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BigCommerce

BigCommerce

Overview

What is BigCommerce?

BigCommerce is a SaaS platform that allows SMBs to develop eCommerce sites. Features include the capabilities to design the storefront, configure products, manage payments, generate traffic, and optimize conversion.

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Recent Reviews

Last resort letdown...

1 out of 10
March 07, 2024
So we have had a Volusion Store for just under 8 years now and do a sizeable business there. As they are losing market share we were …
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BigCommerce Success!!

9 out of 10
January 26, 2024
Incentivized
We have utilized Big Commerce in the development and execution of our website. The SEO and store creation have been simple and easy, and …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 20 features
  • Product catalog & listings (413)
    7.8
    78%
  • Visual customization (403)
    7.4
    74%
  • Mobile storefront (401)
    7.3
    73%
  • Product management (410)
    6.9
    69%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

View all pros & cons

Video Reviews

3 videos

User Review: BigCommerce Takes Sales Online For Sellers With Ease
02:35
User Review: Business Depends on BigCommerce With Easy-To-Use Platform & Great Customer Service
02:54
User Review: BigCommerce Keeps Focus On Product For Business While They Handle The Software
04:25
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Pricing

View all pricing

Standard

$29.95

Cloud
per month

Plus

$79.95

Cloud
per month*

Pro

$299.95

Cloud
per month*

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.bigcommerce.com/essentials/…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $29.95 per month
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Features

Online Storefront

Features for creating an online storefront with a browse-able product catalog.

7.3
Avg 7.7

Online Shopping Cart

Features that facilitate the collection of items so that customers can purchase them as a group.

7.4
Avg 7.6

Online Payment System

Features related to processing online payment for eCommerce purchases.

7.8
Avg 8.3

eCommerce Marketing

Features related to marketing for eCommerce websites

7.1
Avg 7.5

eCommerce Business Management

Features related to business management and administration of eCommerce operations

7.2
Avg 7.8
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Product Details

What is BigCommerce?

According to the vendor, BigCommerce is one of the leading cloud ecommerce platforms for established and rapidly-growing businesses. Combining enterprise functionality, an open architecture and app ecosystem, and market-leading performance, BigCommerce aims to help businesses to grow online sales with less cost, time, and complexity than on-premise software. BigCommerce powers B2B and B2C ecommerce for more than 60,000 brands, 2,000+ mid-market businesses, 30 Fortune 1000 companies, and industry-leading brands, including Assurant, Ben & Jerry’s, Paul Mitchell, Skullcandy, Sony, and Toyota.

The vendor says that the product provides the following benefits to customers:

Customize and innovate at a lower total cost of ownership
Build in HTML, CSS, and Javascript
96% of brands relaunch in 2-4 months
Test and push changes without downtime in a local environment

Focus on generating sales, less on monitoring security & performance
PCI DSS 3.2 certified at Level 1
99.99% median uptime
Multiple layers of security through the Google Cloud Platform

Leverage your existing tech stack with flexible APIs
90% of platform data is exposed to APIs
400+ API calls per second
Headless commerce out-of-the-box, across any front-end

Solve your toughest challenges with SaaS
B2B, Wholesale
Headless Commerce, Wordpress
Multi-channel
International

BigCommerce Features

Online Storefront Features

  • Supported: Product catalog & listings
  • Supported: Product management
  • Supported: Bulk product upload
  • Supported: Branding
  • Supported: Search & filter
  • Supported: Mobile storefront
  • Supported: Product variations
  • Supported: Subscriptions & downloads
  • Supported: Website integration
  • Supported: Visual customization
  • Supported: CMS
  • Supported: Customer service tools

Online Shopping Cart Features

  • Supported: Abandoned cart recovery
  • Supported: Tax calculator
  • Supported: Shipping calculator
  • Supported: Integration with Amazon
  • Supported: Integration with eBay
  • Supported: Checkout user experience

Online Payment System Features

  • Supported: PayPal integration
  • Supported: Returns & refunds
  • Supported: Single-click checkout
  • Supported: eCommerce security
  • Supported: B2B features

eCommerce Marketing Features

  • Supported: Promotions & discounts
  • Supported: Personalized recommendations
  • Supported: SEO
  • Supported: Product reviews
  • Supported: Social commerce integration
  • Supported: Customer registration

eCommerce Business Management Features

  • Supported: Multi-site management
  • Supported: Order processing
  • Supported: Inventory management
  • Supported: Accounting
  • Supported: Shipping
  • Supported: Custom functionality

Additional Features

  • Supported: High Availability (HA) infrastructure that allows us to deliver 99.99% uptime
  • Supported: Open Platform: 90% of the BigCommerce platform data is exposed to the API
  • Supported: Server-to-server API functions enable a headless commerce on WordPress and more
  • Supported: Develop, test and push changes without downtime in a local environment using the Stencil CLI tool.
  • Supported: Omnichannel management (Amazon, Ebay, Facebook, Instagram, POS)
  • Supported: Global CDN, localized payments and multi-language support

BigCommerce Screenshots

Screenshot of Enterprise ecommerce for high-volume brands like Skullcandy.Screenshot of Our industry-leading integration will let you list your products on Amazon directly from the BigCommerce control panel, with centralized inventory and order processing and fulfillment.Screenshot of Easily customize the look and feel of your storefront.

