In today’s digital landscape, establishing a successful online store is a goal for many entrepreneurs. With an increasing number of eCommerce platforms to choose from, it can be challenging to determine which one is right for your business. One of the top contenders in this space is BigCommerce, a powerful, cloud-based eCommerce platform that has been gaining popularity among both small businesses and large enterprises alike.
BigCommerce provides an all-in-one solution for building and managing online stores, offering tools for inventory management, order processing, payment gateways, customer relationship management, and marketing. Its robust features and scalability make it an attractive option for growing businesses. However, like any platform, BigCommerce comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages.
In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into the pros and cons of BigCommerce. We’ll cover every essential aspect, from ease of use and built-in features to the platform’s pricing structure and scalability. Whether you’re a small business owner considering your first online store or an experienced merchant exploring new solutions, this article will help you make an informed decision about whether BigCommerce is the right choice for you.
What is BigCommerce?
BigCommerce is a cloud-based eCommerce platform that enables users to build, manage, and scale online stores. Founded in 2009, the platform has rapidly grown into one of the leading solutions for businesses across various industries. With a focus on helping businesses succeed in the competitive online marketplace, BigCommerce offers a comprehensive range of tools designed for managing all aspects of an eCommerce business, from product listings and order fulfillment to customer engagement and marketing.
The platform is especially known for its flexibility, providing users with a range of customizable templates and the ability to integrate with third-party applications. BigCommerce’s features support both large and small businesses, offering an easy entry point for new merchants while scaling effortlessly as businesses grow. The platform also supports multi-channel selling, allowing users to list and sell their products on Amazon, eBay, and social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
How Does BigCommerce Work?
BigCommerce operates as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, meaning users do not need to worry about hosting or server maintenance. With BigCommerce, merchants can quickly set up an online store using pre-designed templates or custom-built solutions to suit their branding needs. The platform takes care of the backend infrastructure—security, hosting, and updates—allowing store owners to focus on growing their business.
BigCommerce integrates seamlessly with various third-party tools, such as payment processors, marketing automation systems, and shipping providers. Additionally, it supports multiple currencies and payment methods, making it a global solution for eCommerce businesses. One of the platform’s most attractive features is its scalability—BigCommerce can handle everything from a small start-up to a large enterprise, making it a viable option for businesses at different stages of growth.
Pros of BigCommerce
1. User-Friendly Interface
BigCommerce provides a highly intuitive user interface that is designed to cater to both beginners and experienced merchants. With its drag-and-drop functionality, store owners can create visually appealing and functional online stores without needing coding skills. The clean and organized dashboard makes it easy for users to navigate between various features such as inventory management, customer orders, and store analytics.
Additionally, the platform includes a wide range of tutorials and support resources that guide users through setting up their stores and customizing them according to their needs. This ease of use is one of BigCommerce’s key selling points, especially for entrepreneurs who may not have a technical background but still want to create a professional-looking eCommerce site. Whether you’re adding new products, adjusting shipping settings, or modifying the design, the user-friendly interface helps you manage your store with minimal effort.
2. Robust Built-in Features
BigCommerce stands out for offering an extensive range of built-in features that eliminate the need for third-party plugins. These features include automated tax calculations, real-time shipping rate integration, and multi-currency support. BigCommerce also comes with integrated SEO tools, customizable checkout options, and automatic invoicing for streamlined operations. These built-in tools provide the backbone of an online store and give merchants the functionality they need without having to rely on external apps or services.
For example, BigCommerce’s SEO tools allow merchants to optimize their websites with custom meta tags, title tags, and image alt texts, ensuring their products rank well in search engine results. Additionally, the platform supports advanced product options, such as product variants and subscriptions, enabling businesses to cater to a diverse customer base with ease. These features make it an excellent all-in-one solution for entrepreneurs looking for a comprehensive eCommerce platform.
3. Scalability for Growing Businesses
One of the standout features of BigCommerce is its scalability. The platform is designed to grow with your business, offering the flexibility to handle increasing traffic, more products, and higher transaction volumes. Whether you are running a small store or an enterprise-level business, BigCommerce can scale to meet your needs.
The platform is built to support large inventories and a high number of transactions without compromising performance. As your business expands, BigCommerce allows for additional customization and the use of more advanced features. This ensures that entrepreneurs can stay with the platform as their business grows, avoiding the need to switch to another service later on. The platform’s scalability, along with the wide range of pricing plans, makes it suitable for both small and large businesses looking for long-term solutions.
4. Multi-Channel Selling
In today’s market, selling across multiple platforms is crucial to expanding your reach and increasing sales. BigCommerce offers seamless integration with popular eCommerce marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and Walmart, as well as social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. With just a few clicks, you can list and sell your products across these channels, allowing you to manage all your sales from one central location.
