BigCommerce Review

The SaaS offered by the team behind BigCommerce make it easy to manage your online shop and have content. In this BigCommerce review, we’ll be looking at our thoughts and opinions on the content management system as well as giving you tips and advice.

What Is BigCommerce?

BigCommerce is a simple piece of software hosting online that allows you to build, manage and maintain your own ecommerce store. It’s not a self hosted solution, your website is hosted on their servers but this does offer you some key advantages.

Firstly, updates to the core software can be managed by them. You don’t need to do too much technical work as it is done for you. Secondly, it means that you can start developing your website much faster.

Another key factor giving BigCommerce the edge is that it has a remarkable number of high profile clients using its software like Toyota, Gibson Guitars and Travelpro.

Who Is BigCommerce Best For?

Those who want to use their website to create a shop and produce content but aren’t web designers will be happiest with BigCommerce. The software isn’t challenging to use and there are seven free templates that allow you to create the look and feel of your website within minutes.

Those that aren’t happy with the free templates can also buy one of about 120 other templates. These cost between $145 and $235 each.

You aren’t limited by the types of products you sell either. BigCommerce has the potential to sell physical and digital goods. There are also some useful tools that can help you get your brand’s name out there.

For those who have a little knowledge about HTML and CSS can also be happy. There are options to tweak elements of your website’s code to ensure it performs exactly how you would like it to.

Taking payments is also easy. The system can be integrated with PayPal, so even small ‘cottage businesses’ can effectively use BigCommerce as a website platform.

How To Use BigCommerce

BigCommerce is fairly easy to use. If you’ve used WordPress, Shopify or Squarepace before, then you should have no issues at all with BigCommerce’s interface.

There is a vertical menu on the left side of the screen. This gives access to all the key features and the labels are rather self-explanatory. Therefore, finding key information isn’t going to be too much of a pain for anyone.

Once you’ve selected an option from the menu, the content and data will be displayed on the right. This right window allows you to view or edit the data as appropriate.

Those with no technical skills will find it very easy to use.

BigCommerce SEO

You’ll know as a business owner that being found on Google is key to selling products. The more people who visit your site, the more revenue you can generate. That’s why this content management system offers great SEO tools to help you rank highly.

There are numerous ways that SEO is improved and this BigCommerce review will look at some of the best in particular.

Firstly, your website speed will be good. The code for the sites isn’t too bulky, which can sometimes happen with other CMS programs. In addition, there’s an automatic image optimizer. This can reduce the size of your content right down and speed your website up – something search engines love.

Finally there are the meta tags that can be applied to the store. These can be really useful for your site but it’s not the only thing you need for good Google ranking. You need to implement some work of your own across your site with good keywords and inbound linking.

Though, it should be mentioned, that pushing potential customers to your site could not be easier with the Google Shopping integration. You can also have reviews posted to search engines. This is something that both search engines and customers like to see.

Selling Products On BigCommerce

Inventory control is one of the best features of BigCommerce and there’s little reason why it shouldn’t be, after all, it is an online shop program.

Setting up products is a simple upload, with setup for tracking, and stock control is easy. This makes it great for those looking to ensure they have everything in stock they sell. At the same time, it helps you sell products by highlighting limited stock which often improves conversion rates.

When a product is out of stock, you don’t have to worry, it is simple to mark it as unavailable.

Customization of your inventory is simple. You can create flexible product rules that can be applied to the right products. This is far better than some systems that minimize your options and mean you are creating some rules that will only apply to one or two products but are applied across the online store.

Therefore, if you have a clothing store or something with a lot variance, then this might be the ecommerce program for you.

There aren’t many limits to what you can sell either. Products, downloads, events and services can be sold from the basic BigCommerce program. This isn’t available on other website services.

BigCommerce Review The Pros

In conclusion there are numerous positives to mention about BigCommerce. These include:

• There are great SEO options to help you get started.
• Free trial available that can help you decide whether the system is right for your business.
• Great security, protecting your business’ information and that of your customers.
• Tutorial to help newcomers get to grips with the system and start their website quickly.

BigCommerce Review The Cons

However, as with any CMS, there are negative issues. In this BigCommerce review, we thought these issues might be something to consider:

• Not a lot of free templates, so costs can rise
• Customer support is not rated very highly by current customers
• Those performing well on BigCommerce can often be paying more per sale than those not doing so well
• Poor mobile website performance

The BigCommerce Review Conclusion

BigCommerce is a good CMS for anyone who is looking to operate a shop at the same time. However, you need to be a little technical to ensure your site can be found on search engines and your site performs well.