BigCommerce Review – A Detailed Analysis of Its Features, Pros & Cons, SEO, Security, Performance, etc.

In this BigCommerce review, we will look at the ecommerce platform, its features, and all you need to know to make a decision.

First of all, if you’re not very familiar with what an ecommerce platform is, please take some time and review the Ecommerce Platforms Guide.

Why do you need an ecommerce platform?

As I like to put it – ecommerce platforms make ecommerce happen.

So if you want to operate an ecommerce business, you need an ecommerce platform.

However, it can be challenging with so many choices when deciding on the correct ecommerce platform for your business.

There are many great ecommerce platforms to choose from, and BigCommerce is one of them.

BigCommerce is a top-rated ecommerce platform, and it is popular for many good reasons. 

Thousands of businesses worldwide use BigCommerce for their ecommerce business operations.

And this is a testament to its amazing features, functionalities, performance, and security.

In this review, we will do a thorough and detailed analysis of BigCommerce.

I hope that after reading this bigcommerce review, you will be in a better position to decide if BigCommerce is right for your business.

Overall Rating

What Is BigCommerce?

BigCommerce is among the leading ecommerce platforms in the world. It is scalable, flexible, and meets diverse ecommerce requirements.

So if you’re looking to set up an online store for your ecommerce operations, BigCommerce is worthy of your consideration.

As a hosted ecommerce platform, BigCommerce is not free, as is the case with WooCommerce.

But the marvelous news is that you don’t need to get an external web hosting service provider like you would with self-hosted ecommerce platforms.

And what does this mean for you?

It means that BigCommerce is a software as a service (SaaS) platform that runs on its servers.

To use BigCommerce, all you need is a web browser and access to the Internet. 

As a SaaS platform, you have to pay for the service every month and cannot own the software outright.

BigCommerce comes with several useful sales tools and features than most ecommerce platforms in the space. 

Most importantly is the combination of great functionalities with advanced search engine optimization (SEO) features. 

The platform also allows for easy integration with several tools you can use to boost and expand your ecommerce business. 

And you don’t need to have HTML, CSS, or JavaScript knowledge to get your online store up and running on BigCommerce.

However, I believe that having some basic coding knowledge will give you an edge on the platform.

BigCommerce has been making ecommerce happen for entrepreneurs and businesses since 2009, when Mitchell Harper and Eddie Machaalani founded the company.

Since then, the platform has grown in size and popularity and powers more than 100,000 ecommerce websites today.

Benefits of Using BigCommerce

BigCommerce provides many features and functionalities needed to run a successful ecommerce business.

This bigcommerce review section will go over some of the benefits of using the BigCommerce platform:

1. Mobile Friendliness

With most online ecommerce transactions taking place via mobile devices, you need a mobile-friendly online store.

BigCommerce is mobile-friendly and works responsively with mobile devices.

The available design theme options on the platform are mobile responsive.

So this means that you don’t have to spend time optimizing your online store for various mobile devices.

2. Good Customer Support

If you’re new to ecommerce and don’t have experience with online store builders, you’ll find a supportive customer team at BigCommerce.

Working with an ecommerce platform that provides good (if not great) customer support is crucial.

Over the past decade, BigCommerce has shown to be a reliable partner to numerous ecommerce businesses.

And this is evident in the many complimentary feedbacks and recommendations from existing customers.

BigCommerce provides 24/7 support with a customer service department that is staffed with experienced professionals.

3. Flexibility & Scalability

One of BigCommerce’s unique selling points is the platform’s flexibility and scalability.

As a highly flexible ecommerce platform, you can adapt BigCommerce to meet your unique business requirements.

Furthermore, as a scalable platform, you can sell your products through various sales channels.

With BigCommerce, you can sell your products on leading marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, and Google Shopping.

Similarly, you can scale and capture more customers and revenue opportunities via Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

If you’re a brick-and-mortar store, BigCommerce offers online and offline sales flexibility, thus bringing more foot traffic to your store.

The platform’s flexibility and scalability architecture allow you to grow your business at your pace and with ease.

