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How to Start a Bigcommerce Dropshipping Store

July 26 2021 09:59
Winnie
How to Start a Bigcommerce Dropshipping Store

Getting a reliable online store is often a daunting task. Many marketplaces often have lengthy listing procedures and high costs to list and sell products. BigCommerce has created a name for itself as one of the most convenient site builders anyone can create a store and start retailing their products hassle-free. There are many factors that sellers look out for when choosing an eCommerce platform; one is the low cost of entry, the ease of use, and the scalability framework for business growth.  The more freedom the marketplace hands to the merchant, the higher the chances that the merchant will keep trading on that platform. For some reason or another, many clients have just fallen in love with Bigcommerce dropshipping. Before we get ahead of ourselves, let us find out more about BigCommerce.

How to Start a Bigcommerce Dropshipping Store

Table of Content

What Is BigCommerce?

Can I Do Dropshipping Using the BigCommerce Website?

Why Dropship on BigCommerce?

How to Set up Dropshipping on Your BigCommerce Store?

What is BigCommerce?

BigCommerce is an eCommerce solution that lets merchants set up an online store and sell products on the web. BigCommerce is hosted, meaning one does not require to buy hosting or install any special software to use the service. It is easy to create a BigCommerce store as long as one has access to a reliable internet connection and a web browser. BigCommerce is a SaaS product which implies that you never get to own the service and have to pay a monthly fee to keep your online store running.

BigCommerce is heavy on customization with lots of templates to help you build a sleek website. There is no limit to the type of product you can sell on big commerce as you are at liberty to sell both physical products and digital products such as books and software. BigCommerce hosts your store; hence you can migrate to another platform when the service changes drastically or if their services were to fail. BigCommerce is a large platform with over 60,000 customers and more than 820 workers that keep the service running.

It is easy to get started on Big commerce as the store has four different packages to cater to merchants with all types of budgets. New users can test the site for the first 14 days for free and start selling their merchandise for free without buying the Big Commerce services. The Services they offered by BigCommerce are Standard, Plus, Pro, and Enterprise going for $29.95, $79.95, $299.95 that varies according to the customer’s business requirements that month. Plus and Pro subscribers can get a 10% discount on their annual plan. Standard, pro, and plans are aimed at small businesses and individuals and are part of the company's essential range of products, while the enterprise plan is geared toward large businesses and corporations with higher selling requirements and bandwidth.

The exact features each user gets with each plan depend on the plan that they can afford. BigCommerce has a comprehensive list of features that makes it fairly unique compared to other online store builders for a cheaper package than other store builders that may require users to have more expensive plans or install extensions to access the same services. The fact that it offers more value for money makes it one of the cheaper alternatives that you can use to create a world-class store at the entry-level as it has more competitive service at a lower cost.

BigCommerce Standard

The standard package is the most budget-friendly option you can get from BigCommerce, starting at $29.95 per month. The price is comparable to a Shopify store, Squarespace, or Volusion but offering a more comprehensive suite of solutions.  The package comes with a standalone store that can sell an unlimited number of products, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited file storage, and unlimited staff accounts for easier monitoring of the store.

Exploring the package further reveals that you can offer gift cards and discount codes that make it easier to create customer loyalty. Clients can rate and review your products to guide other customers on the most quality producers and allow you to tweak inventory to meet customer needs. You can sell in multiple currencies, which gives greater appeal when selling products to customers in different nations.

Point of sale functionality comes in the box that lets you use the big commerce store to sell products in your physical location. There is professional reporting and automated image optimization, and accelerated mobile pages to increase the customer visits to your site.

BigCommerce Plus

This package is an upgrade of the standard package that packs more functionality to your store. The plan has an abandoned cart saver tool that allows you to email clients that abandon midway through the shopping. There is also a persistent cart feature that gives customers the option to add goods to a single cart from multiple devices. There is a stored credit cards feature that allows regular users to keep their credit card details saved to your store.

