BigCommerce Enterprise Review and Everything You Need to Know

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It’s a very exciting time at present for BigCommerce. In the summer of this year, they expanded their offices into Europe after successfully raising $64 million. Additionally, they’ve joined the Amazon Marketplace Developer council to aid Amazon Pro Sellers, as well as announcing integrations such as Chase Pay, We Pay and Instagram shopping.

Alongside this their Enterprise package, which was launched in 2015 has seen significant growth.

What is BigCommerce Enterprise?

BigCommerce Enterprise is an ecommerce platform for ‘high-volume brands’.

The features and services on offer for Enterprise are of the highest level that BigCommerce provides their customers. As it’s intended for high-volume businesses the features are able to withstand the huge influx of traffic and to manage the high conversion rate.

Merchants who use Enterprise will have 99.99% uptime which ensures that your website will not crash even on the days when you’re busiest. There are improvements in regards to filtered search, inbuilt integrations and also speedier checkout processes.

BigCommerce Enterprise is the leading cloud ecommerce platform for businesses making $1 million or more in sales every year and there are some real high-end customers using BigCommerce Enterprise such as Toyota, Gibson and Ben & Jerry’s.

BigCommerce Enterprise Review - customers

Although stating on their main landing page that they consider enterprise customers to be over $1 million for their annual revenue, when you book a demo it then states that an Enterprise customer is over $100 million a year. It’s worth noting though this as BigCommerce may not take your request on board if you’re making a flat $1 million a year for example, but show no signs of progression.

BigCommerce Enterprise Review - revenue

On-premise vs SaaS

In recent times it isn’t uncommon to see that Software as a Service (SaaS) systems are proving as, if not more, capable of providing a high-level website hosting service for premium merchants.

It’s easier to see why as well, as BigCommerce’s SaaS isn’t held back by the following constrictions:

  • Infrastructure Costs – no money will be spent on the hosting of your website, as well as your own IT infrastructure, security and hardware maintenance
  • Design and build – with BigCommerce Enterprise you get full access to the front end code (HTML, CSS and Javascript) which allows for maximum flexibility. Whereas an on-premise system would be much more complicated and time-consuming to manage
  • Integrations – advanced integrations such as CRM, ERP and PIM can be very complex and expensive to integrate. Not to mention how long this process will take and whether it will work at all. SaaS already has a built-in service with market-leading applications as well as an API that you can customize to your needs
  • Implementation Time – if you have set a date for moving to an Enterprise package, it’s worth bearing in mind that SaaS can help you achieve that goal in a much quicker time due to the above solutions
  • Support Costs – with an on-premise solution a retainer is essential to install updates as well as fix issues and troubleshoot, you also have to train employees on how to do this. All of these issues are handled by BigCommerce which frees up so much extra budget
  • Software Upgrades – software updates and install are very time-consuming, not to mention they result in your store being down which means you will lose out on revenue. With BigCommerce Enterprise these are updated automatically behind the scenes
  • Technical Staff Hiring – to manage this system you will need to hire at least one person which could cost you at least $50k a year due to its technical nature. BigCommerce will provide all this at no extra cost, even if there is weekend work or any emergency

BigCommerce even supplies a total cost of ownership tool so you can compare the savings that you make by choosing a SaaS option instead of on-premise.

I entered that I had 1 million views a month with an annual revenue of $5 million. BigCommerce calculated that due to the money not being spent on the options above, I was able to save $319,608. They then give you variations of what that could be spent on and the revenue lift that it could give you.

BigCommerce Enterprise Review - costs

BigCommerce Enterprise Review: Pricing

There is no set price for BigCommerce Enterprise and it’s dependent on two main factors, the average value of your order as well as the average number of orders that you process each month.

Prices tend to start around $400 a month and can range anywhere up to $20,000 per month. When you visit BigCommerce’s pricing page you will see that they promise their prices will be “lower than Magento and Shopify Plus”.

