COG Branding is an experienced reliable and trusted Sydney marketing agency that is an experienced BigCommerce developer.
Many small businesses come to COG Branding with a variety of creative and digital briefs. A common brief we are asked is how to set up a small business website. There are a few options, and as a proven BigCommerce developer we know this eCommerce platforms is a great place to start and a regular software product we introduce to our clients.
The BigCommerce websites we design, develop, host and maintain are clients and businesses that choose to partner with COG Branding because we are a trusted Australian marketing agency located in Cronulla, Sutherland Shire. We have a team of in-house BigCommerce Developers that are available during business hours, Monday to Friday.
A key part of our BigCommerce website solutions include strategic briefing, agile development processes, technical scoping, front end UX Website Design, custom website development and Bigcommerce Website aftercare.
We know you need a Bigcommerce developer that is affordable, communicates clearly, and understands BigCommerce and e-Commerce. Plus, you’d like a digital expert to offer solutions for better performance in Google, UX, and solve hosting, email and domain issues. Trust COG Branding – the marketing for small businesses experts.
So firstly, what is BigCommerce?
BigCommerce is a NASDAQ-listed ecommerce platform that provides software as a service services to retailers. The company’s platform includes online store creation, search engine optimisation, hosting, and marketing and security from small to Enterprise sized businesses.
BigCommerce means BIG business, so as a premium hosted eCommerce solution, BigCommerce allows business owners to set up an online store, customise it to their liking, and then sell an unlimited number of digital, physical, or even service-based products
What Are BigCommerce Themes?
Did you know BigCommerce has 170 themes available in the BigCommerce theme store? Selecting a new theme for your BigCommerce store is no small task because choosing incorrectly can have significant long-term implications for your scaling ecommerce brand.
It’s worth taking the time upfront to choose carefully. With the BigCommerce page builder, you can add widgets, change colours, and more to the layout of your website. Once you save your changes, you will see how your store will look after you make a change.
Whether you’re ready to take your BigCommerce store design to the next level, are just getting started, or your current theme just isn’t cutting it for your scaling brand anymore, there are plenty of awesome BigCommerce themes to choose from. BigCommerce currently offers 12 free themes and ~158 paid themes, which fall between $150 – $300 each.
However, there are hundreds of other themes listed on sites like Theme Forest and Template Monster to choose from that aren’t affiliated with BigCommerce or other ecommerce platforms if you wish.
What Are BigCommerce Apps?
BigCommerce offers apps that help simplify store management. From backing up your website, to managing your inventory, to organising the content on your site, these apps have features that make managing your store a seamless experience for you.
BigCommerce App Store provides up to 873 apps to extend the functionality of your store the way you want. This huge amount of extensions falls into 19 main categories such as store management, finance, merchandising, sales channels, etc.
These premium apps have a range of solutions that range from search engine optimization (SEO) to client portals used to display private information to logged-in users, eCommerce and WordPress connectivity. Not all available BigCommerce Apps are always abreast with the upgrades, and as a result, they may not function properly or may not function at all.
Most plugins are available through BigCommerce via downloading them from the BigCommerce Apps and Integrations on their website.
How Is BigCommerce Different To Shopify?
Ask our Bigcommerce developer, Shopify and BigCommerce are both subscription-based e-commerce platforms that help businesses of all sizes, from sole traders and store owner operators to large international brands. Both platforms offer the ability to upload and manage unlimited products, file storage and bandwidth on all their plans along with online storefronts, points of sale, online sales channels, customer support and gift cards.
Both platforms are similarly priced, however, BigCommerce offers more built-in features while Shopify offers more than 8,000 paid and free third-party apps in its app store. Because BigCommerce is more feature-rich, those features are scalable, requiring a steeper learning curve.
Shopify tends to suit larger brands, though BigCommerce seems to be better for very large stores that are only selling online. Both platforms offer tailored, powerful solutions, but BigCommerce is equipped to handle larger scale omnichannel growth.
The pricing is similar for both platforms. For $29 per month, Basic Shopify includes a buy button, an online store with two staff accounts, an online credit card processing fee of 2.9% plus 30 cents and up to four inventory locations. For $29.95 a month, BigCommerce Standard plan provides similar features with the exception of unlimited staff accounts.
While Shopify charges a 2% transaction fee when users do not use Shopify Payments, BigCommerce does not have a transaction fee, which our Bigcommerce developer loves.
