BigCommerce remains one of the strongest eCommerce platforms available: complete, reliable, well supported, and a sensible default for many new and growing online businesses. Its appeal is the combination of relative simplicity and a deep feature set at its price point. When a new business asks our team to set up a store, BigCommerce is a frequent starting recommendation – we explore other carts when a specific requirement calls for it, but that is the exception. Here are ten reasons it earns that recommendation, and what each one means for your store today.
Editorial note: this article was originally published in 2013 and has been updated. Several services named in the original – Google Checkout (shut down by Google in 2013), Google Product Search (rebranded to Google Shopping), and price-comparison feeds like Shopzilla and NextTag – are discontinued or renamed; the modern equivalents are described instead. BigCommerce’s own plan and trial terms change over time, so confirm current details on bigcommerce.com.
1. Reliable support and a free trial
BigCommerce offers a free trial so owners can evaluate the platform against their actual catalog before committing, plus support across multiple channels. Evaluate during the trial with real products, real shipping zones, and a test checkout – not a demo dataset – so the decision reflects your business.
2. Mobile-responsive themes
With most shopping now on phones, responsive design is essential. BigCommerce themes are responsive out of the box and are also a strong base for deeper customization if you want to work in the code.
3. Sell on social channels
BigCommerce supports selling through social and content channels (Facebook and Instagram shopping, and similar surfaces) so people can discover and buy without first navigating to the site, and fans can amplify specific products. The platform updates these integrations over time as the social commerce landscape shifts.
4. Sell on Amazon and eBay
Amazon and eBay are the giants of online retail. Listing through BigCommerce’s marketplace integrations expands reach and exposes your products to those platforms’ enormous buyer bases – a channel-diversification move that reduces reliance on your own traffic alone.
5. Shopping feeds and product syndication
Product syndication drives qualified traffic. BigCommerce connects to the modern equivalents of the old comparison engines – principally Google Shopping (formerly Google Product Search) and other marketplace and feed channels – so your catalog can appear where shoppers compare before buying.
6. Gift certificates, coupons, and loyalty tools
BigCommerce lets you generate gift certificates and coupon codes on demand, useful levers for acquisition, average-order-value, and repeat purchase. Used deliberately as part of a retention plan rather than constant blanket discounting, they protect margin while driving loyalty.
7. Returns management
Returns are a real part of eCommerce operations. BigCommerce provides built-in returns handling and an inventory interface per product, which keeps a frequently messy process structured and trackable.
8. Broad payment-gateway support
BigCommerce supports the major payment gateways – PayPal, Authorize.Net, Stripe, and many others, plus regional providers. If a platform can’t support your preferred processor, the constraint is usually the gateway, not the cart – BigCommerce’s coverage is broad.
9. Broad shipping-carrier support
Similarly, BigCommerce integrates with the major carriers – UPS, USPS, FedEx, and others including international postal services – with real-time rates. Carrier coverage and real-time quoting at checkout reduce both cart abandonment and shipping-cost leakage.
10. Search-engine-friendly foundation
BigCommerce ships with a clean, SEO-friendly foundation – sensible URL handling, control over titles and metadata, and the structure search engines reward – which gives eCommerce SEO a strong base. It also integrates with marketing tools (email, affiliate, analytics) through a flexible API, so the store fits into a wider stack rather than standing alone.
Where BigCommerce fits – and where to look further
BigCommerce is strongest for merchants who want enterprise-grade features without managing infrastructure, who value built-in functionality over assembling a large app stack, and who need solid B2B and multi-channel capabilities. It is worth comparing against Shopify and Adobe Commerce for very design-led brands or highly bespoke requirements – the right platform is always the one that fits your catalog, operations, and roadmap, which is exactly the evaluation we run with clients before recommending one.
Open SaaS: the structural advantage behind the feature list
The ten reasons above are features; the reason they hang together is BigCommerce’s “open SaaS” model. You get the operational relief of hosted software – no servers to patch, no security updates to chase, predictable performance under traffic spikes – combined with deep API access for the custom and headless work the feature list implies. For a growing merchant that is the practical sweet spot: you don’t want to run infrastructure, but you also don’t want a platform that boxes you in the moment you need something specific. That combination is what lets points 3 through 10 actually scale rather than top out.
Total cost of ownership, not sticker price
When evaluating any platform during the trial, compare total cost of ownership rather than the monthly plan price. BigCommerce’s built-in feature breadth means several capabilities that are paid add-ons elsewhere – faceted search, gift cards, multi-channel, B2B features, no platform transaction fees on top of payment processing – are included or native. The honest comparison is plan price plus apps plus transaction fees plus development to fill gaps, summed across all the platforms you’re considering. A higher base plan with fewer required add-ons is frequently cheaper in twelve-month reality than a low sticker price that needs a stack of paid apps to match it.
Who BigCommerce is not ideal for
An honest recommendation includes the exceptions. Highly design-bespoke fashion or lifestyle brands that want total front-end control sometimes prefer a headless build or a more theme-flexible platform; very small hobby sellers may find a simpler, cheaper tool sufficient until they grow; and merchants with deeply unusual catalog or pricing logic should pressure-test it against requirements before committing. None of these contradict the ten reasons – they just confirm that platform choice is a fit decision, which is why we evaluate requirements first rather than defaulting anyone onto a platform.
BigCommerce isn’t only our recommendation – it’s a first choice for many experienced designers and developers. See our top BigCommerce templates for examples of what the platform can look like in expert hands, and contact 1Digital® Agency if you want help deciding whether BigCommerce is right for your store.