Why Bigcommerce is the worst eCommerce software I've worked with!

by Andrii

Posted: 11 years ago 34 replies

ECOMMERCE

3 months ago I decided to give Bigcommerce a chance, had a job designing a website for selling software licenses. It was far from easy to do since its not boxed products that are being sold but licenses them selves. Since I've started working with Bigcommerce I started noticing small problems, like the fact that I didnt have an option of displaying SKUs under the product boxes (had to fix that with JS) or the lack of decent looking layouts.

Im still learning web development and Bigcommerce seemed to provide a lot of help at the beginning but it turns out I have to do most of the work my self. The template they provide are terrible most are duplicated with different colours. Not only the that but the code it self is messy and some even contain errors from the start. The slide-show I had to recode fully my self because because the loading speed of the slide-show would slow down the main paid loading speed to
3-4 seconds on a really fast internet so you can imagine it on the slow one.

One of most annoying things is their Search. It does not provide filters or even correct results and often leaves customers going through 5-6 pages of results looking for the correct one. I've contacted Bigcommerce about this and they suggested SearchSpring, a 3rd party search app which does everything Bigcommerce should be doing from the beginning. Since they said this is the only option I contacted SearchSpring and they quoted me the monthly fee of £100 based on a low
estimated traffic (100 unique visitors a day), the fee ofcourse will go up once you start gaining more traffic. Bigcommerce of course get a great % of that since they are upselling these services to everyone.

Bigcommerce works on a principal of "Oh something doesnt work on the platform? theres an app for that!" for which you have to pay of course. The platform has ridiculous number of limitations, no access to PHP, NO in-house charging system, no decent customer support, as any other Bigcommerce customer will know if you have an issue you should probably search on their forum
for a solution or post it on IDEAS page where they will make to ignore it.

The number of problems goes on. But i would love to hear what you guys think! Did any of you had experience with Bigcommerce? Is there a better eCommerce platform that you can recommend?

The website that i created is Licenses Direct - Software Licensing Specialist would be great to hear what you guys think about the website as well?
Any changes?

#bigcommerce #ecommerce #software #worked #worst

martybate 11 years ago

Hi Andrii,
I am an avid user of Big Commerce and I find it fantastic. Before I explored the click side of business, I was a company turning over $2M. With the GFC and slowing economy, I refused to "put up with" flat or negative growth and looked elsewhere to achieve growth. Now that was 18 months ago, when I started my first store with bigcommerce and since, I now have 15 bigcommerce stores, which I call my click business, and my brick business has also slowly grown. I have even created a website explaining how cool bigcommerce has been for me and how bigcommerce has helped grow business by over 80%+ and can confidently say my business will be nudging a $5M turnover with somewhat same stock holdings and staff.

In terms of working with big commerce, I find it very simple - one of my stores literally has 5 SKUS on it whilst another store has around 30,000. I get my stores customised to my likings with a little help and, overall, really have had minimal hiccups.

I think if your serious about your online business you need to have a business attitude and treat it like a business. If something does not work for you, well yes you have to pay for it - no one gets a free lunch. Most of the time it pays off. If funds are limited - have you considered freelancer help?

Anyway, out of the box, BigCommerce is really good - add a product/sell a product with a heap of out of the box API's already set up. If you want to treat it seriously and want it to grow like a business should, you will need to put money in to customise it to your needs.

Good luck!
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- Andrii 11 years ago
  
  Hmmm martybate you sound alot like a Bigcommerce Forum Admin. I will tell you something, I am serious about my business, thus the reason I listed the problems above. If you are Bigcommerce user I'm sure you are experiencing the same problems, almost sounds like your advocating their ignorance on problem solving.
  Did you know they recieved $40mil in funding couple of month ago? if they wanted they could of solved 80% of the problems they have right now within 2-3 months. But they choose to use 3rd party apps and partnerships to generate even more income. Without customer pressure they will never change otherwise.
  