There is often a debate between BigCommerce vs Shopify: a showdown between two ecommerce giants. Shopify powers over 800,000 online stores. It’s up to the business the brand and the owner of the store COG Branding tailor all our technology Solutions to the business and client brief. We don’t push the business to change to suit the software.
Shopify and BigCommerce both have responsive themes (which our Bigcommerce developer says is imperative). Shopify has eight free themes and BigCommerce has 12 free themes. Each can be customised to fit various industries. Shopify sells more than 70 themes ranging in cost from $150 to $350.
BigCommerce has 150 themes that range in price from $150 to $300. While both platforms offer mobile-friendly, responsive themes, Shopify has a reputation of always being a few steps ahead of the competition as far as theme design and usability.
Both platforms allow beginners to build a beautiful online store. For true website building novices, Shopify is easier to use, making it a go-to choice for beginners. One of the reasons BigCommerce is such a powerful e-commerce builder is that it offers built-in tools that require a learning curve. Shopify, on the other hand, is fairly reliant on its app store, making its basic platform more user-friendly for beginners. Though as a proven and reliable Bigcommerce developer, if you partner with us you can breathe easy.
Connecting Brand to Business via BigCommerce Websites
COG Branding is a Sydney technology solutions agency with an approach as a Bigcommerce developer that transfers knowledge to business and brand stakeholders with the goal of increasing client side intelligence. We know this assists the success of the broader businesses digital transformation process. Part of the COG Branding small business technology service suite is to provide aftercare that maintains the investment and achieves ongoing performance.
The BigCommerce Website solutions that COG Branding agency delivers our clients perform because they deliver against the brand objectives while connecting to the core business offer and supporting its digital function and purpose on the internet.
Our Bigcommerce developer at COG Branding includes easy administrator access for multiple users of different levels of security, and enable easy content updates in our projects. Our Sydney web design agency receives all types of web design briefs from different clients and businesses such as BigCommerce medical, pharmaceutical, industrial, FMCG, small business, action sports brands, building and construction, athletes, musicians, charities, events, sports clubs, clubs, pubs, restaurants, bars and many more.
What Is The BigCommerce Website Design and Development Process?
Your Bigcommerce developer should be an expert in the BigCommerce Development Process, and it starts with our proven Seven Steps To Success. As professional BigCommerce development experts we lean into our BigCommerce design process to ensure the outcome for all our website development projects are controlled and achieve project success at go live.
The COG Branding Website Design and Development Process follows a rigorous 7 step method, that results in your own unique website. The steps include:
- Site Architecture
- Wireframes
- Website Design
- Staging Server
- Content Upload
- UAT
- Go Live
The COG Branding approach is to work closely with our clients, collaborate with Digital Marketing and Creative Design teams if required to ensure the relationship during development and during aftercare is well serviced with clear communication. Our process is second to none, below is an elaboration on what each of the steps involve in detail.
Site Architecture
The first process step, which is a key element in the broader project (that doesn’t initially include our Bigcommerce developer) is designing the Site Architecture is the hierarchical structure of your websites pages. This structure is reflected through internal linking. The focus is on the user and on user requirements, considering web content, the business plan, usability, interaction design, information, and web design. It also considers the navigation system of the website.
The Site Architecture helps users easily find information and to help search engines, primarily google to crawl and index the site, as well as understand the relationship between different pages.
Wireframes
The Website Wireframes work inline with the Site Architecture (and here it does include our Bigcommerce developer). They are a visual guide that represents the skeletal framework of the website layout. They depict which interface elements will exist on key pages and are purposely built without colour to establish the functionality and structure of the website. The wireframes ensure that the website will be built to meet the primary business objectives.
Website Design
The Website Design is responsible for the visual aspect, which brings together the layout from the Wireframes, now including colour, logos, images and any iconography. We most commonly only design the home page as these design elements and styling will be applied across the rest of the website design. The delivery includes both desktop and mobile views to display how the website will function on both devices.
Staging Server Development
A Staging Server is a type of server that is used to test a software, website or service in a production-similar environment before being set live. It is part of a staging environment or staging site, where it serves as a temporary hosting and testing server for any new software or websites.
Content Upload
The Content Upload stage of the website process works inline with the Staging Server. This step involves bringing across all the text content from the Wireframes, as well as any images and iconography, which are either supplied from you or we create/source online. We may ask to work with you at this stage to fulfil content in areas that we can’t make up e.g. a History or FAQs page.