BigCommerce syncs inventory and order data across multiple channels, ensuring that your store stays up to date without the need for manual updates. This integration helps increase visibility and access to new customer segments, providing businesses with a valuable opportunity to broaden their online presence. For entrepreneurs looking to diversify their revenue streams, BigCommerce’s multi-channel selling features are an invaluable asset.
5. Advanced SEO Features
BigCommerce provides a comprehensive suite of SEO tools to help merchants optimize their stores and improve search engine rankings. The platform includes customizable SEO-friendly URLs, meta tags, and title tags for products and pages. These features allow store owners to improve their visibility on search engines and attract more organic traffic.
BigCommerce also supports advanced features such as AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), which speeds up the mobile browsing experience and can help improve search engine rankings. Additionally, the platform provides analytics and reporting tools to monitor the performance of your SEO efforts, helping you track keyword rankings, traffic sources, and sales conversions. By integrating these SEO features directly into the platform, BigCommerce makes it easier for merchants to boost their online visibility and drive more traffic to their stores.
6. Strong Security Features
Security is a top priority when managing an online store, and BigCommerce does not fall short in this regard. The platform provides PCI DSS compliance, meaning it adheres to the strict security standards set by the Payment Card Industry for handling credit card transactions. Additionally, BigCommerce supports SSL encryption, ensuring that all customer data, such as payment information, is securely transmitted.
With built-in security measures, merchants can rest assured that their online stores are protected from potential cyber threats. This is crucial for building customer trust, as shoppers are more likely to make a purchase when they feel their personal information is secure. BigCommerce’s focus on security ensures that your store is safeguarded against potential breaches, allowing you to focus on growing your business without worrying about security risks.
7. 24/7 Customer Support
BigCommerce offers round-the-clock customer support to ensure that any issues or questions are addressed promptly. Whether you’re facing technical difficulties, need help with store setup, or have questions about platform features, BigCommerce’s support team is available via live chat, email, and phone. Their knowledgeable and responsive support team can assist you with anything from troubleshooting issues to offering advice on optimizing your store for success.
This constant availability of support is especially helpful for new users who may need guidance as they familiarize themselves with the platform. It also provides peace of mind to business owners, knowing that assistance is just a call or message away if something goes wrong with their store. The 24/7 customer support is one of the key factors that set BigCommerce apart from many other eCommerce platforms, making it a reliable choice for merchants.
8. Mobile Responsiveness
In today’s mobile-first world, it’s essential that your online store is responsive and optimized for mobile devices. BigCommerce offers a range of mobile-friendly themes and templates, ensuring that your store looks great and functions smoothly on smartphones and tablets. With mobile commerce on the rise, a mobile-optimized store is crucial for capturing sales from customers browsing on their mobile devices.
The platform’s themes automatically adjust to different screen sizes, providing a seamless shopping experience across devices. BigCommerce also offers a mobile app for store management, allowing merchants to monitor their sales, track orders, and manage inventory on the go. This flexibility ensures that your store is accessible and user-friendly for customers, no matter what device they are using.
9. Customizable Templates
BigCommerce offers a wide variety of professionally designed templates, which can be easily customized to reflect your brand identity. Whether you’re looking for a sleek, minimalist design or something more complex, BigCommerce’s templates can be adjusted to suit your vision. The platform’s drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to modify the layout, colors, fonts, and images to create a unique look for your store.
This level of customization allows merchants to stand out in the competitive online marketplace, ensuring that their store delivers a personalized shopping experience. While BigCommerce’s templates are highly customizable, they also ensure that your store remains user-friendly and functional, even with advanced modifications.
10. Powerful Analytics and Reporting
BigCommerce’s built-in analytics and reporting tools allow merchants to track and analyze key performance indicators (KPIs) such as sales, customer behavior, and inventory levels. With these insights, you can make informed decisions to optimize your store and improve conversion rates. The platform provides reports on everything from product performance to marketing campaign effectiveness, giving you a clear picture of how your business is performing.
These powerful analytics tools are essential for data-driven decision-making. Whether you’re trying to identify top-selling products, track customer trends, or analyze your SEO performance, BigCommerce’s reporting features provide the data you need to take your business to the next level.
Cons of BigCommerce
1. Pricing Can Be Expensive for Small Businesses
While BigCommerce offers a range of pricing plans, they can be costly, especially for small businesses or startups with limited budgets. The platform’s basic plan starts at $29.95 per month, but additional features, such as abandoned cart recovery or advanced reporting, are only available on higher-tier plans. Furthermore, as your business grows and your sales volume increases, you’ll need to upgrade to higher plans with higher fees.
