BigCommerce Review
Style Factory
E-commerce, web design and digital marketing advice and resources for growing businesses.
In this quick BigCommerce review, I’m going to spell out six key reasons why you might want to use the platform, and six key reasons why you might want to consider an alternative.
Let's dive in.
Please note: we independently review all products in our comparisons. But when you buy through our links, we may earn a commission.
Reasons to use BigCommerce
1. BigCommerce gives you a lot of ecommerce bang for your buck
With BigCommerce, you get a lot of important ecommerce features included as standard.
Key features that you’ll find bundled in BigCommerce’s entry-level plan include:
You generally won’t find all these features included with the entry-level plans of other online store builders; many will require you to upgrade to a higher plan to access them, or install add-ons to do so.
You can view a full list of BigCommerce features by plan here.
2. BigCommerce lets you build multiple stores using just one subscription
A fundamental difference between BigCommerce and competing ecommerce platforms involves the number of stores you can create on each plan.
With BigCommerce, you get the option to build 3, 5 and 8 stores on its ‘Standard,’ ‘Plus’ and ‘Pro’ plans respectively. These can be extremely useful for merchants who operate under multiple brands or who serve multiple segments (B2C, B2B, retail wholesale etc).
To get this sort of multi-store functionality with competing solutions, you generally have to be on super-expensive enterprise plans. So for me, this capability to manage multiple stores under one account is one of the key advantages —?arguably the key advantage — that BigCommerce offers over its rivals.
3. BigCommerce doesn’t charge transaction fees
Unlike other big-name ecommerce solutions, BigCommerce doesn’t charge transaction fees on any of its plans. This means that you don’t have to worry about anyone taking a cut of your sales, and you’ll have more flexibility over profit margins.
4. BigCommerce is very good for selling in multiple currencies
Displaying product prices in your store visitors’ own currency can really boost sales., and this is really easy to do with BigCommerce.
The platform uses geolocation to display prices in local currencies automatically, and it facilitates checkout in your store visitors’ own currencies too.
For context, competing platforms don't always facilitate this full, end-to-end, multi-currency selling. Wix, for example, lets you display prices in local currencies, but doesn't let users check out in them. And Squarespace doesn't facilitate multi-currency selling at all.
5. BigCommerce makes it easy to capture custom data at checkout
Some merchants require their store visitors to enter custom data at the point of purchase — for example, a jeweler might need some text from a customer for an inscription, or an artist might need a photo for a portrait.
Unlike key competing ecommerce platforms (which often require the addition of an app or some coding to facilitate this) BigCommerce makes this very easy to do out of the box (see screenshot below to get a sense of the setup process involved).
6. Real time shipping calculations are available on all plans
With BigCommerce, real time shipping calculations are available on all plans — this distinguishes BigCommerce from key competitors like Squarespace and Shopify, which require you to be on a premium plan or buy an add-on to avail of this functionality.
Ok, so that’s five great things about BigCommerce. If you'd like to try it out, you'll find a 14-day free trial for the platform here.
But what could it do better? Let's find out.
The disadvantages of using BigCommerce
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1. The free template selection is limited
The range of free templates available from BigCommerce is rather limited. You can only choose from 12 themes and several of these look extremely similar to each other. Other platforms offer a lot more choice when it comes to free themes, especially Wix and Squarespace.
2. The templates aren’t very flexible
Some of the BigCommerce templates are a bit harder than they should be to edit.?
In particular, it’s difficult to hide certain parts of the templates without using custom code to do so, and this is something that some web design novices may feel uncomfortable with.
3. The range of bundled web fonts is very limited
In its free templates, BigCommerce only gives you a few bundled web fonts to play with, and its page builder doesn’t currently support the addition of custom fonts.
This makes it harder for you to get a BigCommerce store to match any existing brand guidelines you may have.
4. Limits are placed on annual sales
With BigCommerce, limits apply to your annual sales — and if you exceed them, you’ll need to upgrade to a more expensive monthly plan. This is quite unusual by comparison to how competing solutions operate, and won’t suit all merchants.
5. You have to pay quite a lot to access abandoned cart features
An abandoned cart saving tool lets you send reminder emails automatically to people who leave your store in the middle of a purchase. You can use these emails to encourage those visitors to complete their transaction.
And by comparison to some of its competitors, you have to pay quite a lot to avail of abandoned cart functionality in BigCommerce. While this feature is included on the entry level plans of some competing products, or provided at a low price point, BigCommerce requires you to be on a $79 plus plan to access it.
6. The free trial is strangely hard to find (but here's a link to it)
When you go to the BigCommerce website, you end up on a page that offers you the opportunity to 'get a quote' or 'request a demo.' But no sign of the free trial! However, there is one available in the 'Essentials' section of the site, and it's reasonably generous in length —?15 days.
Verdict
Overall, BigCommerce?gives you a lot of ecommerce features for a reasonable price. Its entry-level plan provides significantly more built-in features than many competing products, and its ‘multi-storefront’ feature, which lets you build multiple stores using just one subscription, represents exceptionally good value for money (it's definitely the standout feature of the platform).
The main area for improvement involves BigCommerce’s template selection — the free options provided could be more varied, they’re not as editable as they should be, and don’t give you much choic when it comes to typeface selection.
I hope you’ve found this quick BigCommerce review helpful — but there are lots more pros and cons of the platform to discover. You’ll find all these in our full BigCommerce review (available on the Style Factory website).
To ensure you don’t miss any of our ecommerce reviews and tips in future, make sure you subscribe to our LinkedIn page, or join our mailing list (doing the latter will get you access to our free ecommerce kit).
Finally, if you have any questions about BigCommerce, do leave a comment below. We read them all and will do our best to help.
Alternatives to BigCommerce
There are lots of alternatives to BigCommerce available, with key competitors including:
Of these, Shopify is probably the most obvious alternative; you can read our BigCommerce vs Shopify shootout here.
BigCommerce review (video version)
This article was written by Chris Singleton. Research contributions by Matt Walsh.