BigCommerce, an open SaaS, composable ecommerce platform for fast-growing and established B2C and B2B brands and retailers, announced updates to Catalyst, its next generation storefront technology.
With one click from the Control Panel, marketers can now launch and design a new store that comes optimized for high performance out of the box, making it so that they no longer have to sacrifice marketing usability for modern technology. Catalyst’s differentiator is its fully integrated marketing-friendly visual editor, Makeswift, which sets a new standard for creating fast, modern ecommerce storefronts without the limits of rigid templates or heavy development costs.
“The adoption of composable commerce has been slow due to the time and resources needed to build a solid, integrated and scalable framework. Historically, this has prevented too many brands and retailers from taking advantage of the flexibility, speed and other benefits that a composable approach provides,” said Al Williams, general manager of B2C at BigCommerce. “With Catalyst, BigCommerce has flipped the script on composable and opened the market, making it easy and fast to launch a storefront that delivers incredible customer experiences and can scale with the business.”
Catalyst is integrated with core BigCommerce functionality, including customizable checkouts, robust APIs, core catalog and inventory management, multi-storefront capabilities and industry-leading B2B functionality. Its modular architecture is built using composable standards, giving brands and retailers the freedom to adapt their commerce strategy as it evolves without the risk of outgrowing the platform.
UPLIFT Desk, a Texas-based manufacturer of standing desks and office furniture, recently moved its online store from the core BigCommerce platform to Catalyst in order to capitalize on the increased flexibility that comes with composability.
“Catalyst offered a well-engineered foundation, making it superior to building a solution from scratch,” said Daniel Burrow, vice president of sales and marketing at UPLIFT. “Its plug-and-play design streamlined essential tasks, like cart-to-checkout integration and customer account management, reducing development effort. Onboarding to Catalyst was relatively quick, and the overall process was smooth, leveraging the expertise of a platform built by engineers deeply familiar with BigCommerce.”
Catalyst storefronts can be launched with one click from the control panel or the command line interface (CLI) enabling both marketing and development teams the freedom to create new digital experiences easily. Catalyst, built with Next.js and React, seamlessly integrates with BigCommerce’s open APIs to provide a pre-configured foundation for rapidly developing high-performance and easily extendable ecommerce storefronts. Catalyst has Core Web Vital scores of 100 out of the box so users start with a best-in-class reference architecture that awards the freedom to start adding value immediately without a lengthy implementation.
Catalyst allows technical teams to truly live the decoupled value proposition of composable commerce if they so choose. Optimized to work well with best-in-class vendors for hosting, search, content management, and more, Catalyst’s visual editor, Makeswift, empowers brands to achieve a faster time to market and quickly iterate the storefront and without affecting the rest of the stack. Since Catalyst is fully integrated with BigCommerce, brands can also simply reap the benefits of a new performant storefront without needing a full composable stack.
“Catalyst removes friction for ecommerce teams of all sizes to ship composable storefronts,” said Malte Ubl, CTO at Vercel. “Vercel’s front-end cloud combined with the Catalyst reference architecture enables faster iteration velocity and total creative freedom to build, scale and secure personalized shopping experiences.”
With distinct lanes for developers and marketers, Catalyst’s visual editor, Makeswift, enables faster site optimizations too. Without having to know how to code, marketing teams can adjust content to improve conversion and experiment with storefront design, leading to more creative, standout experiences that stay ahead of the latest trends. They can create, schedule, and publish pages more quickly than ever, ensuring they never miss out on a “viral moment.” Freed from the design iteration process, developers can focus on implementing their dream roadmap of advanced customizations, without adding technical debt.
“The Catalyst architecture streamlines internal workflows, allowing UPLIFT’s back-end and front-end teams to work more efficiently and innovate without disruptions,” Burrow said. “We will use our improved agility to deliver exceptional user experiences and streamline our operations. With the ability to make real-time changes, our team can quickly pivot or adjust designs as needed—something that wasn’t possible during key moments like Cyber Monday in the past. This newfound flexibility enables us to build pixel-perfect designs tailored for a variety of platforms, ensuring consistency and quality across all touchpoints.”
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