BigCommerce acquired Feedonomics late last month in a move that provides the ecommerce giant with a dedicated, full-scale feed management solution. It’s a play designed to cash in on ecommerce’s expanding role. With a solution like Feedonomics in-house, BigCommerce can better extend beyond direct-to-consumer, connecting its user base to the commerce functionality across the search engines, social networks, affiliates and retailers that can further grow their business and other businesses big and small.
Why is Feedonomics such a valuable tool in the BigCommerce arsenal?
Feedonomics was previously a product that could integrate with BigCommerce’s platform, but now it will be part of their in-house product suite. The acquisition combines a best-in-class feed management solution with one of the top—if not the top—commerce platforms for large enterprises. BigCommerce can power the commerce functionality onsite, while Feedonomics can ensure accuracy when selling offsite. The offsite portion is a lot larger than most realize, extending to search engines, social channels, retailers, etc.
BigCommerce has commonly built itself around integrations, but an acquisition of this nature makes a lot of sense. They know their customer base is selling both onsite and via retailers. Providing a built-in solution like Feedonomics makes it easier for their clients to sell products online, regardless of channel. The acquisition is also a move designed to help fend off Shopify (more specifically Shopify Plus) as it relates to enterprise-level business. Shopify, which is more dependent on app integrations when scale is necessary, can’t compete at present with the addition of an advanced, deeply product-focused, built-in solution like Feedonomics.
And despite both being larger offerings often focusing their efforts on larger players, BigCommerce has noted an eventual self-serve version in the works for small businesses looking to deploy Feedonomics. Thus, making the platform much more attractive to SMBs looking to manage their efforts in-house on their terms. As of now, Shopify has the upper hand in sheer customer volume, with more than a million businesses, albeit often smaller ones, using its platform. This acquisition makes BigCommerce an even more enticing option for the other end of the spectrum—the large-scale enterprise—by enabling them to grow their customer base by selling via more avenues. And as the self-serve option rolls out, it will be worth monitoring the number of smaller businesses that flock to or launch with BigCommerce and the impact it has on those businesses’ operations.