UAT (User Acceptance Testing)
UAT (User Acceptance Testing) is a thorough process in the last phase of the website process. This process is anything from a button linking to the correct place to a form submitting to the client’s email. Our Bigcommerce developer will go through the site and test that everything is working and functioning as it should when the website is live.
The COG Branding Bigcommerce developer will follow a strict UAT process and review everything to be inline as per the previous deliverables (Site Architecture, Wireframes, Website Design).
Go Live
Once you’ve reviewed the staging server site and approve go live, our Bigcommerce developer do what’s called a soft launch. This is simply taking the website live and letting it sit for 1-2 weeks—no marketing, no email deployments to let people know the website is live. It is critical to let this sit a few weeks to let Google crawl and index the website, this also gives us more space to make critical website updates should there be any more requested.
Aftercare
All WordPress websites from COG Branding are deployed with aftercare and warranty. We’re here in support and pride ourselves on our service and ability to ensure our small business clients get value from their digital assets and learn how to manage their own technologies.
Read enough? Head over to the COG Branding BigCommerce Website Case Studies to review some of our projects that have used BigCommerce in their small to medium business to get results. View Projects Here.
What Types Of Businesses Use A BigCommerce Website?
Bottom line: BigCommerce is one of the top e-commerce performers because it offers a dependable combination of features, applications, and integrations. The platform is highly customisable and scalable while at the same time being extremely secure, and all small Australia businesses can appreciate that.
BigCommerce is an eCommerce super power. There is nothing that limits BigCommerce from what type of business can benefit from this type of technology.
Our Bigcommerce developer is located in Sydney, in our head office. As are all our PHP website development experts delivering BigCommerce designs and websites for hundreds of COG Branding‘s clients. Their mandate is to make it easy for any business no matter what the size or industry achieve success online via a BigCommerce CMS Website.
The CMS solutions that COG Branding deliver our clients perform because they deliver against the brand objectives while connecting to the core business offer and supporting its digital function and purpose on the internet.
While all businesses are unique, as are business owners, the fundamentals that a business needs form online marketing such as SEO, reliability, mobile optimisation and security for example is all the exact same. Is your business one of the below?
- Needing a BigCommerce website for a Health Care business?
- Need a new BigCommerce website for a cafe?
- Need a new BigCommerce website booking system solution for a hotel?
- Upgrading an old website for a bar?
- Want to create a BigCommerce Website for a Sporting Club?
- Ideas for Small Business and Hobby Start Ups Websites?
- The Best Website BigCommerce for a Building Company?
BigCommerce Website Design
The COG Branding BigCommerce Website Developers include UX Designers that are focused on designer first class user experiences across mobile, desktop and device environments for your BigCommerce website.
COG Branding deliver innovative UX design solutions that are focused on delivering dynamic and intuitive user journey’s that consider Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) and user engagement. Our UX (user experience design) approach provides positive user experiences and build brand equity.
Your Bigcommerce developer considers the key function of the website page itself. From looking to convert digital marketing leads via a basic form or to contain rich media and brochureware content – we’ll make sure that the design satisfies function.
To ensure this happens all our projects begin with an extensive briefing process, no matter the business type or client requirements. Our experienced project managers (along with our Bigcommerce developer) ensure our clients understand the project, the process and all the required technical items to ensure the project begins and ends in a smooth professional and swift manner.
Responsive Design
Responsive web design or responsive design is an approach to web design that aims to make web pages render well on a variety of devices and window or screen sizes from minimum to maximum display size to ensure usability and satisfaction.
We make sure that our Sydney Australia based Bigcommerce developer build websites that are responsive for Mobile and Tablet. This covers, iPad and iPhone devices, and Android Tablets and mobile phones such as Samsung Galaxy, Surface Pro and Google Pixel.
Mobile Responsive Website Design is also when the layout and/or content responds or adapts based on the size of screen they are presented on. A responsive website automatically changes to fit the device you’re reading it on – just like the one you are on now.
Responsive web design is important because essentially, responsive design is a way to put together a website so that it automatically scales its content and elements to match the screen size on which it is viewed. It keeps images from being larger than the screen width, and prevents visitors on mobile devices from needing to do extra work to read your content. COG Branding are focused on CRO (Conversion rate Optimisation) and responsive BigCommerce web design is key to this.
