Rating: 1 star
My intention was to simplify the setup and maintenance with the BigCommerce for WordPress plugin, however, this plugin is an absolute nightmare and amounts to nothing more than a marketing gimmick due to its extreme limitations.
To begin with, there is no feature within the BigCommerce dashboard to change the attached domain, thus it is forever attached to the WordPress staging site unless level 2 support can change it.
Why is this important? Because the checkout pages do not work unless the attached domain in BigCommerce matches your WordPress site’s domain.
You’d think BigCommerce had enough forethought to ensure their customers can make sales with their software, but no.
Now after waiting for 36h without a response from BigCommerce and a customer eager to accept orders, I decided to remove & reinstall the plugin and the attached domain.
This opened up an even larger set of problems.
2. Caused the whole website to crash with a ‘Critical Error Encountered on this website’
3. Several product category pages receiving ‘Critical Error Encountered on this website’
This plugin’s attempt at enabling BigCommerce for WordPress seems to be nothing more than a marketing gimmick due to lacking what are very obvious features and options necessary to get a website up and running smoothly.
Rating: 3 stars
BigCommerce For WordPress offers an easy, straightforward way to create a new channel for your BigCommerce store. Setup was a breeze, it syncs all your products, and if you’re comfortable with CSS and WordPress themes, it’s even possible to customize the shopping experience.
Just be aware, however, that the plugin provides absolutely no data whatsoever to your channels. So you’re not going to see visits, conversions, orders, or revenue. Everything in your new channel shows up as zero. And, according to BigCommerce support, it’s supposed to work that way.
This is extra frustrating if your checkouts are done on BigCommerce directly, which is one of the easier way to set the plugin up. Because you’re not going to see any add to carts, or abandoned carts. You only see the sales that come through — and again, they don’t show up in the store channel. So you never really get a good look at where the sales are coming from.
But if you just want an easy way to create a new channel for your store, and don’t mind that you can’t see where your sales are coming from (or even which sales you’re losing), then this plugin might be for you.
]]>Rating: 3 stars
Three stars are for the customer support received by Big Commerce who were truly great and did their best. We moved a large E-commerce site to Big Commerce for WordPress and I really wished I had known these points before doing this so I hope this post will save someone the pain. Firstly do not attempt this without a very good developer who can work the way around an API as you will need to put hacks in place to get everything working.
1. If you have more than 500 products and need to update these on a regular basis and stock changes then this is not for you. We have 9000 and the syncs take forever constantly fail even with a massive server and you usually need to keep your computer on overnight with the page open or it fails even more. If you do not update the plugin on an update for a day or so and you do full sync you can loose 80% of your products out of WordPress and your whole site starts to 404. Re-installing the plugin does not fix this as suggested and neither does syncing site URL.
2.Web hooks for stock updates do not work properly for stock. You really need to do a full product sync to make sure the stock updates on the front end which means a painful long sync every single day which fails on a regular basis. Web hooks do update the stock but usually it takes 3-4 days for it to update. The good part even if Big Commerce has zero and it says in stock on the front end you can block the customer from buying if they add to cart as it pulls the data from BC.
3. Google Enhanced E-commerce tracking does not work and you will need to put a hack in place. The team are working on a solution but nothing has come out.
4. Meta’s for category pages do not pull through. We had to build a custom API solution to get this to work.
I really wish there was some honestly with this plugin and it is advised for people with large complex product data basis this is not the right solution. I can see the benefits if you have a small product database but really is a poor headless solution compared to what is out there on the market. The main problem is this is a product sync from BC to WP and not an API solution. Big Commerce code is also heavy compared to competitors and the performance is just not there for speed either
If you are looking for a headless solution look at Big Commerce & Shopify with Next.js with a CMS like sanity or Strapi. These are API driven and not a product sync which removes the pain. If you compare speed between both Shopify and Big Commerce sites running this Shopify is faster as a backend platform and Big Commerce code does seem to slow things down however I really like the Big Commerce back end for large cataloges and has some really nice features. As mentioned customer support are great and always try to help.
