BigCommerce - Website Builders

Our Verdict

BigCommerce stands out as one of the few brands helping shape the global landscape of digital businesses. As more companies emerge to assist small business owners lacking technical skills, thereby avoiding the significant expense of hiring developers and designers, BigCommerce has established itself as a strong competitor.

For small business owners looking to capitalize on the effective e-commerce solutions provided by BigCommerce and manage their web stores in one place, using the BigCommerce website builder can minimize costs and reduce hassle.

However, be aware that using the tool might require some technical understanding. So be sure to use their advanced self-service resources and articles to get the most out of the company’s robust offerings.

Pros

BigCommerce provides DDOS protection and Level 1 PCI-compliant
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) tools
Websites in multiple languages
Offers omni-channel selling

Cons

Limited design templates
Has annual sales limits

Products & Pricing

BigCommerce is renowned for its enterprise solutions but also caters to small and growing businesses with a three-tier pricing structure. There is a 15-day trial available for all plans.

Standard

The Standard Plan is best suited for individuals and small brands looking to establish a professional online store. Priced at approximately £23 per month (billed annually), this plan supports up to £40K in online revenue. It offers a simple and cost-effective solution with essential features, including 24/7 live phone and chat support. You can manage up to 4 inventory locations and 3 storefronts, providing flexibility for small operations. The Standard Plan also includes unlimited products and user accounts, allowing your business to grow without added fees.

Plus

The Plus Plan is designed for ambitious small businesses aiming to expand their reach. Costing around £63 per month (billed annually), it allows for up to £144K in online revenue. This plan provides all the features of the Standard Plan, along with additional support for up to 5 inventory locations and 5 storefronts. Plus Plan users also gain access to abandoned cart emails and customer group segmentation, which help drive conversions and retain customers. This plan is ideal for businesses that need more advanced tools as they scale.

Pro

The Pro Plan is the most popular option for fast-growing businesses needing enhanced capabilities. With an approximate price of £239 per month (billed annually), it accommodates up to £320K in online revenue. The Pro Plan includes everything in the Plus Plan, but with added capacity for up to 8 inventory locations and 8 storefronts. This plan also introduces advanced product filters and Google store reviews, enhancing the shopping experience and building trust with customers. The Pro Plan is perfect for businesses experiencing rapid growth and requiring powerful tools to support their expansion.

Enterprise

The Enterprise Plan is tailored for established businesses with complex needs and high revenue, typically exceeding £800K in annual online sales. This plan offers custom pricing based on the specific requirements of each business, including personalised payment rates, industry-leading omnichannel tools, and priority support. The Enterprise Plan provides access to BigCommerce’s most advanced features, including powerful B2B capabilities and professional services to ensure your business operates efficiently at scale. For businesses needing a customised solution, BigCommerce’s Enterprise Plan delivers unmatched flexibility and support.

Standard

£23 /mo

Annual offer

Plus

£63 /mo

Annual offer

Pro

£239 /mo

Annual offer

In-depth review

Features & Functionality

BigCommerce is a leading force in the e-commerce solutions arena, primarily focusing on features that enhance business sales and profitability. If your goal is to boost your business’s sales, here are some essential features to consider:

Personalized Shopping Experience

Research by Deloitte and McKinsey highlights that personalisation is vital for the future of commerce. BigCommerce enables you to offer customers a high-performance, fast, and personalised shopping experience. Key features include abandoned cart recovery and persistent carts, which keep items in the cart even when customers switch devices—significantly boosting your conversion rate.

Google Accelerated Mobile Pages

BigCommerce sites leverage Google’s open-source AMP, an HTML framework that improves the mobile browsing experience by accelerating website loading times. For your small business, this means potentially higher conversion rates due to improved website speed.

Mobile Apps

The BigCommerce app is available for both Android and iOS. With this app, managing your online business isn’t confined to your desktop. You can track leads, process payments, and fulfil orders from your mobile phone, ensuring you’re available to customers 24/7.

Multilingual Websites

BigCommerce allows you to create websites in any language, helping you engage consumers worldwide. If your business offers global shipping, you’re not limited to English-speaking audiences. With the platform’s multilingual feature, you can expand your reach to non-English-speaking customers, accelerating sales and achieving your goals faster.

Diverse APIs

Running a business often involves integrating various tools. BigCommerce simplifies this with its extensive range of APIs, allowing you to connect your website to third-party tools. This integration supports a seamless shopping experience, tracks website activities, and manages finances effectively, ensuring nothing is overlooked when using BigCommerce.

