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Here’s What We’re Working on Next

Published on August 30th, 2010 by Mitchell Harper

Mitchell Harper
About the Author

Mitch (@mitchellharper) is the co-founder and CEO of BigCommerce. Way back in 2007 he built what eventually became BigCommerce as you know it. Today he runs the company alongside Eddie and along with our 100+ team members, is passionate about helping businesses succeed with e-commerce. Mitch spends time between our Sydney and Austin offices and is giving the keynote at TechConnect 2012 in Sydney on April 19th.

Introduction

So. BigCommerce 6 was rolled out a few weeks ago and by all accounts it was a huge success (our conversion rates have skyrocketed, support has plummeted, we made the Inc 5000 list for 2010 and feedback on new features and enhances to existing ones has been incredible). If you’re an existing BigCommerce client I’m sure you’re already asking yourself what’s next, right?

Well in this blog post I’ll answer that question for you.

How to Track Our Progress

Before we get started I want to remind you that you can track the daily (even hourly) progress of our engineering team as they work towards completing the next BigCommerce release right from our agile task board in Jira, our bug tracking software. For this release we’re working on 2 x 3 week sprints and are using points for work estimates as opposed to hours.

Remember: transparency is the name of the game for us – I want you to be able to see into every corner of our business and engineering is no exception.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about when I mention agile, SCRUM, Jira, etc then don’t feel bad. If you do, you’ll know that we’re running an agile (SCRUM) methodology and our aim with the next release is to keep as close to 100% pure agile as we can (I’d say we’ve been about 70% so far). Chris, our new product development manager, is helping a lot here.

What We’re Looking to Accomplish With Our Next Release

BigCommerce 6.0 was our last major old-school-style release. You know how it took us 4-5 months to release? And how it had a version number? Well, we’re not doing that any more. This is 2010 and BigCommerce is SaaS, which for all intensive purposes renders version numbers obsolete.

Moving forward, all releases will take no longer than 6-8 weeks for us to complete. That’s the plan anyway, and we’ll do our best to stick to it. Our old versioned releases (i.e. version 5.5, 5.6, 6.0, etc) lent themselves better to downloadable software, not SaaS. From here on in we won’t be using version numbers in public reference to BigCommerce (such as on our website).

Each release will of course have a version number, such as 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, etc, but the version numbers will now merely act as a reference point for us internally.

New Features Coming in Our Next Release

So here’s what we’re working on for the next release of BigCommerce (remember you can track our progress here):

  • Fly out menus for categories in your store
  • The ability to limit/remove breadcrumbs on the product page
  • The ability to limit how many times each customer can use a coupon code
  • Complete customization of gift certificate designs/templates
  • The option to show eligibility for free shipping on product (and other) pages
  • The ability to create a coupon code for free shipping
  • An “Add to Cart” popup that doesn’t take you away from the page you’re on (like Amazon’s)
  • A way to apply 3rd party SSL certificates to your store
  • The option to archive orders when deleted so they can be restored if required
  • Various improvements, tiny features and bug fixes
  • And of course a huge change to our variations system

No word on a release date yet but I will of course keep you informed as our engineering team gets closer. I’m also happy to report that 100% (yes, ALL) of the features and improvements in the next release of BigCommerce came from your ideas in our forum, so if you did post a new idea or vote for an existing idea, then thank you – we’re listening, improving and treat your feedback like gold and will continue to do so moving forward.

Try BigCommerce free for 15 days and see why it's loved by over 10,000 successful businesses.

Comments

  1. 1.

    Cathy A (August 30th, 2010, 11:32 pm)

    I’m pleased to say that I do know about Agile and SCRUM, sprints, etc. even though I’m not a techie. My ex husband runs his software testing groups that way. The changes sound good!

    [Reply]

  2. 2.

    Kyle (August 31st, 2010, 12:07 pm)

    We need a global minimum order amount for wholesale stores please Mitch! Thanks!

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    August 31st, 2010 at 10:14 pm

    Hi Kyle. Good idea, feel free to submit/vote for it at http://community.bigcommerce.com

    [Reply]

    Mohit Reply:
    September 10th, 2010 at 2:46 am

    Hi Mitch,

    You know we can’t offer discount% on order total which I think is very basic thing

    example: 20% of Order total

    Cheers
    Mickey

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 12th, 2010 at 10:51 pm

    Hi Mickey. That’s true – for now it’s just a fixed $ amount off the order total. Feel free to submit that as an idea if you’d like us to add it in: http://community.bigcommerce.com

  3. 3.

    Jessica (August 31st, 2010, 9:52 pm)

    I knew we chose the right product when we decided on BigCommerce just a few short weeks ago!

    I am looking forward to each and every one of the scheduled improvements/upgrades and simply cannot contain myself with excitement!