Customer grouping or segmentation allows one to group customers and rewards each customer depending on their activities and the goods they purchase. You can use the customer segmentation feature and the discount features, and gift cards to create a loyalty program. The store has an annual sales limit of $180,000 per year.

BigCommerce Pro

The pro package does not have extremely many features above the BigCommerce pro features. The first noticeable feature is an increased sales limit of $40,000 in online sales with a $150 fee for any extra sales per 200k. The flat rates used in BigCommerce are relatively cheaper than sales fees found on platforms like Amazon that can be as high as 15% of the total sales, which can stack up quickly depending on the sales amount.

Pro sellers have the Google Customer Reviews that lets you display reviews from customers who’ve purchased goods from your store. The program works by sending customer emails after successfully delivering an item from a big commerce store. The customer receives an email asking the customer if they can review the Bigcommerce store on Google. Once the customer accepts, then google will email them a survey. The ratings from the customers can be displayed via an optional Google Customer review badge, on search ads, and in Google shopping.

Merchant can also add the faceted search that adds advanced product filtering and custom SSL via a third party. The SSL makes the website much more secure and adds a padlock to your site on the browser, and makes it more secure for customers to use.

BigCommerce Enterprise

Bigcommerce enterprise is a package designed for stores that sell high volumes of goods totaling up to $1,000,000 and require advanced sales requirements. Enterprise is the premier package and has many extra features that aren’t contained in the other plans. The plan has advanced product filtering that lets visitors to your site search your store using your own custom fields.

You can opt for price segmentation so different customers can view different prices depending on how you segment the customer groups. Merchants also have the option to add unlimited API calls, which allow developers to share data between your eCommerce store and the integrated app on your store. The feature is suited for businesses that expect high sales volumes and visits to the site. You can count on BigCommerce consultation and priority support that makes sure that the site has the best support to let you keep running your own business.

The package price depends on your business needs, so you've got to consult with BigCommerce to get a quote and find out if the package meets your business requirements. The plans are touted to be much cheaper compared to Shopify, but since they depend on your own negotiations and quote, feel free to request a quote and enjoy the best BigCommerce has got to offer.  You can negotiate the sales limit so you can get the most of the enterprise account, as well as expect in-depth support, data migration, account management, and setup.

Fees on BigCommerce

Any avid merchant knows that almost all sales stores have some sales fee on the sales. The model has been popularised by eCommerce stores such as eBay and Amazon, which take 8% to 15% of the total sales. BigCommerce is slightly different as it does not have those hidden costs that keep merchants scratching their heads as they try to understand the new fee schedule that will keep on dipping your profits each month. Once you pay for your monthly package, you are set to keep trading on the store without any hiccups.

Each plan has a limit on its annual sales ranging from $50,000 to about $400,000. Merchants on the pro version can increase the sales limit by paying $150 per month for every additional 200k sales.

You are probably wondering what happens when you exceed the set limit for your plan if they decline further transactions. The operators claim an additional $1,000 to $ 2000 that users can exceed before being forced to upgrade. The user will receive an email in advance to inform them that they are over the limit. BigCommerce will not prevent the store from receiving additional orders as long as the store has not exceeded the $1,000 to $2,000 overage order. However, the limits are not utterly restrictive compared to other plans, besides $150 for making over $400,000 is not a high price to pay.

The only payment that every store has to contend with apart from the plan each store has to pay the credit transaction fees to the company that processes the payment. The fees you pay depend on the payment gateway you choose. There are two main ways of accepting credit payments in BigCommerce, either by use of PayPal, powered by Braintree, or a third-party payment processor that gives you preferential PayPal rates for credit cards that diminish depending on the Bigcomeerce package. Standard goes at 2.9%, Plus at 2.5%, Pro at 2.2 while enterprise can use the same rates as Pro or lower depending on the negotiations. The rate is also dependent on the country, with residents of the UK having their rates vary from 1.85% to as low as 1.55% depending on the plan.