Design & Templates

BigCommerce makes it easy to create a distinctive online store without the need for coding skills. The platform’s intuitive Page Builder enables you to design and manage pages using a simple drag-and-drop editor. This tool allows you to customize your site’s appearance in real-time, preview changes before they go live, and ensure a seamless experience across all devices.

For more control, BigCommerce also supports advanced customisation through its flexible theme framework. You can build a fully bespoke online store using HTML, CSS, and popular code libraries, or even opt for headless design to integrate your own CMS or DXP. Developers can work in their preferred environments, test changes quickly, and enjoy a flexible SaaS setup that supports efficient development workflows.

Responsive Templates

BigCommerce offers a range of professionally designed, responsive templates suited to various industries and catalog sizes. These templates are optimised for all devices, ensuring your store delivers a smooth, user-friendly experience whether accessed on mobile, desktop, or tablet. With features like mobile-optimised checkout and built-in support for Apple Pay, PayPal, and Buy with Prime, BigCommerce helps you capture more mobile sales with ease.

Personalised Shopping Experiences

BigCommerce’s platform allows for tailored customer journeys by supporting customisable layouts, conditional logic, and multi-language options. With BigCommerce’s faceted search, customers can navigate your site easily, improving their overall shopping experience. The platform’s modular design and personalised features make it easy to create a unique shopping environment that aligns with your brand and increases conversions.

Expert Support and Partnership Network

As a specialised eCommerce provider, BigCommerce brings industry expertise and a robust network of design and development partners. Their team of experts offers strategic guidance and ongoing support, empowering businesses to create and optimise their storefronts. From initial setup to continuous improvement, BigCommerce partners with you to ensure your online store’s success.

Ease of Use

BigCommerce offers extensive features for online selling but has limited widgets in its website editor. Below are my experiences with setup and design.

Setup

Setting up the BigCommerce website editor is similar to creating a regular account on the platform. You need to answer some questions, including disclosing your estimated annual revenue due to BigCommerce’s pricing structure based on company revenue. After account creation, you select a theme from the Theme Marketplace, with only a few available for free. Once a theme is chosen, you can start designing your website.

Designing

The design process in the BigCommerce website builder could be improved. Customizing a theme sometimes means you cannot edit certain predefined elements directly in the WYSIWYG editor. Instead, you must use a separate editor (Home Page Carousel) for changes like the website header. This requirement to switch between sections to edit the same webpage is inconvenient and disrupts the workflow.

In the design department, you can also make website-wide changes directly from the Theme Styles window. This way, you can ensure uniformity across the website. Here’s what the website styling feature feels like.

Text Styling

Working with text in the BigCommerce Storefront editor is straightforward. You simply drag the “Text” widget into your website and adjust font size, weight, and color using the options in the editor’s left pane.

Form Customization

The Storefront editor lacks a dedicated form widget, making it challenging for users without technical experience to add forms to their website. However, more technical users can use the HTML code snippet feature to create a form using basic HTML5.

Button Designing

Designing buttons in the BigCommerce Storefront is a seamless process. Once you’ve added a button to your web page, you can modify its appearance, including color, curvature, border, and text, using the controls in the editor’s left pane. This flexibility is a significant advantage for creating a cohesive and attractive website design.

App Integration

With more than 100,000 local and third-party apps on the BigCommerce App Store, you can transform your website into a powerful center of commerce.

Customer Service

BigCommerce boasts one of the most advanced self-service resources in the e-commerce and web builder sector. By exploring the frequently updated BigCommerce blog, you could gain knowledge comparable to that of a business consultant.

Another notable resource is BigCommerce University, which offers courses and certifications for becoming a skilled e-commerce manager and developer. Additional resources include guides, tutorials, webinars, and articles.

Beyond these exceptional self-service options, BigCommerce provides direct phone, email, and live chat support. My experiences with these channels are detailed below.

Live Chat

Starting a live chat with BigCommerce is more complex than anticipated. You need to be a signed-in paid user and provide your support PIN to connect with a support expert.

Once you have your support PIN, the chat experience is seamless. After initiating the chat, I connected with the technical team within a minute. Their responses were professional and helpful, and they even offered backend assistance to resolve my issues.

Email Support

The email support at BigCommerce is closely integrated with the ticketing system. When you email the team, you immediately open a ticket that you can track on the Contact page.

After sending an email to the support team, I instantly received a notification that a ticket had been opened for my concerns. A more detailed, actionable response followed in about 3 hours.

Phone Support

BigCommerce offers numerous phone lines based on your purpose and location, covering topics from sales and payments to website builder technicalities.

Contacting them was smooth, though there was a 3-minute wait. The expert on the line was eloquent and professional, with extensive knowledge of the website builder and BigCommerce solutions. His guidance was exceptionally helpful.