As we edge closer to the busy fall retail season, I sat down with Bigcommerce’s Chief Product Officer, Tim Schulz, to ask him about the most requested product features from merchants. Below, Tim describes how the Product & Engineering teams delivered updates and new releases to the Bigcommerce platform at a feverish pace in the first half of this year –– and highlights the steps they are taking to continue to deliver the innovative ecommerce features fast growing brands will need in the months ahead.
Q: Tim, with well over 60 feature launches in the first half of this year, can you recap what we’ve accomplished thus far?
Ultimately, our #1 objective is to enable customers on the Bigcommerce platform to sell more and achieve higher levels of success than they could using any other platform out there. As one of the fastest-growing SaaS platforms on earth, in an extremely competitive global market, Bigcommerce has certainly accomplished a lot over the last six months. We’re very proud of the fact that our stores are outperforming the industry average for year-over-year sales.
We’re proud of the fact that our stores are outperforming the industry average for YoY sales.
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One example of how we are dedicated to driving conversions and sales for our customers is the work we’ve put into increasing site load speed. Our customers’ stores are now loading 25% faster thanks to some terrific infrastructure work by our tech ops team, and studies show that the faster a site loads, the less likely potential customer are to bounce. Studies show that 46% of consumers say site speed is the number one reason they bounce from an ecommerce store. For stores utilizing Bigcommerce, those 46% of people won’t be looking to your competitor to buy simply because your store is slow to load.
Also, this May, we formally launched Bigcommerce Enterprise, where brands like Toyota, Cetaphil and Gibson Guitars are seeing higher conversion rates thanks to new features including HTTPS, faceted search and SSL –– which improve search rankings, drive engagement and foster shopper trust. We’re very committed to serving the needs of successful brands, especially those driving many millions of sales each month, so expect to see a lot more investment in Bigcommerce Enterprise in the months ahead.
Q: Bigcommerce announced multiple partnerships in the first half of 2015. Can you speak to some of those and how they are helping Bigcommerce merchants drive revenue?
Partnerships are an important part of the value we bring to customers. In May, we partnered with PayPal and released a unique integration that is helping customers drive more sales and be at the forefront of many of PayPal’s newest products, including One Touch. We were also thrilled to be the first commerce platform to partner with Alibaba and increase the product selection our customers are able to merchandize for shoppers. We also partnered with Intuit to make the integration of our products more seamless and to ease the burden of use for customers syncing data across multiple platforms.
Our most successful customers have both an online store & physical retail presence.
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Another area where we’ve made an incredible amount of traction this year is in making online and offline commerce more seamless. We found that an increasing number of our most successful customers have both an online store and physical retail presence, but to run their business effectively they needed a way connect their ecommerce store to their point of sale (POS) terminal. We believe in giving retailers choice when it comes to selecting a POS that is right for them, and so last fall we announced the industry’s first open, omnichannel platform. This February we added Square to our list of partners and in April we acquired Zing, which has really accelerated our momentum in this area. We’re looking forward to announcing some exciting capabilities on this front in the months ahead.
We’re really just getting started and we can’t wait to launch even more products in the second half of this year.
Q: On that note, I know you pay a lot of attention to customer feedback in order to educate and drive the product roadmap. What are some of the most requested features that you’re planning to address in the months ahead?
As many leading mid-market retailers are selecting Bigcommerce, we’re finding that accurate shipping quotes and complex shipping rules are a huge requirement. That’s why in June, we announced a strategic partnership with ShipperHQ to offer the industry’s first fully-hosted ecommerce and shipping solution. Together with ShipperHQ, Bigcommerce customers will be able to handle even the most complex shipping rules and ensure they are always providing accurate and intelligent shipping rates along the way.
Accurate shipping quotes and complex shipping rules are a huge requirement.
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Included in the features we’re launching this fall are per-product-per zone rules, improved dropshipping capabilities, shipping rates by customer group and an overhauled shipping calculator which includes advanced packing rules and much more.
We have a lot more coming down the pike as far as product features, so stay tuned. Our focus right now is heavily on our mid-market customers and making sure that we are providing them the most efficient and scalable platform on which to build their brand, grow their customer base and ultimately run a lean, successful business operation.
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