BigCommerce Review 2024: Pricing, Features, Pros & Cons

In this post, we’ll dive into an exhaustive review of BigCommerce for 2024, covering its pricing, and features and weighing its pros and cons.

Pros and Cons of BigCommerce

Here’s a breakdown of the pros and cons of BigCommerce review:

Pros

• Comprehensive Entry-Level Feature Set: BigCommerce provides extensive features even at its entry-level plans, ensuring businesses have the tools they need to start strong.
• Multi-Storefront Feature Value: The platform allows for managing multiple storefronts from a single account, a significant advantage for businesses looking to expand into different markets or niches.
• Ease of Selling in Multiple Currencies: BigCommerce facilitates global commerce by simplifying the selling process in multiple currencies, enhancing the customer experience for international shoppers.
• Availability of Third-Party Real-Time Shipping Calculations: This feature enables accurate shipping costs from various carriers in real-time, improving checkout efficiency and customer satisfaction.
• Absence of Transaction Fees for Third-Party Payments: Unlike some competitors, BigCommerce charge transaction fees at ZERO cost for using third-party payment gateways, which means the service is completely free to use.
• Inclusive Reporting Tools Across Plans: Businesses of all sizes can access comprehensive reporting tools, aiding in informed decision-making.
• Simplicity in Custom Field Creation & Customer File Upload Functionality: These features provide flexibility in product listings and enhance customer interaction, respectively.
• Built-in Product Review Capability & Drag-and-Drop Page Builder Functionality: Both features enhance the user experience, with reviews boosting product confidence and the page builder facilitating easy e commerce site customization.
• Strong SEO Features & Unlimited Staff Account Provision: BigCommerce is designed to boost search engine visibility and accommodate growing teams, respectively.
• Integrated Blogging Platform: This feature supports content marketing strategies directly from the e-commerce platform.
• Flexibility for Varied Product Variants & GDPR-Compliant Cookie Consent Feature: BigCommerce supports complex product catalogs and ensures compliance with data protection regulations.
• Free Trial Offering: Businesses can test the platform before committing financially, reducing initial risk.

Cons

• Sales Limit-Related Plan Upgrade Requirement: Businesses must upgrade their plans upon reaching certain sales thresholds, potentially increasing costs unexpectedly.
• Diversity-Lacking Free Themes & Limited Free Theme Typefaces: The selection of free BigCommerce themes and typefaces might not meet the needs or preferences of all businesses.
• Custom Typeface Support Absence in Page Builder Widgets: This limitation can hinder brand consistency across the website.
• Abandoned Cart Functionality Cost: This essential e-commerce feature incurs additional costs, affecting smaller businesses disproportionately.
• Lack of Shipping Discounts & Editability of Free Templates: Businesses might face higher shipping costs and limited design flexibility.
• Absence of Automatic Inventory Categorization Smart Product Rules & RSS Feed Support in the Blog: These missing features could impact product management efficiency and content distribution strategies.
• Inadequate VAT MOSS Tax Rate Support: Businesses selling digital goods in the EU might find the platform’s tax management features lacking.

BigCommerce Pricing

Before committing to a plan, BigCommerce allows potential users to explore its features through a 15-day free trial, providing a risk-free opportunity to assess the platform’s compatibility with their business needs. 

Here’s a breakdown of BigCommerce’s subscription plans, each designed to cater to various stages of business growth:

You can enjoy a 25% discount on your subscription when you choose the annual option for BigCommerce’s Standard, Pro, or Plus plans, compared to the monthly payment option. We explain this in detail in this post about BigCommerce Pricing.

Additional themes & apps pricing

While using BigCommerce, you’ll find that additional fees apply for apps and themes. If you’re looking to elevate your store’s appearance and functionality, the BigCommerce premium themes, priced between $135 and $300, are a one-time investment that can set your brand apart. 

The BigCommerce app market offers marketing, sales strategies, SEO, and business management integrations to enhance your online store further. While some apps are free, other common BigCommerce app options like Google Shopping or ShipStation may incur monthly fees between $9 to $50.

Here’s who can benefit most from each of BigCommerce’s packages:

• Standard: Ideal for new or small online stores just starting.
• Pro: Perfect for businesses focused on growth and expanding their e-commerce reach.
• Plus: Tailored for scaling businesses needing advanced tools for comprehensive management.
• Enterprise: Designed for established companies with annual sales exceeding $400k, looking for a custom solution.

BigCommerce Ease Of Use

BigCommerce is celebrated for its user-friendly platform, making it an excellent choice for merchants of all skill levels. Here’s a breakdown of its ease of use:

• Drag-and-drop page builder

BigCommerce simplifies building and customizing your online store with its intuitive drag-and-drop page builder. This feature allows users to easily create professional-looking pages regardless of their technical expertise.

