The Return on Investment (ROI) Blog by BigCommerce

Introduction

After releasing version 5.5 of BigCommerce in November last year (which did even better than we expected), we’re well under way developing the next major release: version 6. After talking with dozens of customers and partners via our GetSatisfaction page, in person and on the phones, I’ve locked in what I think is a release full of killer features which will help make you more money as a BigCommerce merchant.

More Innovation, Frequent Releases

Some say the e-commerce space is boring or stagnant. We laugh at that and don’t believe it for a second.

Our goal with BigCommerce is to out-innovate all e-commerce platforms on the market so you have not only the best e-commerce platform in the world but also all of the tools you need to successfully (and affordably – that’s a big one) drive thousands of targeted shoppers to your site so they buy from you. After all, what good is having a great online store if no one sees it?

We know the pro’s and con’s of every competitor in the space and our only mission as a company is to build BigCommerce into the most innovative, industry-leading e-commerce platform available so you can get the most out of your online store with the least amount of effort.

We eat, sleep, breathe, dream and think about our goal every minute of the day, and consistent, high impact releases are designed to do just that.

Anyway, I digress, although I do think it’s important you know where we plan to take the company (to the top).

The BigCommerce Version 6 Feature List

Here’s the list of features you can expect as part of BigCommerce version 6 around the middle of the year:

Disclaimer: The features listed below may be changed at any time so please don’t plan or build your business around them. While we will do our best to include every feature, one or more may not make it into the final release. The middle of the year is also an extremely rough release date estimate and can (and probably will) change.

• eBay selling integration – As identified in a survey we sent out in late 2009, the biggest problem for BigCommerce merchants is attracting new customers to their online store affordably. eBay selling integration will allow BigCommerce merchants to “push” some or all of their products to eBay, which would then appear in eBay search results and listings. You will then be able to process orders received via eBay just as you would those through your BigCommerce store. This will give you access to the tens of millions of people who shop on eBay every month at little to no cost.
  
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• Dropshipping and multiple warehouse support – Dropshipping will allow you to sell online without having to stock inventory or ship orders. When dropshipping is enabled, each product is assigned to a particular supplier whose details (including email address) are stored. When an order is placed, an email is sent to the supplier of each product in the order. The email includes the customer’s address, product, quantity, etc. The supplier then ships the item to the customer on behalf of the BigCommerce merchant, who typically pays each of their suppliers at the end of the month.In addition to dropshipping support, multiple warehouse support will allow larger e-commerce vendors to use BigCommerce. If you imagine an online retailer like Amazon who has at least 6 warehouses across North America, their apparel might be inventoried in one warehouse while their books in another, their appliances in another, etc. With multiple warehouse support, each product is assigned to a particular warehouse (and shelf location) so when a picking slip is printed for an order, it will include warehouse and shelf location details for each item in the order, making it easier and faster for the warehouse clerks to get an order into “ready to ship” stage or to split the order over multiple shipments if need be (which BigCommerce already supports).
  
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• Importer from Yahoo Stores – A Yahoo Stores importer will make it easier for current merchants using Yahoo Stores to switch to BigCommerce. They simply setup their BigCommerce trial store, start the Yahoo Stores importer, choose what they’d like to import and they’re ready to start selling online with BigCommerce.
  
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• Shopping comparison export – Sites like Nextag, Yahoo Shopping, PriceWatch, PriceScan, Shopzilla, Pricegrabber, Shopping.com, MySimon and Bizrate allow people to compare prices amongst different online retailers – and these sites are used by tens of millions of people every week prior to buying online. They are, of course, an excellent source of traffic for online retailers, who can list their products on these comparison shopping sites for free. They only pay when someone clicks a link for one of their products, similar to Google AdWords.These comparison shopping sites typically require the store owner to import (or auto-sync) a simple XML file containing the details of the products they want to list. Along with eBay selling integration this is a fantastic way to drive hundreds or even thousands of new shoppers to a BigCommerce merchant’s online store for around 50 cents per click.
  
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• Pre-order/Back order support – Imagine for a minute that you sell books online. Your customers are waiting for the latest Twilight book and because you know stocks from suppliers will be limited upon release, you setup the ability to pre-order the book on your website before it comes out. You accept 1,000 pre-orders for the book (which might be all your supplier will send when it’s released) and when it’s released, you simply look up these orders and ship the books.Back order support allows you to continue selling a particular product even when its inventory dips below zero. You’ll be able to display a message to shoppers showing an estimated date when they will receive new stock and/or when their order will ship. When the new stock arrives, you can look up all back orders and ship them as usual, reducing your inventory count in the process. This is incredibly useful for merchants who experience seasonal variations in purchases or for those who under estimate demand.
  
