What BigCommerce is (in plain technical terms)
BigCommerce is a hosted ecommerce platform that provides your “commerce engine” (catalogue, pricing, cart, checkout, orders, customers) while letting you choose how your storefront is built and extended. Instead of running servers yourself, you configure commerce features in a control panel and connect themes, apps, and APIs to deliver your online store.
You add products and prices in BigCommerce, then customers browse your site, add items to cart, and pay at checkout — while BigCommerce handles the commerce workflows behind the scenes.
Storefront building options (themes, low/no-code, and WordPress)
BigCommerce supports multiple approaches to building the customer-facing site: fully customisable themes (HTML/CSS/JavaScript), drag-and-drop page creation tools, and a WordPress integration for brands that are content-led but still need a robust commerce backend.
A blog-heavy brand can keep publishing in WordPress, while product, cart, and order features run through BigCommerce’s commerce backend.
Two ways to launch: Hosted storefront vs Headless storefront (Two-column layout #1)
BigCommerce can run as a traditional hosted storefront, or as “headless” commerce where your front-end is separate and communicates with BigCommerce through APIs (REST/GraphQL). This is useful when you want high-performance or highly custom customer experiences.
Option A: Hosted storefront
Use a BigCommerce theme and built-in tools to go live quickly. You still get customisation, but your storefront is tightly aligned with the platform’s native commerce features.
Best for: fast launches, smaller dev teams, standard ecommerce builds.
Option B: Headless / composable
Build the front-end in frameworks like Next.js and connect to BigCommerce using APIs. BigCommerce remains the system of record for products, customers, and checkout, while your front-end is fully flexible.
Best for: performance-first builds, custom UX, multi-channel experiences.
A developer builds a Next.js storefront that loads extremely fast, while BigCommerce still processes the basket and checkout securely.
Checkout customisation and conversion control
BigCommerce supports custom checkout experiences, including server-to-server checkout customisation using APIs and SDKs. This is valuable when you want tighter control over the checkout UI, validation rules, or integrations (while keeping the transaction flow consistent).
Add an extra “delivery instructions” step, validate a VAT number format, then pass the confirmed data into the order record.
API-first extensibility (REST + GraphQL) for integrations
BigCommerce is designed to integrate with external systems (ERP, PIM, OMS, CRM) using APIs. That means you can automate catalogue updates, sync inventory, move order data downstream, and build custom services around customer identity (e.g., SSO).
When your ERP updates stock levels, an integration pushes the new quantity to BigCommerce automatically so customers don’t buy out-of-stock items.
Multi-Storefront + international selling
Multi-Storefront lets you run multiple unique storefronts from one BigCommerce dashboard. This is useful for multi-brand groups, separate geographies, or different customer segments. For international selling, BigCommerce supports multi-currency and multi-language approaches (often via apps and API-based integrations), plus performance support like CDN delivery.
One company runs a UK storefront and an EU storefront with different prices/currencies — but manages products and operations centrally.
B2C and B2B selling on one platform (Two-column layout #2)
BigCommerce can support consumer and business buying patterns, including customer groups, SKU-level price lists, bulk pricing logic, and B2B-friendly payment flows (e.g., purchase order via partners, credit authorisation options). The point is to tailor the buying experience based on who is logged in.
B2C flow (retail)
Standard product browsing, promotions, digital wallets, and fast checkout. Optimised for conversion and speed.
Typical need: discounts, fast payments, mobile-friendly UX.
B2B flow (trade/wholesale)
Account-based pricing, bulk ordering, and business payment methods. Experiences can differ by customer group and negotiated pricing rules.
Typical need: price lists, bulk pricing, invoice/PO workflows.
A logged-in trade customer sees their own discounted price list, while a public shopper sees standard retail pricing on the same catalogue.
Operational tooling: catalogue, shipping, tax, analytics
BigCommerce includes core operational features for scaling: catalogue management (including API-driven catalogue updates), shipping options and partner integrations, sales tax automation options (e.g., integrations like Avalara), customer segmentation, returns/refunds workflows, and reporting dashboards to track orders and marketing performance.
You run a weekly report on top-selling SKUs, then adjust pricing and stock rules — while shipping rates and tax calculations stay automated.
SEO and discoverability features
BigCommerce provides technical SEO controls like customisable SEO-friendly URLs, metadata management, and robots.txt editing. It also supports faceted search (commonly backed by Elasticsearch) to improve product discovery for large catalogues.
You set product URLs like /trainers/mens-running, add a clean meta title/description, and block thin filter pages in robots.txt.
Security, compliance, and reliability
As a hosted platform, BigCommerce emphasises operational reliability and platform certifications. On the UK product page, BigCommerce highlights high-availability infrastructure with a 99.99% uptime claim, plus security/compliance standards (including PCI DSS Level 1 attestation and multiple ISO certifications).
Instead of maintaining your own PCI compliance program for card payments, you rely on the platform’s compliance scope and approved payment setups.
Who BigCommerce is best for
BigCommerce is a strong fit when you need “enterprise-grade” flexibility without fully custom-building commerce from scratch — especially if you want multi-storefront expansion, API-led integrations, headless options, and structured controls over checkout, SEO, and operations.
A scaling brand starts with a theme, then later adds a headless storefront for performance — while keeping the same back-end catalogue and checkout.