My mistake has been made here and I need to deal with it which will probably mean another migration in 2 years unless a better sync solution is put in place. I do see the updates on Github constantly have sync updates included but this has not been thought through for large catalogues and until you are fairly committed and too far down the line to pull out you do not realise how poor it is for large catalogues.
]]>Rating: 5 stars
This is a great alternative for using BigCommerce as your eCommerce platform. It is developer friendly and has a great support team. While it has its limitations, it’s not of the plugin’s fault. Things such as the embedded checkout (CORS issues) or product importing (server timeouts) are items that are out of the plugin’s control. These issues are easily avoided by using the same domain for your BC site and limiting the products displayed on the site (I think the limit is like 500).
All-in-all, if you use BigCommerce and develop in WordPress, this is a great tool to bridge the two platforms.
]]>Rating: 1 star
I do not enjoy leaving bad comments to other business. But other WP users like me would need honest review before they install this plugin.
Firstly, I’d give great compliments, 100 stars if I could, to the CS service of the BigCommerce site. He spent up to two hours to explain me how BigCommerce and this plugin work as a WP beginner. Although he wasn’t tech support, I explained him that I follow the step of the plugin to seek help…he was willing to help and asked for his colleagues and therefore our phone spent over two hours….
However, this plugin suck! And mess up my site badly. I am on free trial of BigCommerce and considered using them instead. Indeed, I don’t need this plugin. But I don’t find clear instructions on the plugin. It was a mistake to use it. Also, the plugin doesn’t work even thought the CS staff worked with me through their company instruction. I am using the latest version of WP which isn’t tested by this plugin. At last, it messed up my site set up: Pictures, menu setting, backup function on this site. I am unable to restore the back up on WP. The backup on my hosting site appeared to have problems since the same day I use this plugin. Luckily, my hosting company has stored the backup right before the day I installed this plugin and I can restore it!
Terrible experience. But I am happy to resolve it and hopefully, my review helps other make wise choice!
]]>Rating: 4 stars
Was tasked with implementing this plugin for an already successful BigC store. The client had a BigC store and two other WP content sites. They wanted a unified e-store + content site.
It wasn’t a perfect experience. BC4WP has some gaps in desired functionality, but they seem to be continually improviing the plugin. Developers from the WP/Woocommerce world will have to cope with learning some new approaches, but the basics you need for delivering a rich e-commerce + rich content experience are here, and it’s far easier to work with than the BigC backend CMS.
Bottom line: BC4WP opens up a world of rich content possibilities for existing BigC stores, and on that basis alone, it is worth serious consideration. For new stores, the reasons are a bit less compelling but still very worthwhile. You get all of the solidness of BigC’s back end … shipping, payment, analytics, with the rich front-end capabilities of WordPress and your favorite themes and plugins.
Big shout out to Topher in the BC4WP Slack community, who is a powerful champion for this plugin. He’s an excellent resource.
]]>Rating: 1 star
Updated Review: I previously wrote a positive review of this plugin before I got it working as I had faith in the team behind BigCommerce for WordPress to help me. This assistance didn’t last long. The plugin ultimately failed after an update back in October and my client’s site was unusable as a result. This was a monumental failure. Do not recommend, very disappointed by BigCommerce and their team.
Previous Review: Long story short: My client picked BigCommerce as her ecommerce platform of choice after speaking with sales agents. While it wasn’t our first choice, we went ahead and agreed to build an ecommerce using BigCommerce for WordPress. After installing this plugin and working with it for a while, we uncovered some amount of frustrating challenges / kinks, including links in product descriptions not being automatically synced, checkout not always working right, and incompatibility with some translation plugins we’re used to work with (WPML is one for instance).