BigCommerce Videos

Create differentiated commerce experiences on the industry’s most versatile enterprise solution.
BigCommerce Company Values
Scale your business with WordPress on the front-end and free up server resources from things like catalog management, processing payments, and managing fulfillment logistics, with BigCommerce on the back end.

BigCommerce Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Mobile Web

Frequently Asked Questions

BigCommerce is a SaaS platform that allows SMBs to develop eCommerce sites. Features include the capabilities to design the storefront, configure products, manage payments, generate traffic, and optimize conversion.

BigCommerce starts at $29.95.

Shopify, Shopify Plus, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud are common alternatives for BigCommerce.

Reviewers rate Product catalog & listings and eCommerce security highest, with a score of 7.8.

The most common users of BigCommerce are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).

BigCommerce Customer Size Distribution

Consumers0%
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)60%
Mid-Size Companies (51-500 employees)30%
Enterprises (more than 500 employees)10%
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(660)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(351-375 of 436)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
February 15, 2019

Easy as 1, 2, 3!

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
BigCommerce is being used by different departments in our company. All the pertinent data of the transactions in the system can be retrieved by separate departments independently. This helps coordinate the different functions of each department in the company.
  • Very easy to use
  • Simple and not complicated
  • Organized data
  • More flexibilty in terms of status of orders.
  • Wish they had a loyalty system that keeps track of customers' purchases
  • Option to list number of items bought on the invoice
BigCommerce is well suited to handle small to medium scale companies. Big sized companies might require a more complicated system compared to BigCommerce.
Denise Lawrence | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
BigCommerce is used for our e-commerce. We are able to list all of our products for sale, track customer spending, track visitors to the site, and manage inventory with the system. Recently we were able to link our Square credit card processing account to give our buyers alternatives when checking out. Also, by adding Sweet Tooth we are able to now offer loyalty points to customers to encourage repeat business.
  • Easy to set up
  • Compatible with Square
  • Variety of themes to choose from
  • Setting up and using email accounts can be frustrating
  • Inventory for items with options difficult to understand
  • More control over placement of products
Having tried other e-commerce platforms I can definitely recommend BigCommerce. The templates offered allow users at any experience level to quickly and easily set up their online store.
Joseph Ndungu | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
In the our organization, BigCommerce is used to list the various products, their prices and availability on our website. Clients can access the website and scroll through products before making their purchasing decision. BigCommerce is used by the sales department because it is wholly involved in generating consumer products. It addresses the problem of uncertainty in prices of energy products in the organization. Due to the changing energy tariffs in the organization, consumers pay different rates anytime there is a price review. BigCommerce has been critical in timely update of the prices and the consumers remain informed.
  • Impressive built-in features that enable the sales team to update the product list with ease
  • Top-notch SEO tools that enable the filtering of product information for the consumers and the sales team
  • Allows selling across multiple platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and products
  • A non-complex interface that helps the sales team navigate through the products when making updates
  • It allows multiple products to appear in the interface which is crucial when the list of products is long
  • The product description can be modified to on the website to make it appealing and capture the attention of the consumers
  • The terminology used may not be favorable for amateur users and the developer can improve this by using standard language
  • There is also no mobile feature to manage a store on the go
BigCommerce is well suited for online stores with a wide client base. It is also well-suited for stores that are projecting an accelerated growth
February 14, 2019