    Go get ‘em guys! Good Job and Good Luck!

    [Reply]

  4. 4.

    Eric (September 1st, 2010, 6:56 am)

    We need a way to create purchase orders, or batches of orders to send to our distributors on a daily basis. The way orders are exported does not work for this purpose. The wholesale cost is not even in the export. We spend a minimum of an hour a day putting together and sending orders to our distributors; on Mondays it takes at least 2 hours. You guys are amazing and continue to impress me, but this is one major feature that BC does not have that would save a ton of time for us.

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 1st, 2010 at 7:00 pm

    Hi Eric. Thanks for the kind words. Probably the main reason we don’t have that feature would be simply because it hasn’t been requested. If you can submit it in our community and if enough people vote it up, you can bet we’ll get it built: http://community.bigcommerce.com

    [Reply]

  5. 5.

    Zeke (September 1st, 2010, 7:45 am)

    I’m glad you guys you guys included the ““Add to Cart” popup that doesn’t take you away from the page” feature. How about a “more express” Express Checkout? any plans for that yet? I think that would improve out sales greatly!

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 1st, 2010 at 6:59 pm

    Hi Zeke. How exactly do you mean?

    [Reply]

    Zeke Reply:
    September 4th, 2010 at 9:01 am

    Hi Mitch, I mean reducing The 6 steps in the checkout process down to 3-4 steps, making it a true express checkout. Any plans on making a change like this in the future?

    -Zeke

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 5th, 2010 at 9:46 pm

    Nothing penciled in at the moment but refining and enhancing is always on our minds.

    Zeke Reply:
    September 7th, 2010 at 1:39 am

    Thanks for the answer Mitch!

    [Reply]

  6. 6.

    Mark (September 1st, 2010, 6:12 pm)

    Improvements look good. I can’t wait to install. I know I want it all so forgive me. When will drop shipping improvements/upgrade get added. Good luck and keep them coming.

    [Reply]

  7. 7.

    Brandon (September 1st, 2010, 9:04 pm)

    I love the new features thank you and am even more excited to hear about you opening your API up more and the new and improved delivery options. As a partner, you make my job easy and will continue to be a cheerleader for BC and build my business through your SaaS. Thank you all!
    `brandon

    [Reply]

  8. 8.

    Jeff (September 2nd, 2010, 10:08 am)

    I love how quickly you guys keep improving BigCommerce and just have a couple questions. How about meta data on news items and an autoship feature? Those are the 2 things I want the most from BigCommerce. They both have a lot of votes in the community too.

    Will the free shipping eligibility feature also include a way to make some products ineligible for free shipping on orders more than $X ?

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 5th, 2010 at 9:59 pm

    Hi Jeff. Feel free to post your feature requests at http://community.bigcommerce.com as ideas. In regards to the free shipping eligibility there will be options to limit it. We’ll post more when it’s been built.

    [Reply]

  9. 9.

    Curtis Holder (September 2nd, 2010, 11:24 am)

    Really Liking Version 6 so far. So great to partner with a company that is transparent and active in getting things done. Just wondering though, will there be the ability to offer quantity price breaks if 2 or more of the same product is purchased? I hope you’ll be able to tell me there already is that option and I’m just blind :)

    Thanks
    Curtis

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 5th, 2010 at 9:58 pm

    Hi Curtis. You can already setup quantity price breaks. Just edit a product and click the “Discounts” tab.

    [Reply]

  10. 10.

    Layne (September 2nd, 2010, 11:37 am)

    BC needs to be able to accept sales tax files(CSV/.xml) for states that have ridiculously insane tax codes(ie AR). We do nexus business with them and our AP person can’t possibly keep up manually entering them.

    I’ve seen a few ecommerce sites such as Zen Cart and Magento that can do it, is BC looking into this?

    Also, I see know way of letting a new customer select that they are tax-exempt(gov, credit unions, schools) at check-out. Is there a way to do this?

    thanks, everything else has been really great,

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 5th, 2010 at 9:58 pm

    Hi Layne. No plans at the moment but feel free to submit your idea at http://community.bigcommerce.com and if enough other clients vote on it you can bet we’ll build it for you.

    [Reply]

    Stephanie Reply:
    October 14th, 2010 at 2:18 pm

    I need a way to manage tax exempt customers. This is huge for us. I am very disappointed to hear that it is not being considered right now. It is already on the Community Idea list. What can we do to get this onto the changes list?

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    October 14th, 2010 at 4:49 pm

    Hi Stephanie. We plan a release about 2 months before it gets to development, and sometimes we take the top features from the community while sometimes we add features we know will help our customers and/or help us attract a specific set of customers. If a feature gets enough votes it may be considered for a release. When we plan the next release we will look at the ideas in the community and decide from there. Hope that helps.