We tried email support but the responses we got were usually vague and borderline unhelpful. We had to take to Twitter to make our grievances public. And then came Topher, BigCommerce superstar employee, the developer who’ll go the extra mile to get your issues fixed. He helped us work out most of the kinks we couldn’t resolve on our own, and now checkout’s working fine, he showed us how to reset products to get links working again (alright, so, it’s weird that we have to manually reset the products to import links but… at least it works?). Translating the store is the last thing we’re working on right now.
Is BigCommerce for WordPress a perfect plugin? No, it’s not. That being said, after spending a lot of time working with their support team, we see what BigCommerce has to offer and that this could become an amazing plugin someday, maybe even a perfect plugin, if they keep working at it. 5 stars for Topher. 3 stars for BigCommerce for WP.
]]>Rating: 5 stars
In my experience, this plugin has been solid, extensible and well maintained. If you need some help with it, please just let me know.
]]>Rating: 5 stars
Coming from a Drupal background, I expect to be able to customize without limit, but his plugin did not provide that. The biggest thing was that I could not hook into JS events such as when products were initialized on page load or when the quick view dialog was triggered.
Besides that, I was quite impressed with the backend and their decoupled approach. There were a lot of templates and also a lot of hooks. Furthermore, their developer support (not customer) is amazing: working with Topher, the BigCommerce WordPress Developer Evangelist, was a pleasure.
]]>Rating: 4 stars
I recently helped a client launch their new store in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. BigCommerce made it easy to collaborate with the client and share the workload of the content and technical process, and the plugin does what it sets out to do well. We had some teething problems along the way that were quite frustrating, however after further reading and support we were able to find the fixes or workarounds we needed. There are some areas I would love to see improved for the plugin, but appreciate that it’s a neverending list of added features and changes for the devs to implement. Well done overall!
]]>Rating: 4 stars
For serious WordPress publishers who want to add premium store functionality without the fine-tuning required with WooCommerce, the updated BC4WP plugin is a solid option. It brings a premium BigCommerce account into a WordPress site, giving the choice to present your products in a store or in a single piece of content.
Being completely honest, it was a more challenging product to use in the past, but they’ve come a long way toward making this easier for the DIY store owner to set up and powerful enough for the experienced dev to take it to the next level.
]]>Rating: 4 stars
This plugin has allowed us to get into BC development in a big way. We’ve had frustration in the past trying to get complicated site customizations done properly with Stencil theming. As a theme/plugin developer, the plugin is pretty easy to extend. We’ve actually already created a couple BC4WP-specific themes for clients.
]]>Rating: 5 stars
It’s a little different from what I’m used to but once you get hang of it, it’s easy to use.
]]>Rating: 1 star
Support at BigCommerce is normally very good but when it comes to this app no one seems to know what is going on. Getting answers to questions is not happening. So it is a real struggle on your own. The embedded cart has broken once on one site and twice on another. If we were live we would be out of business, broken for 3 days now–WTF !!! Warranty and Availability fields are not supported. You use this as critical fields on the BigCommerce and then they don’t work on WordPress. They are just text fields I don’t get it? Best to avoid this for now. I am ready to give up.
]]>Rating: 5 stars
This plugin is super polished and intuitive. It makes so much sense to me to let WordPress worry about content management, and a dedicated ecommerce platform worry about ecommerce. WordPress is amazing, but it’s not well designed for products and checkouts and payment providers and order history.
Thank you to the BigCommerce team for imagining and bringing to life decoupled ecommerce and WordPress, the way it should be. And finally! An alternative to the ever-bloating Woo!
]]>Rating: 5 stars
As add-on and extension creators, some of the first things we look at with an e-commerce system are code quality, documentation, and how easily we can extend it to create new functionality. We just wrapped up building the initial release of our first add-on for BigCommerce, and it was a joy to work with. The code was very clean and readable, and documentation was great.
Aside from awesome code quality, the whole experience of BigCommerce is, in our opinion, top notch. The product management interface is simple, clean, and very user friendly. Unlike some e-commerce plugins for WordPress, BigCommerce is very easy to find your way around.