The real BIG Commerce

Christopher Marvels | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Big commerce is being used to sell merchandise that I offer to customers that are hard to find.
  • Offer various template for the websites
  • Payment to use them
  • User friendly
  • able to provide assistance
  • like to have more option for free templates
  • have a big commerce email
  • have tutorials on how to use the advance options
Its well suited for people who want to start their own business online. Very helpful company. Do not have any less appropriate scenarios at this time, I'm pleased with the service that I have received from them.
Whitney Slothower | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
BigCommerce is used by our Marketing department, and Customer Service. This platform has allowed us to open our first ever online store, allowing customers to access our products directly rather than going through the lengthy process of searching for distributors within their area and working with 3rd parties for pricing/ shipping. BigCommerce has allowed us to quickly increase our revenue on products that were once the lowest sellers in our inventory. This platform has opened us up to a bigger customer market, and overall has allowed us to sell more product. WIN-WIN!
  • Customer orders and information. Our customer service team is able to easily and quickly assists customers that call in with questions or errors regarding their purchase (ex: address change, quantity change, etc). With the color tabs we can tell how many orders are awaiting fulfillment, completed, pending, or refunded.
  • Full access o my product pages. I enjoy being able to use BigCommerce to quickly access my product pages and make any necessary information changes without having to to send requests to a web developer. I have full control of what my store pages look like.
  • BigCommerce provides various Analytics reports that are helpful. Although we mainly use Google Analytics for our reporting, we also some of BigCommerce's reports such as: Purchase Funnel, Abandoned Cart, and Marketing Reports to see which avenue our customers are reaching our website.
  • We have had issues with the link/ connection between BigCommerce and our email marketing platform. We cannot get our product images to load properly on abandon cart, thank-you emails, etc. This makes our emails look sloppy!
  • I do not like that some (back end) product information pulls over to the product page. On the product page, under "information", the product SKU# is showing. I cannot seem to fix or hide this information and it is aesthetically pretty annoying.
  • If you want the fancy stuff, you'll have to pay more.
BigCommerce is great for a company that is setting up a small to medium sized e-Commerce. We have had no problem with seamlessly setting up and launching our store. The analytics provided through the platform have made it very easy to monitor sales without going through the hassle of making sure our site and conversions are being tracked by another platform like Google Analytics.

I do not have anything else to compare BigCommerce to, but it has filled the purpose we expected it to do.
Blake Baron | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
BigCommerce is being used as the flagship e-commerce software of our organization. Midwest Tungsten Service is a premium marketplace brand, and we needed a turnkey piece of software that would fit the bill of supporting our brand messaging and feel. It's being used across the whole corporate organization as our e-commerce solution. It addressed the problems of not being able to migrate our products online in an easy, sustainable manner. BigCommerce plugged in nicely with our other internal integrations and the open app marketplace has given us a lot of flexibility in shipping, marketing, advertising, and customer service.
  • Client Support: their support team is fully English speaking and based out of Austin. I've never had to wait more than 3 minutes to speak with somebody, and every single rep I've interacted with has been upbeat and ready to go above and beyond to solve the problem. They also aren't afraid to bring in more, "expensive" resources like engineers to solve a problem.
  • Robust API: Plug and Play! They integrate nicely with hundred of marketing, shipping, payment, and customer service solutions, all at the click of a button.
  • Ongoing Improvements: the team holds monthly town hall meetings on new improvements for everything from new integrations to new UI buildouts. The platform is constantly improving.
  • Intuitive UI: easy setting interfaces and WYSIWYG editors. Even somebody without any e-commerce experience can pick up this software and build out their store.
  • Analytics: the standard set isn't very robust, and they try to charge you for basic things like Sales by Item Category reporting.
  • Checkout Page Customization: currently you need to know HTML/CSS to modify these, which isn't that user-friendly.
  • Standard followup email customization: currently, you need to know HTML/CSS to modify these, which isn't that user-friendly.
BigCommerce is an excellent choice for small to mid-size organizations with reasonable budgets who have moderately technical people on staff to make CSS/HTML adjustments when necessary. I wouldn't recommend it for one-person-shops, as Shopify would likely be a better fit. Shopify has features that make it more entrepreneurial, while BigCommerce is a better fit for teams. Furthermore, I would not recommend BigCommerce if you need to have a lot of shipping flexibility, as the checkout page rules make shipping options difficult to customize.
Jen Garfinkel-Canseco | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
BigCommerce is being used as a hosted e-commerce solution for clients selling products online for small and medium-sized businesses and accepting online payments for products sold. BigCommerce is a good solution for e-commerce hosted website solutions when self-hosted is not wanted or not an option and is easy to get set up.
  • Excellent customer service, I was very pleased at how helpful and responsive they are.
  • Fairly easy and straight-forward setup.
  • Bulk edit feature is awesome (not all ecommerce solutions offer this).
  • Customization limitations, but that's an issue with any hosted solution.
  • Updates can sometimes be slow in coming.
  • Fewer free themes since last big update which with the limitations on customization means you're spending more out of pocket besides the slightly high monthly fees for a theme that still will need to be customized to properly fit a client's branding.
Although BigCommerce is a decent hosted solution for small to mid-sized businesses with less than 100 products, it just is not a good solution for very large stores with 1000s of products. I also don't recommend it for products that have very complex options/attributes as BigCommerce' options section is quite tedious to setup.
Toby Mei | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
BigCommerce is the shopping cart solution as well as CDN for our online store. It's been used by sales, marketing, accountning and warehouse department. It helps us present, sell, service our products to the online shopper.
  • Easy to set up and get running
  • Manage products, orders and customers.
  • Growing third party apps to help customization
  • More dynamic themes
  • Faster site load speed from the core
  • 100% server up time
I think BigCommerce is a great shopping cart solution for small and medium business. It's easy to set up and get your online store running. They have many and growing features to help you customize the store as you need, and it's easy for admins with daily operations.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our digital marketing department uses BigCommerce to support our brands' web pages. It makes it easy to edit, preview, and publish web pages. The digital team can mock up web edits and share sandbox previews for the cross-functional review and editing of content. BigCommerce allows us to work efficiently and support multiple users to ensure accuracy before publishing content.
  • Usability -- The interface is easy to use, so if you've never used a web management tool before BigCommerce isn't overwhelming to learn
  • Editing -- Using BigCommerce is essentially a CMS tool, so little web development experience is needed
  • Multi-Site Management -- It is easy to set up multiple web pages and manage all from a single sign-on
  • Not a mobile option -- so cannot manage pages except from a desktop
  • Spend a lot of time looking up some of the terms used within the program to understand what you're doing
If you're looking to set up web pages with e-commerce functionality for a larger business, BigCommerce is for you. Not recommended for small business, as prices are steep and you may not get the anticipated ROI. Easy to use and many templates to choose from if you're starting from scratch.
Bryan Bielefeldt | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
BigCommerce is used as a solution for our clients. We recommend BigCommerce for clients ranging from small to enterprise level because of its scalability and pricing structure.
  • Product management for large catalogs
  • Variable pricing rules
  • It would be nice to have the ability to attached specific digital products to individual configurations of a variable product.
BigCommerce is less appropriate for a business that requires multi vendor marketplace management.

