The latest BigCommerce town hall provided valuable insights into the company’s steady growth, exciting product updates, and future features. Held quarterly and hosted by CEO Brent Bellm along with the product and marketing teams, these sessions offer a detailed look at BigCommerce’s performance, customer acquisitions, and what’s ahead.
If you missed the Q2 2024 session, here are the key highlights. You can also watch the event back, or read the slides.
Company updates
CEO Brent Bellm kicked off the town hall by acknowledging Travis Hess’s new role as President of BigCommerce. With Hess’s deep industry experience, it will be interesting to see how his leadership shapes the company’s strategy and culture.
From a financial standpoint, BigCommerce now boasts $346M in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and $12 million in operating cash flow, which represents 14% of total revenue. The company grew by around 10% in the first half of 2024 and now serves nearly 6,000 enterprise accounts.
The company remains focused on its core strategic pillars: Enterprise, International, Omnichannel, B2B, and Composable. Thanks to its consistent vision and execution, third-party analysts like IDC and Gartner have recognized BigCommerce as a leader in several of these areas.
BigCommerce & B2B
B2B is a key area of specialization for BigCommerce. CEO Andy Hoar of Paradigm B2B recently gave high marks to BigCommerce’s B2B offering, noting:
BigCommerce is particularly well suited for Enteprise B2B companies looking for a value-priced, partner-centric, multi-tenant SaaS ecommerce solution that leverages open application marketplace to deliver robost functionality.
Andy Hoar, CEO of Paradigm B2B
Innovative New Merchants
One of the most enjoyable parts of the town hall is hearing about the latest merchants who have launched on BigCommerce and their tech stack. Increasingly, B2B Edition is a critical deciding factor for new merchants. Here are some notable launches:
The Real Real
A marketplace for authenticated luxury goods with over 36 million members, using BigCommerce in a composable setup for cart and checkout, alongside Braintree for payments and their agency partner for the project was Trellis.
Bealls
A family-owned, Florida-based apparel retailer migrated to BigCommerce from signature to launch within 3 months. This is a huge achievement, especially considering that they migrated from IBM Websphere (HCL) to Catalyst. They chose Amplience CMS, Sovos Tax, and WorldPay as part of the solution stack.
Andertons
A UK-based musical equipment supplier launched a Stencil-based BigCommerce site in six months with partners like Apply Digital, Pimberly, Constructor, ShipperHQ, Shogun and Feefo. We’re also proud of their use of Hypa Mega menu.
Soletrader
UK-based shoe retailer, Sole Trader launched a composable storefront combining Next.js, Storyblok, Algolia & BigCommerce. They also integrated Klaviyo, ZigZag and ShipperHQ.
Julbo
Another headless BigCommerce site, you should be starting to see a trend! This time for a french designer and manufacturer of high performance sunglasses, goggle and eyewear. They migrated their 6 storefronts from Magento 2. Apps in use on this store include Nosto, Instocknotify, Trustpilot & Sendcloud.
Quicken
Leading US personal finance application are using BigCommerce to manage their subscriptions. They partnered with EPAM for delivery, Contentful for CMS and Avalara for tax management.
Once upon a child
A store-based marketplace to buy/sell gently used kids items. Creating a marketplace upon BigCommerce is an impressive achievement. Rightpoint was able to build this through a custom “Sellers” app.
On Course Golf
An Australian golf retail business with over 200 stores. On Course Golf partners with Marketplacer to manage its brands marketplace, Klaviyo, Shippit and Gift Up!. Their agency partner for the project was Web Force 5.
Rally House – Kansas State University
Rally House manage team merchandise stores for Pro & College sports teams. Their latest launch is for Kansas State University and was supported by Mira Commerce. They made use of RandemRetail for Buy Online Pick-up in Store (BOPIS) and OMS, TaxJar, CouponBrew, Listrak, Adyen, and last but not least our Mega Menu app!
Valk Voor Thuis
Valk Voor Thuis is largest Dutch hospitality chain with 80 locations in total. They launched a multi-storefront stencil store on BigCommerce, having been on Magento 2 previously. Their app partners include: Onport, Search & Filters by FreshClick, Sendcloud, Supr Product Badges & Labels, Kit Builder, Bloomreach Discovery, Marketplacer & Adyen. Their agency is Nxtlvl.
Forecaddie
Forecaddie, a aolf clubs and luggage shipping provider launched a headless BigCommerce store in 1 month with Solyse. From the BigCommerce app store, they use Aftership, Zendesk and Klaviyo.
BC Softwear
Not BigCommerce, not Software, but a luxury towel & linen provider in the UK! They chose a theme by Flair consultancy. BigSynapps powers the integration with Netsuite. They’ve also adopted Feefo, Mailchimp, PayPal & Windcave.
Myron
Myron are a leading provider of promotional business gifts and branded merchandise. They launched on BigCommerce’s B2B edition with Plum Tree Group. Apps in use include Artifi, ShipperHQ, Rewind, and Avalara.
Frederiksen Scientific
International Supplier of Innovative teaching material in the natural sciences. They launched on BigCommerce with a headless implementation by Novicell using Umbraco & Vue.
BigCommerce Content News
In addition to merchant highlights, BigCommerce shared key content updates, including:
- A podcast interview with former BigCommerce CFO Robert Alvarez on the importance of investing in people & company culture.
- A deep dive into Cordova Outdoors and what makes unique.
- A conversation with Lance Owide and B2B experts on the impact of AI in B2B.
- A guide for Home & Garden businesses on strategies to drive sales.
- Finally, it’s that time of year already. Download BigCommerce’s ecommerce playbook for Holiday 2024.
- The latest episodes in the B2B Bites series include B2B Merchandising, Getting Customers on Board, and the benefits of E-procurement solution.
Product updates
The highlight of every BigCommerce town hall – the latest updates from the product team: what’s new & what’s coming soon.
- Catalyst-powered storefronts will soon be able to be launched from within the BigCommerce admin panel, and then content managed with Makeswift. Ultimately, Catalyst will become native to the platform.
- Vibes is the future of theming – components that can be used with Makeswift.
- Catalyst will support cross-border selling with multi-lingual capabilities by early next year.
- Stencil storefronts will continue to receive support, with improvements benefiting both Catalyst and Stencil users.
- Feedonomics announced support for SHEIN marketplace, and for TikTok Shop returns.
- Payments: New support for BlueSnap Direct and PayPal Fastlane (US-only).
- Product Recommendations powered by Google Vertex AI are now in closed beta. Read the the developer docs.
- Support for the Japanese locale has been added.
- New B2B buyer permissions for more granular roles & controls.
- In addition to this, B2B edition also see a new companies admin page design, company attachments, and the ability to have up to 50 companies within a single customer group.
- A redesigned admin area for BigCommerce.
- Updates to BigAI copywriter, powered by Google’s latest AI models.
- Unified Billing is in the works, allowing app subscriptions to be bundled with your BigCommerce bill.
Since this town hall, BigCommerce has also launched the latest edition of The Next Big Thing – the biannual update on new and upcoming product releases. You can also read our summary of the updates in BigCommerce’s BigSummit 2024 roundup.
