Company: Evoke Apparel Company
BigCommerce Store: EvokeApparelCompany.com
Launch Date: June 2011
Founders: Shawn and Jannette Bendinelli
Vertical: Apparel

“…with every purchase of an Evoke Apparel product, we provide an opportunity for the customer to give an additional $1; Evoke will then match their gift with another $1 and donate $2 directly to the charity of the customers choice…”

Shawn Bendinelli of Evoke Apparel Company

In Shawn’s own words…

Evoke Apparel was founded in the summer of 2011 with a social mission to evoke change in the world through fun, inspiring and fashionable apparel; including t-shirts, hoodies, hats, beanies and kids apparel.

The idea for Evoke Apparel came to the founders (Shawn and Jannette Bendinelli) as they conceived The Happy Human. The Happy Human is a company where a social movement which encourages people to “BE” who they are, “DO” what they love and “GIVE” from their heart is at the core of its mission. It believes “Being, Doing and Giving” are what make us human and ignite our passion for life.

Evoke Apparel believes every person can make the world a better place, whether as an individual or as part of a business by Being, Doing and Giving. We also believe businesses can both make a profit and evoke change. Therefore, with every purchase of an Evoke Apparel product, we provide an opportunity for the customer to give an additional $1; Evoke will then match their gift with another $1 and donate $2 directly to the charity of the customers choice.

As artists ourselves, we also have a passion for supporting the arts. It was important for us to provide a showcase where artists could be profiled, their work displayed and enjoyed by the masses and where artists could be provided with residual income. Therefore, with every purchase of an Evoke Apparel product, we provide $1 to the artist who designed the artwork for the product.

E-commerce is at the heart of our business model and as such, we needed a scalable, flexible and reliable platform on which to build our brand. After much research, we landed on BigCommerce and have been extremely happy with our decision. The BigCommerce platform allows us to customize the site to look and function as we need it to based on our business needs. The many integrations are also a very convenient way to tap into social and third party applications that we use to grow our business.

With the recent announcement of our $2M integration fund, activity around our API to build integrations and applications has been intense. In the first few days of launching, we received over 100 applications and many integrations are already being built and completed.

In this blog post I want to introduce you to 9 new BigCommerce integrations that can help increase your sales. These integrations are available at http://apps.bigcommerce.com.

ReferralCandy

ReferralCandy is a configurable referral system that uses email marketing to encourage your customers to bring in more customers. After a purchase the new customer is given a coupon that can be shared with their friends, each time it is used they receive a referral bonus. The key is to get someone who trusts you, to tell others who don’t know you, about you.

Learn more

SnapEngage

SnapEngage is a live chat system that helps you sell better. It allows you to interact with your customers to provide them with a better overall experience and a means to help more effectively by allowing screen captures.

Learn more

Shipiro

Shipwire is a third-party developed service that takes your order information out of BigCommerce and proxies it to your Shipwire account. Shipiro then pulls the shipping tracking information out of Shipwire and uploads it back to BigCommerce. The service has a lot of nice features such as duplicate order detection, order audit information

Learn more

Spring Metrics

Spring Metrics shows you which marketing channels deliver buyers and which ones just cost you money – simply, clearly, and in real time. You’ll know how to increase sales and grow your business.

Learn more

Constant Contact

With email marketing from Constant Contact, it is easy for you to connect with your customers, and for customers to share your message with their networks. And the more customers spread the word about your business, the more you grow.

Learn more

Webgility

Webgility is an Intuit Gold-certified software that integrates your BigCommerce shopping cart with QuickBooks or QuickBooks Point of Sales, shipping processors (FedEx, UPS WorldShip, Stamps.com, Endicia Dazzle, etc.) and payment gateways (Authorize.net, PayPal, etc.), enabling you to streamline and automate your online business. No need to copy and paste data from your BigCommerce store to multiple applications.

Learn more

Abandoned Cart Plugin

Retrieve over 30% of your lost sales automatically. With the Abandoned Cart Plugin every time a shopper abandons your shopping cart they will be auto-email marketed encouraging them to come back and complete their purchase. As a store owner, you will also receive a notification email when your cart is abandoned with the shopper’s contact information and cart contents.