There are over 35 payment processors available for BigCommerce, depending on the county of operation. The payment gateway provider can determine the rate and the frequency of credit transaction fees. Some providers may charge per transaction, while others have a monthly standing charge. The transaction fees are not charged by BigCommerce compared to other platforms that charge you for third-party payment processing.

Setting up a third-party payment account with BigCommerce can be a bit longer as you have to register with the relevant payment gateway and integrate the payment solution to your store.

BigCommerce Templates

BigCommerce is easy to set up with lots of templates for easy customization with drag and drop menus. BigCommerce has 12 free themes and 150 paid themes, each with its own variants giving so much choice to the user on the final look of the website. The 12 free themes are contemporary in appearance and provide a good starting point when building an online store. Some of the very themes are very similar to each other. If you are not satisfied with the free themes, you can purchase them starting at $99 to $300.

Standout Features

BigCommerce's most excellent feature is the abandoned cart saver feature that allows merchants to create up to three automated emails to site visitors to complete their carts after creating a cart but not finish buying anything on the store. The feature can increase conversion as visitors are prompted to finish orders they had forgotten. You can also save up big cash on the packages by using a free trial for the first 15 days and another limited-time free month once you sign up, which can potentially save you close to $300 depending on the plan you have.

BigCommerce has a variety of shipping options that keep you ahead of the rest. The Store allows you to set up a myriad of shipping rules and methods that are customer-oriented. There are free shipping rates, flat shipping rates, price-based rates, weight-based rates, in-store pick-up, and real-time shipping rates from third parties such as UPS. The options are available on all packages increasing its value to the consumer compared to its competitors.

Can I Do Dropshipping Using the BigCommerce Website?

Many business owners may produce goods locally and create an online store to cater to the needs of online clients and generally manage the store with the Point-of-sale feature. The cost of dropshipping is much lower, and breakout entrepreneurs are always on the lookout for websites that support dropshipping activities. The dropshipping model makes it easier for merchants to sell many products without getting the inventory to trade.

It is much cheaper as the wholesale dropshipper fulfills the order on behalf of the merchant as the merchant pockets the difference between the wholesale price and the retail price. The owner can track the goods till they reach the final customer for an unrivaled customer experience at a low cost to the consumer. While the cost of dropshipping is significantly low, the competition can be a bit high, but any significant advantage can give clients a huge windfall.

BigCommerce understands the value of the business model and goes in its way to ensure the clients can use dropship on BigCommerce websites with ease. All one has to do is install third-party apps on the Big commerce store to integrate the inventory to start selling. There are many apps one can use to dropship products on a Bigcommerce store as they seamlessly integrate to provide requisite information necessary for dropshipping.

Apps that work off the hood on a BigCommerce store are Doba, Aliexpress shopping, Modalyst, Inventory Source, Sprocket, Wholesale B2B, etc. Through the integration, one can be able to follow the inventory as well as the price changes from the dropshipping website from the BigCommerce store. If you’ve got interested in dropshipping or increasing the inventory of your store, then a Big Commerce website would be a timely solution to your dropshipping needs.

 Why Dropship on BigCommerce?

There are many alternatives to Bigcommerce, and you might be wondering whether it is essential to choose BigCommerce for dropshipping. Lucky for you, many people have used the store builder to run their dropshipping store due to the following reasons:

Ease of Use

No matter how great a platform is, if it is not usable then it is bound to chase away many potential visitors who wish to use the product. BigCommerce is designed to be simple for use for novices, BigCommerce developers, and designers. One does not have to learn complex topics or be astute in computer coding to set up the store. The service allows one to integrate several apps with the click of a button and themes that allow anyone to drag and drop to create an aesthetically pleasing website. The simplicity in use means that you can save on the cost and time required to build a BigCommerce dropshipping store from scratch.

