BigCommerce Review 2023: Weighing the Pros & Cons of a Powerful Store Builder

Whether you’ve outgrown your current e-commerce solution or you’re planning to launch a new online store, your eyes are on the BigCommerce platform. A key player in the industry, this platform seems to have it all: a comprehensive set of plans, the scaling potential, and a feature-rich toolkit.

But is BigCommerce right for your business? Well, we at GetTrusted have helped business owners from all walks of life answer this question – before finding the BigCommerce development partner suitable for them.

Today, let us draw on our experience in this BigCommerce review. Read on to find a detailed breakdown of everything you need to know about the platform to make a well-informed choice: its pros and cons, features, use cases, and pricing.

What is BigCommerce?

Founded in 2009 in Australia, BigCommerce is an e-commerce platform that helps businesses build, launch, and manage their online stores with a single solution.

BigCommerce operates on a Software-as-a-Service business model. This means you have to pay a monthly subscription fee to the company to use the BigCommerce platform.

According to BuiltWith, over 40,000 live websites currently run on BigCommerce. Big brands like Ben & Jerry’s, Gilette, Casio, Sony, Dremel, and Toyota all reportedly use BigCommerce to power their e-commerce operations.

A Word of Caution Regarding SaaS E-commerce Platforms

While BigCommerce provides both the drag-and-drop builder and HTML/CSS editor, its SaaS model means you don’t have full control over every aspect of a BigCommerce online store.

So, just like with Shopify or WooCommerce, you may outgrow BigCommerce or find it restricting at some point. You also depend on BigCommerce when it comes to security updates, available functionality, and pricing.

How Does BigCommerce Work?

In a nutshell, BigCommerce functions like most other SaaS e-commerce platforms. It allows anyone to create and manage an online store – even if they don’t have any coding skills – in exchange for a monthly subscription fee.

With BigCommerce, you don’t have to take care of web hosting on-premises or in the cloud. Your e-commerce website, along with all the products, customer databases, and other data, lives in the cloud paid for and managed by BigCommerce itself.

If you want to use BigCommerce for your online store, here’s what you should expect to do, in broad strokes:

• Choose your subscription plan and create an account to start using the BigCommerce platform.
• Use a drag-and-drop builder, HTML/CSS code editor, or a free or paid theme template to build your storefront(s).
• Create categories and add your products to the store via the control panel, along with all their options and variants.
• Integrate your store with a payment system of your choice (e.g., Braintree, Square, Stripe).
• Set up your store’s tax rates, currencies, shipping methods, inventory management, order fulfillment, and return and refund processes.
• Start selling!

What Are the Pros and Cons of BigCommerce?

As with any other e-commerce platform, BigCommerce comes with its perks and downsides. So, let’s break down the pros and cons of BigCommerce.

10 Advantages of BigCommerce

Here are the ten advantages of BigCommerce compared to its competitors:

• No transaction fees imposed by BigCommerce itself (e.g., for using third-party payment gateways)
• A feature-rich e-commerce toolkit for users on any plan, including the cheapest one
• Out-of-the-box multi-currency support
• Real-time shipping quotes for select couriers included in every plan
• Unlimited staff accounts, products, bandwidth, and file storage on all plans
• Multiple storefronts allowed even on the starter plan
• Native cross-channel selling support with powerful features and in-built integrations on all plans
• iOS and Android apps available for managing the online store on the go
• Robust analytics and reporting features on all plans
• High scalability that mitigates the risk of outgrowing the vendor

10 Disadvantages of BigCommerce

BigCommerce isn’t without its flaws, of course. Here are the ten disadvantages of BigCommerce that you should be aware of:

• There are sales limits for each plan, which can force you to upgrade.
• Multi-lingual support is tricky in execution.
• There are no shipping discounts with select operators.
• It’s impossible to sell subscriptions without a third-party app.
• Some workflows are impractical or counterintuitive.
• Blogging features are basic and lack certain functionality.
• The learning curve is steeper due to the extensive feature range.
• Tax management can be time-consuming to set up and lacks automated VAT MOSS compliance.
• Dropshipping stores will require a third-party app to function.
• Some customization efforts may require development skills.