4. Vast Payment options

BigCommerce allows for the integration of a vast number of payment gateways. 

With support for the top payment systems globally, you can accept payments from customers worldwide in different currencies.

You can easily add payment gateways such as Authorize.net, Stripe, PayPal, Google Checkout, Square, Worldpay, Clover, etc., to your online store. 

Also, the platform makes it easy for your customers to pay with digital wallets such as PayPal One Touch, Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, and many others.

5. SEO Capabilities

If you don’t plan on paying per click to appear on the search engine results page (SERP), you need SEO.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) grows your online store’s organic research by ranking your content higher on the SERP.

BigCommerce also offers the necessary SEO tools to enhance your online store’s performance and expand your organic search reach.

6. Quick and Easy Setup

You don’t need to be tech-savvy when it comes to setting up and using BigCommerce.

It’s relatively easy to set up the platform and begin your ecommerce journey in little or no time.

I like in particular that you don’t need to know web programming languages such as HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, etc., to use BigCommerce.

However, I’m a firm believer in understanding these web programming languages’ basics to get an insight into any platform.

7. Shipping Providers

BigCommerce supports integration with the majority of shipping providers.

If you’re selling physical products that require shipping, providing real-time shipping costs during customer checkout is crucial.

The only way to do this by integrating with third-party shipping companies such as UPS, FedEx, DHL, USPS, etc.

BigCommerce supports all the major shipping providers, and you can work with different shipping providers in different regions.

8. Reward Customer Loyalty

With this ecommerce platform, you can reward customer loyalty by offering coupon codes and gift cards.

Likewise, the BigCommerce ecommerce platform allows you to create and promote loyalty programs.

You can choose how you want to offer discounts and customize your coupon codes.

And the net benefit is a marketing structure that brings more customers and grows your sales.

Is BigCommerce Free?

As a leading ecommerce platform, BigCommerce is not free.  

It’s paid Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that is cloud-hosted on its infrastructure.

You can license and use the BigCommerce ecommerce software on a subscription basis.

The platform offers four different subscription plans, which allows you to choose the plan that suits your ecommerce requirements.

Each plan offers different sets and levels of features and functionalities to support your ecommerce business.

Once you subscribe to a BigCommerce plan, you don’t have to pay for a web hosting provider, unlike some other ecommerce platforms.

The four BigCommerce subscriptions plans are:

• Standard @ $29.95 per month
• Plus @ $79.95 per month
• Pro @ $299.95 per month
• Enterprise – is a customizable plan with custom pricing. If you want this plan, you need to contact BigCommerce’s sales team to discuss your requirement.

Like other platforms in the ecommerce space, BigCommerce offers a 15-day free trial to get you started.  

During the 15 days trial, you’ll get a better feel of their software and decide which plan is more suitable for you.

Detailed BigCommerce Review

Thousands of ecommerce businesses use BigCommerce to run their online stores.

The company has created an easy-to-use yet advanced ecommerce platform for anyone to use in setting up and managing their ecommerce business.

The following in-depth review analysis of this platform will help you decide if BigCommerce is the right ecommerce platform for you.

Here are the vital things you need to know about the BigCommerce ecommerce platform:

BigCommerce Review – Pros

There are many advantages to using BigCommerce, some of which are:

1. No Commission or Transaction Fees

You will not have to pay commissions or transaction fees regardless of the subscription plan you choose. 

With this, BigCommerce has the edge over top leading ecommerce platforms such as Shopify.

2. Multi-Channel Integration

Multi-channel integration is always about communicating with other systems and platforms.

With BigCommerce, you can sell on Amazon, Ebay, Walmart, Facebook, Instagram, Google Shopping, and other platforms and marketplaces.

This easy integration with other platforms is critical for ecommerce success as customers are spending more time and buying on various platforms.

3. Fully Cloud-Hosted

As mentioned earlier, BigCommerce is a SaaS and hosted on the cloud by the company.

So this means you don’t have to worry about finding and paying for a web hosting provider.

