AI-enhanced B2B quote workflow and an open-source B2B Buyer Portal are among the standout new capabilities in the BigCommerce digital commerce platform.
BigCommerce today launched those and other ecommerce features — including AI-powered product descriptions and controls for B2B purchasing authorizations and account-level payment terms — to bring new ecommerce functionality to B2B and B2C brands and retailers that want to grow in competitive market, the company said.
“These new developments build on our April Next Big Thing announcement to deliver even more powerful and innovative features that enterprise brands and retailers need to achieve their goals in a competitive environment,” said Troy Cox, chief product officer. “With these updates, our customers will be able to reach more shoppers globally, create stunning composable storefronts, boost their B2B businesses, harness the power of AI, convert more shoppers into customers and unlock new developer functionality.”
Cox said BigCommerce has open-sourced the B2B Portal in its B2B Edition ecommerce software to enable B2B sellers to extend and modify the B2B Portal to address the purchasing needs of specific industries, such as nuclear medicine, complex electronics and medical products.
“These industries have very unique ecommerce use cases, Cox said, noting that large enterprises also often must manage purchasing authorizations in “parent-child” account hierarchies among large companies and their divisions and departments.
“By open-sourcing the Buyer Portal, it allows us to meet those needs and continue to push our market to bigger and more sophisticated B2B sellers.”
Cox said BigCommerce is adding generative AI capabilities to the B2B quoting process, helping B2B companies and their sales reps manage high volumes of quotes by generating the first draft of quotes based on buyers’ needs and a seller’s product catalog. The sellers can also add into quotes other criteria like shipping costs and special product pricing.
Cox adds that the B2B quote process is now fully mobile-optimized, helping to bring and keep sales reps directly into the online quoting process.
Other new BigCommerce B2B features include:
⦁ The Catalyst composable online storefront enhanced with the Makeswift visual editor for developing online stores. BigCommerce introduced Catalyst earlier this year as an ecommerce store development technology for developers and digital agencies.
⦁ BigAI Copywriter, built with Google’s AI model to produce SEO-optimized product descriptions and a company’s brand language.
⦁ The introduction of Feedonomics’ Instant Commerce offering to transform how brands can offer BOPIS, or “buy online, pick up in store.”
Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. [email protected].
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