When Should You Use BigCommerce?

Considering the pros and cons of BigCommerce, this e-commerce platform is best for:

• E-commerce startups and small businesses that have the ambition to grow fast and need the scalability that BigCommerce offers
• SMEs that are already showing rapid growth and need a more scalable solution to support it
• e-commerce businesses that sell via multiple channels and need a platform to centralize their operations
• High-volume e-commerce enterprises that require BigCommerce’s extensive customization features
• e-commerce businesses targeting customers in multiple countries or operating under several brand names

Chances are, you may need the help of developers to build or customize your BigCommerce online store. If that’s the case, let us at GetTrusted find a reliable BigCommerce development company for you. Just tell us what you need – and we’ll draw up a project estimate and select the three most suitable candidates within 48 days.

BigCommerce Pricing

The BigCommerce platform comes in two flavors, Essentials and Enterprise:

• The Enterprise package is meant for large companies with high customer and sale volumes. Enterprise pricing is available only on-demand; you need to contact the sales team to get a quote.
• BigCommerce Essentials comes in three versions with different monthly subscription fees: Standard, Plus, and Pro.

Let’s break down every BigCommerce plan:

	Standard	Plus	Pro	Enterprise
Monthly fee (billed annually)	$29/mo	$79/mo	$299/mo	Pricing available on-demand
Monthly fee (billed monthly)	$39/mo	$105/mo	$399/mo
Online sales limit (over trailing 12 months)	<$50,000	<$180,000	<$400,000	Custom
Inventory locations	≤4	≤5	≤8	Custom
Number of storefronts	≤3	≤5	≤8	On-demand
Preferential Braintree transaction fees (for U.S. businesses)	2.59% + $0.49	2.35% + $0.49	2.05% + $0.49	2.05% + $0.49 or lower
Customer groups and segmentation	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Abandoned cart recovery & cart syncing	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom product filtering	No	No	Yes	Yes

BigCommerce Standard

The entry-level BigCommerce plan comes at an affordable subscription fee ($39/mo, or $29/mo if billed annually). Out of the box, it boasts an impressive range of features – without the common starter-plan limitations the likes of Shopify impose.

The advantages of BigCommerce Standard include:

• Unlimited bandwidth, file storage, products, and staff accounts
• 24/7 tech support (phone, ticket, chat)
• No extra transaction fees for third-party payment gateway integration
• Up to three storefronts
• Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Facebook, Instagram, and other channel integrations available
• Coupons, discounts, and gifts
• Multi-currency support
• Built-in blog

The only downside is that such handy features as abandoned cart recovery, product filtering, and cart syncing require a more expensive BigCommerce subscription. Apart from that, you’re also limited in sales volume: you can generate up to $50,000 in revenue on this plan.

BigCommerce Plus

The next tier in BigCommerce paid plans will cost you $105/mo, or $79/mo if billed annually. It’s a sweet spot for e-commerce business owners that have already validated their idea.

BigCommerce Plus comes with everything in the Standard plan, plus:

• Customer grouping and segmentation
• Abandoned cart recovery
• Cart syncing across multiple devices
• Credit card details storage

Under the Plus plan, you also benefit from more inventory locations (up to five), more storefronts (up to five), and a higher annual sales limit (up to $180,000).

However, there is still one caveat: product filtering isn’t available to Plus subscribers, either.

BigCommerce Pro

At $399/mo (or $299/mo if billed annually), the Pro plan doesn’t exactly deliver more advanced features to users that upgrade to it.

The major difference between the Plus and the Pro plans is the sales limit: it’s more than twice as high under the Pro plan ($400,000). You can also create more storefronts and add more inventory locations (up to eight for both).

Upgrading to the Pro plan will also enable you to add two features to your store: product filtering (including custom filters) and Google customer reviews. They can come in handy in helping users find the right product and capitalizing on social proof, respectively.

