Item: BigCommerce
Rating: 9
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

BigCommerce is utilized as our storefront for our retail business. It is utilized by all aspects of our company, from front end retail, to back end order and product management. It allows us to handle order taking, product management, and interfaces with our merchant account to allow retail transactions to be completed.

Pros and Cons

Excellent, responsive customer service
Integration with merchant account
Integration of basic SEO principals
Checkout layout and function has had significant upgrades, making it easier for customers to complete checkout

Better support for those of us who accept a purchase order (heck, it's not even a payment method!) Need to be able to search by PO#, too.
No in store catalog integration.
Integration of more SEO features, cross selling, coupons added directly to cart, etc.
Inventory management/accounting software integration (i.e., QuickBooks).
Product returns system is awful. Can't keep up with when items were returned, status of processing returns, etc.
No mobile app to easily manage store on tablet, smartphone. REALLY needed.
Better bulk product modification abilities.
Product options are awkward to configure.
Lack of blogging features.
Lack of ability to produce and disseminate newsletters.
Searching for info in back end can be difficult sometimes.
No way to notify customers when products return to stock unless you have someone add code or pay for an add-on. Should be standard.
When you move up to higher levels within their pricing tier, there is a significant jump in price with no added benefits or features.

Return on Investment

Allows us to offer a fairly smooth shopping experience for retail customers

Approximate Annual eCommerce Revenue

$500,000 to $1 million

Scalability

Does allow for integration of other apps (mostly paid). However, often these paid add-ons are ones that I feel should be included in the standard package.

BigCommerce Customization

Do not have any knowledge of API integration other than the fact that it allows us to integrate other apps (again, mostly paid apps) into our store.

Alternatives Considered

Shopify and Yahoo! eCommerce

Also used Instant E-store for several years. BigCommerce was more affordable than Shopify or Yahoo!, and was more robust than Instant E-Store.

Likelihood to Recommend

For retail sales, it is pretty streamlined. Great customer support when issues arise. Not so great for purchase order transactions (which is the bulk of our transactions). Also wish it were easier to go in and make changes to the site without knowing coding.

BigCommerce - Great customer support, nice platform.

Software Version

Overall Satisfaction with BigCommerce