  If you have that many stores I would love to see your top 3 store that you set up with Bigcommerce!
  
  And I would rather spend money on target advertisement and business development as a business should rather than paying for things that should of been provided already!
  
  Thanks
  
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OliverTrent 11 years ago

It might be worth looking at some of the platforms which are designed to be a little more open, it seems that they may be more inline with what you are looking for. BigCommerce is designed to be a plug and play solution for people who don't want to mess around with the innards. Try looking at Magneto or similar.
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- jmalnik 11 years ago
  
  Hi Andrii,
  
  I know I have personally responded to a few of your inquiries a couple of times in the Bigcommerce forum. You are clearly really frustrated and unhappy with our platform. I'd really like to set up a time to chat with you and figure out what we can do to help you out moving forward.
  
  From your initial posts in the Bigcommerce forum, almost all of them were about search. In terms of search functionality, many of our clients- including one of our client forum mods- chimed in with some good suggestions. If this suggestions didn't help you, I'd love to know so we can help you find a better solution.
  
  P.S. Thanks for the kind words about the Bigcommerce platform, Martybate.
  
  Thanks
  
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misterkailo 11 years ago

$40mil can solve a lot of problems

Two of the replies are first timers with 1 post count...
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- jmalnik 11 years ago
  
  What's your store URL, if you have one? What specific feature(s) are you looking for? Happy to answer any questions.
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  OnlineStoreHelp 11 years ago
  
  I like BigCommerce and it works very well for a lot of people. I just set up two more clients on it and they like how simple it is to work with. That being said, It is not the right product for everyone and I would never have used them for software licenses. I like Shopify as well but it is also not the best product for a lot of people either.
  
  Realize that many of the hosted solutions will fit the needs of about 90% of the people out there. While I sense a lot of frustration I don't think it's necessarily BigCommerce so much as the type of store you are trying to build. I think you would have issues with many of the hosted solutions just for this reason.
  
  Were using BigCommerce to fulfill the license or were you using a third party service like Fetch App that might have made your job much easier.
  
  Thanks
  
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  Not sure what ecommerce solution to use? Watch my video walk through of popular shopping carts.
  
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herms 11 years ago

I've been with them since around December of 2009. They're pretty good to me.
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- martybate 11 years ago
  
  Hiya,
  I am not a big commerce forum admin and am unsure why you think I would portray myself as that? I monitor big commerce with google alerts, and you post come up and wanted to offer my 2 cents worth. Further I am aware of their funding.
  
  I am happy to share examples of my stores: try Bulk Office Supplies Online or Home. Further, I spend my fair share on SEM to complement all stores and an ongoing amount of freelance labour to maintain them and build on them to my liking - we really dont have any issues.
  
  I simply find BigCommerce works well, is stable and easy to use. I know other ecommerce platforms are different in ways but to broadly label big commerce as the "worst" is totally wrong.
  
  But good luck anyway.
  Marty
  
  Thanks
  
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TanYaV 11 years ago

As for me, you need an open-source solution, like PrestaShop or OpenCart. Such platforms give more customization opportunities and access to the core. Moreover, open source shopping carts have more free extensions, those can improve functionality of your store.
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jmalnik 11 years ago

Thanks for the kind words, @martybate.

And, @onlinestorehelp, it's actually possible to integrate Fetch app with your Bigcommerce store. Bigcommerce Apps & Ecommerce Plugins - FetchApp
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- 1 reply
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- 3Ddude 11 years ago
  
  Sorry your having problems with BigCommerce.
  
  I have been using them for years and have had very few problems. I do agree that the stock templates are terrible. Even the newest releases are too simple and lack creativity.
  
  The customer support has been pretty good. One or two times they dropped the ball and I had to figure stuff out on my own.
  
  All of the platforms have pros and cons. If I do not use BigCommerce on a project, then I use Magento. Magento has issues too and makes some very simple tasks a pain.
  