BigCommerce Enterprise

This is the BigCommerce plan designed for high-volume e-commerce businesses. Its pricing is custom and available only on demand.

Apart from features available under the Pro plan, Enterprise users also benefit from the following advantages of BigCommerce Enterprise:

• More advanced customer service and support that includes priority support, customer success management, and API tech support
• Price lists for B2B customers from various customer groups
• Unlimited API calls for integrating the BigCommerce store with third-party applications (e.g., ERP systems)

As with other e-commerce platform plans geared toward enterprises, you’ll need to contact the sales team to flesh out some of the plan’s details. Those include the annual sales limit, the number of inventory locations, and the number of storefronts.

BigCommerce’s Fees & Sales Limits

One of the main advantages of BigCommerce is that, unlike many of its competitors, BigCommerce won’t take a cut of the revenue you generate with an online store built using it. All you have to pay is the monthly subscription fee itself.

(You also don’t have to factor in the domain name or web hosting fees since BigCommerce is a hosted platform.)

On the other hand, BigCommerce imposes sales limits on a trailing 12-month basis for each plan. If you go over the sale limit for your plan, you’ll be forced to upgrade to a more expensive one. (You’ll still be allowed to continue generating sales after you pass the limit for some time to give you time to upgrade.)

As mentioned in the pricing section, online sales limits are as follows:

• $50,000 for Standard users
• $180,000 for Plus users
• $400,000 for Pro users

Supported Payment Gateways

PayPal powered by Braintree is the default payment gateway for BigCommerce stores. It comes with preferential credit card rates that are lower than for other e-commerce websites.

The exact rates vary from country to country and depending on the plan. For the U.S. businesses, they are as follows:

• 2.59% + $0.49 for Standard users
• 2.35% + $0.49 for Plus users
• 2.05% + $0.49 for Pro users
• 2.05% + $0.49 or lower for Enterprise users

However, if the PayPal payment system doesn’t match your needs, you’re free to choose any of the pre-integrated 65+ payment gateways for your BigCommerce online store. You won’t incur additional transaction fees from the BigCommerce platform if you opt for a processor other than PayPal.

These payment gateways collectively serve 230 countries and support over 250 local payment methods and 140+ currencies. They include:

• Adyen
• Stripe
• Square
• dLocal
• Cybersource

In most cases, setting up another payment gateway is a matter of several minutes. However, some payment gateways may take a bit longer to integrate due to a more complex process of setting up merchant accounts.

Payment Methods & Features

The BigCommerce platform allows you to add the following payment options to your store:

• Digital wallet payments (Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, Google Pay, Venmo (via PayPal), Visa Click to Pay)
• Buy now, pay later (through Affirm or PayPal Later integration)
• Accelerated checkout (through Bolt or Link integration)
• Offline payment methods (bank deposits, checks, in-store payments)
• Point of Sale payments (through integrations with POS systems like Square and Clover)

Depending on which payment gateway you choose, your store may or may not support certain payment features. For example, Adyen supports embedded checkout and stored credit cards, while Amazon Pay doesn’t.

Selling in Multiple Currencies

If users don’t see prices in their local currency when they browse your store, they’re more likely to bounce or abandon their carts. So, if you plan to sell beyond the borders of one country, you may need to introduce multiple currencies to your store.

All BigCommerce stores support multi-currency transactions out of the box, even if you’re on the cheapest plan or chose a free theme. The multi-currency toolkit itself is quite robust, too. You can:

• Choose between setting a display-only or transactional currency
• Allow users to choose their preferred currency from a list
• Set a fixed exchange rate to your default currency
• Set individual prices for every item in multiple currencies using the Price List feature (Enterprise plan only)

However, there are some prerequisites you have to take care of to introduce multi-currency support with the BigCommerce platform. Your online store has to use:

• A Stencil theme
• Optimized One-Page Checkout
• A payment gateway that supports multi-currency transactions

Selling in Multiple Languages

If you’re planning to sell your items in several markets, you may also need to translate your website into the respective local languages. And while multi-currency support is available out of the box in BigCommerce, multi-language storefronts aren’t exactly easy to implement.

