I APOLOGIZE FOR THE UPDATE AND ERROR WITH OUR ORIGINAL RECORDING, WE SHOULD BE GOOD TO GO FOR THE FULL EPISODE WITH TRACEY WALLACE FROM BIG COMMERCE.

When it comes to starting an online business, selecting the right platform is critical to your business, customers and growth. Selecting the wrong platform can cause you undue stress, crashed servers and additional costs that are unnecessary. Today, we talk with Tracey Wallace, Editor in Chief, at BigCommerce to get her insight into what features you should look for in an eCommerce platform, the benefits of moving to a platform outside of Etsy and some of her favorite features.

SHOW NOTES

First Steps When Selecting an eCommerce Platform

Put together a list of everything that you need it to do now and where you want to be in the future:

• Payment Gateways
• Inventory
• Shipping
• Wholesale Accounts
• Customer Groups for VIP's
• Robust Servers for High Traffic
• Syncing with Brick and Mortar shop
• Physical, Downloadable Products and Services
• Will It Sync to Infusionsoft, MailChimp, Constant Contact

3 Most Important Features a Business Should Look For

• Payment Gateways and Fees
• SEO Included
• Inventory Management

Benefits of an eCommerce Site vs Etsy

• Branded to you
• Retain your customer information so you can build a relationship
• Total control of your site, services, products and customer communication
• Not charged by how many items you list on your site

What Sets BigCommerce Apart From the Competition?

• Can handle large growth eCommerce businesses like ManCrates
• 60% of all apps needed to run and grow your business are built-in saving you anywhere from $300 - $5000 yearly
• API is faster, which helps data sync faster
• Customer Service is TOP NOTCH - available 24/7 for phone support
• (Personally, I LOVE THEM!)

Why Is It Important to Have an eCommerce Platform That Specializes in High Volume Sales?

• No need to worry about servers crashing during a release
• It will have the ability to grow WITH you
• Allows you to expand your business through wholesale (B2B), custom customer groups (B2C) and you can manage affiliates through an app on your site no high cost services

Switching to BigCommerce

• In-house migration team that will walk you through switching your products over to BigCommerce

Most Important App or Feature to Include on Website to Maximize Sales

• Email provider to communicate with customers
• • Thank You for your orders
  • Abandon Carts
  • Review of Products
• InStock Alerts to let them know when products are back in stock

Tracey's Favorite New Features

• New Analytics and Insights
• Buy Buttons

^^^^^^ How Spiffy Cool is THAT?! You should totally test it out...just sayin!

Where to Find More Information on BigCommerce

Website

Blog

Features