All our website developments and website design projects begin with an extensive briefing process, no matter the business type or client requirements. Our experienced Cronulla based Bigcommerce developer ensure our clients understand the project, the process and all the required technical items to ensure the project begins and ends in a smooth professional and swift manner.
We have a comprehensive briefing process and also an extensive hand over process that gets any BigCommerce Website Development off the ground on the right foot for our Sydney clients. We Make it Easy for our Sydney Clients!
What Technology Is Right For My Business?
Confused where to start with the technology available for your small business? Allocate 3 minutes to our solution builder and we’ll point you in the right direction. Start Here: https://cogbranding.com.au/technology-solutions/what-technology-is-right-for-my-business/
Our Sydney BigCommerce website development team are focused on building websites and provisioning softwares that are common sense for our clients. While BigCommerce is a single type of software, it integrates with hundreds of other CRMS, Email Marketing softwares and social media. So we know it’s our job to ensure that we approach all our clients business problems with a global solutions discovery process.
We don’t expect our clients to understand how to get their BigCommerce website to function with the Stripe Payment Merchant, that’s for sure. And that’s why small businesses love COG Branding – we’ll do this for you!
We have a comprehensive briefing process and also an extensive hand over process that gets any BigCommerce Website Development off the ground on the right foot for our business partners. While your email solution might not be part of the BigCommerce development brief, the website will be using SMTP protocols to send and receive emails form the website, and we’ll end up talking about it at some stage.
It’s examples like this that ensure our BigCommerce Developer is reviewing more than just the immediate BigCommerce instance, but also the myriad of softwares and technologies plugged into and running alongside the website itself.
LiveTeam
LiveTeam is the online support service for small business, and the COG Branding LiveTeam support desk is provided to all our website hosting and development clients to ensure we have swift and responsive service for you during and after the BigCommerce development project. LiveTeam takes the responsibility to support our clients with at-call online support via the LiveTeam online service portal. LiveTeam is also available for businesses on a subscription model that can be tailored for your own business and client/customer requirements.
eCommerce Website Hosting
When it comes to ecommerce platforms, there are a few standout leaders. Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce are all well-known and well-loved options. But which one is the best solution for your business? Many clients struggle with understanding the digital space as it moves so quickly. And, many SMB business owners ask themselves the question of what technology is right for my business.
Our management of website hosting services is logical and made by a common sense approach. We know that advanced technology and software solutions require smart humans to guide and manage the implementation into the business itself, though we also ensure that the decisions we make on behalf of our clients needs to be transparent and easily understood by our customers.
Ecommerce hosting pertains to a web hosting platform that serves an electronic commerce website, which includes features such as payment processing services, security initiatives, SSL, shopping cart software and more. There are many ecommerce web hosts to choose from. The right one depends on your sales volume, traffic, site size, budget and experience with web development. When you rely on your website to deliver your income, you need to start by selecting the right host.
More than 30,000 websites are hacked every day, often due to a lack of regular maintenance. When not cared for properly, websites are far more vulnerable to hacking loss of function and even going down with a loss of all data. COG Branding align with the best hosting partners to ensure we can provide the best performance and security.
Software updates and security fixes for devices are released all the time, but people often forget to treat their websites with the same care and attention. BigCommerce sites are regularly neglected after launch as many developers move on from their client after the project is finished with little acre for proper aftercare procedures. With only 50% of installations running the latest releases – meaning that more than 125 million sites are vulnerable.
BigCommerce Hosting
BigCommerce is a popular eCommerce platform that offers users a variety of features and capabilities. Some of these features include: a custom checkout process, a wide range of integrations, and a user-friendly interface. One of the platform’s most popular features is its ability to host an online store. One of the most important features of BigCommerce is its hosting options. It offers a wide range of hosting options, from shared hosting to dedicated servers.
BigCommerce runs NGINX on bare metal to serve its web traffic, and to function as a load balancer for its application servers and services. NGINX is used in front of BigCommerce’s two main data centers, and is able to balance and secure traffic between these two locations
Digital Marketing For BigCommerce Websites
Our SMB clients come to us for many brand marketing services, and developing a marketing plan for your small business is a regular brief for us, and common for any client needing a BigCommerce website. As a leading Sydney full service digital marketing agency,
COG Branding supports all our clients with online and offline digital marketing solutions, alongside the BigCommerce website development projects. There are many cross overs in digital marketing the a Digital producer will do in their daily routines that involve digital marketing such as SEO, SEM, Email Marketing, CRO, Analytics and other third party software integrations.
The COG Branding team are experts at providing support and service for Technology Solutions surrounding business development.
COG Branding builds our customers their BigCommerce website and some clients remain with us on a support program for Digital Marketing such as the Velocity Marketing Support Program. Our focus as a digital marketing agency is primarily owned media, though we also understand a core function of digital marketing is to drive leads and interest via paid performance marketing. Here the synergy in what COG Branding delivers is of high value to small to medium businesses in Australia.
Part of our aftercare in developing a BigCommerce website drifts into the digital marketing space in areas such as indexing at Google search. Part of our BigCommerce website projects is to ensure Google is indexing the website via Search Console and the sitemap is neat and tidy.
Our websites are built and launched to achieve immediate inbound search engine traffic by being submitted and optimised for Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. So we also include our customers a Google Analytics account which can be used later on for traffic management and insights on user behaviours.
BigCommerce DropShipping Marketing
Firstly, some context. Drop shipping is a form of retail business wherein the seller accepts customer orders without keeping stock on hand. If you choose the right niche, implement a proper small business digital strategy and constantly improve your customer support, dropshipping will be the most profitable business model to run. COG Branding are experts at BigCommerce DropShip Marketing and provide a full service dropshipping marketing service suite for our BigCommerce website clients.
How does dropshipping works step by step?
- Seller signs agreement with dropshipper.
- Customer orders online.
- Seller receives order.
- Customer receives an order confirmation.
- Seller forwards the order to dropshipper.
- Dropshipper ships the order.
- Customer receives their product.
Our leading Sydney digital marketing agency has a team of professional marketers specialising in paid performance marketing across Google Ads and Social Media that connect your online business to your targeted customers. You may ask where can I market a drop shipping websites? Both Facebook and Google are great choices to advertise your dropshipping business and increase sales. Google ads target people who are actively looking to buy something or get information about it, while Facebook ads target people based on their interests.
All our BigCommerce dropshipping store marketing solutions make sure that the marketing message and strategy is at a premium, and it supports your BigCommerce Store today and in the future.
If you’re a small business with a BigCommerce website store and need to get your store generating real customer sales, you’ll need to understand both the consumer market and what they’re looking to buy, where they live, how much they want to pay for shipping and what they want to expect to pay for your products.
The typical dropshipping commission rate is between 15% and 20%. The commission rate is the percentage of revenue from each sale that you pay out to vendors, the sales team, or another party for driving sales.
For many ecommerce website owners the prospect of spending your time and money on managing your inventory is a real deal breaker. If you create an ecommerce store which uses a dropshipping business model, you’ll never need to carry any inventory, but you’ll need to focus on your marketing!
A COG Branding BigCommerce Digital Marketing Program is built to perform and ensure your BigCommerce Digital Asset wins online and stands out from your competitors. When the Scope of Work includes Digital Strategy, COG Strategy provides superior digital strategy supporting Digital Marketing that is required by your project.
We deploy Digital Marketing programs that strategically communicate the key elements that differentiate your BigCommerce business and brand from the next. We know the fast pace of the Dropshipping and BigCommerce ecommerce is competitive and tough. Our digital marketing strategies are proven for a variety of other industries and that’s why we’ve transferred our digital marketing experience to BigCommerce ecommerce Marketing businesses.
Your website should perform and connect seamlessly with social media and email marketing, plus support the fundamentals of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Our BigCommerce Dropshipping websites are also built and launched to achieve immediate inbound search engine traffic by being submitted and optimised for Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.
COG Branding agency truly understands our role us to make life easier for our ecommerce entrepreneur clients, so we offer a ultimate BigCommerce dropshipping marketing support to ensure our customers start their own journey in ecommerce successfully. Our team of professional Digital Marketers specialising in Social Media Marketing and Google AdWords Marketing that connect your online business to your targeted customers.
COG Branding understands what you require from your digital marketing strategy, performance marketing and how important the accurate management of branded digital activities is for any small Australian business and brand.
We lead as a specialist Sydney small business digital marketing agency, providing innovative and astute advice on what online marketing activities will work best for your business, and how it will build brand equity. Importantly, we assume it’s our responsibility to ensure your digital brand assets, channels and platforms are managed and performing to their highest potential.
COG Branding are expert BigCommerce Drop ship Marketing experts for small to medium ecommerce stores. Get In touch Today (02) 9523 6007.