Your first option is to use a third-party translation tool like Weglot or ConveyThis. Such apps deliver machine translations that you can edit or customize.

However, while both Weglot and ConveyThis have free plans, they probably won’t be enough for an online store as they’re limited in word count (2,000 and 2,500 words, respectively). Depending on your needs, you can expect to pay between $7.99 and $79.99 a month for ConveyThis and between $17 and $769+ a month for Weglot.

Your second option is adding the translations manually, but it requires some development skills. In a nutshell, you can add translations for static strings by linking additional translation files. (You’ll have to declare variables for them in the store files first.) Still, there are some strings that you can’t translate this way.

Shipping Options

The BigCommerce platform comes with a well-rounded shipping toolkit for e-commerce business owners. It includes:

• Shipping zoning by country, province or state, and ZIP code
• Real-time shipping quotes and estimated delivery dates through native integrations with FedEx, UPS, USPS, and other carriers
• Static shipping quotes (free shipping, flat rate, in-store pickup, ship by weight or order total)

Showing real-time third-party shipping rates is one of the advantages of BigCommerce that set it apart from other e-commerce platforms. While the likes of Shopify also offer it, BigCommerce made it available in every plan, including the starter one.

On the other hand, BigCommerce doesn’t offer any shipping discounts with select shipping operators as Shopify does.

If you want to show real-time shipping rates quotes from carriers that BigCommerce isn’t natively integrated with, you can install a third-party app for this end. However, you will incur an additional subscription fee with apps like ShipStation ($9.99/month) or ShipperHQ ($75/month).

Product & Category Options

With BigCommerce, you can add an unlimited number of products to your store. Product management is quite straightforward, too. Out of the box, the BigCommerce platform allows you to:

• Sell both physical and digital products
• Import product listings in bulk in CSV format
• Create detailed product pages with the price, dimensions, brand, category, images, videos, SKUs, gift wrapping, and other fields and options
• Easily group your products into categories and subcategories
• Edit products in bulk
• Assign products to specific sales channels
• Add up to 250 product options based on color, size, material, and so on that can give you up to 600 product variants
• Enable your customers to request customizations to a product (e.g., a custom engraving on a pendant)

The only thing is, if you plan to sell subscriptions through your online store, BigCommerce doesn’t natively support this product type. You’ll need a third-party app for it.

As for category management, there’s also one caveat – there’s no straightforward way to move existing products to a newly created category. You may need to export the products in a CSV file, add the category there, and then re-import the file.

Despite those minor flaws, the BigCommerce platform offers one of the most complete product and category toolkits on the market – without forcing you to pay extra for a bunch of third-party apps or a more expensive plan.

Cross-Channel Selling

Cross-channel selling is where BigCommerce shines: it natively supports integrations with popular marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and Walmart, for one. It’s also suitable for social commerce thanks to in-built integrations with platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

You can manage your sales channel in the Channel Manager. It allows you to configure cross-channel selling settings like catalog syncing or account details. As for the channels themselves, you can add:

• Storefronts (e.g., if you use BigCommerce to power your backend only)
• Marketplaces (Walmart, Facebook, Amazon, Buy with Prime, eBay, Wish, Mercado Libre)
• Point of Sale (Clover)
• Ads and social networks (Instagram, Google Ads, TikTok, Buy Buttons, Snapchat, Microsoft)

All in all, the Channel Manager is one of the key advantages of BigCommerce for businesses that operate on multiple marketplaces. It centralizes your sales and facilitates product, inventory, and order management, saving you valuable time in the process.

Abandoned Cart Recovery

Cart abandonment rates are estimated to be at almost 70% on average. But it’s not spilled milk: around a third of them can be recovered, according to Baymard Institute’s assessment.

Starting with the Plus plan and up, you can benefit from an in-built abandoned cart recovery tool. Here’s how it works: once a user leaves your store without finalizing their purchase, they receive an automatic email reminding them about the item(s) in their cart.