Likewise, you don’t have to worry about ongoing web server maintenance, management, security, etc.

4. Affordability

When compared to other ecommerce platforms, BigCommerce’s subscription plans are reasonable.

With the numerous features and functionalities, the platform is well-priced in comparison to the competition.

5. Unlimited Products:

BigCommerce doesn’t place limits on the number of products you can sell on its subscription plans.

You can upload an unlimited number of products to sell to an unlimited number of customers.

6. Wide Range of Apps and Themes

The BigCommerce app store has a wide range of applications, extensions, and templates you can choose from. 

You can use these apps and templates to increase your online store’s functionality, look, and feel.

BigCommerce Review – Cons

There’s no perfect ecommerce platform, and the same applies to BigCommerce as you’ll learn in this BigCommerce review. There are a few drawbacks with BigCommerce. Let’s consider some of them.

1. Expensive Themes

Themes enable you to customize your online store built with BigCommerce to suit your business requirements.

Unfortunately, you will have to pay more for this platform’s themes, as they are expensive than other platforms. 

While there are free themes available to you, they are not as striking and design-rich as the paid ones.

So if you want to get that sleek, rich, and modern look and feel for your online store, be prepared to spend some $$$.

2. Limited Customization and Setup

You might have a hard time adjusting the different aspects of your home page. The setup process is a little time-consuming for some users.

3. Annual Online Sales Limit

The amount of online sales you can make in a year is also limited. If you exceed the yearly limit, you will have to upgrade to a higher plan.

For example, once you hit $50,000 in sales on a trailing 12-month basis with the Standard plan, you have to upgrade to the Pro plan.

BigCommerce Pricing and Costs

As mentioned earlier in this BigCommerce review, the BigCommerce platform is not free. You have to pay monthly (or annual) subscriptions to keep your online store up and running. 

With as low as $29.95 per month, you can build your online store on this platform and start selling your products worldwide. 

To start with, BigCommerce offers a 15-day free trial for you to use and familiarize yourself with the platform. 

When your free trial ends, you would have to choose one of its four plans, which are:

1. Standard – $29.95/Month

This is the basic plan on BigCommerce, and it costs only $29.95 per month. 

With this amount, you can build a great-looking online store on this platform.

Notably, this plan has a trailing 12-month sales limit of $50,000.00. Once you hit this amount, you will have to upgrade to a higher plan.

This plan charges no transaction fees, and you get 24/7 customer support.

And you can expect other great features such as easy integrations with shipping platforms, payment gateways, marketplaces, product ratings, and more.  

2. Plus – $79.95/Month

Starting at $79.95 per month, the Plus is the next plan after the Standard.

This plan allows you to grow your online business with more advanced marketing tools. 

BigCommerce’s Plus plan includes all the offerings of the Standard plan.

However, it comes with additional offerings such as a trailing 12-month sales limit of $180,000, stored credit cards, abandoned cart savers, and more.

3. Pro – $299.95/Month

You graduate to the Pro plan when you want to scale your online store with a complete set of features.

At $299.95 per month, the Pro plan includes all the Plus plan’s features and offerings.

Furthermore, this plan increases the trailing 12-month sales limit to $400,000.

You’re able to offer custom price lists to different custom groups at the SKU level and can make unlimited API calls.

4. Enterprise Plan – Custom Pricing

The Enterprise Plan offers unlimited, full services of BigCommerce platform and much more. 

It consists of all the features of the Pro plan, with additional offerings. To get the price, you have to call customer support to discuss your options.

BigCommerce Review – Features & Functionalities

BigCommerce has a wide range of features to make it easier for you to sell your product online. 

Some of the outstanding features of this platform include:

1. Customizable Design Themes

BigCommerce gives you access to a large collection of design themes.  

The platform offers several themes for free and at no cost to you. It also offers paid themes that come with advanced designs, look and feel.   

The themes are also customizable, to a certain degree, and you do not need any coding experience to do that.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The BigCommerce platform provides you with SEO tools for optimizing your product and information pages.