By dragging elements to the desired location on the page, you can quickly add products, images, and text, making it straightforward to design your store exactly how you envision it.

• Ready-made templates

BigCommerce offers a wide range of ready-made templates to ease the setup process. These templates provide a solid foundation for your online store, ensuring that it looks great from the start. 

Whether launching a new business or refreshing an existing one, you can select from various styles and themes that best fit your brand’s aesthetic, significantly reducing the time and effort needed for design.

• Design and customization

BigCommerce stands out for its robust web design and customization capabilities. Beyond the initial templates, you can tweak and tailor almost every aspect of your site to match your brand perfectly. 

From adjusting colors and fonts to reconfiguring layouts and adding custom CSS, BigCommerce gives you the tools to create a unique and engaging online presence that captivates your audience.

• Mobile app

Understanding the need for business mobility, BigCommerce offers a mobile app to manage your store on the go. 

Whether you’re away from your desk or in the middle of a busy day, the mobile app provides critical functionalities like updating products, managing orders, and responding to customer inquiries. 

BigCommerce Sales Features

BigCommerce offers a comprehensive suite of sales features designed to support businesses in expanding their online presence and increasing their revenue. Here’s a brief overview of some of the critical sales features available:

Abandoned Cart Recovery

BigCommerce’s Abandoned Cart Recovery is a powerful tool designed to re-engage customers who have left items in their carts without completing a purchase. BigCommerce’s abandoned cart feature lets you send three automated emails to site visitors who abandon their carts. 

This abandoned cart recovery feature automatically sends follow-up emails to potential customers, reminding them of their unfinished transactions. 

POS

BigCommerce may process payments and synchronize inventory levels when operating a physical business (retail store, market stall, pop-up shop, etc.). You need to build connections with outside POS suppliers to sell at the point of sale as BigCommerce is not equipped with POS built-in functionality.

The list of POS providers that BigCommerce stores can take advantage of include:

• Square
• Clover
• Hike
• PayPal
• Zettle
• Heartland Retail
• ConnectPOS
• Vend

App Integration

BigCommerce’s extensive app integration capability enables businesses to extend the combined enterprise functionality of their online store by connecting with a wide range of third-party applications and services. You can view the BigCommerce app store and see which apps can be a part of your online store. 

Shipping

The shipping features in BigCommerce are designed to simplify logistics for merchants. Offering integration with major shipping carriers and access to discounted rates, the platform enables businesses to provide customers with multiple shipping options and real-time rate calculations. 

Currently, BigCommerce offers users a wide range of shipping options, including:

• Free shipping rates
• Flat rates
• Price-based rates
• Weight-based rates
• In-store pickup
• Real-time shipping rates from third-party carriers.

Product Management

With BigCommerce, you can generate up to 250 product variations per product, unlike its rival, Shopify, which only lets you show customers three options without requiring coding or paying for other apps.

You may display a product in up to 600 versions using BigCommerce’s liberal product variant limit.

Overall, product management in BigCommerce is intuitive and comprehensive, allowing users to add, edit, and organize products easily. With features like bulk import/export, inventory tracking, and detailed product customization, merchants can efficiently manage their product offerings. 

Dropshipping

BigCommerce supports dropshipping by integrating with leading dropship providers, enabling merchants to sell products without holding physical inventory. 

Specifically, you must install a third-party app from BigCommerce’s app market to perform dropshipping activities. There are about 29 applications available to assist you with dropshipping with BigCommerce.

Here are some common dropshipping options you can consider for your BigCommerce store:

• Ali-Express Dropshipping
• Spocket
• Wholesale2B
• Inventory Source
• Pop Customs
• CustomCat
• Syncee

Multiple sales channels

With BigCommerce, businesses can expand their reach beyond their website by selling on multiple sales channels, including social media platforms, online marketplaces, and brick-and-mortar stores. 

This omnichannel approach ensures that products are visible to a wider audience, increasing opportunities for sales. Additionally, centralizing operations through BigCommerce streamlines management across channels, saving time and reducing the complexity of running an e-commerce business.

International Selling

BigCommerce equips merchants with the tools to sell globally, including multi-currency support, international shipping, and localization options. 

Although BigCommerce lacks built-in multilingual features, you may still use the platform to sell in several languages because of an interface with Weglot, a popular translation tool. The Weglot app will incur additional costs in addition to your BigCommerce expenses.

By breaking down geographical barriers, businesses can tap into new markets and diversify their customer base. 

