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BigCommerce – The Easiest Way to Sell Online

BigCommerce is an all-in-one, feature rich ecommerce platform that allows even the most novice of user to create a fully functional online store and sell both physical and digital products online.

BigCommerce 7 has just been released, so I’ve reposted this article with some details about the new version at the end of the post.

Utilizing an easy to use interface, online retailers can publish products in seconds, accept credit cards, use multiple shipping methods, run effective marketing campaigns and more. Built from the ground up to support search engine optimization features such as search engine friendly links, effective use of heading tags, alt tags and per product and per page title tags.

BigCommerce also features a built in content management system to allow easy publishing of website content including web pages, news items, blogs, promotional banners and coupon codes.

BigCommerce Screenshots

BigCommerce Feature List

With BigCommerce anyone can quickly and easily create their own online store without any technical experience. Unique features such as Drag & Drop Design Mode make it easy to completely customize the look and layout of your store using just your mouse. BigCommerce has built-in search engine optimization features which help your online store rank at the top of all major search engines including Google and Yahoo. Below is a complete list of BigCommerce features:

Hosting & Security

  • Premium hosting for all stores
  • SAS 70 Type II certified hosting
  • Powerful Intel quad CPU servers
  • Daily offsite backups
  • 99.99% uptime track record
  • 3 co-located data centers
  • Create unlimited email accounts
  • FTP access to HTML and CSS files
  • Complete disaster and recovery support
  • 128 bit SSL certificate support
  • Hacker deterrent security provisioning
  • On-demand virtual data center
  • Geographic diversity
  • Three redundant network architectures
  • Best-in-class infrastructure
  • High speed, redundant connectivity
  • Hardware firewalls
  • Load balancing
  • Cisco hardware and networking
  • Denial-of-service protection
  • Free regular software updates
  • Network intrusion detection system

Search Engine Optimization

  • Fully SEO optimized HTML
  • Optimized by SEO experts
  • Per-page optimization (title, etc)
  • Proper use of H1…H6 tags
  • Automatically generated robots.txt file
  • Search engine friendly links
  • Alt tags on product images
  • Automatic sitemap XML file
  • W3C valid templates
  • Tableless CSS driven templates

Storefront

  • Full product catalog
  • Online checkout system
  • "Call for pricing" option
  • One click add to cart
  • Optimized for usability
  • Product comparisons
  • Order status updates
  • Live order tracking
  • Email/print invoices
  • Customer address book
  • Private wish lists
  • Public wish lists
  • Order messaging system
  • Related products
  • Suggestive cart
  • "You may also like"…

Marketing and Promotions

  • Trackable coupon codes
  • Coupon expiry date
  • Coupon limited uses
  • Google Analytics integration
  • Bulk discounts per product
  • Online certificate use
  • Promotional banners
  • Discount rules system
  • Buy one get one free, etc
  • Free shipping over $x
  • $x on orders over $y
  • Newsletter subscriptions
  • Export to Google Base
  • Affiliate tracking system
  • Gift certificates
  • RSS feeds
  • Google AdWords export
  • Yahoo Search Marketing export
  • Popular products list
  • New products list
  • Top sellers list
  • Quick search popup box
  • "Did you mean?" spelling
  • Integrates with any live chat software
  • LivePerson Express 30 day trial

Payment & Shipping

  • Accept credit cards online
  • Support for 50+ gateways
  • PayPal, Google Checkout, etc
  • Support for secure checkout
  • Support for "offline" payments
  • COD, pay in store, cheque, etc
  • Take orders over the phone
  • Sell in multiple currencies
  • Real time conversion rate updates
  • Auto-detect location for currency
  • Real time shipping quotes
  • UPS, USPS, FedEx, Aus Post, etc
  • Define your own shipping rates
  • Limit shipping methods by country
  • Limit shipping methods by state
  • Limit shipping methods by zipcode
  • Various free shipping options
  • Add handling cost to orders