With this platform’s built-in SEO tools, you can rank your content higher on the organic search results page (SERP).

Better SERP ranking means you’re able to grow your business and expand your online store’s inbound traffic.

3. Abandoned Cart Saver

This is another great feature of BigCommerce, although it is not available for the Standard plan. 

With this feature, the software saves abandoned shopping carts allows you to re-target those customers to complete the purchase.

4. Pre-Integrated Payment Options

This platform has pre-integrated payment options that allow you to accept payment from the major payment service providers. 

With the one-click setup, you can integrate with PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, Authorize.net, Amazon Pay, etc., to accept online payments.

5. Drag and Drop Builder

BigCommerce has a drag-and-drop page builder feature that comes in handy when building your store. 

This feature is handy for people with no coding knowledge and experience.

6. Unlimited Staff Accounts

This platform also offers unlimited staff accounts, and this feature is available in all the plans.

7. Unlimited Number of Product

BigCommerce allows you to put up for sale an unlimited number of products. 

You can sell both digital and physical products across a wide range of product categories for your choosing.

BigCommerce Review – Ease of Use

Although not as easy to use as Shopify, BigCommerce is relatively comfortable to use.

If you are experienced in building online stores, you will not have any issues with this platform. 

And if you’re a novice with no coding experience, you’ll come to appreciate BigCommerce’s drag-and-drop builder.

However, be prepared to have some challenges using BigCommerce, given its design interface, which has been a point of complaint among its users.

When building your online store on this platform, the interface divides into two sections. 

One section is for adding products and managing other parts of the store, such as shipping and discounts, while the other part is for editing your storefront.

However, there is a way you can bypass this issue, and that is by setting up the inventory area first. 

You should add all the products you want to add first before personalizing your storefront. 

BigCommerce also has a visual merchandising tool – Store Design – that shows you the effects of your edit, making the platform more customizable.

BigCommerce Review – Performance

When it comes to performance, BigCommerce is one of the best-performing cloud-hosted ecommerce platforms.

Your online store’s speed and performance are critical to ensure customers complete their buying journey and ranking on SERP.

First, search engines, such as Google, take your online store’s speed as an indicator of a well-designed website.

Your online store’s performance and user experience will be poor if your pages take a long time to load. 

Hence, a fast online store can significantly increase your search engine rankings and make your store easy for users to navigate.

BigCommerce knows the importance of speed, which is why it optimized its platform for better performance. 

One thing they did (to their credit) is implementing Google AMP on their platform.

Google AMP is short for Google Accelerated Mobile Pages, and it helps to boost the speed and search engine performance of a website.

Moreover, BigCommerce also has other tools that help boost your online store’s performance, such as the Akamai Image Manager. 

The Akamai Image Manager is pre-integrated into the platform, and you can access it with any of the BigCommerce plans. 

This feature helps to optimize all the pictures on your store, further improving your store’s performance and SEO.

BigCommerce Review – Integrations and Add-Ons

As a highly versatile ecommerce platform, BigCommerce allows you to integrate with a wide range of add-ons.

The platform’s easy integration process allows it to support numerous third-party applications.

For instance, you can integrate additional payment gateways into your store to expand your payment processing capacity. 

This feature becomes useful when you are offering products in countries or regions with different payment systems.

Likewise, BigCommerce also allows for easy integration with different shipping platforms. 

This helps expand your business and makes it easy to ship goods to any part of the world. 

You can also integrate an array of marketing tools to boost your business further.

BigCommerce Review – Plugins and Extensions

If you have specific business requirements not supported by the default BigCommerce features, you can extend the platform.

Extending BigCommerce’s platform is done by adding additional extensions or plugins from its App Store.

With numerous plugins and extensions available, you can easily add more functions and features to your online store.

There are different categories of extensions and plugins you can add to your store, including marketing, shipping, CRM, accounting, and more. 

For example, you can integrate MailChimp into your store, a highly functional and useful email marketing tool.

You can also enhance your store’s SEO performance by integrating other SEO tools via extensions and plugins. 

