下一个电商巨头 Bigcommerce

With U.S. e-commerce activity approaching 10% of all retail sales, more merchants are shopping around for easy-to-use platforms that get them selling online quickly.

随着美国电子商务交易接近零售总额的10%，越来越多的商家开始寻找既好用又能帮他们快速卖出商品的电商平台。

Plenty of technology companies are angling for a piece of the action, from established players such eBay’s Magento , IBM , and NetSuite to smaller developers including Shopify and Volusion. But relative underdog Bigcommerce is stealing mindshare and market share, fueled by more than $75 million in venture capital, including $40 million from entrepreneur Steve Case’s Revolution Growth firm.

从eBay的Magento电子商务系统、IBM和NetSuite等知名企业到规模较小的Shopify和Volusion等，很多科技公司都希望从中分一杯羹。但相对冷门的Bigcommerce正在悄悄引发关注并窃取市场份额。它吸引了超过7,500万美元的风投资本，其中4,000万美元来自企业家史蒂夫o凯斯的Revolution Growth公司。

In the past six months alone, the Australian-born company fortified its senior executive ranks with high-profile hires from Amazon, PayPal, Google, and Twitter. It brokered a high-profile deal with Magento, the market leader, that promises to bring thousands of new customers to it. And it broke the lease on its new San Francisco office because it is hiring so quickly that it now needs triple the space it originally anticipated.

仅过去6个月，这家诞生于澳大利亚的公司不断从亚马逊（Amazon）、贝宝(PayPal)、谷歌（Google）和Twitter挖角，其高管团队的实力由此大大增强。同时，它还与行业领导者Magento公司签署了一项备受关注的协议，后者承诺将为该公司引入数以千计的新客户。它最近撤销了旧金山新办公室的租约，由于人员扩张非常快，如今公司需要的办公空间已是当初预期的3倍。

“It’s eerie how similar this space is to CRM when Marc Benioff launched ,” said Mitch Harper, who co-founded the company in 2009 with co-CEO Eddie Machaalani. “The parallels are uncanny.”

“有些诡异的是，这跟马克o贝尼奥夫创立时的情形非常相似，这点地方根本不够从事客户关系管理(CRM)使用，”米奇o哈珀表示。他与联席CEO艾迪o马查拉尼在2009年创立了这家公司。

This year, online storefronts will generate an estimated $294 billion, or approximately 9% of all U.S. retail sales, according to forecasts by Forrester Research. By 2018, e-commerce will account for more than 11% of the total, or approximately $414 billion, with transactions made with tablets and smartphones accounting for about 20% of the online total, Forrester projects.

根据弗雷斯特研究公司(Forrester Research)的预测，今年美国网络商店的销售额将达到2,940亿美元，约为全国零售总额的9%。据弗雷斯特预计，到2018年，电子商务将占到全美零售总额的11%，约4,140亿美元，其中通过平板电脑和智能手机进行的交易约占线上销售额的20%。

Until now, the appeal of Bigcommerce’s eponymous technology has been simplicity and its ability to scale along with merchants as they grow. “To some, this will mean the difference between success and failure,” said Steve Case, who as a board member advises Bigcommerce on U.S. entrepreneurial trends. “Even just five years ago, if you wanted to create a compelling offering, it could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now, you can get up and running in hours for less than $100 per month.”

迄今为止，Bigcommerce同名技术的吸引力就在于其简单性，以及与商户同步成长的能力。史蒂夫o凯斯说，“对于一些人来说，成败即系于此。”凯斯以公司董事的身份为Bigcommerce提供美国创业趋势方面的建议。“就在五年前，如果要打造一家有吸引力的网店，你需要花费几十万美元。如今，几个小时就可以搞定，每月成本还不到100美元。”

Bigcommerce does particularly well among small retailers generating $1 million to $2 million in annual revenue, although its following with those in the $20 million to $30 million range is growing quickly. Roughly 70% of its existing customer base also runs a bricks-and-mortar store. For the past year, the developer has worked hard on responsive storefront templates that work equally well on mobile platforms and desktops—design is the number-one consideration for small e-commerce merchants, it says—and on relationships with partners of “adjacent” cloud services from the accounting, payments, customer relationship management, and payroll management worlds.

