How BigCommerce Can Support You Sell Omnichannel

This article will explore how BigCommerce omnichannel marketing & operation strategies can transform how retailers engage with customers across multiple platforms.

How BigCommerce Features Support Omnichannel Selling?

Inventory and Sales Management Support

With BigCommerce and POS systems, you can keep track of your store and online sales together. If something sells anywhere, your stock list updates everywhere. This keeps your sales smooth and customers happy because your store always knows what’s available.

Customer Survey Insights

Through BigCommerce’s advanced SEO and marketing tools, retailers can collect detailed customer qualitative and quantitative data, shaping buyer personas around geography, age, and shopping preferences. 

This information helps businesses tailor their offerings and marketing messages to meet customer expectations across multiple channels, improving satisfaction and loyalty.

Social Media Engagement

BigCommerce connects with social media, so you can talk to your customers where they hang out to raise customer engagement. For example, if your customers are young and into fashion, you can use Instagram to show off your products and chat with them. You can catch their attention and bring them to your store.

Email Marketing Campaigns

BigCommerce helps you make email ads that work well on phones and computers. Your emails will look good and be easy to read, making it simple for people to click and visit your store. This is a smart way to keep in touch and get customers to shop more.

Customer Service Improvement

Good customer service is critical, and BigCommerce understands this as they provide customer support in excellent quality. If there’s a problem, you can quickly fix it with an excellent reply or a special offer. Making customers happy can turn a bad review into a good one, and BigCommerce makes this easier by keeping your service top-notch.

How to implement Omnichannel Retail with BigCommerce?

Implementing an effective omnichannel retail strategy with BigCommerce involves careful planning and execution. Here’s a step-by-step guide to ensure a seamless omnichannel setup:

Step 1: Plan Your Omnichannel Strategy

• Identify Sales Channels: Determine which channels you will sell on, including your online store, marketplaces (like Amazon and eBay), social media platforms (like Facebook and Instagram), and any physical stores.
• Understand Your Audience: Research your target customer base for shopping habits and preferences. This will help you tailor your approach to each channel.
• Define Your Goals: Set clear objectives for what you want to achieve with your integrated omnichannel strategy empowers, such as increasing sales, improving customer experience, or expanding your market reach.

Step 2: Sign Up and Set Up Your BigCommerce Store

• Visit BigCommerce: Navigate to the BigCommerce website.
• Sign Up for an Account: Click the “Sign Up” button and enter the required details to create your account.

• Choose Your Plan: Select a subscription plan that aligns with your business size and needs.

• Configure Your Store: Complete the setup wizard. This will involve specifying your store name, preferred currency, shipping methods, and tax settings. Follow the prompts to ensure your store is configured correctly from the start.

Step 3: Add Your Products

• Navigate to Products: In the BigCommerce dashboard, go to “Products” and select “Add“.

• Enter Product Details: You’ll be taken to a product detail form. Here, fill in the essential details about your product, including:

1. Product Name: The name of your product as you want it to appear online.

2. SKU (Stock Keeping Unit): A unique identifier for each product.

3. Type: Specify if it’s a physical or digital product.

4. Price: The selling price of the product.

5. Brand: The brand name of the product, if applicable.

6. Images: Upload high-quality images to represent your product visually.

7. Descriptions: Provide a detailed and attractive description of your product. Include features, benefits, and any other relevant information.

Note: Ensure that the information is comprehensive and consistent across multiple channels.

Step 4: Integrate Your Sales Channels

• Access Channel Manager: In the BigCommerce dashboard, look for the “Channel Manager” section. This area is designed for managing your sales across different platforms.
• Connect to Marketplaces and Social Media:

1. Within the Channel Manager, find options to link your store with major marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay.

2. You can also integrate with social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. Follow the on-screen instructions to establish these connections.

• Integrate a POS System for Physical Stores: 

1. If you have a brick-and-mortar store, go to BigCommerce’s App Marketplace. Here, you can find POS applications that work with BigCommerce.

2. Choose an app that suits your in-store needs. Then, follow the provided installation and setup instructions to integrate your physical store’s sales with your BigCommerce account.

Step 5: Manage Your Inventory

• Centralize Inventory: Use BigCommerce’s inventory management features or a third-party App Marketplace app to track stock levels across all marketing and advertising channels.

• Set Up Automated Updates: Ensure your inventory & own marketplace system is configured to automatically update stock levels across multiple channels after each sale to maintain accuracy.

Step 6: Optimize Your Online Presence

• SEO and Marketing Tools: Utilize BigCommerce’s built-in SEO and marketing tools to enhance online visibility. This includes optimizing product pages for search engines and using social media integrations to engage customers.
• Personalize the Shopping Experience: Take advantage of BigCommerce’s customization options to create personalized shopping experiences. This can include targeted promotions and customized product recommendations.

Step 7: Streamline Order and Customer Management

• Centralize Order Management: Use the BigCommerce dashboard to process orders from all sales channels in one place, ensuring a consistent and efficient fulfillment process.
• Unified Customer Support: Aggregate customer data within BigCommerce to provide seamless support. Ensure cross channel customer support accesses a customer’s order history and assists customers in interacting across sales and marketing channels.