The service is very flexible and even the open API developers and designers have the ability to customize any element on the store using HTML and CSS code that fits the brand. HTML and CSS are easy languages that many developers can understand. The flexibility of tweaking or tweaking the menus

Responsive Templates

BigCommerce templates are responsive and increase the ease of working on the platform. There are many apps that integrate with the software and seamlessly take the headache out of managing a dropshipping store. Most of the themes integrate seamlessly and are designed with the mobile fast approach to ensure they can work on desktops, tablets, and smartphones. Th use of the templates makes it cheaper to customize using in-house designers or dedicated designers. The open API makes BigCommerce development a breeze without slowing the pages, giving your customers fast-loading pages so they can purchase goods from your store from any device. There is a choice of 12 free templates and other paid templates that bring the best out of your online store.

Optimized for Mobile Viewing

Mobile is the future of business as it is the device most individuals use to access the internet. You are likely to convert more customers when your site is optimized for mobile viewing as it allows visitors to preview your products and even buy on the go without having to sit down on a desktop or other device.

BigCommerce has optimized the pages to be more mobile-friendly with customers using stencil-based themes getting Accelerated Mobile Pages. The mobile-friendly websites not only improve consumer experience but go a long way in optimizing the SEO of the site to make it much more discoverable on the internet for people searching for your products.

Easy Inventory management

BigCommerce makes it easy to track and manage inventory. It can allow someone to set rules on stock levels for all products. You can determine the stock level that triggers email notice before you run out of stock. The store has advanced image optimization that renders the highest quality images and increases customer conversions.

Abandoned Recovery Cart

One of the few things that BigCommerce has going for it is the abandoned cart feature. You can enable the feature so customers who do not complete a purchase receive customized emails to let the customers complete the purchases. A vendor who uses this feature can get an increase of up to 30% conversions using the feature.

Coupon Code Creation

BigCommerce lets you create custom coupons to increase sales. You can manage everything from the promotion from the dashboard to focus on geo-targeting and shipping. There is an unlimited number of products you can sell increasing the number of goods available to your clients to let you grow. It is much easier to collect payment with different payment platforms such as Paypal and other third-party payment processors. It has unlimited staff accounts that make it easier to delegate the management of the online store when you are busy or held up

How To Set Up Dropshipping on Your BigCommerce Store

To start dropshipping on BigCommerce, it is crucial to have a BigCommerce Account. You can start with a free plan and set up an account with Big commerce. Go to the BigCommerce website and open an account. All you need is an email address and a phone number. The process is easy and can take you less than five minutes to set up.

We shall use Doba to set up and show you how you can get started Dropshipping on BigCommerce. The first step is to install the Doba App on the BigCommerce store. To get started, head to BigCommerce's Apps Marketplace, and search for Doba in the search box. You will log into your BigCommerce store with your password and install the Doba App. Be patient as the app installs. Once the installation is complete, click confirm, and you've authorized the Doba app in Your Big commerce store.

how to set up dropshipping on BigCommerce website

how to set up dropshipping on BigCommerce website

how to set up dropshipping on BigCommerce website

how to set up dropshipping on BigCommerce website

how to set up dropshipping on BigCommerce website

Launch the Doba app and add some goods to the inventory list. To add goods to the inventory lists, go to the products section and search for products you’ll wish to sell in your store.

how to set up dropshipping on BigCommerce website

how to set up dropshipping on BigCommerce website

Once you are done, go back to the dashboard and click on the inventory list, select the product, and choose to list the store. Choose the BigCommerce Store, and edit the Product category, brand, and name.

Edit the product description in a way that will appeal to your audience. Choose the listing price for your product, and fill in the shipping information and list the product.

how to set up dropshipping on BigCommerce website

how to set up dropshipping on BigCommerce website

how to set up dropshipping on BigCommerce website


Go to the Bigcommerce dashboard to check the listing. Once the inventory and the payment information are set up, you can start selling on BigCommerce.  When you receive orders, they will be synced automatically to Doba's suppliers and delivered to your customers directly.

How to Start a Bigcommerce Dropshipping Store


Once registered, you’ll gain access to all product pricing and inventory.

Try Doba today, risk-free, without missing out on a quality experience!