This pricing structure may be a challenge for businesses that are just starting and do not yet have a significant revenue stream. Additionally, some of BigCommerce’s competitors, like Shopify and WooCommerce, offer more affordable options for small businesses, making it harder for entrepreneurs with limited budgets to justify BigCommerce as a viable choice.
2. Limited Free Themes
While BigCommerce offers a range of professional themes, only a few are free. For businesses that want a more unique or feature-rich design, they’ll need to purchase one of the premium templates, which can add significant costs to the overall store setup. While these templates are of high quality, the requirement to purchase themes might not be ideal for startups or small businesses with tighter budgets.
Moreover, while BigCommerce provides design flexibility, those seeking a completely custom design might need to hire a developer, which could further increase the overall costs of setting up the store. Thus, the need to invest in premium themes or a custom design can be a disadvantage for businesses looking to keep costs low.
3. Transaction Fees on Some Plans
For merchants on the lower-priced plans, BigCommerce charges transaction fees on each sale, which can significantly eat into profits. These fees are generally around 2.9% per transaction and can be particularly burdensome for businesses that process a high volume of transactions. The absence of transaction fees on higher-tier plans is a benefit, but for smaller businesses just starting out, these additional fees can be a deterrent.
This makes BigCommerce less appealing for merchants who are just beginning their journey and are working with limited budgets. The transaction fees, combined with monthly subscription costs, may lead to a higher overall cost of doing business compared to other platforms that do not impose such fees.
4. Complexity for Beginners
Despite its user-friendly interface, BigCommerce can feel overwhelming for beginners, especially those who have never run an online store before. The platform offers a vast array of features and customization options, which can make it difficult for new users to get started. Navigating through the numerous tools and settings to configure a store may take time and effort.
For example, setting up payment gateways, shipping options, and advanced product configurations might require technical knowledge or external support. As a result, beginners may need to invest more time or hire an expert to set up their stores, which can be frustrating and time-consuming for those unfamiliar with eCommerce platforms.
5. Limited Blogging Features
For businesses that rely heavily on content marketing, BigCommerce’s blogging features may feel inadequate compared to platforms like WordPress. While it’s possible to create blog posts within BigCommerce, the platform does not offer advanced content management tools or features like custom post types, extensive media management, or detailed SEO options for blog posts.
If you plan to use blogging as a significant part of your content strategy, you may find BigCommerce’s blogging capabilities lacking. While you can integrate third-party tools for blogging, this might add extra steps and complexity to managing content on your site.
6. No Built-in Email Marketing Tools
BigCommerce does not offer native email marketing tools, which means users must rely on third-party integrations to manage email campaigns. Popular email marketing platforms like Mailchimp or Klaviyo can be easily integrated with BigCommerce, but having to rely on external services can increase costs and complicate your marketing efforts.
For entrepreneurs looking for an all-in-one solution, this lack of native email marketing features may be a downside. It requires additional steps to set up and maintain email marketing campaigns, and merchants may miss out on seamless integrations and automated workflows that would otherwise be available on platforms with built-in email tools.
7. No Native POS System
Unlike some of its competitors, BigCommerce lacks a native point-of-sale (POS) system for physical stores. While it integrates with third-party POS systems such as Square or Lightspeed, this means merchants need to rely on external software to manage both their online and in-store sales. This can be a disadvantage for businesses that operate both physically and online, as the need for an additional POS solution can lead to extra costs and logistical challenges.
For businesses that are looking for a truly all-in-one solution for both eCommerce and brick-and-mortar stores, BigCommerce’s lack of a built-in POS system might be a significant drawback.
8. Limited Customization for Beginners
While BigCommerce offers extensive customization options, they can be difficult to access for users with no coding experience. For example, adjusting the backend code or making significant changes to the store’s design often requires knowledge of HTML, CSS, or JavaScript. While advanced users or developers will appreciate the customization flexibility, beginners may struggle with implementing these changes.
For those without coding expertise, relying on a developer or using external tools might be necessary, which can add time, complexity, and additional costs to the store setup process. This limited access to deep customization may be a hurdle for entrepreneurs who want more control over their store’s look and functionality but lack the technical skills to achieve their vision.
Conclusion
BigCommerce offers a powerful and flexible eCommerce platform with a wide range of features designed to support businesses of all sizes. Its scalability, built-in tools, and multi-channel selling capabilities make it a strong contender for entrepreneurs looking to build and grow an online store. However, the platform also comes with some drawbacks, such as its higher pricing structure and reliance on third-party integrations for certain features.
Ultimately, BigCommerce is best suited for businesses that require advanced features, scalability, and the flexibility to grow. However, those with limited budgets or businesses that rely heavily on content marketing or email campaigns might want to consider other alternatives. By understanding both the pros and cons of BigCommerce, you can make a well-informed decision about whether this platform aligns with your business goals and needs.