  I agree with the BigCommerce search issues...but you might want to revisit the search terms you are using in those fields because if you are using generic terms you will get generic responses. Try putting in the terms from analytics.
  
  3Ddude
  
  Thanks
  
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Kiboko 11 years ago

BigCommerce - I paid a months fee and left before it ended. They have poor customer support.
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- jmalnik 11 years ago
  
  @Kiboko: I'm sorry you had such a poor experience. We typically pride ourselves on having an amazing client support team. What were you specifically having problems with?
  
  Thanks
  
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Yaros 11 years ago

I like the fact that Bigcommerce representative appeared on this thread so quickly. In my opinion it means that Bigcommerce looks after its clients and reputation and it's a good sign.
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- jmalnik 11 years ago
  
  @Yaros: Thanks!
  
  Thanks
  
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chebolludo

11 years ago

I wouldn't say that this is the worst (try miiduu), but I can see the problems as well. The support is horrible. The live chat is not available all the time as promised and often enough they make things worst and even more frustrating. Also sometimes I get a feeling that they make things extra complicated to force people to pay for designers... Otherwise it is hard to understand why people have to learn how to edit CSS files to change simple things like the background color or textboxes over the carousel etc.

However, still a great shop for small money.

Thanks
1 reply

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jmalnik

11 years ago

@chebolludo: We hate to hear that. We pride ourselves on offering great client support experiences, and we hate to think your experience via live-chat, tickets or phone has been sub par.

What's your store url? If you have any specific questions, I'm happy to hop on a call with you to help you out.

Thanks
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chebolludo

11 years ago

Originally Posted by jmalnik

Comon... Always when I have to deal with the Live Chat I feel like I am either talking to a 5 years old kid or a bad comedian who wants to make fun of me. I became really calm since living in Thailand and the only few times I got really mad the last months have been when talking to your support.

Just right now. I did move my domain from my old provider to bigcommerce. As a result I can't access my bigcommerce homepage anymore. Not through the new domain and not anymore trough the subdomain neither. I can't access my mails neither (in the best case, otherwise customers will get error auto respond mails?!?!).

I have been 80 minutes in the chat, I told him over and over why his links doesn't helped and repeated all of my problems a few times. I just can't take it anymore. I have no more nerves left and my mails still doesn't work. Either I go back to my old shop or I accept of not being able to receive mails tonight.

I have send you the log via PM.

And I don't want to make Bigcommerce look bad. I have compared all options and it was by far the best choice for me... But the support is a very very bad joke. Instead of hiring people to write in forums you guys should focus on having people 24/7 available when people have serious problems with their business.

Thanks

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HighRiskJohn 11 years ago

I currently use BC for 6 months now and for the most part I really like them. I found that they are good for some things and bad for others. For example, I sell shoes and there are a lot of options for each pair (colors/patterns, sizes) I have about 370 different styles, but I have another 800 styles to import. There is no easy way to import "options" into BC, so you end up having to go through each style as add options one by one. With that being said, it's great now that I understand the extent of the import options and that speeds up the process a lot.

I've tried Shopify and one other one, but their import feathers were horrible. If you have separate SKU's and not a lot of options, BC is really a great easy to use platform. (You do need to learn their "language" to get the most out of BC styling though.)
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captainyee 11 years ago

Andril, I use BC and have 3 stores with them ATM. Here are the pros and cons:

Pro
1 It's hosted and price is reasonable
2 Support is responsive but techs don't have all the answers

Cons
1 Bad for SEO, most of their stores don't rank well
2 Templates are bad

Having said all that, you can have your SKUs displayed - simply go to Store then Display and check the box there.
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Yaros 11 years ago

I have some words in defense of Bigcommerce. My company is developing a new WordPress eCommerce platform and I had to take a good close look of many serious eCommerce solutions presented at the market now (osCommerce, 3dcart, x-cart, woo, pinnacle, etc.) And I must admit that Shopify and Bigcommerce are the most convenient platforms regarding creating and managing your webstore and some other people I gave to try these platforms as well had exactly the same opinion.
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- Andrii 11 years ago
  