Learn more

Yotpo

Let your users write and search within Social reviews that are much more valuable in terms of SEO. Yotpo’s system enables you to start building your social graph of reviewers, measure your exact ROI in terms of money and engagement. It even even gives each reviewer an analytic tool, which provides valuable info about the reviewer true reach and influence.

Learn more

SumAll

Sumall is a web based accounting system that compiles all your data in real time. With a user friendly interface and accurate statistics you can create a roadmap for making better decisions on the next step of your business.

Learn more

If you’re a developer and would like to learn more about our API and $2M integration fund, go here.

E-commerce and email marketing are like peanut butter and jelly (or jam, as we call it here in Australia). They taste really good together!

We’ve had great integrations with our friends at Mailchimp and iContact for a while now, and the uptake by our clients has been huge. To round out our integration with leading email marketing software for small businesses, we decided to add Constant Contact to the mix, and I’m please to announce that the integration is now live!

How Does the Integration Work?

The integration is a simple point-click-configure setup that allows you to send both newsletter subscribers and customers across to your Constant Contact email lists automatically. You can even send customers to different lists based on filters you create. Here are a few examples:

• Send all my customers from Europe to my “European Customers” list
• Send all my customers who ordered more than $500 to my “Valuable Customers” list
• When a customer buys a pair of shoes, add them to my “Shoes Follow Up” list so I can send them a promo for a hand bag

Point-and-click to sync order details from BigCommerce to Constant Contact

You can also sync a huge amount of data about your customers from BigCommerce to your Constant Contact email list(s) automatically every time a customer creates an account or places an order. You can sync fields such as:

• Customer name
• Address
• Country
• Order total & subtotal
• Payment method
• Shipping method
• Etc

What Do I Need to Use It?

All you need is a BigCommerce store and a Constant Contact account. The integration was built by our internal engineering team and is accessible from the Marketing tab in your store’s control panel. Click here to read a step-by-step tutorial on how to get the integration setup.

It’s easy (and dare I say, fun!).

Webgility eCC connects with BigCommerce via our API, which enables eCC to access store data seamlessly without doing any manual file import-export. With eCC, you can download orders from your BigCommerce store, automatically process shipping labels and post orders to QuickBooks to create sales receipts, invoices or sales orders.

And now with version 2 of our API, eCC can also update the status of orders once they’re shipped and perform a 2-way sync of inventory and pricing between BigCommerce and QuickBooks. Nice!

Here are some key features you’ll find in eCC:

• Automatically pull orders by order status from your BigCommerce store to eCC
• Manage orders in a few clicks:
• Process shipping and automatically record the tracking ID
• Post to QuickBooks
• Post completed orders to BigCommerce

• Automatically generate shipping labels in bulk and record tracking IDs with FedEx, UPS, Endicia or Stamps.com
• Print customized packing slips

• Transfer product details from QuickBooks to create new items in BigCommerce, or vice versa
• Map products between your BigCommerce store and QuickBooks
• Sync inventory and pricing between BigCommerce and QuickBooks
• Manage multiple online channels such as Amazon or eBay
• Enable multiple users to access eCC
• Easy configuration wizard to walk you through the setup to integrate your BigCommerce store with QuickBooks and shipping processors

Try eCC for free with your BigCommerce store

The BigCommerce Integrations Directory at Apps.BigCommerce.com

Our biggest engineering focus in the last 12 months has been to shift BigCommerce from a piece of disparate e-commerce software that businesses can use to sell online, to a true platform on which developers can build and integrate with existing software and systems.

Think Salesforce. Or Facebook. Or our friends at Mailchimp.

Our first milestone was version 2 of the BigCommerce API, which is RESTful and provides CRUD access to most resources such as orders, products, categories, countries, options, etc. Since our new API rolled out to pretty much everyone late last year, we’ve had tens of thousands of developers using it and millions of API calls have been made. The feedback from developers via surveys has also been incredible. We still have some improvements to make but we’re getting there.

