Hi everyone. I’ve got some great news to share with you. As of this week our Austin-based support ninjas are available 7 days a week for technical support via phone. Previously phone support was available from 7am to 9pm Monday thru Friday and 9am to 2pm on Saturdays, so as you’ll see below, we’ve significantly extended those hours.
The next step for us is 24x7x365 phone, email and chat support, which we’re currently in the process of implementing, but for now I’m sure you’ll appreciate our extended hours. We continue to look at support as a marketing function not a cost center, and we’re driven by your requests and our metrics to continue building out our support organization so we can be there when you need us the most.
As of this week phone, email and chat support are now available as follows:
Published on September 18th, 2011 by Mitchell Harper
Last week we started rolling BigCommerce 7.2 out to new stores, and it will start being rolled out to existing clients this week. It’s a huge release with some amazing new features and in this blog post I’ll run through the new features for you.
RESTful API
Since the day BigCommerce launched, it has had an API, however the functionality has been limited to XML based pull data requests. The headline feature for BigCommerce 7.2 is our amazing new RESTful API (see documentation) that accepts and returns data in XML or JSON. The new API is currently in beta (we’re accepting signups) and will be rolled out to everyone shortly.
So what made us release a RESTful API? Well, while we’re innovating fast, we fully acknowledge that we can’t innovate faster than tens of thousands of third party developers. Releasing our new RESTful API lets anyone build on top of BigCommerce and because of our large client base, we can help market those integrations to tens of thousands of merchants.
If you’re not familiar with an API then just know that it’s short for Application Programming Interface, which is a fancy way of saying you can retrieve and create/save data in your store (such as shipments, tracking numbers, orders, products, photos, etc) using code instead of your web browser. An API forms the foundation for integrations, building widgets and desktop/web/mobile applications on BigCommerce.
When our new RESTful API is out of beta we will be announcing an amazing opportunity for third party developers and integrators, so stay tuned for that. It will be BIG – pun intended.
SocialShop 2
F-Commerce, or Facebook Commerce is already here and we’ve completely rewritten our SocialShop application for BigCommerce 7.2. No longer can your fans just browse and share products on Facebook – they can now complete the entire browsing and buying process without ever leaving Facebook, thanks to SocialShop 2 – free with all BigCommerce plans!
BigCommerce is now the only e-commerce platform that lets you sell through your own online store, end-to-end on Facebook, via mobile (iPhone, iPad, Android), eBay and the most popular shopping comparison websites. SocialShop 2 and our new RESTful API are the final parts of our strategy to allow merchants like you to sell wherever your customers are. We don’t believe you should have to pull customers to your BigCommerce store, but rather we want to enable you with the tools to push your products out so you can get them in front of potential customers, wherever they happen to be online.
Import/Export Custom URLs
In BigCommerce 7.1 we introduced custom URLs for products, categories, brands and web pages and to say they were a success is an understatement. In BigCommerce 7.2 we’ve added the ability to import and export custom URLs as part of a regular import or export – they’re available as an additional field in the CSV file making it easy to bulk add or update them as required.
Dozens of Improvements and Fixes
As well as the new features mentioned above, BigCommerce 7.2 includes dozens of small improvements and bug fixes.
How to Use BigCommerce 7.2
All new BigCommerce stores are running on BigCommerce 7.2. Just go to our home page and click the green button to create your store for free. Existing clients will have the BigCommerce 7.2 update rolled out to their stores over the next week or so.
What’s Next?
We’re already well into working on the next BigCommerce release which will contains some amazing innovative features built around our API and emerging technologies. It’s a little early to share details but more will be revealed as we get closer to the release date. For now, please enjoy the new features in BigCommerce 7.2 – I hope they help you increase your revenues, outsell your competitors and improve your business processes!
Published on September 6th, 2011 by Mitchell Harper
A few days ago we heard the news that we’re #636 on the Inc 5000 list for 2011! We’re also the 52nd fastest growing software company in the US and the 17th fastest growing company in Austin, Texas. The Inc 5000 list looks at a company’s growth over the last 3 years, and we’ve grown our revenues 504% in that time.