Tax Calculation

To simplify the complexities of tax compliance, BigCommerce offers automated tax calculation features. This ensures that the correct amount of tax is applied to sales based on the latest regulations, reducing the risk of errors and non-compliance. 

It benefits users by saving time, reducing administrative burdens, and providing peace of mind that tax obligations are being met accurately.

Payment Options

There are two ways to apply  credit card payments in your BigCommerce store:

1. Paypal powered by Braintree: The default payment gateway in BigCommerce. You need to pay credit card processing BigCommerce fees when accepting credit card payments in BigCommerce. 

The US rates are currently as follows:

• BigCommerce Standard: 2.59% + 49c
• BigCommerce Plus: 2.35% + 49c
• BigCommerce Pro: 2.05% + 49c
• BigCommerce Enterprise: 2.05% + 49c

Note: Fees vary depending on the country. 

2. Third-party payment processor

BigCommerce supports 49 third-party payment processors, such as Squarespace  Payments, Stripe, and Paypal

BigCommerce Marketing & SEO tools

Here’s how BigCommerce empowers businesses with its marketing and SEO capabilities:

SEO

BigCommerce shines in its Search Engine Optimization (SEO) capabilities with features like editing page titles, meta descriptions, and headers, which are crucial for ranking in search results.

The platform simplifies the process of modifying URLs and setting up 301 redirects, which is vital when a page’s URL changes, safeguarding your site’s rankings. Moreover, BigCommerce’s automatic image optimization feature helps enhance page load speed effectively. 

Email Marketing

BigCommerce does not directly provide an email marketing service to its store owners. The users are required to install external email marketing apps/ services and integrate it with their BigCommerce stores to utilize the service. 

BigCommerce integrates with various third-party email marketing services, allowing users to choose a solution that best fits their marketing strategy and needs. 

Built-in Blog

BigCommerce’s blogging functionality supports online stores by providing a dedicated area for creating and managing blog posts. This feature enables merchants to share news, insights, tips, and stories directly on their websites, helping to engage customers, improve SEO, and drive traffic. 

BigCommerce Customer Support & Security

BigCommerce Customer Service

BigCommerce offers fantastic customer service, providing numerous resources and support emails for a seamless onboarding experience. Subscribers enjoy 24/7 live support via phone, email, or chat, with easy access to phone assistance in multiple countries. 

Additionally, for self-service enthusiasts, there’s a wealth of video and text guides, a community forum, and BigCommerce University for further learning, all available in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

Security Measures

When securing your online store, BigCommerce takes the lead, so you don’t have to stress. Beyond the essential advice of creating strong passwords and keeping them confidential, the responsibility of safeguarding your store falls to BigCommerce. The platform ensures top-notch security by employing several key measures:

• PCI Compliance: Adherence to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) ensures that credit card information is processed, stored, and transmitted securely.
• 2-Factor Authentication: This added layer of security requires not just a password and username but also something only the user has on them, i.e., a piece of information they could know or have immediately to hand – adding an extra layer of security.
• SSL Certification: Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption creates a secure link between a website and a visitor’s browser, ensuring that all data passed between them remains private and integral.

These security features demonstrate BigCommerce’s commitment to maintaining a secure and trustworthy platform for its users and customers, making it a reliable choice for businesses of all sizes.

BigCommerce Report & Analytics

BigCommerce offers a comprehensive suite of analytics and reporting tools to help businesses understand their performance, customer behaviors, and market trends. Here’s an overview of what BigCommerce brings regarding analytics and reporting:

Standard Reports

BigCommerce equips users with an array of standard reports right out of the box, covering critical areas of e-commerce operations:

• Customer Reports: Analyze where your customers originate, the balance between new and returning customers, their total spending, and their most recent orders.
• Marketing Reports: Understand how you’re acquiring customers and the effectiveness of your marketing strategies.
• Search Data Reports: Gain insights into customers’ queries to search for products within your store.
• Finance Reports: Keep track of sales, taxes, and other financial metrics crucial for your business.
• Abandoned Cart Reports: Identify potentially lost sales and understand the reasons behind cart abandonment to devise strategies to recover these sales. (Note: Availability depends on your plan.)

For those looking for deeper insights, BigCommerce offers the ‘Ecommerce Insights’ report as an optional upgrade. This premium report delves into more detailed information regarding customer behaviors, product performance, and abandoned cart analytics. The cost of this report varies by plan:

• Standard and Plus plan: Available for an additional $49 per month.
• Pro plan: Available for $99 per month.
• Enterprise plan: Available for $249 per month.

Leveraging Google Analytics

Beyond the native reporting tools, BigCommerce users can further enhance their analytics capabilities by integrating Google Analytics. This integration allows for detailed tracking of user behavior, goal setting, and conversion measurement, offering a more granular view of your store’s performance.