Cart syncing is also available out of the box for every plan other than the Standard one. Enabling it means your users will have their carts synced across multiple devices. So, they can pick up their shopping where they left off, which decreases the cart abandonment rates.

Templates & Themes

BigCommerce offers 13 free themes in its store, along with 220+ paid ones. The paid themes range in price from $150 to $399, more or less falling in line with those in Shopify’s theme store (prices range from $170 to $380 there).

All the BigCommerce themes are responsive by default, which is a must considering that mobile traffic accounts for 74% of e-commerce website visits and 63% of orders worldwide.

You don’t have to use the themes as-is: you’re free to tweak them or use them as your starting point. The theme customization features provide enough flexibility, even though it’s not limitless. You can easily change the layout, color palette, fonts, and more.

There are two caveats, however. One, some themes are too similar to be considered separate themes. So, you don’t really have 13 free themes to choose from – you have only five. Two, some themes provide a handful of in-built font choices; so, you may need to tweak the code to add more fonts.

If the templates in the official store don’t meet your needs, you can always turn to third-party marketplaces like ThemeForest. However, compatibility issues can be plentiful with third-party themes, so tread carefully.

You can also build your storefront from scratch if you have the HTML/CSS skills – or are willing to hire BigCommerce developers. If the latter is your case, GetTrusted can help you do it fast and with peace of mind. Tell us about your development needs – and we’ll prepare a project estimate and find the top three companies matching them within 48 hours.

SEO Features

The BigCommerce platform offers a robust search engine optimization toolkit that will help you drive organic traffic to your online store. Its SEO features include:

• SEO-friendly URL auto-population with customization options
• Duplicate content prevention through unique URLs
• Metadata tools
• Rich snippets automatically built into the pages
• Automatic URL updates and redirects (e.g., if you change the product’s name)
• In-built keyword density tool
• Automatic image optimization for faster loading times
• Content delivery network (CDN) that boosts loading speed

Keep in mind that Google considers website responsiveness in its ranking algorithm. Luckily, all BigCommerce templates are responsive by default.

The only downside is that BigCommerce can’t do your keyword research for you. You’ll have to pinpoint the keywords each page will be competing for yourself.

You can also expand your SEO toolkit with third-party apps like FavSEO and SEOKart.

Blogging

Blogging features are available out of the box in BigCommerce. So, you can kick off your content marketing strategy even with the starter plan.

BigCommerce’s blogging tools aren’t advanced or sophisticated. But they suffice to power a simple blog for an online store.

However, if you’ve used WordPress or another blogging platform before, you might find the lack of some blogging features one of the disadvantages of BigCommerce. For example, you won’t be able to add maps or galleries to your blog posts.

In this regard, BigCommerce doesn’t offer the strongest blogging tools in the market, especially compared to Shopify and Squarespace.

Analytics & Reporting

BigCommerce offers powerful analytics and reporting tools to all of its users, no matter the plan. This is a stark contrast to Shopify which requires you to pay for the second-cheapest plan if you want to see sales, customer, and order reports.

Out-of-the-box and regardless of the plan, BigCommerce allows you to view the reports on:

• Merchandising
• Marketing
• Orders
• Customers
• Purchase funnel (may require a Stencil theme)
• Shopping carts
• Sales tax
• In-store search
• Real-time store performance (may require a Stencil theme)

What’s more, you can filter data by channel for most of the reports above. You can also use a search bar or other filters (customer, product, or order) to navigate the data. And if your plan supports abandoned cart recovery, you’ll also have access to abandoned cart reports.

Interface & Ease of Use

Considering the sheer number of features, BigCommerce overall strikes a fine balance between being feature-rich and relatively easy to use. Once you overcome the somewhat steep learning curve, you’ll be able to navigate the BigCommerce control panel without a hitch.

That said, BigCommerce reviews often criticize certain counterintuitive flows and a somewhat outdated interface. The drag-and-drop builder is also not as intuitive as that of BigCommerce’s key competitors. In certain aspects, it offers fewer customization options (e.g., widgets and fonts).