  WOW a lot of responses
  
  I've been contacted by Jessica (BigCommerce admin or jmalnik, warrior forum user name) via Skype a couple of days ago and she supplied me with couple of solutions/explanations for their problems. The fact the she called me up directly and took time to explain everything is great! I was expecting something along the lines of my account being blocked or suspended
  
  The search problem remains but there is 2 possible solutions:
  1) Get SearchSpring and pay monthly fee for their services, which i will probably avoid for now
  or
  2) Pay a single fee which was created by one of their developers.
  
  Still no PHP access, but for the forms and contact us i was recommended Google Forms and 1 more form generator. The result seems a bit unprofessional so far so I will keep looking for a better alternative for that.
  
  I noticed some comments made regarding Bigcommerce SEO integration, I cant say much about that as I did SEO my way for the store from the start. But my website seems to rank pretty well so far considering the website domain is pretty new.
  
  Overall what I understood from Jessica's Skype call a lot of the issues listed in this thread the solutions are being developed, the only problem I see with that is that some of these solutions been in the development process over a year. Even though a lot of them are pretty serious in my opinion.
  
  Thanks
  
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Asho777

11 years ago

I would also like to put my 2 cents in about BC. I have been trying a build a store for a friend of mine that has taken on an account with BC. His needs are for a B2B customer base.

His customers are installers of the equipment that he wishes to sell to them via his BC store. The problem that I have come to hit a wall with, is the fact that the only way to not show product pricing, unless you are signed in, is to create double the amount of products. A group of products with no pricing and a group with the wholesale pricing.

This maybe fine until you realize that this now doubles the amount of products in your store and forces your account to a higher level of cost.

There are many other things that the BC platform will just not do, when it comes to a B2B customer base. Support has their hands tied, due to the limitations of this shopping cart.

That is why I have suggested to my friend, that we should look elsewhere, maybe Shopping Cart Elite!

Sorry, for my 3 cents worth!!

Thanks
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OnlineStoreHelp

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Asho777

You are right that is one downfall of BigCommerce. One of my B2B customers had the same need so in that case I went with Americommerce which, while not user friendly gives all that functionality.

It is always a situation about finding the right cart for the store you are trying to run. As much as I like BigCommerce, it is not right for 100% of the people out there. When it is, it works like a charm, when it is not, I look elsewhere.

I am using Volusion with one customer right now and I can not stand it one bit. Nickel and Dime you for everything, no shared SSL and I swear they must have learned sales from a boiler room.

Thanks

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jmalnik 11 years ago

@captainyee: To address your concerns, we actually have developed more than a dozen brand new themes in the last few months. You can see all of them on our blog. I'm including a link to the Beautification theme below. New design theme: Beautification

In addition, we offer a free, amazing SEO workshop for all our clients. We would encourage you sign up for one of our interactive workshops or listen to the recording if you can't make one of our live times. Ecommerce Webinars On Demand - Bigcommerce

@Yaros and @highriskjohn: Thanks for the kind words! And, @highriskjohn, if you reply with your store URL, I'll be happy to take a look at your current product options setup and make some suggestions.

@Andrii: Great chat the other day. The potential solution I shared with you was shared in our forum by one of our design partners. A handful of clients have all implemented the solution that he described in the forum post. If you have any questions, feel free to post in that thread or contact the design partner directly.

In terms of contact forms, you are more than welcome to build your own and then embed into your store, use the contact form that's built into the platform, or use Wufoo Forms, Snacktools, Google Forms, or a whole host of DIY embeddable contact form solutions out there.

Our product and dev teams are more committed than ever to cranking out new features. If you have something that you really want to see added to the platform, please leave a comment on our Ideas site. However, the only thing you will not see anytime soon is giving our clients full PHP access. That's simply a limitation of SaaS platform. You can modify your store using HTML, CSS, Jquery, Javascript and of course pulling from our robust API.