BigCommerce Customer Reviews

BigCommerce boasts a solid 4.2 out of 5 stars on G2 and an impressive 4.4 overall rating on Capterra. These scores reflect widespread appreciation among users for the platform’s exceptional functionality, user-friendliness, and scalability.

Let’s explore some user feedback from G2 and Capterra platforms:

• “It stands out as one of the top e-commerce solutions for businesses looking to grow.”
• “The platform is user-friendly and scalable, making it a go-to choice.”
• “BigCommerce wins with its straightforwardness and ease of navigation.”
• “It equips businesses of varying sizes with the tools to streamline their e-commerce operations efficiently.”
• “While it may not be the most renowned name in the e-commerce space, its utility for users and developers is commendable.”
• “Offers excellent opportunities for customization with its versatile templates.”
• “Provides a robust e-commerce shopping cart solution, boasting more built-in features than competitors like Shopify.”

These testimonials highlight BigCommerce’s reputation as one of the most reliable and scalable ecommerce platforms capable of meeting diverse business needs quickly and efficiently.

Who Should Use BigCommerce?

BigCommerce is designed to serve a wide range of industries and business sizes, making it a versatile choice for many. Specifically, it’s well-suited for:

Industries

• Retail and E-commerce: With strong support for product variations, inventory management, and multi-channel sales, BigCommerce is ideal for retail businesses looking to expand online.
• Manufacturing and Wholesale: The ecommerce platform’s ability to handle complex BigCommerce pricing models and bulk ordering processes caters well to manufacturing and wholesale industries.
• Fashion and Apparel: BigCommerce’s robust product management and customizable themes make it a strong fit for the fashion sector, often requiring a visually appealing online presence alongside detailed product variations​​​​.
• Health and Beauty: The industry benefits from BigCommerce’s SEO capabilities and integrations with review and loyalty program apps, important for building trust and recurring business​​​​.

Business Size

• Medium to Large Businesses: These businesses benefit from the platform’s advanced analytics, international selling capabilities, and extensive API support for custom integrations​​​​.
• Small Businesses Ready to Scale: Small businesses with aspirations to grow quickly will find BigCommerce’s scalability beneficial. The ecommerce platform supports small companies out of the box but is especially valuable for those looking to expand their market reach and optimize their operations.

BigCommerce Alternatives

BigCommerce is a prominent choice among online retailers for its comprehensive features, scalability, and intense focus on SEO. However, depending on your business needs, budget, and the level of customization you’re looking for, there are several BigCommerce alternatives to consider.

Shopify

Both ecommerce platforms offer similar pricing structures, with Shopify’s and BigCommerce’s entry-level plans starting at around $29/month. However, Shopify charges additional transaction fees if not using Shopify Payments, whereas BigCommerce does not charge transaction fees​​​​.

BigCommerce is known for its comprehensive built-in features and is particularly strong in SEO capabilities. Shopify excels with its user-friendly interface and extensive app marketplace, offering more customization options through third-party apps​​.

BigCommerce caters to medium to larger businesses looking for scalability without requiring numerous add-ons. Shopify serves a broad audience but is particularly popular among entrepreneurs and small businesses due to its ease of use and flexibility​​.

Wix

Wix offers a more affordable entry-level plan than BigCommerce, suitable for smaller operations. Wix’s plans start lower but can be added with additional apps and services​​​​.

While Wix is highly regarded for its drag-and-drop site builder and design flexibility, BigCommerce offers more advanced e-commerce features and capabilities out of the box, especially for scaling businesses​​​​.

Wix caters to small businesses and individuals seeking ease of use and creative control over their site design. BigCommerce is aimed at businesses focused on growth and scalability, requiring more complex e-commerce functionalities​​.

Squarespace

Squarespace plans are generally in line with BigCommerce, though Squarespace emphasizes simplicity and design, potentially leading to lower initial costs for businesses prioritizing aesthetics​​.

Squarespace is known for its stunning templates and design-centric approach, making it ideal for creatives and small retailers. BigCommerce offers a more robust set of e-commerce tools and features for businesses with complex needs or planning to scale quickly​​.

Squarespace best suits small businesses, artists, and entrepreneurs who value design and simplicity. BigCommerce is targeted at more growth-focused retailers needing advanced e-commerce features and scalability​​.

Final Thought

Our comprehensive BigCommerce review for 2024 highlights its robust feature set, flexible pricing options, and the balance between its strengths and weaknesses. Whether launching a new online store or considering an ecommerce platform switch, BigCommerce offers compelling reasons to be your go-to choice in the evolving eCommerce landscape.

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