BigCommerce is however well suited for most all e-commerce businesses. The base platform is very robust and covers most needs however when the base functionality doesn't meet the client's needs the platform can be extended through the BigCommerceAPIi to meet almost any need to include custom ERP integrations if necessary.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
A retail home decor client is using it as her Ecommerce website. We transferred from a custom built site using OpenCart to a BigCommerce ecommerce template that I customized to match old branding.
  • Large selection of attractive/modern responsive templates that are very easy to customize to your brand.
  • Very easy to update site software with latest version without affecting existing look & feel.
  • Very responsive template designers. Company that created template I customized answered design queries and offered tech assistance all within 24 hours.
  • Customer support at BigCommerce is terrific. Never had a bad experience.
  • Large knowledge base of support documents and online community. Rarely did not find answer I needed in documentation.
  • Blog needs major upgrade. Customization is limited. Would also be good to have plugins to expand functionality. Blog used to be a big feature on old site but not on BC.
  • Add ability to offer product without any price on retail site. Right now have to finagle then it shows up as zero - need to just turn off price for some products. Ex product sample "call to inquire"
  • Better more expansive email support. They have great sync with MailChimp & coupon sites. Would be better if they offered some auto sync functionality with Google Mail or Microsoft. Right now we contracted mail separate then linked and manage off BC. Not great.
Any retail company from tiny to large would find what they need with BigCommerce. Not so much non-retail graphic portfolio type sites.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
BigCommerce is the sole source of retail sales for our business. BigCommerce is being used to allow us to sell products all across Canada and on occasions, in a few other countries. It addresses the problem of getting our products before customers without the expense of a storefront, and without the need for us to be physically located all across Canada.
  • BigCommerce excels at making customer service available around the clock. Very few places offer 24/7 customer support and it is always FREE.
  • BigCommerce support staff is friendly, helpful and knowledgeable.
  • There is ongoing effort to enhance the platform and to introduce new features.
  • BigCommerce townhall meetings are helpful and are a great opportunity to learn more and get ideas about running your store.
  • Previously BigCommerce had a feature when an order was being marked shipped, there was the ability to add a shipping note that could be read by the customer. This feature no longer exists. It was a handy feature to be able to make a note to the customer re: some pertinent information regarding the order.
BigCommerce is well suited for the person who is just launching an online store and needs something straightforward to get started. Additionally if they run into difficulty, BigCommerce tech support is very helpful.