@Asho777: What's your store URL? I'll be happy to take a look at your setup and offer some suggestions for how to set this up.
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Lokahi

11 years ago

I don't know what its like since i haven't used it but from what people have said it sounds absolutely awful compared to other ones i have used try browsing Softculous with your CPanel.

Thanks
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OnlineStoreHelp

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Lokahi

I don't know what its like since i haven't used it but from what people have said it sounds absolutely awful compared to other ones i have used try browsing Softculous with your CPanel.

Not really fair to say since not everyone wants to go self hosted and open source. BigCommerce works for about 90% of the people out there especially if they do not have technical capabilities and a great way for starting ecommerce sites to start out.

You are right softaculous will install tons of shopping cart scripts for you but for someone that does not do web design and tech all day, getting those set up and configured can be a pain. You then have to worry about how heavy the applications are, purchase specific modules to make it work (prestashop and paypal pro is the best example), purchase and install an SSL and dedicated IP and you still have to worry about PCI compliance, one thing you never have to with the hosted carts.

If people would just take 30 minutes to write down exactly what they need out of a cart, then really explore, I think they would be much happier. One reason BigCommerce is so popular is it does try and balance functionality and ease of use. That ease of use for the average person makes it difficult for the web designer that wants to change things. But next to Shopify and Open Source Magento, I would say it has one of the better third party app providers ecosystems to help you market your store.

Thanks

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justray 11 years ago

Quote: "Hmmm martybate you sound alot like a Bigcommerce Forum Admin."

After reading the response, I drew the same conclusion. Hmmm.
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jmalnik

11 years ago

@chebolludo: I received your private message. I can definitely help you with your domain/DNS issues. I'll send you an email with more details shortly. I sincerely apologize for the poor live chat experience you have had.

Thanks
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chebolludo

11 years ago

Originally Posted by jmalnik

Thanks, but these words doesn't help me at all. The homepage is working now, but I am almost 24 hours without E-Mail at the moment.
The 24/7 support is a big lie. Around 30-40% of the time the Live Chat Banner is disabled and even if I can click on it it doesn't work. Most of the time, since 12 hours constantly, I will wait a few minutes and then got kicked out (redirection to a window asking me to write further information about my problem and then I end up sending just a mail instead of being able to wait for the live chat). And yes, I have send a mail with this problem as well long time ago. The phone support only works for certain times as well, which is pretty useless if you are not based in the US.

I appreciate your help here, but fast help on problems would be much more useful then good support on complaints...

Thanks
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Andrii 11 years ago

I have to agree with @chebolludo on this one. When I was on my free trial at the beginning I would receive calls for some of the smallest issues I've had at anytime (and i'm based in UK). But as soon as I started paying for my monthly plan the customer support almost disappeared. If not for this thread I doubt I would get contacted by anyone at all.
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tritrain 11 years ago

I've always used opensource ecommerce scripts. If I were to pay for something like that it would have to be really, really good. Because there are a number of really good opensource solutions out there.

What you're experiencing sounds a lot like some of the opensource solutions anyway. One of the key things to look for is; how active is the community that uses it and how is the support of it. An active, helpful community is what I found to be most important. I do know how much of a pain it can be to go from one platform to another, relisting all the products, etc.

If you have questions need any advice feel free to let me know.
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jmalnik 11 years ago

@chebolludo: We are really sorry that you and @andrii are experiencing poor experiences with our live chat. Our live chat should be avaiiable 24/5 Monday through Friday and from 9am-6pm CST on Saturday and Sunday.

And, @chebolludo, I sent you an email asking if you still need help. If you are still having trouble getting emails, you just need to change your MX records. https://support.bigcommerce.com/questions/1046. Or, give us a call anytime between 7am-9pm CST at +1-512-758-7588.
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Why Bigcommerce is the worst eCommerce software I've worked with!

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