However, these plugins and extensions are not free; they come with a price tag. Some of them are low-priced, while others can be expensive.

BigCommerce has hundreds of plugins and apps on its App Store that you can integrate into your online store. 

While this number seems small compared to other ecommerce platforms such as Shopify or WooCommerce, you can find almost all the apps you need to get your store up and to run.

And if you don’t find the plugin or extension that meets your requirements, you can hire a developer to build one for you.

BigCommerce Review – Themes and Templates

Like other ecommerce platforms, BigCommerce has a theme store full of great themes and templates. 

Templates and themes are essential in every ecommerce platform, as they allow users to create and customize unique-looking stores. 

An online store’s design is fundamental, as it is one of the key features that make it stand out from the crowd.

When visitors visit your online store for the first time, they perceive the store’s look and feel.

BigCommerce provides hundreds of themes you can choose from when customizing your store. 

It offers about a dozen free themes (similar to each other) and hundreds of paid themes.

If you want to create a premium-looking store, then you have to pay for a premium theme. The paid themes are much better looking and customizable. 

However, the paid themes are on the higher end of the price spectrum, with prices ranging from $100 to $250.

Another compelling feature of this platform is that it makes it easy to the right them for your online store.

It allows you to search for themes by the design you want or by industry. 

Similarly, it also allows you to view only “paid BigCommerce themes” or “free BigCommerce themes.” 

Most of the BigCommerce themes and templates are mobile-friendly, and they fit seamlessly into different mobile devices.

BigCommerce Security

BigCommerce allows you to focus on running your business while taking care of your online store’s hosting and security.

With ISO/IEC 27001:2013 and PCI DSS 3.2 certifications, BigCommerce provides multiple security layers for your online store.

So you can rest assured knowing that security policies such as firewalls, intrusion detection, and file integrity scanners are in place.

With this platform’s high-security level, your customers have nothing to worry about their financial and personal information.

BigCommerce also has an enterprise-grade network architecture to protect your online store. 

It also allows you to either buy your own SSL certificate or use a shared SSL certificate.

If you have availability in your budget when creating your online store, I recommend you go for the dedicated SSL certificate option. 

All in all, BigCommerce is highly secured, and security is one of this ecommerce platform’s major selling points.

BigCommerce Review – Hosting Options

When creating an online store, choosing the right web hosting service is very important. 

If you pick the wrong web hosting provider, it can significantly compromise your store’s growth and operations. 

You also have to consider several things such as costs, security, speed, and more.

Fortunately, BigCommerce takes away all this hassle. With this ecommerce platform, you do not have to worry about web hosting. 

BigCommerce handles your online store’s hosting, including maintenance, security, high-availability, etc. 

You get unlimited bandwidth, various layers of security, and great speed. 

Ultimately, this gives you more time to concentrate on your business’s growth and development. 

Another amazing thing about BigCommerce’s hosting is that it boasts of an industry-leading uptime of 99.99 percent. 

It is almost impossible for your online store to go offline with this uptime level unless a major disaster occurs.

BigCommerce Review – SEO

How good are BigCommerce’s SEO features? This is a key question asked by many prospective BigCommerce users. 

Without any doubt, BigCommerce provides you necessary SEO feature you need to rank your product and information pages.

BigCommerce has taken the time to ensure that its platforms handle all SEO basics.

It allows for easy editing of meta descriptions, page titles, and headers.

You can also modify and create product-specific URLs with ease, which you cannot do on some top ecommerce platforms such as Squarespace and Shopify. 

Likewise, you can create shorter URLs, which is great for search engine optimization.

As stated earlier, BigCommerce integrated Google Accelerated Mobile Pages into its platform. 

And this makes your store highly responsive to the screen of different mobile devices. This one feature packs a lot of positive SEO juice.

Moreover, BigCommerce’s image optimization feature helps to optimize your images for fast-loading pages and SEO.

While WooCommerce remains the ecommerce platform of choice from an SEO perspective, BigCommerce is not lagging too much behind.