There are some areas in BigCommerce such as the order status that I wished there was flexibility to add a custom status that is unique to my operations. At present, the order statuses are defined by BigCommerce and no customize status can be added.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
BigCommerce is being utilized as our primary/sole company website. Website provides detailed information on our company, policies and products. Detailed product information is provided for the customers and online purchase (e-commerce) capability is utilized.
  • Easy to implement.
  • Good customer service
  • Several templates available.
  • Allow check out to be modified to add y/n questions for customer.
Well suited for finished goods. Targets general consumers. Needs improvement for government or B2B customers.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I have a hand painted clothing business that I started in Covent Garden, London. Due to the location, the customers are from all around the world (kind of like Times Square!) so I needed a web platform that would look professional for global shoppers. After a TON of research into alternatives such as Shopify and Magento it was an easy decision to go with BigCommerce. All of my online sales are completed via my BigCommerce webstore at www.westcoastlondon.com. I feel the BigCommerce platform addresses multiple problems. For starters, it looks ultra pro - to me this weeds out time waster shoppers or people who may try to commit fraudulent purchases or refund activity. Also, my store presentation (in my opinion) gives customers enormous confidence in making a purchase. My store LOOKS like a professional store - even the interface really looks on a par with a site like Bloomingdales for example; 'your account' 'refund policy' etc. These kind of details are what customers expect when they shop at a professional retail operations. BigCommerce provides these elements automatically.
  • BigCommerce has all of your decisions sitting right in front of you so that you don't forget anything! All of the options for entering sizing/inventory availability/customization are right there so you can be up and out of the gates quickly.
  • 24/7 tech support. I found the support people to be fantastic. This was a huge deal for me in picking an e-commerce platform. I'm no coder and I didn't want to spend hours (or weeks) learning - having a 24/7 tech support on hand, not just by a chat, but a real person you can speak to on the phone - this is awesome!
  • The interface itself educates you. The tabs for marketing offer an array of options for putting banners or coupons. They are quite intuitive and straightforward to configure. This coupon element (I offered free shipping over £50 purchase) have really helped drive people to up the value of the shopping carts.
  • I find templates lacking - there should be more current designs, like one page parallax type templates.
  • I liked the older interface and am still not fully used to the new interface.
  • It should be more clear that you can pre-pay a year for a discount!
  • Perhaps video tutorials in addition to the online blog support?
For apparel retail it's awesome as most of the templates already look like stores you've seen before! I feel BigCommerce is perfect for ANY sort of fashion/apparel. Likely it is also perfect for restaurants or clubs but as that is not my usage I can't comment. But for retail/apparel I definitely feel it is not lacking. Sometimes I need to see directly to a customer (as in when I am set up at Covent Garden for example) - I would like it if the purchase were perhaps easier to do in person - like if I could use my iPad for a sale. Maybe this has been added but I am not aware of this option.
Jason Lowrey | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
BigCommerce is the primary online platform for Hoot Owl Creations. We craft handmade wire crochet jewelry and sell it primarily at arts and crafts shows in the Northwest Georgia and Atlanta area. We started using BigCommerce because customers asked if we had an online store — specifically Etsy — and we wanted to be able to say yes. We used Etsy for a short period, but didn't like how it was so easy for customers to view other artists' products. By getting a BigCommerce store we're able to feature the products we regularly make, provide updates via the integrated blog, and customers are able to buy our items online. It fulfills a number of needs in one convenient package.
  • Creating new product postings is easier in BigCommerce than it is in Etsy. BigCommerce has an easier interface to select product categories and the like, while adding metadata, tags and other SEO necessary items is more intuitive than Etsy in our experience.
  • Having a wide variety of free templates is a big bonus, as is the ability to edit them. Although we have dug deeper into the HTML code in the past to modify our site's appearance, the upgraded storefront editor is very useful. Changing colors in any part of the website is a breeze now and the two newest free templates are well designed, pleasing to the eye, and appropriately modern.
  • The storefront integration with Facebook is quite useful. Being able to add the shopping feature to our company page at the click of a button was incredibly convenient.
  • Having a blog built into the store has been beneficial in terms of driving visitors to our site. Sharing the links on social media brings people back to the Hoot Owl Creations page and, ideally, inspires them to at least look at the items we have for sale. Also, the blog allows our site to have more personality because we can express ourselves in the same area where we display our product, which gives visitors a better idea of who we are and what we do.
  • The help section could use additional visual aides to help navigate users through the various menus and sub-menus when they are trying to figure out where something is or how to make a change to the storefront. Sometimes it can be difficult to find things because the user interface has changed since some of the articles were written and it's organized differently.
  • Each template needs a guide for how large the thumbnail photos are on the front page and product pages. Twice now, with different templates, I have uploaded photos only to see there are white bars on the sides or tops of my product photos with the thumbnail images. It takes some experimenting with cropping to determine what is the correct ratio. Having an easy to find pixel measurement, such as what exists for the carousel, would be a major improvement.
  • Transparency with billing could be improved; specifically in terms of where a store falls within the sales spectrum to determine if you're in the higher or lower category. When the tier simplification was announced, we were automatically placed in the higher tier even though our sales for the previous year did not exceed even 20 items. Although we got it resolved after emailing a representative, it was concerning for us as we could not afford the higher monthly payment.
It is well suited for businesses that may have a small volume of online sales. Since most of our products are sold in person — such can be the nature of handmade jewelry — the BigCommerce storefront allows us to have an online portfolio for people to browse at leisure and make a purchase if they see something they love. The built-in blog allows store owners to communicate with the outside world in the same space as their product, which is a positive from a branding standpoint: it allows customers to get a better idea of who you are and what you want to accomplish with your business. Artists who need an online platform to display their work and sell it would be well-served with BigCommerce's ease of use for posting products and editing store templates.
February 20, 2017