However, in most cases, if you don’t find the option you need in the page builder, implementing your ideas can be done in the code editor. So, you may want to invest in hiring BigCommerce developers to create the unique storefront that lives in your head.

If that’s your case, we at GetTrusted can find you the right BigCommerce development team for your needs – without the headache of searching for one. Just describe your project to us, and we’ll get back to you within 48 hours with a project estimate and a top three range of candidates.

Tax Management

Setting up taxes can be a daunting task for first-time e-commerce business owners and large enterprises alike. The BigCommerce platform gives you full manual control over tax management; however, its features will require some time and effort to set up.

If you want to automate calculating and applying taxes to your products, you’ll need to integrate your store with a third-party app like Avalara or Taxjar. It’s a shortcoming of BigCommerce not to make tax automation available out of the box. Besides, not all jurisdictions may be supported by those apps; in such a case, you will still have to manually set the tax rates.

There’s a significant downside for sellers planning to sell digital products in the EU, too. If your revenue from annual digital item sales exceeds €10,000, you’ll have to follow the VAT MOSS requirements that impose country-specific VAT rates. BigCommerce doesn’t offer a way to automate VAT MOSS compliance – you’ll have to set up the rates manually.

GDPR Compliance

The General Data Protection Regulation is the personal data privacy that was adopted by the European Union in 2016. You have to follow its requirements if your store is based in the EU. But even in case you primarily operate outside of the European Union, you will still need to ensure GDPR compliance if some of your customers are EU residents.

Note. If you want to ensure full GDPR compliance in your online store, you may need to turn to lawyers. This section does not constitute legal advice.

Luckily, the BigCommerce platform facilitates GDPR compliance with multiple out-of-the-box features:

• You can delete individual customer data from the control panel to follow through on their erasure request.
• Customers can correct or update their personal data through the customer account settings.
• You can easily add a checkbox requesting user consent for personal data processing and marketing communications where appropriate (e.g., account creation, checkout).
• The control panel allows you to turn on the cookie consent pop-up in the Security and Privacy settings.
• You can export customer data in a CSV file to meet the data portability requirement.

BigCommerce also pledges to report data breaches promptly to its users so that they can inform their customers if their data was compromised.

While BigCommerce goes a long way in enabling GDPR compliance out of the box, there are still some things you’ll have to do on your own. That includes drafting up a GDPR-compliant privacy policy and checking your apps and integrations for compliance.

Third-Party App Store

As of writing, the BigCommerce app store contained over 1,300 apps and integrations. That’s a far cry from one of its key competitors, Shopify, which offers 8,000+ apps in its official marketplace.

Some of BigCommerce apps are free; most require a subscription that can cost you between $10 and $50+ per month.

However, a smaller app store isn’t exactly one of the disadvantages of BigCommerce. The platform’s in-built features are so comprehensive that you may not need as many apps as you would with Shopify, for example. Apart from saving you money, this also mitigates the risk of compromising website performance or regulation compliance by installing too many apps.

That said, you’re still likely to turn to BigCommerce apps if you need to integrate your store with specific third-party tools you use for your business. That can include email marketing tools (e.g., MailChimp), accounting tools (e.g., QuickBooks), ERP systems (e.g., Brightpearl), and more.

iOS & Android BigCommerce Apps

If you and/or your staff would prefer to manage your BigCommerce store and orders on the go, you’re in luck. The platform offers free mobile apps both for iOS and Android.

These apps allow BigCommerce users to:

• Manage product catalogs and inventory
• Create and manage orders and perform refunds
• Receive order alerts in real time
• View key performance metrics, reports, and interactive charts

Overall, the apps have seen an overall positive reception. On AppStore, the BigCommerce app has a rating of 4.5/5 based on 504 reviews. (The Android app rating wasn’t available at the time of writing.)

BigCommerce Customer Service

You can reach BigCommerce 24/7 if you encounter issues or need tech support for another reason. It’s available via chat, email, and US-based phone support on all plans. Phone support is somewhat rare for e-commerce platforms, especially for the starter plans, so it’s one of the advantages of BigCommerce.