  11. 11.

    yatin thakore (September 2nd, 2010, 11:38 am)

    I know you are working hard on drop shipping upgrades.

    As an interim fix, can you provide an ability to send a pdf file of orders (as an option instead of just a link which requires a log-in to see the order)? This way we can easily forward the email with the whole order to our vendor?

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 5th, 2010 at 9:55 pm

    Hi Yatin. We can’t provide an interim fix – we need to build features properly and give them the time they deserve. If you can bare with us, dropshipping isn’t too far away – we just need to get options sorted first.

    [Reply]

  12. 12.

    andrea (September 2nd, 2010, 12:22 pm)

    I want to change over to Big Commerce but I need to be able to have a different tax rate for each county in my state..Is this in the works?

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 5th, 2010 at 9:54 pm

    Hi Andrea. With version 6 you can already do that simply by matching on wildcards for zip codes, such as 90* or 1002?. Hope that helps.

    [Reply]

  13. 13.

    wes (September 2nd, 2010, 3:29 pm)

    hi, what about the shelf number/bin location for products promised for v6 but did not show then told will be in next update but no not mentioned.

    a simple box to enter a shelf location for a product please on packing slips

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 5th, 2010 at 9:53 pm

    Hi Wes. We’d never listed this as being in version 6 but feel free to submit it as an idea: http://community.bigcommerce.com

    [Reply]

  14. 14.

    Nick White (September 2nd, 2010, 5:36 pm)

    Mitch,

    Long time satisfied customer. I can’t wait for dropshipping in bigcommerce or shopping cart… I know it’s planned but how soon can we expect it?

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 5th, 2010 at 9:53 pm

    As above, Nick.

    [Reply]

  15. 15.

    Alan (September 2nd, 2010, 6:20 pm)

    When is back ordering and drop shipping going to be done? This has been one of the hot topics in the BigCommerce community for quite some time now and also a deal breaker for potential BC customers.

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 5th, 2010 at 9:53 pm

    Hi Alan. No exact dates yet – we’re working on a few other things as you can see by this post but when they’re on the roadmap you’ll be the first to know.

    [Reply]

    wes Reply:
    September 17th, 2010 at 12:56 pm

    drop shipping was hyped up as part of v6, then droped and now it looks like it is on the back burner. for clarity can you confirm once and for all if it is in progress and if so when we can expect it. It is not right to hype a feature then drop it with no time scale given.

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 26th, 2010 at 6:36 pm

    Hi Wes. From client feedback changes to variations were significantly important. We run a 100% transparent software company and as such the needs of existing clients come before those of potential clients so we’ve decided to work on variations for this release. Dropshipping isn’t far off though.

  16. 16.

    Stephan (September 2nd, 2010, 6:23 pm)

    Happy to report that the Upgrade went smoothly – no extra work for me, no problems for my customers, and a ton of useful new features!
    The planned improvements are much anticipated and eagerly awaited on this end – especially regarding coupon codes applied at the customer level, and the free shipping coupon will be great, too.
    Thanks again for ALL you do. Switching from the Amazon platform to Big Commerce has been my smartest business move of the year:)
    Best of Success,
    Stephan

    [Reply]

  17. 17.

    Ron P (September 2nd, 2010, 6:28 pm)

    We are in radio broadasting equipment supply and the discount off list does not work because of the varied small discounts dealers such as us receive. We need to work off our cost and a markup system, ie., cost +6% for big radio group buyers, next level cost +7.5%, next level cost + 9%

    Can the code be modified by your partners to reflect a cost plus system vs the list less discount as it currently stands??

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 5th, 2010 at 9:52 pm

    Hi Ron. Unfortunately not. With BigCommerce you have HTML and CSS access only. Feel free to send through a ticket and maybe one of our support ninjas can come up with a way to get discounts working for your particular needs: http://support.bigcommerce.com

    [Reply]

  18. 18.

    Ruddy (September 2nd, 2010, 11:12 pm)

    Hi Mich, well done so far in bigcommerce 6.0. We feature lacking is the ability to upload a bunch of coupon codes. We run huge marketing activities and it is time consuming to load them one at a time. Also the ability to create gift certificates from the admin portal.

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 5th, 2010 at 9:51 pm

    Hi Ruddy. Thanks for the kind words. Great idea too, feel free to submit it at http://community.bigcommerce.com and if enough people vote for it you can bet we’ll build it.

    [Reply]

  19. 19.

    William (September 3rd, 2010, 4:07 am)

    Please please please,

    Can we have Discounts that apply to all or selected products catagories the store ie buy a dozen wines and get 10% off. Its an idustry standard for us.