Ease of use good support!

Karsten Ryan | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it for our online e-commerce business to sell retail. It gives me an easy to use platform to promote my products.
  • Ease of use for loading new provisos and content.
  • Informative changes that are being made with the platform.
  • The support help center is always good at answering and addressing my questions.
  • More personal feed back for what could be done to help my site with rankings
I am new to e-commerce and this platform is easy for me to use.
Richard Wilson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use BigCommerce for two websites, one with over 30,000 products, and another with a few hundred and thousands of visits per day. We use it for our e-commerce websites and find it amazingly easy to use and user-friendly. It is a fantastic product and I would highly recommend it.
  • Ease of use and easy to learn.
  • Fantastic interface, and very customer friendly.
  • We made our first sale within hours of setting up the store.
  • Functionality increases every day.
  • Has recently become more expensive for high volume sellers like ourselves.
  • That being said, it is worth it.
  • Nothing else bad!
For businesses who need a new website, or an upgrade I would strongly advise them to check out bigcommerce. It has given us massive growth over the few years we have been using it. Not only is it easy to use, but you can make a fantastic looking website for an amazing price.
Machele Shifley | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use BigCommerce as an on-line gift shop, carrying a small selection of gift items which our guests (past, present, future) can purchase on-line. We also offer our company-wide gift certificates on BigCommerce, this is our number one selling item. This helps alleviate phone volume during peak gift certificate buying (November/December).
  • Email notification when an item is purchased - this can go to multiple email addresses - it gives us a check and balance for order fulfillment. It also allows us to have some orders (merchandise) filled from one department and other orders (gift certificates) filled from another department.
  • Easy set up and tutorials. I wasn't sure how to go about setting up our on-line store, however BigCommerce has video tutorials and a vast amount of information on how to do what you need to do. It's easy to follow and get the results you are looking for.
  • Transactions are really seamless for us - credit cards are processed on line and deposited into our account.
  • It may just be because we don't use the feature very often, but it seems like we always have to spend a little time "looking for" how to process a return/refund. Once we find it, it's easy, it's just that initial feeling of "where do I find that again?"
I know that it is well suited for a small on-line store and/or gift shop. Because we do not have a lot of items, it would be difficult for me to say how it would work for a company offering a large variety of items - however, I think it would still work just as well. BigCommerce is great for selling items in a variety of colors or sizes, it takes a little while to set up, but it works really well. I LOVE that you can decide what feedback is posted about your items - honestly is great - but sometimes there is a rating which simply is not true and you have the option of not allowing that rating to post.
February 17, 2017

