How to Build Your First BigCommerce App
What is BigCommerce?
BigCommerce is an Open SaaS, ecommerce platform that allows merchants to build, innovate, and grow their business online without the cost or complexity of traditional ecommerce solutions. Let’s break this down to get a better understanding.
- Open SaaS is the core belief that our platform should be built with developers in mind. Enabling the community to think big, leverage our APIs, and create amazing apps.
- Our merchants have autonomy and choice to build their brand their way. Leveraging the development of engineers around the world.
- BigCommerce is innovative because we leverage the latest technologies and partnerships. The tech stack is diverse and we offer APIs so that you can leverage the tech stack that you prefer.
- BigCommerce allows merchants and developers to grow their businesses by lowering traditional barriers to entry. You do not need to be an expert in ecommerce to develop an app for the BigCommerce Marketplace.
Why Build an App?
When you build an app for the BigCommerce Marketplace, you are opening up your products and services to more possibilities. BigCommerce powers the commerce experience for the world’s leading brands making BigCommerce a global company.
Products on the Marketplace have a greater impact worldwide and open a new channel to your company’s revenue stream. We provide the platform for you to sell in markets that may have been previously less accessible.
Getting Started
What is a Single-Click App?
Single-Click Apps are available from our Marketplace and installable on any store. The merchant can authenticate the application through BigCommerce using an OAuth implementation integrated into your app. Authentication is a single-click allowing for easier installation and setup flow. Additional setup from the merchant could be necessary, depending on the requirements of your app. However, the app is available to their store after authentication.
The Marketplace requires apps to be single-click. We want apps that are simple and easy to install, lowering the barrier of entry to ecommerce for our merchants.
These apps render in an iframe directly in the merchants’ store. You send that HTML that we display in the iframe. You can make your app look and feel how you prefer. We also offer BigDesign if you want to use our React component library. It is simple to use and makes your app integrate seamlessly into the BigCommerce ecosystem.
Think Big
What are your Big Ideas?
You probably already have big ideas. Think big and take advantage of the APIs to create a Single-Click App for the Marketplace. We will help you focus on those big ideas and speed development to reach your strategic goals.
Whether you have dreams of growing your business through ecommerce integration and apps or you are starting from scratch, thinking big is at our core.
We want your ideas and applications to be successful.
APIs
Getting familiar with the APIs and API docs will make creating a Single-Click app less challenging and more rewarding. The BigCommerce APIs give you the foundation for all development and are what makes BigCommerce Open SaaS.
The BigCommerce Dev Center contains all the developer docs, and About Our APIs lists all of the APIs available, the endpoints they expose as well their designed objective. You can review the API Reference for specifics on any API and see detailed specifications.
Authentication and Testing APIs
BigCommerce offers a Quick Start guide to get you working with our APIs. Authenticating and testing our APIs gives you hands-on experience. We want to enable our partners to have fast app development cycles with clearly defined requirements.
Authentication requires Client IDs and Secrets. Create these from both the Storefront and My Apps. Obtain API Credentials explains that process in detail. You will need both a sandbox store as well as a developer account to access all the APIs. Then you can open the request runner in your browser to start interacting with various APIs like Storefront, Graphql, and REST.
Ready to Build Something Big?
You will need tools. We provide excellent tools and resources in the Dev Center. There are API Clients, SDKs, BigDesign, Headless Integrations, Theme Resources, and Hello World Apps focused on positively affecting your developer experience.
In the Library, you can find helpful articles, examples, and starter code.
Ready to go on your own? Look at our Best Practices and ensure that you review webhooks, threading, and limits.
Once you have a stable app, test it on a sandbox store. Go to the Dev Center, click MyApps, edit your app to have the appropriate callbacks. Then you can go to your sandbox store, find your apps or your draft apps, and install it to the store.
Ready to Share Your Creation with the World?
Become one of our Technology Partners. Becoming a Partner is one of the last crucial steps to publishing your app to the Marketplace.
Tech Partner Incentives
We offer our developers free sandbox stores through this program. You can always test your applications, make improvements, and develop more apps using this sandbox store.
How do I apply?
Applications to become a partner are on our Partner Portal click “Get Started” to apply for the program. Make sure to select that you are applying for the Technology Partner Program.
The application form prompts you to enter a business email. When asked, please provide a company website, intent to offer your app publicly, your ability to support the users of your app, and evidence of your expertise in app development.
Deploy your Application
After you apply and are an approved Tech Partner, review the second half of the App Store Approval Requirements. This will walk you through step by step for how to submit your app for review by the BigCommerce team. Once your app has been tested and approved, it will be deployed to the Marketplace for merchants to purchase.
Recap
You are now ready to become a BigCommerce Technology Partner and build a single-click application. We can’t wait to see what “BigApps” emerge from you and your teams.
Additional Resources
Here is a list of resources that you can use throughout your BigCommerce journey.
Stay up to date with our latest development by reviewing the Changelog.
Need to find the answer to a question, try StackOverflow.
Stay Connected
We would love to connect with you. Keep up to date with the latest BigCommerce news through these resources.
