BigCommerce Introduces Online Shopping Application on Facebook(R) Platform

AUSTIN, Texas, March 24 /PRNewswire/ -- BigCommerce, the leading provider of ecommerce software for small business merchants, today announced BigCommerce SocialShop, the first application that allows online merchants to sell products from their e-retail sites using Facebook Platform.  Instead of waiting for customers to come to them, merchants can now take their products to Facebook's more than 400 million active users.  Any business owner with a Facebook Page can instantly display products from their BigCommerce store right alongside their regular status updates and Facebook wall posts.  BigCommerce SocialShop also allows shoppers to share products with their friends on Facebook, either by posting the product to their own wall or by posting the product to the walls of their friends, virally promoting the company's products.

In keeping with BigCommerce's focus on ease-of-use, BigCommerce SocialShop works with a just a few clicks. Merchants simply add the BigCommerce SocialShop application to their Facebook Page, enter their store URL, and choose which products they want to display. A "Shop" tab appears on the company's Facebook Page, showing new or popular products from their BigCommerce store.  Facebook users can then easily click on a product to learn more, buy the product through the merchant's BigCommerce store, or share the product with their friends on Facebook.

Social shopping and sharing functionality is not only a boon for merchants, but also a valuable tool for consumers who want to share product information with their friends.  Manage Smarter's September 2009 issue reports that 83% of online shoppers want to be able to share information about their purchases with people they know, while 74% are influenced by the opinions of others in their decision to buy the product in the first place.  Research also shows that word-of-mouth marketing such as that offered by BigCommerce SocialShop works to drive sales.  A recent study by the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association and BIGresearch found that word of mouth is the number one influence in consumer electronics (43.7%) and apparel (33.6%) purchases, for example.  

"Online merchants understand that a robust Facebook presence is a powerful way to increase awareness, manage customer relationships and attract new customers. No matter what you're selling, there's a huge opportunity to leverage the growth of social media to build your own business and keep customers in the loop," said Mitchell Harper, co-Founder and co-CEO of BigCommerce. "We are proud to introduce shopping capabilities for Facebook Pages so businesses can connect with their customers in a social context."

BigCommerce is transforming the ecommerce landscape with its agile approach to product innovation, leapfrogging competitors such as Yahoo! Stores by actively soliciting customer feedback and delivering a steady stream of high-impact feature enhancements, such as today's Facebook integration capabilities.  This approach has fueled the company's more than 100% monthly growth rate since its launch in August 2009 and led more than 25% of the company's customers to switch to BigCommerce after using solutions from Yahoo! and others.  BigCommerce was voted the #1 ecommerce platform by popular software review Website TopTenReviews.

BigCommerce gives small businesses everything they need to sell online: a robust ecommerce platform, the ability to modify the look-and-feel of a store without knowing HTML, advanced marketing capabilities, self-help and phone support, and more than fifty different ways to accept payments online.  BigCommerce also provides built-in integration with third-party services and tools to drive traffic to customers' online stores, including one-click Google AdWords campaign creation and Google Products export.

ABOUT BIGCOMMERCE

BigCommerce is the leading provider of ecommerce software for small business merchants.  BigCommerce enables any small business to easily set up and operate a professional ecommerce site, combining advanced ecommerce functionality with simple, intuitive design and administration.  More than just an ecommerce platform, BigCommerce also helps small businesses attract more customers to their stores with just a few simple clicks, and offers more features than other ecommerce solutions.  BigCommerce is the latest offering from Interspire™, a leading provider of shopping cart software used by more than 40,000 organizations worldwide.  For more information, please visit www.bigcommerce.com.

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SOURCE BigCommerce