Anyone who worked with a BigCommerce catalog in the modern experience(v3) knows that BigCommerce takes only category ID while creating a product either using the CSV or API. As the category ID is a system generated id, one needs to create categories in advance and obtain their IDs beforehand and populate it in the CSVor API payload whenever you work on products in bulk.

We are working on BigCommerce stores of multiple types(Stencil storefront, headless, multichannel, multicurrency, multilingual BigCommerce stores) for the past 4+ years and we faced this difficulty every time we handled a complex catalog. Especially when you are migrating to BigCommerce from another platform, sometmes you come with a large set of SKUs mapped into a complex tree of categories with parent child branches.

By the time we were setting up our second store for an enterprise customer, we wrote an app to solve the category Management complexity. As our non technical team members will be managing the catalog post launch, we gave these apps a UI so that they can use CSV templates to manage categories in product catalogs. We are opening up access to this application for everyone as a SaaS(With a generous forever free tier to try the features). This article walks you through the usage of the tool.

Our solution​

Imagine you have categories like this

/electronics
/electronics/computers
/electronics/computers/laptops
/electronics/computers/laptops/14-inch
/electronics/computers/laptops/16-inch
/electronics/computers/desktops
/electronics/computers/accessories
/electronics/computers/accessories/mouse
/electronics/computers/accessories/keyboards

/electronics/home-appliances
/electronics/home-appliances/kitchen
/electronics/home-appliances/cleaning

/clothing
/clothing/men
/clothing/men/shorts
/clothing/men/pants
/clothing/men/shirts-t-shirts
/clothing/women
/clothing/women/tops
/clothing/women/bottoms

Here we have

• 2 x top level categories(electronics and clothing),
• 2 x level 2 categories under electronics,
• 3 x level 3 categories under electronics and
• 4 x level 4 categories under electronics.

Similarly, we have

• 2 x level 2 categories under clothing,
• 5 x level 3 categories under clothing etc.

As BigCommerce works with IDs our tools is also designed to use IDs. First thing we need to do is to assign some dummy IDs and patent ids to these categories. Let us start with Level 1 categories

You can see that I am using dummy ids 201, 201 to the top level categories. As we are working with a parent - child relationship here, we need to use IDs that does not exist in my store. Also you can see that parent ID is '0' for the top level categories.

We can continue adding the level 2 categories in the same fashion. This time, we will use the ids we gave to level 1 categories as parent_ids of the level 2 categories. If you are using a spreadsheet program like google sheet or MS excel, you can assign ids and parent ids easily for large set of categories easily using formulas and techniques.

Similarly, if we continue to assign dummy Ids and parent_ids to all levels respectively, we will end up with a sheet like this.

Now, the data is ready with all mandatory fields. Save this as a CSV(category_create.csv) file and head to the create tab in our category tool (tools->category tool->create)

Select the file using the file upload selector and click on the create categories button.

Result in the store

Note: only fields that are important for this article are given in the above example table. At present, you need to populate sort_order, url.path and url.is_customized columns also for a successful creation of category branches

We hope you had a wonderful start to the new financial year. We're looking forward to exciting announcements in the coming months.

A Year of Growth and Transformation​

If you're wondering why we haven't posted lately, it's because 2024 was an incredibly eventful year for us. We were so packed with client projects until recently that we couldn't prioritize the SellerToolsPlus app SaaS launch and go-to-market strategy.

BigCommerce Partnership and Headless Storefronts​

We're thrilled to announce that we are now officially a BigCommerce partner! We recently delivered a large project involving 14 headless storefront channels across the globe for a leading education and publishing client. These channels are distributed across 6 stores, with the same headless storefront using the appropriate BigCommerce store for order checkout based on the customer's country and language.

Driving Business Growth​

In another project, we helped a client grow their business to $1 million USD per day by migrating their store to BigCommerce and optimizing their storefront for conversion.

Ongoing Projects​

We're also currently engaged in several e-commerce store maintenance and new feature development projects, enhancing the storefront experience for our clients.

Exciting Tools on the Horizon​

During these projects, we've developed tools that we believe will be valuable to the BigCommerce merchant community. These tools are coming soon to SellerToolsPlus! We've completed the SaaS layer of the application and are focused on testing and launching it for our customers.

BigCommerce is a powerful e-commerce platform, but it lacks a native feature for creating categories in bulk. This can be a major pain point for merchants with large catalogs, especially when migrating from other platforms.