Reporting Features

  • 25+ performance reports
  • Daily conversion rate
  • Top 20 customers
  • Best selling products
  • Order locations (Google maps)
  • Orders by item sold
  • Orders by revenue
  • Popular products
  • Inventory report
  • Customers by date
  • Revenue per customer
  • Search keywords with results
  • Search keywords without results
  • Best performing keywords
  • Worst performing keywords
  • Search term corrections

Order & Checkout Features

  • Single page checkout
  • Shipping quote estimates
  • Guest checkout option
  • Refunds and store credits
  • Custom checkout form fields
  • Delivery/event dates
  • Shipping tracking numbers
  • Email order confirmation
  • Agree to terms before ordering
  • Add multiple items to cart
  • Create order shipments
  • Order messaging system
  • One click re-order

Technical Support and Training

  • Unlimited free email support
  • Unlimited free phone support
  • Hundreds of "how to" articles
  • Comprehensive user guide
  • Dozens of training videos
  • Weekly training Webinars
  • Built-in popup help tips

Design and Customization

  • Dozens of templates to choose from
  • W3C/XHTML compliant templates
  • Easily integrate your existing design
  • Edit templates in Dreamweaver
  • Drag and drop layout customization
  • Edit HTML and CSS in your browser
  • Upload a logo or use the logo editor
  • Change website text using your mouse
  • Edit email templates from control panel
  • Works in all popular web browsers
  • Web-based control panel

Tax

  • State-based taxes
  • Country-based taxes
  • Unlimited tax rates
  • Prices inc/ex tax
  • Flat tax option
  • Tax rate display in store
  • Tax shown on invoices, etc
  • Flexible tax rules and flow

Content Management Features

  • Full CMS functionality
  • 100% browser based
  • Publish web pages
  • Display returns policies, etc
  • Easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor
  • Page dropdown/pop out menus
  • SEO-friendly pages
  • Restrict to customer groups
  • Publish content from RSS
  • Contact forms on pages
  • Responses sent via email
  • Display page as home page
  • Recent news items
  • Banners and promotions

Search Features

  • Search suggest
  • "Did you mean?" suggestions
  • Related searches list
  • Advanced search options
  • Fiter by price
  • Filter by availability
  • Filter by free shipping
  • Search tips and advice
  • Shop by brand
  • Shop by price
  • Saved searches and views
  • Advanced order/product search
  • Search and export results (admin)
  • Search customers by name, email, etc
  • Quick Search popup in store
  • Search query reporting

Import/Export Features

  • Import existing products easily
  • Extremely flexible import system
  • Export products to CSV/XML
  • Sync to Intuit Quickbooks
  • Export to MYOB, Peachtree
  • Export to StoneEdge
  • Export in custom formats

Customer Features

  • Customer groups
  • Wholesale/retail pricing
  • Per-group pricing
  • Per-group discounts
  • Category level discounts
  • Product level discounts
  • Storewide group discounts
  • Move customers between groups
  • Add new customers to group
  • Filter customers by group
  • Export customers by group

Product & Inventory Features

  • Per-product inventory levels
  • Automatic inventory control
  • Inventory reminder indicators
  • Sell physical & digital items
  • Product variations (size, color, etc)
  • Configurable purchase fields
  • Gift wrapping options
  • Per-product gift wrapping
  • Live shipping quotes
  • Product reviews & comments
 

* Feature list correct as of September 2009. Features are constantly updated, the latest feature list can be found on the BigCommerce website.

BigCommerce 7

BigCommerce 7 was released in March 2011. New features include the following:

  • BigCommerce is PCI compliant, meaning your data is rock solid, safe and secure
  • Create new product options such as color swatches, radio buttons and more
  • Sell bundled products such as computers with automatic inventory control
  • Option-based rules help you adjust price, weight, etc across multiple products
  • Point-and-click integration with iContact for customer segmenting and analytics
  • A beautiful new control panel design with more wizards and fewer clicks
  • Point-and-click integration with free live chat software from oLark
  • Run split testing campaigns with Visual Website Optimizer integration
  • Pass orders to your dropshipper automatically with Ordoro integration
  • Managing thousands of categories via drag & drop is faster and easier
  • Bulk importing speeds have been improved 300x

Check out the BigCommerce website for more details.