Overall, BigCommerce’s SEO features are sufficient for the hundreds of thousands of online stores running on the platform.

If not, I’m sure the platform would have lost most of its users, given that the importance of SEO has grown significantly over the past five years.

BigCommerce Review – Mobile-Friendly

No one can run a successful online store without optimizing the store for mobile devices. 

You need to customize your store to make sure people using mobile devices can access and use it. 

As such, you want to make sure you consider mobile-friendliness when looking for the right ecommerce platform to build your online store.

Fortunately, BigCommerce knows that many people use the Internet through their mobile devices and thus provides a mobile-friendly platform.

BigCommerce is mobile-friendly and responsive in design out of the box. 

And along with its built-in mobile-friendliness, the platform offers mobile-friendly themes and templates.

These templates and themes are optimized for mobile devices, which means you don’t have to do any work to make them mobile-friendly.

With the integrated Google AMP, BigCommerce enhances the mobile-friendliness of your online store.

The load time on mobile devices is speedy, and your customers will have a good experience while browsing through your store.

BigCommerce Review – Customer Service

The standard and quality of customer service your ecommerce platform provides can make or break your ecommerce business.

The importance of having highly reliable customer support cannot be overstated.

Fortunately, thousands of BigCommerce’s customers have reviewed the platform’s customer service positively.

BigCommerce offers different customer service channels through which you can contact them and resolve any issues.

The support and help you will get on this platform depend on the package you choose. 

For the Standard plan, you can contact support through live chat support and phone call, which is available 24/7.

You can also reach out to support through email, and they will respond to your email as soon as possible. 

If you do not want to reach them via phone, email, and live chat, you can check out the platform’s online docs and help videos.

The video tutorials will help you run your store much better and resolve any issue you might encounter.

BigCommerce Review – Store Settings

After creating your online store on BigCommerce, you still need to do a couple of things. 

To get your store fully functional, you need to set up and configure various parts of the store. 

For example, after uploading your products, you would need to set up a payment system to enable customers to pay for purchases.

And if you are selling physical products, you would also need to consider your shipping options and configure shipping providers. 

Furthermore, you would also need to set up other things such as discounts & coupons, email, automation, taxes, and more.

1. Payment Processing Options

Payment processing is part of the customer journey. As a result, you need to set up the necessary integrations to enable your customers to pay for their orders.

BigCommerce offers integrations with over 60 payment processors and providers worldwide.

This feature ensures that you don’t miss a payment, regardless of your customers’ region or country. 

For faster payments, this platform supports mobile payments, multiple currencies, and a one-click setup.

You can accept payments from payment providers and gateways, including PayPal, Square, Stripe, Amazon Pay, Adyen, Apple Pay, Authorize.net, etc.

Another positive thing about BigCommerce is that it does not charge any commissions or transaction fees. 

However, you will still incur the normal credit charges from your payment service provider, which is normal across all ecommerce platforms.

If you don’t have a payment processor or provider, you can work with BigCommerce’s payment systems.

BigCommerce’s payment processing fees differ from one plan to another. The higher your plan, the lower your payment processing fees will be. 

Expect the following fees across the different play if you choose to work with BigCommerce’s payment processing system:

• Standard @ 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction
• Plus plan @ 2.5% + $0.30 per transaction
• Pro @ 2.2% + $0.30 per transaction
• Enterprise – the processing fee is lower than 2.2% + $0.30, but it is negotiable.

2. Taxes

Taxes are a fact of line with business, and ecommerce businesses are no exception.

If you’re selling goods and services to regions that require taxes, this needs to reflect on your products’ pricing for that specific order.

For example, this has been a challenge for ecommerce businesses in the United States and Canada, as different states and provinces have different tax rules.

Ecommerce platforms such as BigCommerce support a variety of tax rules.

And BigCommerce designed its ecommerce platform to help ease the challenges of different tax rates for different states and provinces.

With BigCommerce, you can set automatic tax rates for these countries and states/provinces, saving you a lot of time.

Nevertheless, you will need to integrate third-party applications such as Avalara, Taxjar, or Vertex to facilitate this process. 