Bigcommerce在年销售额100万到200万美元的小零售商中大受欢迎。如今年销售额2,000万到3,000万美元的零售商群体也在迅速加入Bigcommerce。它大约70%的现有客户同时拥有线下实体店。过去一年，Bigcommerce大力开发可同时应用于移动平台和桌面电脑的自适应店铺模板（Bigcommerce认为，设计是小型电子商户的头等考量），并积极拓展“相邻”云服务的合作伙伴关系，比如会计、支付、客户关系管理和薪酬管理领域。

“It comes down to answering these questions: how do you continue to iterate the platform, how do you continue to augment the team, and how do you build a tapestry of alliances with partners that will accelerate your growth?” Case said.

“这可以归结为3个问题：怎样推动平台不断升级，怎样继续强化团队，怎样打造与合作伙伴的一系列联盟，以加速自身成长？”凯斯表示。

As of mid-July, there were about 50,000 stores running on Bigcommerce, which have collectively sold close to $4 billon using the platform. The developer has typically added new customers one-by-one. However, a deal it struck in early July with eBay positions its service as the preferred migration path for two Magento products that will be discontinued in February 2015, Go and ProStores. Bigcommerce previously migrated more than 5,000 merchants off ProStores, and the deal could potentially bring up to 10,000 more.

截至7月中旬，约有50,000家商店在Bigcommerce上运营，平台累计销售额近40亿美元。Bigcommerce的客户通常是一个一个累积起来的。但7月初，它与eBay签署了一项协议，eBay从2015年2月将停用的两款Magento产品Go和ProStores优先迁移至Bigcommerce。在此之前，ProStores已有5,000多家商户迁移至Bigcommerce。此项协议可能再带来多达10,000家商户。

Although the timing is purely a coincidence, it can’t hurt that Magento’s first product manager, Tim Schulz, just joined Bigcommerce as senior vice president of product management. Most recently a strategic partnership and business development executive for Google for services such as Shopping Express and Wallet, Schulz will be sharply focused on ensuring Bigcommerce offers an integrated experience that better straddles the e-commerce and physical retail worlds. “Consumers just want a seamless experience,” he said.

或许纯粹是巧合，但Magento首位产品经理蒂姆o舒尔茨也刚刚加入Bigcommerce，出任产品管理高级副总裁。舒尔茨近年来担任谷歌Shopping Express、Wallet等服务的战略合伙和商业发展高管，未来将专注于Bigcommerce的一站式体验，将电子商务和实体零售更好地结合起来。“消费者想要无缝化体验，”他说。

For co-founder Harper, a top priority for the next 12 months is shoring up Bigcommerce’s internal technical talent and creating services that help merchants build closer customer relationships. One example is offering data that helps store managers track “abandoned carts” and offer deals that help turn browsers into buyers. This can help merchants quickly add 15% to their monthly sales, he said.

对于共同创始人哈勃，未来12个月的第一要务是强化Bigcommerce的内部科技人才队伍，提供能够帮助商户构建更紧密客户关系的服务。一个例子是提供数据，帮助店铺经理追踪“被丢弃的购物篮”，以及提供能够将浏览者转变为买家的交易。这能推动商户的月销售额迅速增加15%，他说。

“If we can identify someone who buys in both places, there is huge value there. You know who they are, what they bought, what they spent,” Harper added. “You can give them a more personalized experience.”

“如果我们能找到在两个地方都购物的人，那就非常有价值。你知道他们是谁，他们买什么，他们哪些方面花钱，”哈勃补充说。“你可以给他们更加个人化的体验。”

Entrepreneur Pat Crowley, the hydrologist who invented the Chapul cricket protein bar, used Bigcommerce to validate early interest in his products and build the momentum to negotiate deals with health food stores and supermarkets. The team recently recommitted toBigcommerce, despite a compelling opportunity to switch to the Shopify platform for far less money. “We don’t think we will outgrow them anytime soon,” he said.

曾发明Chapul蟋蟀蛋白棒的创业家帕特o克劳雷通过Bigcommerce来验证产品的早期市场兴趣，积攒市场人气，并且与健康食品商店和超市协商达成交易。虽然该团队有机会能以低得多的价格转至Shopify平台，但最近选择又一次与Bigcommerce续签。“我们认为，短期内我们的增长速度不会超过Bigcommerce，”他说。