Now that lots of cool integrations and web/desktop/mobile apps are being built using our API, we started to ask ourselves three questions:

1. How do we get even more apps and integrations built?
2. How do we reward developers for what they are building?
3. How do we share the apps and integrations being built with our clients?

Our $2M Integration Fund

To answer questions #1 and #2 above, we decided to launch an integration fund, which is money we’ve put aside to fund the development of BigCommerce integrations and applications from third party developers. The idea here is simple: if developers want to build on BigCommerce, we want to reward them for their hard work with up to $20,000 per project.

Here’s a little more detail from our integration fund page:

BigCommerce integrates with over 100 of the most popular applications you already use, making it easy to update your orders and inventory, retrieve product details, automate your marketing and much, much more. Our $2,000,000 integration fund was setup to contribute towards development costs for companies interested in building integrations or useful web/mobile/desktop applications that make use of the BigCommerce API.

The great thing about our new API is that it provides deep access to pretty much everything in a BigCommerce store, so the possibilities around what to build are endless. Here are a few cool ideas we came up with:

• Build an integration with a popular inventory management system
• Create an iPad app that allows merchants to set time sensitive product discounts
• Create an Adobe Air app to ship multiple orders in a single click
• Build a web service that pushes new products to Facebook or Twitter
• Create a mobile app that lets a merchant take photos and assign them to products
• Build a web service that adds new customers to an email marketing system
• Create an analytics app to show drill-down marketing reports

If you’re a developer then go here to learn everything you need to know to build an application or integration and apply for a piece of our $2M integration fund. You can apply whether you are in or out of the U.S. Our integration fund will run for as long as it takes to pay our two million dollars, which could be a few months or over a year.

So, once a bunch of great applications and integrations have been built, how do we help drive what we call developer love? That leads me to answer questions #2 and #3…

Our Integrations Directory

One of the most important things we understand is the whole product offering, which essentially means that when you want to sell online, you don’t *just* need BigCommerce. You already have existing software and systems that need to “talk” to your online store for things like inventory, dropshipping, etc.

As much as we’d like to believe, we can’t build integrations into every piece of software all of our clients need, but we knew that by opening up our API to developers around the world, they could help us build the integrations and in turn we can give them lots of developer love (money, promotion online and through our now-quite-large sales and support teams).

So once a developer builds a great application or integration with BigCommerce, how do we share it with the world? We do that with our new integrations directory at apps.bigcommerce.com, which is of course now live.

Our website gets a tad under 1,000,000 unique visitors a month and the BigCommerce software itself gets tens of millions of visits per month, and both now include links to the integrations directory (check the Tools menu in your store – the update is rolling out over the next few days). This is guaranteed to drive at least a few hundred thousand people to the directory every month, thus providing a huge volume of leads, brand awareness and most importantly customers (for free!) to application and integration developers.

That’s what we call developer love.

So, developers. Do you have a great idea for an application or integration that you want to build? Apply now for your piece of our $2M integration fund.

Hello everyone,

My name is Robert Alvarez and I’m the Chief Financial Officer here at BigCommerce. When I started, words could not express how excited I was to join such a talented team – one that I can already attest to sharing in Eddie and Mitch’s relentless passion to build a phenomenal product and an awesome culture that’s focused on recruiting and retaining the very best talent across the globe.

This is now my fifth venture capital backed startup and I consider myself very fortunate to have been part of some amazing teams which have led to some great outcomes, including an $80M IPO and three successful acquisitions (two by mulit-billion dollar companies).

Most recently, I served as CFO of LibreDigital, a leader in digital content distribution of e-books, digital newspapers and magazines, for the iPad, Kindle, Nook, KOBO and Sony Reader.  We significantly ramped the business through strategic marketplace deals with Apple, Amazon, Google, and Barnes & Noble which ultimately led to the sale of the company (by RR Donnelley).

Prior to that, I served as CFO of several Austin-based technology startups, where I learned the value that can be generated through innovation and execution as one company was bought by Intel to be their XML chip platform and the other was bought for our great customer relationships and a high growth business after we grew revenue from $5M to $55M in less than three years.