Unfortunately, some of these third-party apps are not free; you will have to pay for them.

If you’re selling digital products to customers in the EU, you need to familiarize yourself with VAT Mini One Stop Shop – VAT MOSS.

This requires you to apply VAT rates of different countries to your digital products. 

Unfortunately, there is no automatic way of doing this on BigCommerce like other top platforms such as Shopify. 

So this means you have to input the rates manually.

3. Discounts and Coupons

Discounts and coupons are an essential marketing strategy for every ecommerce business.

If you want to attract more customers and make more sales, you need to offer discounts and coupons. 

BigCommerce allows for the creation of discounts and coupon codes. 

You can create as many coupons as you want to offer your customers discounts on certain products.

You can also create coupons for specific products or product categories in your online store. 

The coupons can also be for new users, returning users, or all your customers. 

Interestingly, you have access to this feature in all the plans, including the least expensive plan – Standard. 

You can also sell gift cards to your customers. These gift cards are purchased at sent as gifts for redemption at your online store.

The processing of setting up a discount coupon code is rather simple. Here is how to create a coupon code:

• From your main dashboard, go to Marketing > Coupons and click Create a Coupon Code.   You will see a dialog box for you to fill out the coupon code and coupon name.
• Fill out the coupon details by choosing the discount type and entering the coupon amount.
• Choose the restrictions of the coupon – such as minimum purchases, number of uses, and more.
• Enter the enablement and expiry date of the coupon.
• Save your changes.

You can also choose Advanced Settings and limit the coupon by shipping method or location.

4. Shipping Options

You also need to set your shipping options before you can start selling with BigCommerce.

BigCommerce allows you to set up a wide range of shipping methods and rules. 

Likewise, the platform allows you to set up flat shipping rates, free shipping rates, price-based rates, in-store pickup, weight-based rates, as well as real-time shipping rates (via third-party carriers).

The third-party real-time shipping rates of BigCommerce are much competitively priced than many ecommerce platforms. 

Interestingly, this feature is available on all plans, something you will not find in most of its rivals. 

Other top platforms only offer this feature in their most expensive plans.

Nevertheless, BigCommerce does not allow you to offer discounted shipping rates for customers in certain regions and countries. 

Wix, Shopify, and other top ecommerce platforms also offer this feature.

Setting up your shipping options on BigCommerce is also very easy. To get started, from your main admin dashboard, go to Store Setup > Shipping. 

If you are new to BigCommerce, a setup wizard will guide you through the process of configuring your online store. 

You need to set your shipping origin, which is where you are shipping from, and then set your shipping zones, which are locations you ship to.

So you can configure your shipping zones as a group of countries, a single country, zip/postcodes, or one/multiple provinces/states.

5. Email Automation

BigCommerce provides you a way of staying in touch with your customers before and after patronizing your store. 

You can set up automated email messages to thank and appreciate your customers for their business.

This little gesture goes a long way, as it shows your customers that their purchases mean a lot to you.

You can also set automatic email messages to alert your customers of new products or items’ availability.

This email feature also comes in the communications of online promotions and coupon deals. 

You can use it to send coupons (when available) to your customers, and this will lure them back to your store.

To do this, you can utilize the different email marketing services through apps and add-ons. 

Some of the top email marketing service apps on this platform include:

• Klaviyo
• dotDigital
• MailChimp
• Justuno
• Privy
• Ominisend

6. Analytics and Reporting

BigCommerce provides a suite of analytics and reporting capabilities that enable you to keep track of your ecommerce business.

Such insights allow you to learn where your customers are coming from, how much they spend, their last purchase, and the percentage of returning vs. new customers.

You also get marketing reports that inform you of how you acquire your customers.

Such insights help you know your marketing campaign’s effectiveness – you will see which campaign is working and not.

With BigCommerce’s analytics and reporting tools, you can access search data reports – the phrases or words people use when looking for products in your online store.

You will also have access to financial reports such as tax and sales reports. 