Brilliant

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
[It's used for] retail sales, so we can build our direct to consumer business.
  • Tracking all info
  • Helpful with problems
  • Helpful with new ideas
  • SEO for beginners
  • Shipping
  • Inventory
I never worry about the security of my site, layouts are fresh and easy to use. Staff is always quick to get back to you when problems happen, which is almost never!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
BigCommerce is used by us across the entire organization in that it has been integrated it our website as the primary means by which we sell products onsite. When we established the company we wanted to provide point-of-sale purchasing for our customers and to not have them diverted to another website to complete their purchase. BigCommerce allows us this, along with many other tools to track sales, promote and market our products, etc.
  • Setting up products for sale is quite intuitive and straightforward.
  • Integrates well with other social media and sales platforms.
  • The dashboard landing page is very user-friendly and provides easy access to assorted analytics, marketing resources and product pages.
  • Having some more video tutorials available might help with more technical or challenging aspects of store set-up, especially when dealing with more complex pieces of information like shipping and tax.
  • There are many features available in BigCommerce that sometimes it can feel overwhelming, even as they are features that you naturally WANT to be able to learn more about and implement. Short video tutorials that outline some of these tools and their benefits could be of great help.
  • It would be useful useful to customize the dashboard or have access to 'hot links' so the site can be tailored to a particular user's preferred layout/preferences so that, for instance, a tool they use more than others is not so buried within sub-menus.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of BigCommerce is its undoubted versatility in being able to provide an effective retail platform regardless of the industry involved. Where perhaps you were running a more content-heavy site that only sold one or two products, BigCommerce may perhaps not be as ideal given the vast array of resources available for sales/marketing etc... would be less necessary for use and implementation.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use BigCommerce as a total solution for our online sales company - it provides great analytics, is easy to use and even though I do not have a huge technical knowledge the online staff always assist me with any issues [thus] eliminating the huge costs of an ongoing web developer.
  • Great in assisting with problem solving and quick turnaround of escalating an issue if it has to be taken further
  • Ongoing development of themes and SEO practices
  • Handy analytics to assist in targeting advertising spend and updating products
  • I'm happy with all of the current functionality at the moment - costing is always something I see brought up in many comparative discussions though here in Austalia, especially with the USD strength against the AUD and I know many people that moved away from BigCommerc due to the new costing plans last year.
[It's] easy to use without any vast knowledge and no coding knowledge is needed to maintain the back end. This saves huge ongoing costs for an agency or web developer as the BigCommerce online team is always available to assist and highly knowledgeable.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I am the CEO/ Founder of a very small e-commerce re-sale business that addresses a woman's desire to be fashionable on a budget. We do not operate a brick and mortar store, so every dollar we earn is strictly through our website. Therefore, we rely heavily on the BigCommerce platform to sell directly to our clients and make our bottom line. Therefore, it is fair to say, that the Big Commerce platform is the heart of our business.
  • Innovation: BigCommerce is always striving to better its product and product line. We believe that they are consistently going back to the drawing board looking for ways to improve its product, which ultimately improves our bottom line.
  • Customer Service: BigCommerce has exceptional customer service! I have been with BigCommerce for about 5 years now, and have seen them grow over the years, but the one thing that is consistent is BigCommerce's dedication to its customers and their customer's success.
  • Seamless Platform: We are not kidding.... We were able to build a store and an online presence in less than 1 day with no technical background in HTML. The platform truly meets you where you are and gives everyone access to the American Dream.
  • The number one thing I would like to see integrated is a way in which we can be notified when a client has left a message through their client portal on our store's message board. This would aid in response time to those clients seeking our assistance.
In my opinion, BigCommerce is suitable for any industry in which you are selling goods or services, or you plan to do in the future. BigCommerce does all of the SEO work for you if you fill in the blanks. [Know] that you are purchasing more than access to a software, but rather an entire team that can assist your website in getting noticed which will ultimately increase revenue.
Suzanne Greene | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I have a very small (micro) business. As the owner and manager, I'm the only full-time employee (I occasionally have part-time help with product photography, videography, and editing for my BigCommerce site).

I joke that my business is as niche as it gets, with the largest selection of kaleidoscopes in New England. In both my brick and mortar store on Cape Cod and on my site (www.CapeKaleidoscopes.com), I carry and sell all types of kaleidoscopes, from toys up to large, sculptural, one-of-a-kind, collectible styles, in wood, metal, glass, and mixed media. My worldwide customers are people looking for unique gifts and kaleidoscope collectors. Because most are distinctly unique in color/pattern, virtually each kaleidoscope is rephotographed, including the interior photos and videos, each time I receive one from my artists so that my site is always current. Although it's a huge undertaking on my part to keep up with that, since I wear all the hats in my business, I'm proud to say that I often feature almost 1,500 distinct products.