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• Integration with Mailchimp – As we know from experience, email marketing is an affordable way to generate repeat business and build trust with customers. Mailchimp has a simple but powerful API which allows us to integrate newsletter subscribers, customers and even filtered lists of customers right back into the software, which BigCommerce merchants can then use to create, send and track their email marketing campaigns.
  
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• Printable shipping labels – FedEx, UPS and USPS all have their own branded, specifically designed shipping labels which make it easy for the shipping carrier to route the package to its destination electronically, simply by scanning a barcode on the shipping label. These labels are easy for us to design using the publicly available API’s through UPS Online Tools, Endicia (USPS), etc. You will be able to easily print a shipping label for an order through your label printer, place it on the box and have the shipping company do the rest. This can save 2-3 hours a day if you’re shipping a sufficient quantity of orders.
  
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• Integration with Outright.com – Small business accounting sucks. It’s complicated and the software is a nightmare to use. Outright.com is a SaaS approach to small business accounting and it makes it easy for BigCommerce merchants to track their spending and income. Integration with Outright.com will feed BigCommerce order details directly into the software and will help BigCommerce merchants prepare for tax time when the need arises.
  
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• iPad/iPhone template – As we all know, mobile is hot. People love to browse prices and products on their phones but why not let them buy right from their phones as well? The iPad/iPhone template will make it easy for BigCommerce merchants to sell to customers when they’re on the go, and if they enable one or more API-based payment gateways then the customer wont ever have to leave their BigCommerce store.
  
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• Picnik.com image editing – Think of picnik.com as an online version of Photoshop but with fewer bells and whistles. It’s free and is an excellent tool for making quick and simple image edits such as resizing, red eye removal, etc. From the control panel you will be able to edit any image simply by clicking on it. The image will be loaded into Picnik.com and changes will be pushed back to their BigCommerce store in real time.
  
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• 301 redirect support * - When switching to BigCommerce, the last thing a merchant wants to see is his hard-fought search engine rankings go down the drain. 301 redirect support will allow you to “tell” Google aboutyour new BigCommerce store and will preserve their search engine rankings as they switch platforms (currently supported, but requires our engineers to update the 301 records manually – this will allow you to do it automatically).
  
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• Ability to update DNS records * – This will allow you to manage your own DNS records.
  
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• “Down for maintenance” page * – Self explanatory. You can take their store down for maintenance and show a customized message during the process.
  
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• Improvements to the tax calculations and settings – Includes support for per-product tax rates, multiple tax rates per product, etc.
  
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• Being able to set the starting order number * – No one wants to see “Your order number is 1″. This will allow you to set the starting order number when you open their “virtual doors” for business.
  
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• “Customers who viewed this product also viewed” panel - A great online merchandising feature which will drive more page views in your store, which will result in more sales.
  
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• Match up the import/export data formats – Right now they’re not the same which is time consuming for bulk editing.

* These features will be included in a minor 5.6 release in or around April 2010 because they’ve been asked for the most and are easier to build

Conclusion

So there you have it – that’s the entire list of features we’re diligently working on for the next major release of BigCommerce.

As anyone who follows us knows, we’re all about transparency – both in showing you how we build the product (this blog post and various updates on Twitter) and also in our support efforts (via phone, email, our knowledge base, FaceBook page, Twitter account and GetSatisfaction page) – we don’t hide behind locked forums and we’ll even tell you when things go wrong (while we try to be perfect, it isn’t always possible).

Remember, we’re in this together for the long haul. We hope you’re as excited about the upcoming version 6 release as we are and we can’t wait to get it to you!

Over and out.

Please note: If you created your BigCommerce store on or after 16th December 2009 then you’re already running version 5.5 so please ignore this post. It only applies to stores which were setup before 16th December 2009.

Hi everyone. Over the last few days we’ve been rolling out the BigCommerce 5.5 software update to all existing stores. If you login to your store’s control panel you’ll see a notice at the top of the page which looks something like this:

When you click the link you’ll be asked to schedule a date for when the upgrade will take place:

The upgrade process is automatic, takes around 30 minutes to complete and because some files will be changed, your store may down for all or part of the upgrade process.

If you’ve modified your template or CSS files either using the browser-based QuickEdit tool or via FTP, you will need to make some small changes to maintain compatibility with the 5.5 update, but don’t worry – the upgrade guide PDF steps you through everything, complete with screenshots. If you’ve only used design mode to change your store’s layout or text then you don’t need to make any changes after you’ve upgraded.

