BigCommerce

BigCommerce is an open eCommerce platform for merchants new, established, and enterprise. BigCommerce touts 100% uptime for the past 7 years, which is huge as any downtime really costs a merchant. And they have the highest level of security authenticated by Coalfire, a 3rd party security auditing company.

They aren't a payment platform, they aren't an email provider, instead they partner with over 1,000+ vetted and great providers in these spaces, from high-end rewards programs to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) connectors. They have a world-class API that makes it enticing for app developers to build on their platform, as well as easy for merchants to bring data to and from their ERP, inventory management system, Customer Data Platform (CDP), or wherever your data needs to go.

They are working within over 150 different countries. All of their support is in-house and based out of Austin, Texas where they serve their merchants 24/7/365. You always get unlimited users with specific user access control for each user.

They have a themes marketplace with hundreds of different themes across dozens of different industries which are one time purchases to get you started on your own unique design and layout, or you can use their free theme Cornerstone Light.

All themes run on their own drag and drop page builder, which is more robust than other platforms and can make setup of your site doable without having to bring in a developer (even though in most cases you may also bring in the developer for any sort of custom work you may need).

Out of all of the major eCommerce platforms, BigCommerce is the one that has stayed the most "in their lane." Meaning they specifically have only built the eCommerce Platform, which is simply one layer, kind of the middle layer, of your eCommerce stack. With their over 1000+ partners for things like personalization and loyalty and email filling out the top of your stack, and the rest of their API allowing you to connect to your ERP, CDP, etc., on the bottom of your stack.

They have native functionality for multi-currency. They don't care what your payment provider or checkout process is, meaning you can use innovative checkout tools like Bolt, or your own preferred payment processor, if that is something you really care about.

They can help you sell both physical and digital products without the need for a new tool. They can deliver files and downloads through their platform to your customers. They have wholesale management fully built-in to their platform so that you can give custom pricing to certain logged in users, or tiered discounting when buying in bulk, and it's super easy to use and set up.

They have a robust promotional strategy functionality that other platforms may require a 3rd party tool for. For example, if you have a "buy 2 get 1 free" promotion, that may only work with a discount code on other platforms, here it is part of their promotions tab and the rule is automatically checked by their platform at checkout to see if they qualify, and you can prioritize and limit when and how promotions can work together, etc.

BigCommerce makes it very easy to list your product from their platform onto multiple different 3rd party sellers such as Walmart, Amazon, Ebay, etc., and you can adjust and manage the products listed and all components of the listing from within BigCommerce, which with many other platforms you would need a 3rd party tool. And of course you could use a 3rd party tool if you really wanted to, but it's great to have this much power out of the box.

Their data integrations send server-side data over rather than using a Javascript snippet. This means that merchants will get closer to 100% accurate data on things like page views and event fires (like when someone hits the add to cart button), most specifically pertaining to Google Analytics, the Facebook Pixel, etc.

Choosing an eCommerce platform is more about needs than metrics. Does it integrate with everything I need it to integrate with? Is it going to solve a major problem that my current platform cannot?

eCommerce Platforms are set up and managed by your head of eCommerce, your head of marketing will likely be in there, your developers and designers (or agencies and consultancies), and odds are you as the CEO will be in there at some point, tinkering around.

Setup length depends on how many SKUs you have and how nicely and custom designed you want your site to be. Time to market can increase even further if you want to launch with things like headless commerce, advanced personalization integrations, etc.

They are preferential for merchants selling both physical and digital products, merchants that are selling in multiple currencies (even though many 3rd party solutions can solve multi-currency), merchants who want a custom checkout process, and merchants who want less 3rd party apps.

You can launch your store on BigCommerce or migrate from an existing platform or custom site. BigCommerce is very flexible and scalable for merchants of any size.

They work well across all industry categories, be it beauty, fashion, CPG, etc.

BigCommerce is not for content sites, media, services and agencies, restaurants (can sometimes work but not really), or those not selling a physical or digital product.