If you choose a plan that supports abandoned cart recovery, you will get abandoned cart reports.

And if you have the budget available, you can subscribe to the “E-commerce Insights” report.

The E-commerce Insights gives you more detailed information about your products, customers, and abandoned carts.

Different BigCommerce subscription plans have different access fees for “Insights Reports.” 

For the Standard and Plus plans, you can access this additional feature for $49 per month. 

Whereas for the Pro plan, you can access this feature for $99 per month. And the feature costs $249 per month on the Enterprise plan.

Examples of Successful Websites Running on BigCommerce

BigCommerce powers hundreds of thousands of ecommerce stores daily.

And this BigCommerce review guide won’t be complete without mentioning some of them.

The platform has consistently empowered entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes to build professional online stores.

Here are some of the amazing websites and stores running on the BigCommerce platform.

1. Skullcandy

Skullcandy is one of the most amazing websites on this platform. It has a stunning and beautiful design. 

The theme and layout of the site are top-notch. This store sells high-quality earphones, headphones, and more. 

Skullcandy is a trendy brand that specializes in providing high-quality audio equipment.

The store also reflects the attention to detail and style of the company. It is easy to navigate, and it loads very fast. 

Skullcandy’s website is also optimized for mobile devices, making it easy for people to shop with their mobile phones.

2. Tommie Copper

Tommie Copper is another example of a leading global brand using BigCommerce to power its ecommerce operations.

The company is into the manufacturer, sales, and distribution of comfortable compression clothing for men and women.

Upon visiting their website, visitors are presented with an intuitive design that makes it easy to navigate and find products.

You can search for products using the search function or navigate Men and Women product categories to find what suits you.

3. White Shanty

White Shanty is another highly successful website on the BigCommerce platform. 

This website has a simple and well-detailed design. With a glance at the homepage, you can easily tell what the site is all about. 

They provide high-quality handcrafted sliding band doors and offer incentives such as free shipping and discounts to entice customers to buy.

The site is split into different categories, making it easy for you to find your way around. 

One of the most refreshing features of this store is that it allows customers to customize their barn doors online, and all of these are done on the BigCommerce platform.

4. Cutter & Buck

Cutter & Buck is designed for fashion lovers. This store offers a wide collection of clothing for both men and ladies. 

The store loads very quickly, thanks to its simple and optimized design. 

This brand placed its UVP at the top of the page, and it is the first thing you will see when you visit the store. 

Cutter & Buck is offering free shipping for customers that spend a minimum of $50 in the store to make the store more attractive.

5. Hanna Instruments

Hanna Instruments is another highly functional website built on the BigCommerce platform. 

This store offers a wide range of premium quality analytical instruments. 

The homepage is straightforward, and it has a slideshow of some of the pieces of equipment they sell.

You can explore the site and find the instrument you are looking for with ease.

6. Camelbak

Camelbak is an Australian-based company offering products targeted at adventure lovers.

The store offers many accessories their target audience need while on an adventure or outdoor sports. 

They sell sports gear, insulated water bottles, packs, and more. 

It has an easily accessible navigation panel at the top of the page and a slideshow of different high-quality images.

BigCommerce Frequent Asked Questions (FAQs)

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions we get on BigCommerce.

If you have any questions about the platform, please leave a comment below or contact us.

BigCommerce Review – Final Thoughts

I hope this BigCommerce review guide has added to your existing (or non-existent) knowledge of BigCommerce.

BigCommerce is among the leading ecommerce platforms globally, with hundreds of thousands of online stores relying on it for operations. 

The platform’s subscription pricing options, great features, functionalities, security, and performance benchmarks make it very popular.

It competes pretty well with leading platforms such as Shopify or WooCommerce.

However, if you’re a small business, you’ll find Shopify and WooCommerce might be better suited for you from an ease-of-use perspective.

Nevertheless, BigCommerce has a subscription plan for every business size and allows for scalability.

Are you using BigCommerce or considering using it for your ecommerce business? Please leave a comment below or ask questions regarding this BigCommerce review guide.