In 2007 we had around 15 people on the team and now we’re just under 100 across our offices in Austin, Texas and Sydney, Australia. We are of course continuing to hire awesome people who are passionate about making a difference, so if you’re near either of our offices then check out our careers page. We have roles in sales, support, engineering, marketing, QA and finance.
Hi everyone. Just a quick note regarding support coverage for the Labor Day holiday this coming Monday. From our end there will be no changes and we will be staffed from 8AM to 6PM CT as per usual on the phones.
Ticket and live chat support are available around the clock as well. If you’ll be spending part of your long weekend working on your BigCommerce store then our support portal is a wonderful place to get started. You’ll find useful tutorials, videos and links to our forum and Facebook page as well as our phone number and chat link if you need us!
If you hadn’t noticed, we’re on a BIG hiring spree at the moment. Our careers page lists around 15 separate roles, most of which have 2, 3, 4, 5 or more individual positions available. We like to do things a little differently at BigCommerce, and so in this post I wanted to share some photos of interesting and unique things that we’ve snapped around our Austin, Texas office lately.
Let There Be Light!
Who wants to go to work every day surrounded by gray walls? We aren’t your typical company and we don’t have a typical office environment. We’ve made our space reflective of our team – funky, fun, and colorful.
T-Shirt Tuesdays
We value individuality – except for on Tuesdays. On Tuesdays, we all don our finest BigCommerce t-shirts and show our team unity. Everyone with a shirt gets free lunch!
Fully Stocked Fridges and Pantry
Our support ninjas, sales samaurais and other team members work really hard, so they need to re-fuel. To keep them going we keep our kitchen stocked full of snacks and drinks. From fruit snacks to granola bars, a huge coffee selection, tons of soft drinks and our beloved Topo Chico (soda water imported from Mexico), we keep everyone fully refreshed and recharged. Oh, did we mention our popcorn and gumball machines?
Company Milestones Celebrations
From lamingtons (an Australian treat introduced to us from our Sydney crew) and cupcakes, to movie nights and other events, we always celebrate our successes. Most recently we booked out an entire movie theater. It was a blast.
Team Meetings That Don’t Put You To Sleep
We may be growing fast, but open communication amongst our growing teams is critical to our success. Each Friday afternoon we get the entire office together in an open and honest forum for discussion. We value honesty and transparency and give every single team member a chance to give us their comments, ideas, and questions. And we do it over an assortment of craft beers.
Holiday Celebrations & Office Decorating
We celebrate holidays such as Easter, Halloween and the 4th of July with crazy office decorating. It makes things fun – and you should see the look on people’s faces when they come in for interviews or meetings!
Gamester’s Paradise TM
All work and no play makes things, well, boring. That’s why we have Gamester’s Paradise. Old-school arcade system and Wii – check. Foosball table – check. Sweet jumbo bean bags to sit on – quadruple check. Highlight wall colors straight out of the 80s – check.
In-Office Jam Sessions
Our US office is in Austin, Texas, the live music capital of the world, so it’s no surprise that we have some gifted musicians on the team. Occasionally they’ll jam out for us like they did at a recent Friday company meeting where Laura and Bobby debuted the BigCommerce SEO Song to a huge round of applause! (and almost 1,000 views on YouTube).
Oh, and did I mention we’re hiring too? If our mission and values resonate with you, you like what you’ve seen here and you want to be part of something big then check out our careers page. We’ll have a similar post about our Sydney office shortly.
The Bigcommerce blog brings you company news and feature updates from the world's leading e-commerce platform, along with proven tips, tricks and strategies to help you sell more.
Hi everyone. I’ve got some great news to share with you. As of this week our Austin-based support ninjas are available 7 days a week for technical support via phone. Previously phone support was available from 7am to 9pm Monday thru Friday and 9am to 2pm on Saturdays, so as you’ll see below, we’ve significantly extended those hours.
Since the day BigCommerce launched, it has had an API, however the functionality has been limited to XML based pull data requests. The headline feature for BigCommerce 7.2 is our amazing new RESTful API (
A few days ago we heard the news that 
