What is BigCommerce?The BigCommerce platform
BigCommerce is a paid-for, ‘hosted’ ecommerce solution that allows business owners to set up an online store and sell their products on the web.
‘Hosted’ means that BigCommerce runs on its own servers — you don’t have to buy web hosting or install anything on your computer to use it. As long as you have access to a web browser and the internet, you can build and manage your store from anywhere.
The BigCommerce platform
Big Commerce is a ‘software as a service’ (SaaS) solution — this means that you don’t own the software but instead pay a monthly fee to use it.
The platform comes with a range of customizable templates to help you design your online store; you can use it to sell either physical or digital goods; and there are also some tools provided to help you market your store.
BigCommerce template
BigCommerce is mainly aimed at people without much in the way of web design skills — but it also allows more tech-savvy users and developers to take things further, by tweaking the HTML and CSS of their stores.
As with all hosted online store and website building services — Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, Jimdo etc. — if BigCommerce were to shut down or change its feature set radically, you might find yourself in a position where you needed to migrate your store to another platform.
(Magento Go users can tell you all about that!).
But unless you are in a position to develop your own online store from scratch, you are in all likelihood going to end up using a hosted solution like BigCommerce anyway to run your store — and the good news is that it is one of the more established products of its kind out there.
According to BigCommerce, the company has 60,000 customers; 1,000+ employees, and a client roster that includes established brands like Ben and Jerry’s, Skull Candy and Paypal.
Differences Between Plans Of BigCommerce Pricing+
* BigCommerce Standard Plan
This would be a good start if you’re looking for feature-rich plans with a fair price to open a new business. The standard plan is best for small-sized stores with annual sales below $50k. It comes with a generous number of features packed in, such as unlimited products, bandwidth, file storage, and staff accounts plus zero transaction fee. On top of that, you can sell across multi-channels including Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Facebook, Instagram, and Google shopping.
* BigCommerce Plus Plan
This plan is a good fit for growing businesses with revenue up to $180k/year. Merchants will have a full set of features from the standard plan plus some extra tools to boost sales and increase conversion rate including:
Abandoned cart saver: This is a must-have tool for any online store. It allows you to send automated email invitations to customers who have added an item to their cart but left before completing checkout. As a result, this built-in feature can help you win back customers and boost your sales.
Stored credit cards: Simplify the check-out process for your shoppers by allowing them to store their credit card information.
* BigCommerce Pro Plan
The Pro plan is made for big businesses with a big budget with a revenue threshold limit of $450k. With this plan, you will have all the features included in the Standard and Plus plan in addition to some of the best functions so you can take your store to the next level:
Custom SSL: Let you install an SSL purchased from a third party on your BigCommerce store.
Product filtering: Bring more convenience for the customer when it comes to finding products on your site by allowing them to search by size, color, or brand
BigCommerce Plans and Prices
Source: BigCommerce
BigCommerce pricing might seem steep for startups as it starts at $29.95 a month for the Standard plan, slightly more than close competitor Shopify. Additionally, you can only stay with the Standard plan if you have less than $50,000 in sales a year.
The Standard plan comes with many features, including professional reporting. Furthermore, if you’re making more than $50,000 a year, you can probably afford the Plus plan and increase your annual sales limit to $180,000.
But before you get carried away in beatific dreams of making six figures in sales, figure out how much it costs you to start your e-commerce business on BigCommerce without the additional frills. Note that BigCommerce hosting uses the Google Cloud platform.
BigCommerce Cost Cost Estimate: Basic Site
Standard Plan (Includes Hosting) From $29.95/month
Domain Name (From BigCommerce) From $12.27/year
Theme Free BigCommerce theme (seven variants)
Extensions Free + transaction fees (2.59% + 49 cents for Standard)
Plug-ins Free
Security Free―dedicated secure sockets layer (SSL) included in hosting platform
Developer Fees Free
Annual Cost (Approximate) $371.67 + transaction fees
The Standard plan is good for new shop owners as it already comes with some great features, such as unlimited staff accounts, site analytics, and customer reviews for a growing business. You might pay a bit more at the start. Still, you eventually end up paying less because you won’t be paying additional fees for features typically not included in equivalent plans of other platforms.
The Pro plan comes with the ability to segment customers and save customer cards and carts, which could help you build your customer base. But should you choose the Pro plan right at the start?
In our opinion, it doesn’t seem like the extra capabilities are worth the additional $50 yet.
Of course, once you hit the magic $50,000 mark, you won’t have a choice, but that’s a nice problem to have. Cross that bridge when you get to it, hopefully, sooner rather than later.
Pros:
Bigcommerce gives you awesome management tools. This includes product management, order management, analytics, reports, all that stuff. In short, when it comes to working with your store day by day, Bigcommerce is great.
There’s a nice marketing module with AdWords integration, coupons and more. This allows you to handle your store’s marketing partly on autopilot.
Bigcommerce is rather cheap for the amount of stuff it offers and the fact that it puts no limits on how many products you can have in your database or how many customers you can serve.
There’s 24/7 support. And they even help you with things like SEO and other somewhat external traits of your online store.
There are apps. You can integrate your store with platforms such as Facebook, MailChimp, QuickBooks, eBay, and a lot more.
You can use multiple currencies at the same time.
Cons:
The themes can get expensive if you want something premium. The price tags go as high as $250 a theme (luckily, it’s just a one-time investment).
The homepage isn’t that easily adjustable. For whatever reason, the text content of the homepage is treated as a banner. Not that intuitive.
The homepage carousel is only a somewhat helpful functionality. It requires a lot of trial and error to get it looking right.
The design adjustment doesn’t always work as predicted. I’ve had my Chrome freeze a couple of times when working with my store design. Again, fortunately you only have to deal with your design setup once.
There’s a 1.5% transaction fee if you’re on the cheapest $29.95 / month plan.
Our final rating: