What Does BigCommerce Development Involve? A Breakdown of Storefront, Catalog, Checkout, and Integration Work

BigCommerce development involves more than designing an online store. It can include choosing how the storefront works, organizing product information, improving the shopping and checkout experience, connecting business systems, and testing that everything works together.

Understanding these areas can help merchants plan a BigCommerce project and see how technical decisions may affect daily store operations. The work depends on each business’s needs. A store using a standard theme may need only a few changes. A business with several storefronts or complex integrations may need a more customized setup.

1. Storefront architecture and design

The storefront is the part of an online store that shoppers see and use. It includes the home page, category and product pages, search, cart, and other content. BigCommerce offers different ways to build a storefront, so planning begins with choosing an approach that fits the store and the team that will maintain it.

A Stencil storefront uses BigCommerce’s hosted theme system. Developers can change the theme’s templates, styles, and front-end features. This can work well for businesses that want BigCommerce to host the storefront and prefer a theme-based setup.

A headless storefront keeps the front end separate from the commerce system. The storefront gets product and store information through APIs. This gives a business more control over the customer experience, but it also adds development, hosting, and maintenance work.

BigCommerce describes Stencil as an integrated storefront framework and Catalyst as a headless storefront built with Next.js and React. The best choice depends on the store’s needs, the team’s skills, its integrations, and the support available after launch. BigCommerce storefront documentation

Storefront development may include:

• Adjusting page layouts to fit the brand and customer journey

• Creating or updating product and category page templates

• Making products easier to find

• Making pages work well on phones, tablets, and computers

• Making it easier for the marketing team to update content

• Considering page speed, accessibility, and search visibility

2. Catalog structure and product data

A catalog is the collection of products and product information in a store. It may include product names, descriptions, images, prices, options, variants, categories, brands, and custom fields.

Planning the catalog matters because product information appears across the store and may also be shared with other systems. Missing details or unclear product options can make it harder for shoppers to choose the right item. They can also make it harder to keep information consistent.

For example, an apparel store may let shoppers choose a size and color. The product setup needs to show those choices clearly and display the right images and stock information. A store selling products that can be configured in many ways may need a different setup.

BigCommerce development may include reviewing product information, deciding which system manages each field, and checking how product choices appear in the store. It is helpful to make these decisions before importing large amounts of data or connecting other systems.

3. Cart and checkout experience

The cart and checkout help shoppers move from choosing products to placing an order. Work in this area may include setting up the existing checkout, changing its appearance, or deciding whether a more customized checkout is needed.

Checkout planning may cover how shoppers enter delivery details, choose shipping, apply discounts, select payment methods, and review their order. The aim is to make each step clear and dependable while meeting the needs of the store and its payment providers.

BigCommerce offers different tools and APIs for changing or building checkout experiences. Before choosing an approach, teams should understand what it supports and what they will need to manage. BigCommerce checkout documentation

Useful checkout tests include:

• Guest and signed-in purchases

• Different products and cart combinations

• Discount codes and sale prices

• Different shipping addresses and delivery options

• Successful, declined, or interrupted payments

• Mobile and desktop layouts

• Order confirmation and order processing

4. Integrations with business systems

Many online stores share information with other systems. These may include enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), product information management (PIM), inventory, fulfillment, tax, shipping, and marketing tools.

An integration moves information between systems. Before setting one up, a business needs to decide which system manages each type of information. For example, an ERP may manage stock levels while BigCommerce shows them to shoppers. If the systems do not have clear rules, they may overwrite information or show old stock levels.

Integration planning may cover:

• What information needs to move between systems

• Which direction the information should move

• How often updates should happen

• How matching records are identified

• What happens when information is missing or invalid

• How failed updates are retried and checked

• How teams find differences between systems

BigCommerce APIs let applications work with store data. Webhooks can notify another application when certain store events happen, such as an order being created or inventory changing. These tools can help systems share updates, but teams still need a plan for errors and data checks. BigCommerce webhooks overview

5. Testing, launch, and ongoing improvement

Development continues after the storefront is built. Testing checks that the store pages, products, checkout, integrations, and business processes work together.

Before launch, teams may check:

• Product details, options, prices, and stock

• Navigation, search, and important page templates

• Cart and checkout steps

• Payment, shipping, and tax settings

• Information shared with connected systems

• Redirects and key SEO details if URLs have changed

• How the store works on mobile devices and common browsers

After launch, monitoring can help teams find issues such as failed data updates, checkout problems, unexpected page behavior, or changes in page speed. The team should decide who will review alerts and how issues will be handled.

A practical way to scope BigCommerce enhancement

Start with what the business and its customers need. Write down how the current store works, what customers need to do, how complex the catalog is, which systems need to connect, and any limits the team must consider.

Then separate what must be ready for launch from improvements that can come later. This helps the team compare options, find dependencies, plan the work, and decide what needs testing.

If the project needs implementation support, RWIT’s BigCommerce services can be included as a next step.

Conclusion

BigCommerce development can involve the storefront, catalog, checkout, and systems connected to the store. Planning these parts together helps teams make clearer decisions, avoid common integration problems, and prepare for launch.

The right work depends on the store’s needs and the team’s ability to support it. Updating a theme, connecting business systems, and building a headless storefront each have different requirements.

Frequently asked questions

Does BigCommerce development only mean changing a theme?

No. It can also include catalog setup, checkout, integrations, and testing.

When should a business consider a headless storefront?

When it needs more control over the storefront and can support the extra work.

Why plan product data before connecting systems?

Clear product data helps systems share information consistently.

What should be tested before launch?

Test products, cart, checkout, payments, shipping, and connected systems.