Overall, BigCommerce is a delight to use!
]]>Rating: 5 stars
I judge an ecommerce plugin/platform by the amount of frustration I have with it … and using this plugin I had minor and minimal frustrations, which is why I gave it a 5 star.
For our launch of [link removed] we wanted to utilize the power of WP, but not have the hassle or scaling mess of an ecommerce plugin.
This plugin makes the integration between WP and BC seamless and intuitive, leveraging each platform for their respective strengths and staying out of the way of the other.
The launch went great.
I’ve used some of the BC shortcodes for better product placement on the site already and am digging in to the Gutenberg blocks integration next to go further.
]]>Rating: 5 stars
It is so nice to be able to leverage the flexibility of WordPress and have the security and stability of the BigCommerce engine. Running BigCommerce in this headless fashion has allowed our team to create custom e-commerce sites that otherwise would not be possible.
Most issues we have encountered have been quickly resolved by the BC team. It continues to get better with each release. Highly recommended for anyone looking an e-commerce solution!
]]>Rating: 5 stars
This plugin grants you the extended functionality you need in order to build a more robust e-commerce site with WordPress. Many of the built-in features are great and there are plenty of options to choose from. The API sync is especially useful for managing your products and inventory. Last but not least, the support for this plugin is phenomenal, I reported a bug and it was fixed and released to a new version of the plugin within 24 hours!
]]>Rating: 5 stars
BigCommerce is the best eCommerce platform around for a developer but when you get a client that is quite heavy on the content side of things and produces a lot of articles alongside their store that requires segmentation or the like, the BigCommerce system needs a little assistance – that’s where this plugin comes into its own.
Using all the features you’re familiar with in WordPress to create well-thought-out content eco-systems and utilising custom post types to create bespoke and unique areas within a site, and all without having to comprise on running a full-fledged eCommerce store alongside it by coupling it with the power of the BigCommerce platform. This plugin opens the door to handling all the sales functionality you need within BigCommerce whilst keeping the marketing and SEO in WordPress where your content gurus love being.
Having built a number of sites in both native BC and WordPress connected sites, the plugin gives the flexibility to produce the right solution for the right websites – every time.
]]>Rating: 5 stars
So far we are quite happy using this plugin to transition our store from Bigcommerce to WordPress. This plugin has a lot of potential to get the best of both worlds with WordPress supporting your front end and Bigcommerce on the back end. There is also a great community of support behind it. I highly recommended watching the Youtube video “Enterprise eCommerce with WordPress and BigCommerce” by eCommerce-Aholic if you are just starting off. If you are looking to make this transition, partnering with a solid developer is a must.
]]>Rating: 5 stars
We’ve built four sites so far using this plugin. It gives us the flexibility of a WordPress build with the security and stability of BigCommerce. We’re excited to soon launch a multi-currency, multi-region site using this technology, and another project with multiple regional WordPress frontends, running off the same BigCommerce backend.
We’ve found the support and consistent updates very encouraging and a good reflection of BigCommerce’s commitment to this plugin.
]]>Rating: 5 stars
Very good plugin for me.
This plugin we have integrated with wordpress website and it’s very use full for me.
Also, Good support from bigcommerce support team. Thank you as well as to you.
Thank you!
]]>Rating: 5 stars
I have been using Big Commerce for almost 10 years (with two different companies) and have always appreciated the interface and the ease with which us non-developers can update and modify. I was excited to find out that I could still manage my current and new business through the established back end, which simplified my inventory, fulfillment and product listing management. And I was looking forward to offering my two different customers a seamless and clearly branded experience. This integration achieves that very well on the front end. While I hit a few little snags with the set up, the customer service was beyond amazing. Topher was quickly able to help rectify all of the challenges I encountered with setting and launching the new site, and most were due to user error. While my site is fairly simple, I feel like the site integration has exceeded my expectations and I think it accomplishes what it’s intended to do, until the checkout is complete. It’s the after purchase that is still a bit tricky. Email order confirmations, shipping confirmations, abandoned cart series and email marketing are all still branded with the main (BC) logo. I have found a workaround, by changing the logo to actually incorporate both brands (it works for me because both of my brands are related) but I wish there was a way to segment the communication and audience more effectively so that there are truly two stand alone experiences that don’t have to mix.
