BigCommerce store development

What BigCommerce is

BigCommerce is a hosted e-commerce platform, like Shopify: hosting, security and updates are on the platform, and you pay a subscription. The difference is philosophy. Shopify leans on a huge app ecosystem; BigCommerce leans on built-in features: advanced filtering and product options, wholesale pricing, multiple storefronts, and APIs for headless stores. Themes run on the Stencil framework, and the default Cornerstone theme is the usual starting point for a custom design.

Strengths

• Lots built in. Some tasks that need paid apps elsewhere are handled by standard BigCommerce settings.
• No platform transaction fees — you only pay your payment provider.
• B2B and large catalogues: customer groups, custom price lists, complex product options.
• An open API for integrations with accounting, inventory and marketplaces.

Limitations

• Plans are tied to sales volume: once annual online sales pass your plan’s threshold, the store moves to a higher plan.
• A smaller ecosystem of apps and fewer developers on the market than Shopify or WooCommerce.
• Some local providers outside the main markets need custom integration.
• Stencil themes need a developer who knows the platform — this is not a visual builder.

How we work with BigCommerce

For a bookstore selling lifestyle medicine titles we built a theme on top of Cornerstone: a custom design that still stays compatible with updates to the base theme. Along with the theme, the client got a product import template, so the catalogue is filled from a spreadsheet rather than by hand, and an admin guide on adding books and managing categories and promotions without a developer.

Another project was a veterinary store catalogue migration. We ran a full export — products, brands, pages, images and settings — and recorded every stage in a verification log. That way the owner can see that everything moved, not that it “seems to have moved”.

On BigCommerce we also set up analytics and tracking and technical SEO: category and product URLs, meta tags, image performance.

BigCommerce or another platform?

If a large app choice matters more than built-in features, Shopify is usually the better fit; if you want your own hosting and total flexibility, WooCommerce.

When BigCommerce beats Shopify

Compare the full yearly cost of ownership, not the subscription price. BigCommerce usually wins when your needs would require several paid Shopify apps — filters, wholesale pricing, complex options — when you use a third-party payment gateway and don’t want an extra platform fee, or when B2B is a core channel rather than an experiment.

If your shortlist comes down to the two most popular platforms, see our comparison Shopify vs WooCommerce.

How much BigCommerce development costs

Starting prices are those of our services; we give an exact figure after a short brief.