Solutions Architect: Your Resource for a Skillfully Designed Ecommerce Tech Stack

As a BigCommerce Enterprise Plan customer, you can engage a variety of resources designed to assist with developing and managing your ecommerce site. One of the most valuable resources we offer is access to our Professional Services teams.

We understand how much goes into having a successful online store, which is why we maintain a team of industry experts to support customers as they grow their ecommerce business.

To show customers how to maximize these teams’ benefits, we’ve launched a blog series that breaks down each team’s role, how they can help you, and best practices for working with them.

In Part 5 of our series, we interviewed Mark Seung, Senior Solutions Architect at BigCommerce to gain insights into how his team helps BigCommerce customers see success.

What does a Solutions Architect do for customers?

Mark Seung: “Solutions Architects are ecommerce industry experts who work with customers and their agencies to determine how to best integrate BigCommerce into their tech stack. 

“This could mean analyzing their use cases and requirements to determine what is native and what needs to be custom. We can help with many integration needs, especially for larger enterprise customers with their own ERPs and external systems.

“We’re here to help design their BigCommerce purchase. The one thing we don’t do is code. We are not part of their development team; we’re part of their design team. That’s a distinction we tell customers right off the bat. We’re also a service all BigCommerce customers can engage, regardless of the plan their on.”

What makes a project successful?

Seung: “For a project to be successful, a Solutions Architect is usually involved right from the start. It’s pretty time-consuming if you find mistakes at the end of your development. We encourage customers to get us involved at the beginning of their project, especially during the design and planning phases. That way, we can provide the different nuances, tips, or best practices to make them successful from the very beginning of their project.

“We like to be involved in the first couple weeks or months, depending on the project size. Then we trail off when the customer goes through development and testing, but we’re always available if they have questions.”

Do you have any tips or strategies for getting stakeholders aligned?

Seung: “Make sure to work with an Implementation Project Manager (IPM) because they will be the glue for getting everyone aligned on your project. Solutions Architects work well with IPMs because they help keep everyone on track.”

What advice would you give to a customer preparing to work with a Solutions Architect?

Seung: “Before working with our team, make sure to have requirements defined and any initial design documents prepared to share with us. That way, we can work off this information instead of going back and forth with the customer.

“If the customer doesn’t have defined requirements, they’ll need to set expectations for their Solutions Architect. This may require a bit more digging in the discovery phase.”

What’s your top tip for a successful launch on BigCommerce?

Seung: “Testing. Make sure to have a QA team involved in the entire testing process. Some customers don't have a thorough testing phase, and the results definitely show that.”

What is something customers don’t take advantage of that they should?

Seung: “Many customers don't take advantage of our Data Migration team. Almost everyone needs migration help, and I think that team is much more well-versed in helping with migrations than many customers give them credit for. They can deal with overall data cleanup and create a good clean slate to start out on BigCommerce.”

What’s your favorite native feature?

Seung: “Many customers don’t realize we offer a stored credit card feature. This native functionality saves credit card or PayPal information to expedite the checkout process for returning customers. It’s a pretty powerful feature that helps create a frictionless shopping experience.”

What have you seen a customer do that made them successful?

Seung: “Customers who openly communicate with us and other Professional Services teams usually have more successful projects than those who don’t. This is especially true when customers are open and honest about problems they’re experiencing because it allows us to address them head-on so their site can quickly get back to running smoothly.”

What are some of your favorite BigCommerce brands?

Seung: “I helped with King Arthur Baking’s site and really enjoyed working with them. Square Enix is another favorite of mine, and so is Ted Baker.”

What are some helpful resources you recommend?

Seung: “I recommend customers look at our support and developer documentation and our developer training courses. We also have a lot of Medium articles, so they should definitely look into those as well.”

The final word

A Solutions Architect is the best resource for a skillfully designed ecommerce site. Getting them involved at the start of your project allows them to carefully craft your store’s blueprints to meet your requirements and tech stack goals. This guarantees the seamless development of your website, saving you time to reinvest in growing your business.

Check out our other Professional Services teams and join the BigCommerce Community on Facebook to collaborate, share advice, and learn from the success of other customers on our platform.