    Many thanks

    William

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 5th, 2010 at 9:50 pm

    Hi Bill. You can already do this with discount rules depending on how you sell your wine.

    [Reply]

    William Reply:
    September 6th, 2010 at 3:12 am

    Mitch,

    You can give a multibuy discount per produt but i would like to be able to say to our customers buy 12 bottles of wine and save. These 12 bottles could be any product.
    ie
    6 red
    3 white
    3 champagne

    and save 10%

    Do you see?

    William (Not Bill) :)

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 8th, 2010 at 2:03 am

    Hi William. Not at the moment no, but it’s a great idea. Feel free to submit it here: http://community.bigcommerce.com

  20. 20.

    Jeff Reider (September 3rd, 2010, 1:13 pm)

    Wow, a company that is transparent, takes our suggestions and constantly strives to make our lives easier? This is exactly why 3 days ago I began switching to BigCommerce and will continue to move all of my eCommerce sites over.

    *Fly out menus for categories in your store

    This was a biggie for me as I sell tons of sub category items and I am so glad it will be coming up!

    [Reply]

  21. 21.

    Stephanie (September 3rd, 2010, 3:25 pm)

    I had read somewhere that the ability to accept and order for a backordered product was coming soon. Is that still in the works?

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 5th, 2010 at 9:49 pm

    Hi Stephanie. It didn’t make the cut for version 6 but we’re hoping to get it in shortly.

    [Reply]

  22. 22.

    Little Duck (September 3rd, 2010, 4:02 pm)

    HI Mitch,

    This is a partner request more than a feature request. Can we in the UK have BigCommerce portal in UK £s. Here in the UK it really has been noted and noticed by us that people do not go for the US $ pricing.

    I really want to push Big Commerce in the UK. Please let us help you make more sales and get more UK customers? I have asked about this via normal channels but as yet no reply.. :(

    A great thumbs up if you can get behind us more effectively..

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 5th, 2010 at 9:49 pm

    Hi there. Unfortunately the partner software we use is encrypted and so we can’t change it. It also doesn’t support multi-currency but I’ll definitely keep your request in mind.

    [Reply]

  23. 23.

    CRaig Stephens (September 3rd, 2010, 4:27 pm)

    Glad I chose BigCommerce a year ago. You guys are great and support tickets are getting worked much quicker.

    It would be great to be able to ask the customer if they really want to ditch their shopping cart if they exit the site without purchasing. I’m not sure if the log tracks everything that is added.

    We have a good number of abandoned carts. Not quite sure why. Any way to help us improve encouraging our customers to stay and buy or trap an e-mail address to save their cart for them?

    I know log it into the site and look for like items :-)

    Have a good weekend.
    Craig.

    [Reply]

  24. 24.

    Jim Luciano (September 3rd, 2010, 10:53 pm)

    Still can’t figure out if the back-order feature was included in 6. I read that it was but don’t see it or know how to activate it. I have ver 6.0.12. If it got left out will it be added soon?

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 5th, 2010 at 9:47 pm

    Hi Jim. It wasn’t, but we’re hoping to add it shortly.

    [Reply]

  25. 25.

    Callum Laird (September 10th, 2010, 4:10 am)

    Hi Mitch,

    All good, loving the software and recommend it to everyone who asks. Only thing I was wondering is if there is a way to have a brand drop down list on the homepage, and if there is a way that on the brand page it can display just the logos, not the text for them as well#?

    Other than that its fantastic, love the new release and looking forward to more big things!

    Regards

    Callum

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    September 12th, 2010 at 10:50 pm

    Hi Callum. There isn’t a way at the moment but it’s a great idea. If you can submit an idea in our forum that’d be a good way to see how many other people find the feature useful: http://community.bigcommerce.com – and if enough people want it, we’ll build it.

    [Reply]

  26. 26.

    Los Angeles Website Design (September 22nd, 2010, 7:48 pm)

    This is a revolutionary idea, man think you should introduce also to your channel individual shopping platforms that channel customers from other websites to the individuals ecommerce store. Keep up the great work.

    [Reply]

  27. 27.

    Ed (October 1st, 2010, 12:03 pm)

    Hi,
    I’m just setting up my store now. I have a lot of work to do on perfecting the way I have the variations set up, and I was just wondering when this new system is expected to come online. I don’t want to do a bunch of work once and then go back and switch it all up again later. I think I read somewhere on the customer forum that the launch is tentatively scheduled for October 13. Is this accurate?

    [Reply]

    Mitchell Harper Reply:
    October 2nd, 2010 at 12:31 am

    Hi Ed. We don’t provide release dates – we just work as hard as we can on new features and when they’re ready, we launch them. We’ll keep you updated on the blog closer to the release.

    [Reply]

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