BigCommerce Enterprise users also benefit from advanced support options for their subscription fee:

• Priority support
• Express routing
• Customer success management
• API tech support

Dropshipping with BigCommerce

If you plan to build a BigCommerce store for a dropshipping business, you’ll need a third-party app to add the necessary features to it.

Fortunately, there’s no shortage of them on the BigCommerce app marketplace: you can choose from 38 dropshipping apps (as of writing). They include Spocket, AliExpress Dropshipping by CedCommerce, and Syncee Global Dropshipping.

However, using a third-party dropshipping comes with another subscription fee you’ll have to factor into your running costs. For example, Spocket will cost you $39.99 per month in addition to your BigCommerce subscription fee (free trial available).

3 BigCommerce Alternatives

Want to shop around before sealing the deal with a subscription-based e-commerce platform? Here are three BigCommerce platform alternatives you may want to consider.

Shopify

Shopify and BigCommerce are two very similar products, but both of them have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Shopify is easier to use, but some of the features included in BigCommerce Standard will require a Shopify Advanced subscription. BigCommerce allows multiple storefronts and unlimited staff accounts but lacks the intuitiveness and certain features in the page builder that Shopify offers.

Wix

While BigCommerce is a solution exclusively for e-commerce stores, Wix is geared toward any kind of website – including but not limited to online stores.

It’s not as scalable as BigCommerce, but it does offer more robust design features, more free templates (900+), and a more intuitive page builder. Wix’s starter plan costs less, too ($27/month).

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, which makes it a prime candidate for you if you want to add an online store to your existing WordPress website.

It’s free to use; however, you’ll need to take care of the web hosting, domain name, security, and updates yourself. WooCommerce also offers advanced e-commerce functionality large stores may require.

BigCommerce Review: Conclusion

BigCommerce offers a well-rounded feature-rich platform that comes with several unique value propositions. Those include native multi-currency and multi-storefront support, integrations with marketplaces and social media channels, and no transaction fees – for all users.

However, using the BigCommerce platform isn’t without its challenges. It comes with a steeper learning curve, only basic blogging functionality, under-automated tax management features, and some counterintuitive workflows.

That said, BigCommerce remains a solid option for e-commerce businesses that anticipate or experience rapid growth and operate in multiple countries or under several brands.

If you want to maximize your ROI or make the most out of BigCommerce’s customization features, you may need the help of a qualified BigCommerce development vendor. We can help you find one – and ensure your collaboration is smooth. Here’s how it works:

• You fill out our contact form to tell us about your project.
• We prepare an estimate and connect you with the three top BigCommerce development companies according to your needs, all within 48 hours.
• Once you select your vendor, we provide an escrow service, a dedicated communication manager, and technical oversight to ensure you get the maximum value for your money.

BigCommerce FAQs

What does BigCommerce do?

BigCommerce is a subscription-based e-commerce platform that allows business owners to create and run their online stores no matter their technical skill level. They can either use the drag-and-drop builder or write or edit the HTML and CSS code directly.

BigCommerce offers a wide range of out-of-the-box or easy-to-integrate e-commerce features, such as cart syncing, marketplace and social media integrations, coupons and discounts, multi-currency and multi-language support, and more.

BigCommerce is also a hosted platform, meaning the company takes care of hosting your website and its data. That said, you can also self-host your BigCommerce website if you have the technical skills to migrate it to a third-party provider.

How reliable is BigCommerce?

BigCommerce has been in business since 2009, and it’s one of the most popular e-commerce platforms out there. Over 40,000 live websites use BigCommerce for their e-commerce needs. It also has a good track record of ensuring high performance, uptime, and scalability for its users.

Is BigCommerce good for small businesses?

Here are some of the advantages of using BigCommerce if you’re a small business:

• You don’t have to pay for hosting and domain name
• The starter plan is feature-rich and offers a lot of value for the money
• BigCommerce stores are highly scalable, which matters for businesses that expect fast growth

However, BigCommerce also comes with a learning curve steeper than some of its competitors. Customizing and scaling your online store may also not be as easy.

