BigCommerce e-commerce: Probably the best small to mid-sized SaaS platform out there
May 24, 2019
BigCommerce e-commerce: Probably the best small to mid-sized SaaS platform out there
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Enterprise
Overall Satisfaction with BigCommerce
BigCommerce is our main e-commerce platform. One of the reasons we chose BC was it integrated with Square POS which we use in two locations. BC also integrates nicely with eBay and other social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest which were deciding factors in choosing BC over Shopify and Magento.
- Integration with Instagram: Very easy to enable purchasing through an Instagram post.
- Integration with eBay: Set up 100 test products in a couple of hours and had sales immediately the following morning.
- Integration with Google Merchant Center: once categories are set up, this takes all the sting out of handling Merchant center. Set it and forget it.
- Product views: If I am doing a search for a specific group of products, Let's say one category that I need to make price changes (MSRP, Cost, and Default Price) there is no easy way to do it short of export-import (not always easy to do). I should be able to pull up the category, select the first product, make changes, then click on a next button to move to the next product in the category. As it stands, I have to hit the back button in the browser to make sure I get to the next item.
- Sorting on the main Product page: I cannot sort by SKU or price - should be simple things.
- Hide when out of stock for a product: I should be able to set on the product level a "Hide when out of stock". Let's say I have a limited release product, only 50 pieces available then it is gone forever. I should be able to set it so when the last one is sold, the product no longer appears on the category page for people to find.
- The hidden product should be searchable by Google, but not by someone using the search function on the site. As it is a Hidden (not visible) product returns a 404 error, but is searchable on the site. Neither one of those options are helpful. I want Google to know we had hot-product-123 so people come to our site, but don't need customers to find it if they do a search for it.
- Back in stock notifications for products should be built into the platform. Other platforms do this and the only real option is a monthly add on app. It works but doesn't have functionality like Volusion's integrated in-stock notification system.
- Control Panel Search needs help. I should be able to search by any field whether it be customers, orders or products. it is silly what we have to go through to find information sometimes.
- Product Option functionality has increased add on sales across all products we apply it to. The number of customers who purchase additional refills for pens went through the roof, almost incalculable from Volusion's platform. While the Product Option format has its own issues once it is set up it works great if you want to add multiple add ons to a product.
- One big negative, onboarding coaches never mentioned BC uses a unique sitemap format (sitemap.php not sitemap.xml), so for several months, my sitemap was not being indexed by Google. This led to a drastic drop in sales. Once we found this out and fixed it, we have seen a small bit of recovery.
- Some apps allowed for us to stop using paid services: Abandoned cart recovery, MailChimp and Instagram integration being the biggest ones.
- Better checkout has reduced to zero the number of daily calls we would get from customers who would have problems completing an order.
- Add order functionality works great for phone orders and even better for larger off-site sales we have when trying to ring up product sales from an event. Very intuitive format and easy for staff to take an order. This was something that used to take hours and is now greatly reduced the time it takes to enter in large sales.
$500,000 to $1 million
We use a ton - Signifyd, Stamps.com, Shipstation, eBay by InkFrog, Inventory Planner, Buy Buttons, Paypal Marketing Solutions, MailChimp, Inventory Planner, Square POS, Google Shopping, Social media integrations with Facebook and Instagram and Pinterest. All these allow us to either reach our customers better or to serve them better and faster. The Inventory Planner app alone allowed us to eliminate a full-time inventory position. Square, while not affecting online integration, does provide the best and fastest POS system on the market. We are constantly amazed at how fast it can process a transaction, which enables us to get customers in and out of our store quickly. The fact it syncs back to BC to remove inventory is huge.
While I'm a firm believer that no e-commerce platform is perfect, you are always trading one positive for a negative, BC seems to have the best combination of price and built-in feature set. I don't like stripped down platforms that just tell you, "oh, there's an app for that", and then you find out it is $500 per month for functionality that should be baked in to begin with. Price seems a tad bit high for what we get, but the low cost of processing we get with integrated Braintree makes up for some of the stings in the monthly payment.