Step 8: Analyze Performance and Optimize

• Monitor Analytics: Regularly review BigCommerce analytics and reports to understand sales patterns, customer behavior, and inventory status across all channels.

• Adjust Your Strategy: Use insights gained from analytics to refine your omnichannel commerce strategy. This may involve adding new sales channels, adjusting inventory levels, or tailoring marketing and ecommerce efforts.

Step 9: Stay Updated and Adapt

• Follow BigCommerce Updates: BigCommerce frequently updates its platform and integrations. Stay informed about new features or changes that could affect your omnichannel commerce strategy.
• Iterate and Innovate: The market and customer preferences evolve, so regularly review your marketing strategy and be prepared to adapt to new trends or technologies.

Following these steps, you can implement a detailed and effective omnichannel commerce retail strategy with BigCommerce, ensuring a cohesive shopping experience for your customers across all touchpoints.

Critical features of BigCommerce Omnichannel selling

When diving into omnichannel commerce selling, BigCommerce is a versatile platform that simplifies the complex nature of selling across various channels. Here’s how BigCommerce can enhance your omnichannel marketing strategy with its key features:

• Multi-Channel Management: Sell everywhere your customers are. BigCommerce makes connecting with marketplaces like Amazon and eBay and social media giants like Facebook and Instagram easy. This free and smooth integration means you can manage all these platforms from one dashboard, saving time and hassle.
• POS Integration: Create a seamless shopping experience, whether online or in-store. With BigCommerce’s POS integration, your sales channels are unified. This means your inventory is always up to date, regardless of where a sale is made.
• Detailed Product Management: Showcase products with up to 250 options and 600 variants, providing customers with a wide selection and detailed product information. This depth enhances customer satisfaction and decision-making across every channel.
• Headless Commerce Capabilities: Flexibility is key in today’s market. BigCommerce supports headless commerce, allowing you to separate the front end of your website from the back end. This allows you to customize shopping experiences on different devices without constraints.
• B2B and Wholesale Functionality: Not just for B2C retailers, BigCommerce caters to B2B and wholesale needs too. Features like custom pricing, bulk order management, data feed management service and segmented customer groups address the unique challenges of B2B selling, making it easier to manage and scale your ecommerce business.
• Advanced SEO and Marketing Tools: Get found by more customers. BigCommerce comes packed with SEO and marketing tools that help increase your visibility online. These tools, from optimized product pages to social media integrations, are designed to attract more traffic and convert visitors into customers.
• Flexible Shipping Options: Offer customers multiple shipping choices, including free and flat rates and real-time carrier rates. Flexible shipping enhances the buying experience, encouraging loyalty and repeat purchases across traditional and digital channels.
• International Selling: Go global with BigCommerce. With support for multi-currency transactions, localized payment methods, and global shipping options, BigCommerce breaks down the barriers to international selling, making reaching customers worldwide easier.

By leveraging BigCommerce’s omnichannel commerce and multichannel sellers capabilities, businesses can simplify multi-channel management, create seamless shopping experiences, and grow their domestic and international customer base.

Examples of BigCommerce Omnichannel Retailers

Tradelink

Tradelink rejuvenated its 150-year retail heritage by embracing BigCommerce for its ecommerce operations in November 2020, addressing the need for a digital version of its in-store experience across over 200 branches. This transition allowed Tradelink to deliver a seamless online service to its B2B, B2C, and B2G clients, featuring a virtual showroom and efficient search capabilities. 

The company’s choice of BigCommerce, renowned for its speed, flexibility, and extensive features, including an open API, was pivotal in modernizing and improving customer journey for large-scale retail operations.

Skullcandy

Transitioning to BigCommerce with The ZaneRay Group’s help, Skullcandy launched seven international sites swiftly, achieving the agility and cost-efficiency needed for its cutting-edge audio products. This move allowed Skullcandy to execute global campaigns efficiently, enter new markets like gaming, and offer limited editions while maintaining a robust online presence.

The shift to BigCommerce highlights the platform’s ability to support innovation and global expansion without compromising features. BigCommerce’s versatility in facilitating rapid and diverse online campaigns demonstrates its capacity to help brands like Skullcandy grow their ecommerce footprint while ensuring high-quality and engaging customer experiences.

Yeti Cycles

Yeti Cycles simplified its ecommerce by switching to BigCommerce from a complex Salesforce and Magento setup, adopting headless commerce with ZaneRay’s help for better operations and ERP integration. 

This move enhanced both B2B and direct sales, showcasing BigCommerce’s flexibility and the importance of a versatile platform for rapid growth and maintaining quality customer interactions online.

To sum up

BigCommerce omnichannel retail resources solutions offer businesses a cohesive way to connect with their audience, no matter where customers shop. By leveraging integrations, inventory management, and personalized customer experiences, BigCommerce empowers retailers to scale globally and efficiently meet their customers’ needs. 

Bigcommerce omnichannel: FAQs