All in all, BigCommerce is suitable for small businesses with ambitious goals. It offers a solid price-quality ratio on the least expensive plan. However, you will need to invest a lot of time and effort into making the most out of the platform.

Which one is better: Shopify or BigCommerce?

Both Shopify and BigCommerce are SaaS e-commerce platforms that come with their pros and cons. They have much in common: a similar price range, a variety of plans for businesses of different sizes, free templates, and basic e-commerce features like shipping and inventory management tools.

Here are several advantages BigCommerce has over Shopify:

• BigCommerce offers more features out of the box for your buck, especially on its starter plan. In Shopify, you may need to turn to third-party apps to introduce the same functionality.
• You’re not limited in the number of staff accounts with BigCommerce. Shopify restricts the number of staff users based on the plan.
• BigCommerce doesn’t charge additional transaction fees if you use a third-party payment processor – which Shopify does if you don’t use its Shopify Payments.

On the other hand, BigCommerce comes with a steeper learning curve than Shopify, all due to the wide range of features. Plus, it can’t boast such a vast third-party app marketplace as Shopify, which has over 8,000 apps for virtually any need.

All in all, both platforms allow beginners to create their online stores, although Shopify is somewhat easier to use if you’re a complete novice. However, you’re likely to gain more value from BigCommerce than Shopify.

What are the BigCommerce reviews?

BigCommerce user reviews are somewhat mixed depending on the review platform you decide to consult. On Trustpilot, BigCommerce has an overall rating of a crushing 1.5 out of 5, based on 391 reviews. On TrustRadius, however, the platform earned itself 8 out of 10 based on 647 reviews.

Positive reviews typically point out the extensive customization features, easy coupons and discounts creation and management, and custom code support. Negative reviews typically cite an outdated or complex user interface, some overly convoluted workflows (like assigning a new category to existing products), and vendor lock-in.

Is BigCommerce safe?

BigCommerce is PCI-compliant: its servers have the PCI DSS 3.2 certification at Level 1. This means the payment data is protected against data breaches according to industry standards.

BigCommerce also provides a free SSL certificate for every online store from Encryption Everywhere. Or, you can get a paid SSL certificate with additional features from GeoTrust through BigCommerce or add a third-party SSL certificate on Pro and Enterprise plans.

Does BigCommerce charge transaction fees?

No, BigCommerce doesn’t charge transaction fees, no matter what payment system you use in your online store. However, that doesn’t mean you won’t have to pay transaction fees at all: payment systems still charge them.

Who uses BigCommerce?

You can find Ben & Jerry’s, Gilette, Casio, Sony, Dremel, and Toyota among BigCommerce users. However, BigCommerce has plans for businesses at various stages of growth, so both SMEs and large-scale businesses use it.

However, the BigCommerce platform is most suitable for:

• Small businesses and startups that aim for rapid growth and need their store to be scalable
• Fast-growing businesses that need to migrate their store to a more scalable platform
• Businesses that sell through multiple channels besides an online store (e.g., Facebook, Amazon, eBay)
• High-volume large businesses that need the extensive customization features

Is BigCommerce free?

No, BigCommerce is not free. To use it, you’ll have to pay a subscription fee. Depending on the plan, it can range from $39 to $399 per month – or $29 to $299 per month if paid annually.

Keep in mind that the payment system you use to process payments may also charge transaction fees. On the other hand, BigCommerce is a hosted solution, so you won’t have to pay for the domain name or web hosting.

If you’re not sure whether BigCommerce is the right platform for your needs, you can always take it for a test drive with the 15-day free trial (no credit card required).

What can I sell through BigCommerce?

You can add any physical or digital products to a BigCommerce store – without installing a third-party app. However, you will need one if you’re planning to sell subscriptions; they’re not supported natively.
As for products, you can add up to 250 product options (size, color, etc.) that can be used to create up to 600 product variants. The options themselves can be customized.