BigCommerce Enterprise Review - pricing

BigCommerce Enterprise Review: Features

Understandably with BigCommerce Enterprise, you get all the features afforded to you with the other plans with added emphasis on API calls, customizable facets as well as personalised support.

BigCommerce already offers fantastic features such as an abandoned cart saver, a single page checkout as well as integrations with Apple Pay and Google Shopping.

You can read our thorough review on BigCommerce here.

As well as the basic features BigCommerce Enterprise also offers the following:

Onboarding – 50% less setup time to launch new BigCommerce Enterprise sites as opposed to on-premise platforms. BigCommerce stated that as many as 95% of BigCommerce Enterprise merchants have been set up in four months or less. Also, you can save at least 75% on costs when compared to an on-premise ecommerce solution such as Magento. BigCommerce’s Enterprise consultants have migrated over 20,000 customers from Magento and Shopify Plus and will build a personalised action plan for you

BigCommerce Enterprise Review - onboarding

Security – reliable, secure and scalable hosting is available. You will reap the benefits of 99.99% service uptime, infinite cloud-based scalability as well as multi-layered security and DDoS protection to avoid hacking issues

Integrations – native, pre-built integrations which allow you to connect to PIM software, ERP suites, OMS solutions, POS and automated marketing tools straight out of the box

Higher conversions rates – you have a selection of the best built-in conversion tools such as faceted search which allows your custom product fields to be used as product filters. There is also a highly optimized checkout as well as a really flexible shipping rate system that enables you to specify rates based on product, destination, dimension and more. Higher conversion rates come as a result of:

  • A single page checkout
  • Dedicated SSL for customer reassurance
  • Address verification
  • Mobile optimization
  • Account creation that works with your CRM
  • Guest support for fast checkouts

Payment flexibility – you have much more flexibility on how you process payments as well as having high-end fraud protection. You will also benefit from zero transaction fees based on your preferred gateway. BigCommerce Enterprise accepts payments in 250+ local methods through Adyen.

BigCommerce Enterprise Review - templates

Custom SSL – BigCommerce Enterprise allows you to bring over an SSL certificate that you may have already purchased from a different SSL provider

Unlimited API calls – open architecture doesn’t limit your API calls. Enterprise gives you the opportunity to transfer any data in real time with any part of your platforms such as products, customers, orders, payments and shipping

Service and support – as well as your personalised action plan for onboarding, Enterprise customers can take advantage of 24/7 email, live chat and phone support. As a larger merchant, your request will benefit from priority support which means a Senior Technical Support agent will answer your call in under 30 seconds. Going forward, the Premium Account Services team will offer business recommendations and advice to help you succeed

Partnerships – BigCommerce Enterprise offers a fantastically flexible framework to help you design a truly world-class store. In turn, this will help you attract the best designers and developers in the world who will want to work with you

Personalisation – you have the ability to personalize your storefront using their flexible codebase which will help to convert shoppers. This includes changing the language on display, highlighting specific products and much more

Local staging – you can simultaneously preview any changes that you have made across desktop and mobile in real-time. This means you don’t have to push them to your live store in order to see the results

BigCommerce Enterprise Review: Integrations

BigCommerce seemingly has hundreds upon hundreds of integrations, of which you can see the full list here.

  • ERP – integrate fantastic platforms such as Brightpearl and NetSuite to help you automate the back office functions of your business which include inventory, CRM and financial
  • Accounting – connect your accounting app, be it Xero, Sage and Quickbooks to help you integrate your sales information directly and sort out financial issues quicker
  • Tax – Enterprise has Avalara already built in to help you identify changing tax rates and to ensure you are always tax compliant
  • Point of Sale (POS) – if you have a physical store or occasionally sell at events or pop-ups then you can automatically integrate with ShopKeep
  • Marketing – whether you are using an email marketing platform such as Mailchimp or using Adwords to generate more revenue these can all be added into your Enterprise package so everything is in one place
  • Google Shopping – the complexities of having to edit your Google Shopping feed everytime you make an adjustment to your products can cause issues, one primarily being the amount of time it takes. With Enterprise you can integrate with their Google Shopping app which will update your products in your feed any time you make a change on the website
BigCommerce Enterprise Review - integrations

Also if you don’t own any of these software platforms then there is no issue. As a result of having unlimited API calls your developer will have no problem in integrating any application with your store.