Our Experience: Migrating from Hybris​

We recently encountered this challenge when migrating a store from Hybris to BigCommerce. The store had around 2000 categories, organized in a tree structure with up to 6 levels of parent-child relationships. Manually creating these categories in BigCommerce would have been incredibly time-consuming.

The problem is utmost important to be solved because there are around 7000 SKUs to be imported. While importing products, BigCommerce requires category ID to be specified in the import CSV.

Our Solution: A Bulk Category Management Tool​

To overcome this limitation, we developed a tool that allows merchants to create, update, delete, and export categories in bulk using a CSV template.

The Results: Significant Time Savings, no more complexity to import category trees​

While preparing the CSV template took some effort, our tool was able to create all 2000 categories in BigCommerce in less than 10 minutes. This saved us countless hours of manual work.

Key Features of Our Tool​

• CSV-Based: Easily manage categories using a simple CSV template.
• Bulk Operations: Create, update, and delete categories in bulk.
• Efficient: Create thousands of categories in minutes.
• Smart: Provided that the input file is prepared in our simple template, it creates many levels of parent child relationship in the category tree like cakewalk. No more tedious multistep category migration.

What's Next?​

This tool is currently available to our internal teams and select client merchants. We plan to release it to the public soon, making it easier for all BigCommerce users to manage their categories efficiently. Stay tuned for updates!

When migrating your e-commerce store to BigCommerce from a legacy system, it's tempting to focus solely on products and customers. However, neglecting order history can have significant consequences. Here's why migrating your order history is essential for a successful transition:

Continuity in User Experience​

Customers expect to be able to access their past order information. Migrating order history ensures a seamless transition and maintains customer trust.

Data Analysis and Reporting​

Order history is a goldmine of data for understanding customer behavior and optimizing your business. By migrating this data, you can:

• Push purchase data into a data lake: Integrate your order data with other business intelligence tools for comprehensive analysis.
• Create insightful reports: Analyze purchase patterns, identify top-selling products, and track customer lifetime value.
• Optimize conversion rates: Understand what drives sales and improve your marketing efforts.

Our Solution: Seamless Order History Migration​

We're developing a tool to simplify the process of migrating order history to BigCommerce. Our tool offers:

• CSV Template Support: Migrate order data using a simple CSV template.
• Automated Data Handling: Our team handles the creation of associated products and customers, ensuring data integrity.
• Backdating Support: Maintain accurate order dates by backdating orders to their original creation date.
• AI-Powered Migration (Coming Soon): We're exploring the integration of an AI agent to automate the entire migration process from legacy systems. Purely depends on what kind of development is happening in opensource AI.

What's Next?​

Our order history migration tool is currently available for internal users. We're working hard to release it as a SaaS solution for all BigCommerce users soon! Stay tuned for updates.

For many BigCommerce merchants, migrating existing blog content can be a major headache. While BigCommerce offers a native blogging solution, there's no built-in way to import content in bulk.

The two body Problem: WordPress for blogs and BigCommerce for ecommerce​

One of our clients faced this exact issue. They were running a successful WordPress blog alongside their BigCommerce store. Maintaining two separate platforms was complex and costly, requiring a separate agency to manage the tech stack.

Our Solution: Seamless Blog Migration​

Screen grab from Blog tool

We promised our client a seamless migration of their 500+ WordPress blog posts to the BigCommerce native blog, with no data loss or broken URLs.

To achieve this, we developed a custom tool that supports:

• Create: Import new blog posts from a CSV template.
• Update: Modify existing blog posts in bulk.
• Delete: Remove blog posts as needed.
• Export: Export all blog posts to a CSV template.

The Results: Streamlined Content Management​

Thanks to our tool, we successfully migrated over 500 blog posts to BigCommerce without any data loss. The client was able to:

• Eliminate the expenses and complexity of maintaining a separate WordPress blog.
• Consolidate their content management within the BigCommerce platform.

What's Next?​

This powerful tool is currently exclusive to our client merchants. However, we're excited to announce that it will soon be available to all BigCommerce users as a SaaS solution! Stay tuned for updates.

We're excited to announce the start of our project: building API-based tools to help BigCommerce store owners thrive. (We're yet to name our app. Will announce it here in a later post)

The Vision​

Our goal is simple: to create practical, cloud-based solutions for common challenges faced by BigCommerce merchants. We believe that by leveraging the power of APIs, we can unlock new levels of efficiency and control.

What to Expect​

Over the coming weeks and months, we'll be sharing our progress, insights, and tools with you. Expect to see:

• In-depth articles about BigCommerce API based integration development
• Tutorials on using our tools to solve real-world problems
• Updates on new features and improvements

Stay tuned for more!