I know there’s improvements continually being made and I am excited to see what’s coming down the pike.
Rating: 5 stars
This plugin is easy to setup and user-friendly once you get the hang of it.
There will be issues with any plugin but the developers of BC4WP take the time to understand the issue and improve the overall product. Topher in particular has been awesome with assisting us and getting the issues to the right people so that we can continue to push forward.
We’ve launched 2 sites using this plugin and so far we’re happy with the frequent updates and progress we’ve seen since we’ve started using it. The plugin is still fairly new so issues are to be expected, however, plugin updates are regular and address issues and bugs that users have reported. Compared to other solutions like WooCommerce, you can actually call the BigCommerce team and get phone support if you have issues. Setup is fairly minimal and its actually pretty awesome to have the plugin do the heavy lifting, this includes handling user accounts and registration, checkout, cart functionality and more.. you can literally install it and have it up and running.
Customization and Add-ons
Probably one of the best features of this plugin is the ability to customize the look to your theme. The template override system is great as well and is easy enough to understand for someone with even basic theme development knowledge. We use this plugin in combination with FacetWP with the BigCommerce extension which unlocks some very powerful sorting features.
Overall I’d recommend giving this a try if you’re looking for a powerful eCommerce solution thats easy to customize.
]]>Rating: 5 stars
I just launched a new store for a client using the BC4WP plugin. It was my first time working within BigCommerce at all, and I must admit that in the beginning I was a little overwhelmed… so I went into the online community and started asking questions and got quick responses. Topher DeRosia was soooo helpful, and I can honestly say I never would have gotten this site launched as quickly as I did without his help. Not only am I completely sold on this plugin, but knowing that there are REAL PEOPLE available to help when things seem to go nuts makes this plugin worth its weight in gold.
]]>Rating: 1 star
The products appear off-center on the mobile.
Impossible to receive personalized help.
In the forum, someone recommend me “change templates”
]]>Rating: 5 stars
I’m just in the process of finishing up the second site that uses this plugin/integration. The plugin is pretty easy to use by default to easily pull in and display your products from BigCommerce on your WordPress website. This plugin also allows you to modify templates for more custom or advanced layouts.
There are a few minor bugs that I’ve caught through the process of building two sites. But the support team has been very responsive and implemented fixes to any core issues that I’ve come across. I’m excited to see the plugin continue to evolve and IMHO it’s a great resource to create a headless customized eCommerce solution.
]]>Rating: 5 stars
The support team helped get my site fixed when the images were going all wonky on my site and reverting to the thumbnail (aka: crappy resolution) files instead of the high-resolution ones that were supposed to be showing up on the product pages. It was so frustrating having that happen and the fact that it was randomly occurring and hard to track across the many products we have listed, was driving us up the wall. Thankfully, support got it cleared up and our images are working like they should now.
HUGE massive thank you for the fix!!
]]>Rating: 5 stars
I built a website for a company using Elementor Pro and WordPress (Astra theme). I am happy about the overall look of the store and the support I received building the site. I used shortcode to pull in all of the pages and products. After I completed the site, I had a few issues that I couldn’t resolve without a line of code. I did get the support via the code to use in the additional CSS section which instantly took care of the issue/s. Although it did take a few extra steps to get everything right, I am really happy with the outcome. I am also pleased that the site is backed up by the secure BigCommerce Shopping cart. I am thrilled that the products are easily updated through BigCommerce (the WordPress site doesn’t need to be updated in order to do that). Thanks BigCommerce for all of your help!
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