Just to recap, the 5.5 software update is a major release. It was specifically built to give you more merchandising tools so you can increase your conversion rate and increase the number of people who buy from you. For me the stand out features are SuperZoom photo zoom, YouTube search and embed as well as Google Website Optimizer integration.

I know from experience that GWO can significantly boost your conversion rates and that seemingly small changes (such as changing the color of your checkout button from blue to green) can have a massive impact on your bottom line, so I’d love to hear your experience with GWO once you’ve upgraded.

This blog post talks more about the 5.5 software update in detail, but here are the new features you’ll be able to enjoy once you upgrade:

• Google Website Optimizer Support – Test different versions of site-wide items to see which results in more sales. For example, test different “Add to Cart” buttons while also testing different checkout buttons, product names, category descriptions and more. In total there are 18 different tests you can run – more than any other e-commerce platform provides.
• Image Thumbnails, Zoom and Custom Sizes – We know from your feedback that images are the most important part of your online store, so we’ve added the ability to display thumbnails on the product page. There’s also image zoom on rollover and custom (configurable) image sizes for different sections of your online store.
• YouTube Search and Embed – Search for videos on YouTube right from your “Add a Product” page and have them display in a beautiful video player on your product pages. Easily find (or upload) video reviews for products you sell, add them to your product page and watch your order rate increase.
• QuickBooks and StoneEdge Two Way Sync – Easily sync your orders, products, customers and more to/from Intuit QuickBooks or StoneEdge Order Manager with just a few clicks.
• Change the Store’s Header Graphic – You can make changes to the existing header graphic in your store’s design or even download a plain version of the header graphic to modify as required.
• Auto-Generated HTML and XML Sitemaps – The HTML sitemap will allow the search engines to crawl and index all pages in your online store, while the XML sitemap can be submitted using Google Webmaster Tools to get more details on crawling/indexing problems which you can then correct to improve how your online store ranks in the search engines.
• Search Products, Categories, Brands, News and Web Pages – Your customers will be able to search more than just products in your store. They can search categories and brands by name and even content in news items and web pages you’ve created. Search results are separated into easily-accessible tabs and are fully configurable.
• Accept and Process Payments When Taking a Phone Order – You’ll be able to take payment then-and-there when adding a phone order through your store’s control panel. No more processing payments manually after you take the order.
• More Varied Store Designs – We’ve crafted over 15 additional store designs for a wide range of industries, bringing the total of over 60 store designs available to all BigCommerce store owners absolutely free.
  
• Embed Videos Into Product Descriptions – Just paste in a link from YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe or Megavideo and we’ll automatically create the HTML code and add the video to your product’s description.
• Photo Gallery – All uploaded images are accessible from the new photo gallery, so if you want to use the same photos for multiple products you only have to upload them once. You can even use photos that have already been uploaded to other websites.
• An AddThis Button on Product Pages – Take advantage of product recommendations with the AddThis button. In one click shoppers can easily share a link to a product in your store with their friends via email, Twitter, FaceBook and dozens of other social media services.
• Abandoned Order Report – See a list of all incomplete orders along with shopper details so you can follow up and see why they didn’t complete their order. You can choose how many days these orders remain in your store’s control panel before they’re removed.
• Sales Tax Report - Easily create a sales tax report filtered by date range which you can export into Microsoft Excel for further processing or to send directly to your accountant.
• Various Improvements – Along with new features we’ve also improved existing functionality. A complete list of improvements will be included with the change log upon release.

It’s a great day for us here at Interspire – BigCommerce is officially the world’s most popular e-commerce platform as voted by the folks over at Top10Reviews. You can see the comparison chart and read the entire review here. As our long time clients know, we really do believe that BigCommerce is the best choice for businesses of all sizes looking to sell online, and this accolade validates all of the hard work we’ve put in over the last 3 years.

Here’s an extract from the review:

BigCommerce from Interspire is one of those rare programs that have a ton of features, but are also refreshingly easy to use. A lot of programs fall victim to bogging the user down when they add too many features because that’s more the user needs to learn. Most users are eager to accomplish whatever they need to accomplish with that particular program, so they don’t want figuring out how to use it to be rocket science. Interspire takes the time to explain all of their features down to the minutest detail. All the user has to do is design an engaging store, fill it with good products and wait for success to come their way.

While our number one position validates our hard work to date, we’re not stopping. We will continue to listen to your feedback, build the features you want, provide you with excellent support and everything else you need to really build a successful and profitable online store. Consider us your technology partner in your e-commerce journey, because that’s how we see ourselves.