Perhaps you are a local business that has been in operation for months or years and want to finally expand your business to an online store. The decision may seem like a big one, but when you think about it — is it really?

Launching an online store can broaden your range of customers substantially. You are no longer stuck with the demographic that is within proximity of your store, and ecommerce software can help reduce the burn significantly of operating the online portion of your business.

BigCommerce is one of the leaders in ecommerce software as it has serviced business owners in over 150 countries whether they do hundreds of dollars in revenue each month, or tens of millions.

Founded in 2009, BigCommerce operates out of Austin, Texas and has done $16 billion in total sales, making it one most reputable ecommerce providers in the world.

Why BigCommerce?

BigCommerce is designed to simplify the process of transitioning into an online store. You, as an entrepreneur, may understand business well, however, may feel like operating a friendly user interface online is a whole other animal. And it is, yet ecommerce software providers such as BigCommerce can make the transition fairly painless.

BigCommerce is designed to simplify the process of transitioning into an online store. You, as an entrepreneur, may understand business well, however, may feel like operating a friendly user interface online is a whole other animal. And it is, yet ecommerce software providers such as BigCommerce can make the transition fairly painless.

In the past, BigCommerce has provided platforms for a variety of businesses including everything from health and fashion, electronics to homeware, sporting goods and jewelry.

The software is highly sought after by a variety of industries because of the transparent yet customized service it offers. The goal of BigCommerce is to remove the burden of having to be technologically savvy in order to run the online portion of your business.

Whether you are 100 percent online, or its only a spin-off to the goods you offer in a brick and mortar shop — BigCommerce not only builds your online presence but continues to manage most of its day to day operations.

Website Builder

The first step is the actual design of your business website and BigCommerce has plenty of professional tools to get you up and running. BigCommerce currently features 7 free and 76 paid website templates.

The templates are clean yet with enough style to first get customers interested and then help them easily navigate through the various web pages. While the number of free templates is very slim, you can get a quality number of premium website templates that range from $145 to $235.

In addition to BigCommerce’s website builder, the service also features an App Store to provide a number of advanced services for your online presence. The apps are created by third party developers and can help with everything from accounting to order processing, marketing and shipping, operation analytics and customer support. All apps are available with a streamlined, 1-click system.

Management Tools

Once the website is up and running BigCommerce also offers a variety of management services. It is possible to control:

• Pricing (by product, weight, imagine and inventory)
• Product Rules (i.e. free shipping for order over $150)
• Organize products by category
• Sell intangible products (i.e. digital downloads)
• Accept payments from more than 60 different services
• Automatically calculate sales tax, shipping, etc
• Manage returns (refunds, store credit, return shipping)
• Manage inventory as well as track highest selling items
• Process orders (shipping status, create inventories, etc)
• Identify as well as reward loyal and/or high paying customers

Along with the numerous selling tools at your disposal, it is also possible to sell your products through Amazon, eBay or Facebook (to name a few).

Features

BigCommerce does a fantastic job of getting you connect to social media channels and leveraging your business further. It is seamless to get connected with Facebook or other popular social media providers in order to grow your customer base substantially.

BigCommerce also integrates with other popular outlets such as eBay and Google Shopping. It is also possible to connect with product comparison services such as Shopzilla, Bizrate, Nextag, MySimon, PriceGrabber and Beso.

Last year, BigCommerce also announced a partnership with Instagram in order to enable U.S. based merchants with the ability to sell on Instagram.

Extended marketing is also featured with plenty of promotion solutions whether you prefer to send out a weekly/monthly newsletter via email, want to implement auto responders, create coupons, marketing campaigns or other advertising techniques.

Customer Service

BigCommerce features quality customer service. The whole point of ecommerce software is to take away a lot of legwork from the business owner or whoever managers the online portion of the business. While BigCommerce is not 100 percent self-sufficient, it does take a lot of the tasks you need to handle much more simplified.

For any questions or concerns that may arise, including website troubleshooting — BigCommerce provides a dedicated Client Success team that can be reached via email, live chat or phone. There is also a BigCommerce University for additional resources. Yet with a reported 99.99 percent uptime rate, including a guaranteed 100 percent availability during “Cyber Week” — BigCommerce is extraordinarily reliable.

The only complaint is that the customer service is not 24/7 with posted hours of Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm.

Pros

• Very reasonably priced with two week trial period to test out if BigCommerce is the right ecommerce software for your business
• Statistically, BigCommerce has improved sales for merchants that use the platform at nearly two times the industry average
• App store and additional tools for selling, marketing, processing orders and providing customer service to your customers rivals no one. BigCommerce offers so many features.

Cons

• BigCommerce may offer a number of professional looking website templates and a ton of extra features with their app store, but with only 7 free options they could do better. Shopify, for example, provides 24 free templates.
• Customer service is not available 24/7. Most website builders are available all hours of the day, including weekends.

Conclusion

BigCommerce has an exceptional reputation as it powers some of the biggest corporations in the world including Toyota, Kodak, Gibson and Paul Mitchell. According to Ipsos, BigCommerce merchants grow up to 28 percent year over year, which is nearly two times the industry average. And with a 15 day free trial (no credit card required during sign up) and a quarter of the cost of competitors Magento, you may be crazy not to at least give BigCommerce a shot.