Since I'm most definitely not a techie, I appreciate that BigCommerce is so easy to use. My only regret is that I don't have someone who can work on background, coding (metatags, etc.) to boost my number of orders, especially since my store is located in such a seasonal area.
  • The design of the dashboard and other sections are very clear and intuitive.
  • I had a very short learning curve with the steps involved with adding or editing a product's description, etc., and I'm not a techie!
  • The customer service department is *by far* the best I've ever dealt with in almost 30 years of being self-employed. (A suggestion for a potentially lucrative side business would be for them to train their counterparts at other web-based companies!!)
  • I'm frustrated that I still don't understand the whole concept of the new (or old) themes. I'm guessing I should have a different one at this point (??), but I've yet to be guided as to which one would be best for my particular (and quite unique) business. It would be wonderful if there was a basic primer for people like me. Specifically, I'm overwhelmed by the choices, but I don't dare choose a new theme, for fear that I couldn't go back to my current one if I don't like it. I'm petrified that I might lose several years worth of text and images! On the flip side, I wonder if my site's not as productive as it could be because I've been frozen on this entire issue of themes. I'd also VERY much appreciate the ability to narrow down those options by entering one's business info (industry, # of products, etc.) which could drastically reduce the number of theme options.
I wish more attention would be paid for the non-techie users of BigCommerce, in terms of the background improvement of my site (metatags, SEO, etc.) I had joined a few of the forums, but more often than not, I didn't even understand the questions, let alone the answers/suggestions. I'm at a point now that I don't know what I don't know! Is there possibly a way that someone at BigCommerce could review my site for specifically what can be improved, and then suggest, again, very basic instructions on how to complete those steps??
Stephanie Gale | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I'm a small business designer and owner, using BigCommerce as an e-commerce platform to sell the products I design and produce, which are scarves and accessories made of my art-printed custom organic fabrics. I'm the one who creates all the products, as well produce or procure all images and create the product information for my site. I chose BigCommerce after using 3 previous website set-ups; 1 custom-coded and 2 limited template sites. I ran a trial with a comepetitor concurrently, and BigCommerce was the clear winner; I was hooked. The platform made it so easy for me to quickly add or edit any items on the site. I love the look, control and immediacy of the platform, as well and the great customizing and features it has. Beyond that, their customer service was like none I'd had before, and every year I continue to appreciate the truly dedicated and helpful customer staff they have. I consider them my virtual team members.
  • Superior Customer Service that I can access at all hours. Being a small biz designer, I'm often working on my site late at night, so love to still have access to really knowledgeable tech assistance at any time of that day, so I can get things fixed or figured out and continue my work.
  • The ability to customize most of the templates to a high degree makes my artistic eye happy and is a big plus for me, as it gives the look of a customized website without the large expense of one. Loads of apps and plug-ins to extend custom functionality and features that suit your business. And if I want to customize my coding, I can do that too. Like that they have partner sites that know the BigCommerce coding and architecture, which saves them time, and thereby saves me money.
  • Keeping my overhead low is very important to a small indie business, so I love the great plan levels and pricing of BigCommerce. Also love the fact that unlike some other popular template site competitors, BigCommerce gives you all the features for your monthly price, inclusive, without the practice of charging lots of "nickel & dime" extra and feature charges (as other business owners have told me they've experienced on other platforms).
  • After working with Big Commerce teams, themes and changes for over 5 years, I'd honestly say that they are pretty responsive to any of the issues that might arise or exist. They have always been upfront and honest about the timing of how long a fix might take, and have always worked quickly to address the most important ones.
  • The only issues I've had are small ones that I can usually get them to either address in a number of hours or a few days. Some that were a bit more unusual, I had been able to have a tech help me find an immediate workaround to address some issue. If it is a true technical issue, bug or glitch, they always issue a ticket immediately, and I've seen most every issue get taken care of quickly.
  • I feel overall very happy with BigCommerce. For me, it does just what I want. And considering that technical issues are an inevitable part of having a site, for me - having a technically-savvy customer service team that is so responsive means the world to me. It makes the difference to feel I've always been taken care of when things don't go quite right or when issues arise. Truly appreciate that they don't have just a 'cookie-cutter' or call-center type of customer service department.
  • The only exception I feel I could cite for improvement was the more recent roll-out of the new STENCIL theme from Pixel Union, which took a few months longer than I had hoped, and was confusing to both customer service reps and to customers. Also wanted to not have such a long wait to for the ability of customizations and more flexibility. Better planning for the beta-testing, various designs and final roll-outs might be in order for future theme upgrades.
I am likely to, because I do often recommend BigCommerce to other small business friends! Especially those that tell me they're having tech issues, downtime, poor SEO or are simply tired of all the upcharges involved when they want a little more functionality. Seriously think BigCommerce, due to its pricing, theme range, site structure and feature flexibility is well-suited to so many applications that I'm hard-pressed to think of any it might not fit, with the possible exception of huge corporate entities. Otherwise, I think it's the best for any small, mid or large-sized e-commerce companies, with plenty of room and options as they scale up and grow.
Bree Penfold | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I am a home business of just me, no other employees and I use BigCommerce for my website which allows me to sell my products online.
  • Very user-friendly
  • Lots of ready to use themes or you can program things yourself if you know how
  • Lots of options so you can tailor it to suit your needs
  • Honestly I have not come across any issues or instances where I wasn't able to do something I wanted to do
I think it's fantastic how you can use the features so that your website is tailor made for what you need and want.
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