In hindsight, a constant theme these companies shared were:

1. A dynamic market opportunity
2. Emerging technologies and
3. A competitive team driven to execute.

I truly believe that BigCommerce not only meets this criteria, but has a real shot to fulfill its mission to be the clear leader in the e-commerce space by creating software that enables every business to successfully sell online, changing people’s lives along the way.

In terms of my personal beliefs:

• I believe having a passion for something is a key attribute to being successful at anything.  For me, I really found a passion in learning about business and being part of a team.  I believe a successful CFO is looked upon as a business partner across the entire organization and someone who has strong relationships that can help lead a team through various stages of growth and change.
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• For every successful venture, I truly believe it is the result of a great team effort where credit is due to so many members of the team who go above and beyond time and time again.  This was never more true than when my team was awarded the “2010 CFO of the Year Award in Central Texas” which was a great team award and recognition for what we were able to accomplish together.  In the end, it’s the relationships that we build along the way that will matter the most.
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• I am the product of some great mentors and managers who invested a lot of their time and energy in me, and I believe that everyone should try to be humble enough to keep their learning curve steep, be open-minded and try to learn from everyone around them.
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• I strongly believe that “actions speak much louder than words”.  Whether you’re managing a business or leading a team, people pay much more attention to what you do and how hard you work vs what you say or how you say it.

On a personal note, I’m an avid sports fan, love to play golf and I’m proud to be a Texas Longhorn. I bleed burnt orange through the good years and the bad!

I’ve been dating my wife for 16 years now and we love raising our kids in Austin. It’s safe to say that we’re learning as much from them as they are learning from us.  Early on in my career, someone asked me how I would define success when my career was over, and I said “if I have kids that look at me the way I look at my parents, then that would be success”.  After now being blessed with a family of our own, I would still define success the exact same way.

I’m really looking forward to the BigCommerce journey. I’m proud to be part of this team and can’t wait to see us listed on the NASDAQ someday soon under the ticker symbol “BIGC”!

Hi everyone. I’m Jeremy Arnone. I joined BigCommerce as CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) in October of last year.

Prior to joining the BigCommerce team, I owned a business that provided marketing, creative, and analytical consulting services to a variety of companies including FTD, Burt’s Bees, Harry & David, Caribou Coffee, and Dell. Our focus was on developing go-to-market strategies and then assisting in execution, with an emphasis on driving top and bottom-line growth.

Prior to that I headed up marketing at ProFlowers, where we grew revenue from $25M to $275M over a 5-year period and had a ton of fun along the way. I also had stints at McKinsey and Apple, where I focused on strategy and staying out of Steve Jobs’ way

There are several areas where we’re focusing at the moment in regards to marketing. First, I’m building out my marketing, analytics and creative departments (interested? go here). I’ve been fortunate to have worked or consulted with more than 15 companies the past 10 years, and the relationship between great employees and long-term success is very clear, so that’s why my first priority is people.

Second, we’re prioritizing our client. Not just checking in with them, but helping to focus on what’s most important to them – the success of their business. If we can align what’s most important to us with what’s most important to our clients, they’ll love us and tell their friends (and perfect strangers!) all about BigCommerce.

Third, we’re going to obsess about what we don’t know, asking a ton of questions and believing we can always do things better. We’ll enhance our ability to measure, track, test, and optimize across all client touch points. And lastly, with all these in place, we’re going to drive our revenue and profit to record numbers every quarter!

When I’m not at work I love spending time with Alyssa, my 15-month old daughter, who somehow makes me feel both young and old. When motivated I train for half marathons and I can’t wait to explore all of the Austin trails. Like Mitch and Eddie (and the rest of our team), learning remains a passion; I love a good read or a great conversation.

I’m incredibly excited about BigCommerce. It’s rare to find a company at this stage of growth where the foundation has been laid but many opportunities await. Where we’re big enough to be noticed but not so big to lose sight of who we are and what we’re trying to achieve.

I’m looking forward to making a difference and having some fun along the way!

