and dime you with transaction and payment processing fees, which will take a big bite out of your profits.
The fact that BigCommerce doesn’t is a big deal. On the other hand, BigCommerce imposes annual revenue limits for each of its Essentials plans, so you’ll still have to pay as you become more successful on the ecommerce platform.
MULTI-CHANNEL INTEGRATION
When you create an online store, it’s kind of an island out there in the big internet ocean. The benefit of being on other platforms is that other people are already there.
Fortunately, BigCommerce has built-in integration for a number of different sales channels, including:
- eBay
- Amazon
- Google Shopping
- Point of sale
What does this mean?
For one thing, these BigCommerce integrations mean that you get to enjoy the benefits that come with owning your own store – branding, detailed reporting, listing customization – plus the benefits of exposure that all of these other online platforms can provide.
It also means you can manage all of your product listings in one place, using BigCommerce’s data reporting tools to see everything that’s going on at a glance. This includes your overall store performance, your conversion rates, and total sales – all in a centralized dashboard!
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BIGCOMMERCE REVIEW: HOW TO USE BIGCOMMERCE
There’s no better way to get to know a software tool than to see it in action for yourself. So, let’s see what BigCommerce is all about.
To get going with BigCommerce, let’s go to their website!
Notice right off the bat that BigCommerce’s site features two tabs at the top of the home page: Enterprise and Essentials.
Assuming you’re a solopreneur or small business owner, you’ll be choosing from among the three Essentials plans: BigCommerce Standard, Plus, or Pro.
If you want to follow along with the store setup, we have a link for you to sign up. Get your 15-Day Trial of any BigCommerce plan for FREE!
Once you do, you’ll enter your own name and the name of your store, answer a few questions, and then you’ve landed on the main page of your account!
As you look at your BigCommerce account, you’ll notice farther down the page a customizable dashboard with sections for store performance, store statistics, spotlight, and store orders. It’s really handy to have all of this available in one convenient spot. You don’t even have to dig into the menus to find out how you’re doing with this easy to use platform!
We’re here to see how BigCommerce works, so let’s do what BigCommerce itself suggests. In order to get started accepting orders, we have to go through this four-step process:
- Add Products
- Get set to ship
- Accepting Payments
- Set up your tax rates
As you can tell, there’s more to a proper ecommerce business than just these steps, including setting up your domain, customizing your theme, and setting up sales channels. In fact, I would start with thinking through the business model and defining my target audience – but for now, we’ll just follow these steps and see how BigCommerce works!
ADD PRODUCTS
The first step is “Add Products.” With pretty much everything you do in BigCommerce, you’ll be relying on the BigCommerce sidebar on the left-hand side of the screen.
If we want to start accepting orders, the first thing we want to do is add some products. You can find this through the “Products” tab or hit “Add Products” on your main page.
When it comes to adding products, you can create your own with a name, SKU, product type, price, brand, weight, category, description, image/video, plus custom fields. BigCommerce pretty much takes care of the formatting and responsiveness of your listings.
Note that there are a ton of additional options for product information. The ability to include variations and customizations is a big time-saver as well!
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GET SET TO SHIP
Your next step in the list is to set up shipping. This is a fairly straightforward process of putting in details on the address you ship products from.
Once you’ve entered the address, you’ll see a few suggested shipping label services. One of them is BigCommerce Shipping, an option that’s included in your BigCommerce subscription and gives you some special shipping discounts with USPS, FedEx, and DHL. This also lets you see real-time shipping rates in your customers’ carts. It’s possible to set this up now or do it later. Keep in mind that there’s a whole range of shipping and fulfillment apps to choose from in BigCommerce’s marketplace.
ACCEPTING PAYMENTS
For this step, you’re doing the work of determining how you’ll accept payments. The two recommended options are PayPal by BrainTree and “Accept Credit Cards.”
PayPal is a solid experience, but it does come with a transaction fee of 2.9% + $0.30 per sale.
The credit card option is powered by Stripe and allows you to accept credit cards without any monthly fees, setup fees, or merchant account needed.
It’s possible to set up other less common electronic payment methods with these third party payment processor options:
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
- Amazon Pay
Or you can set up a handful of offline payment methods:
- Bank deposit
- Cash on delivery
- Check
- Money order
- Pay in store
How you set it up depends on how you want your business to work, how much you’re prepared to pay in additional transaction fees, and how much accounting you want to have to do.
SET UP YOUR TAX RATES
Specific of accounting…
Taxes.
Yeah, BigCommerce doesn’t let you forget about your tax obligations to Uncle Sam (or whoever your country’s “uncle” happens to be).
I’m not an expert on this one, but basically, you need to decide whether your product listings will include or exclude sales tax, and how it gets calculated.
You can follow BigCommerce’s instructions to help you navigate the complexities of tax classes, zones, and rates. It’s possible to set up your own tax rules manually, or you can connect a third-party service for automatic tax.
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GETTING STARTED WITH BIGCOMMERCE
And with those four simple steps, you have a quick start guide for BigCommerce!
There’s much more to succeeding on BigCommerce than just this, but hopefully it gave you a sense of how simple it is to get your business going on BigCommerce.
One of the nicest things about an all-in-one solution like BigCommerce is that it helps you avoid the “you don’t know what you don’t know” problem – whether it’s tweaking your product listings, customizing your theme, or adjusting taxes, BigCommerce has the options you need in a logical order.
And if you ever get stuck, there’s a great community, detailed educational resources, and quality 24/7 customer support to help you on your ecommerce journey!
Does that sound like something you’d want to use in your business? You can have 15 days free to test out BigCommerce for yourself!
BIGCOMMERCE REVIEW: BIGCOMMERCE PRICING
The pricing for BigCommerce is pretty straightforward. Remember what I mentioned at the beginning – the first three plans are all part of BigCommerce Essentials, which is in line with what most Niche Pursuits readers will be looking at for their small businesses. Then, there’s the Enterprise option, which is only necessary if you have a thriving online business in e commerce with sales topping $400K annually.
Anyway, here are the monthly prices for BigCommerce plans!
All four plans include your own branded online store and access to a range of additional sales channels, including eBay, Amazon, Facebook, Pinterest, and Google Shopping.
The big upgrade for the higher plans is customer groups and segmentation, the abandoned cart recovery, stored credit cards, and faceted search (product filtering). You also have a big bump in your annual sales limits, from $50K to $150K to $400K for the three Essentials plans.
BIGCOMMERCE STANDARD: $29.95/MO
This is the typical BigCommerce plan, on par with Shopify Basic at $29/mo. The BigCommerce Standard plan is your best entry point when you’re first starting out, as it includes all of the core features you need to get going, including a self-hosted store, all sales channels, professional reporting, blog, SSL certificate, and 24/7 support from a live agent.