BigCommerce Enterprise Review: Payments

BigCommerce has an abundance of payment gateways that you can integrate with, including the most recent of We Pay and Chase Pay.

It includes all the big hitters such as Paypal, Stripe and Square. BigCommerce also offers a native integration with VISA Checkout which will help you modify and simplify the process of checking out for your customers.

bigcommerce enterprise credit card rates

You can also partner with Paypal (powered by Braintree), they offer reduced rates on transaction fees for BigCommerce customers. The fees for each Paypal transaction is 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction.

BigCommerce Enterprise Review: Customer Support

As mentioned above, as an Enterprise customer you have exceptional support services offered to you that include:

  • Onboarding – when you sign up you are giving a personalised action plan and a dedicated team will ensure that your store doesn’t take longer than 4 months to go live. This is great in comparison to an on-premise version which can take at least 8 months
  • Business – BigCommerce’s Premier Account Service will provide you with expert ecommerce advice in regards to key opportunities, recommended integrations and partners to ensure your business is always thriving
  • Technical – email, phone, web ticket and live chat are available 24/7. Ensure you always have your store PIN handy as this is what grants you the 30-second response priority that I mentioned earlier

BigCommerce Enterprise Review: Security

As I’ve touched on BigCommerce Enterprise comes with built-in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection. This is normally very expensive due to the fact that it’s on a level of what banks would use.

Enterprise also comes with Level 1 PCI DSS 3.2 protection which ensures that it is up to the payment card industry data security standard and is fully compliant.

BigCommerce Enterprise Pros

As you would have read now there are so many fantastic reasons to use BigCommerce Enterprise but I thought I’d highlight what I thought were the three biggest areas in which it succeeds.

Support – whether it’s at the onboarding stage or as your business is progressing, BigCommerce’s team is always on hand. Due to you being an Enterprise customer as well, you can ensure that any request you have will be met first

Conversions – dedicated SSL, one-page checkout, as well as personalisation for customers based on language and products, means that BigCommerce will do everything in its power to ensure you are turning visitors into customers

Uptime – as a big brand having your website go down for just even a couple of minutes can have a disastrous impact. BigCommerce ensure a 99.99% uptime as well as handling all upgrades and troubleshooting issues quietly in the background so you can have peace of mind

BigCommerce Enterprise Cons

Paypal – there is no reduction in transaction fees for Enterprise customers, you would have the same fees if you were paying $30 a month on the basic package

Coding help – as you have full access to the HTML, CSS and Javascript of the website you can invariably run into issues. As these are quite unique, don’t expect a quick response from the BigCommerce technical team

BigCommerce Enterprise Review: Conclusion

Using a SaaS solution rather than an on-premise system for your ecommerce needs in 2018 is an absolute no-brainer.

BigCommerce is fully aware of how difficult it can be to set up an Enterprise store as it has to be so personalised to your business when you take in to account design, payments and integrations. This is especially true if you are migrating your website from another platform such as Magento or Shopify Plus.

Therefore they have absolutely nailed the initial support that you receive when onboarding. BigCommerce is adding integrations and is expanding all the time so they are still only scratching the surface on what is already a great package.

Have you used BigCommerce Enterprise? Have any feedback on how its gone for you? Are you looking to migrate from Magento or Shopify Plus? Leave a comment below and let’s get the conversation started.

Richard Protheroe

Content Marketer at Veeqo. Veeqo allows you to link your Amazon Seller Central account with your other sales channels to better manage your inventory and shipping.

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