Hi everyone!  I’m Soren Harner, the new Vice President of Engineering here at BigCommerce. I’m here to lead the talented people who design, code, test and run BigCommerce.  We were born global. I’m based in Sydney, Australia, and Engineering started and remains mostly here. Other teams are working out of our Austin, Texas office. Our culture is a nice fusion of the two.

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to lead some great engineering teams over the years, starting in San Francisco and more recently in Sydney. I was VP of Engineering at Atlassian, a global software success coming out of Sydney. Atlassian gained a reputation for engineering excellence and has won awards including the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneer award.

In his book Drive, Dan Pink showcases Atlassian as a case study on how to motivate creative people. Atlassian’s products are now the standard for technical teams. In fact, we use Atlassian products every day at BigCommerce, so I feel quite at home.  Prior to  Atlassian, I led a Sydney-based engineering organisation for Austin-based web content management giant Vignette. The Austin connection is another reason I feel at home.

Engineering at BigCommerce is growing rapidly. I’m part of a new wave of specialists.  In addition to software engineers, we’re bringing on more user experience designers, system administrators, test automation engineers and many others with deep skills in important areas.  Our goal is to listen and understand what makes you successful and then streamline and enhance the product to maximise that. This involves tuning user experience while building out critical functionality. A lot of work is going into the foundation and infrastructure to ensure that it remains rock solid as your business experiences explosive growth.

On a personal note, like Larry, I play music and often end up singing.  I look forward to breaking out the guitars when I make it over to Austin, and we even have plans for a Sydney band.  My two girls, both in primary school, play trumpet so I finally have the horn section I always wanted.

I’m also a cycling fanatic.  I ride to work rain or shine, and I love exploring Sydney’s beautiful nature reserves by bike.

Nothing gives me more joy than working with great people to create great software. The team here is second to none, which for me was a real attraction. BigCommerce creates opportunities for millions of people in such a direct way. What we’re doing here really matters, and that will inspire us to inspire you.

The future is coming at us at 100mph and I look forward to co-creating a new economy with (and for) you!

Just a little bit about myself…

I’ve spent many years in various customer support positions, working in industries ranging from timeshare exchange, biometric security, financial services, and my most recent company Constant Contact where I was Vice President of their award-winning customer support organization (my team grew from 25 to 290 people during my tenure). Along the journey, my passion for building awe-inspiring customer experiences has grown as I’ve witnessed how driving customer loyalty can fuel the growth of world-class companies.

Within the contact center community, I guess you could say I’m a bit of a maverick.  I don’t follow the more traditional ways of running a contact center; focusing on driving down call volumes, measuring customer support staff by the number of calls they took, or outsourcing support with the intent of lowering costs.  I tend to take a different approach to running a support organization – one that has brought recognition and industry awards (finalist in 2010 for Emerging Executive of the Year from the Massachusetts Technology Council, American Business Stevie Award winner in 2008 for Best Customer Support Team).

Here are some of my personal principles:

• Customer support organizations should be seen as an arm of the marketing department, not a cost center.  We don’t just represent the company’s product – we represent the company!
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• The quality of a single interaction between the employee and the client is more important than the quantity of interactions overall
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• The single most important role everyone in customer support plays is providing that “voice of the client” back to the entire organization
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• We’re not about call avoidance, in fact we want to talk to our clients! But we also respect our client’s crunch for time, and as such want to help build a product that’s intuitive and easy to use. Success comes when the level of conversation between the employee and client becomes focused more on how to help drive the client’s success, less on “how do I…”
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• We should always be striving to create a relationship with our clients that is defined more as a “partner” as opposed to a “vendor”
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• When our clients succeed, we succeed!

I consider myself very fortunate to have found such a great company to work for.  The culture here at BigCommerce can best be described as a fantastic group of people with an unrelenting focus on helping our clients succeed, working in an environment that is “wicked cool” (that’s the New Englander in me coming out!).  And being a musician and a big time foodie, I couldn’t have picked a better location than Austin, Texas to start the next great chapter in my career.

I’m looking forward to doing big things here at BigCommerce!