BigCommerce has partnered with Walmart to enable its customers to sell on the Arkansas-based retailer’s e-commerce marketplace in Bentonville, it announced this morning. Austin-based BigCommerce stocks rose sharply after the news in pre-market trading, up roughly 10% before the bell.
Known for in-person shopping, Walmart has proven to be an e-commerce success story over the past several years. For example in his last quarter While Walmart grew 7.3% overall, e-commerce sales rose 69%.
BigCommerce has also seen strong growth over the past few quarters, aided in part by partnerships similar to those announced today. The e-commerce SaaS provider, for example, introduced an integration with Wish last year.
In a call for results announced prior to the Walmart news announcement, BigCommerce CEO Brent Bellm told ProWellTech that his company has been impressed with customer acceptance of the Wish integration. Regarding the Walmart partnership, Bellm told ProWellTech in a second interview that it was overdue on the BigCommerce side. Given the historic success of the Wish deal, it will be curious how many customers on the ecommerce platform are choosing to sell Walmart and how quickly they are doing so.
ProWellTech also spoke to Walmart manager Jeff Clementz about the arrangement. He highlighted Walmart’s monthly online customer activity – 120 million per company – and the breadth of its demand; BigCommerce customers selling on Walmart could expand their product range and help the traditionally physical retailer continue its rapid growth.
The two companies are promoting the acceptance of the contract with BigCommerce customers by waiving certain one month fees for retailers who sign up to sell on Walmart. Clementz described it as the first time his company offered a “new seller discount”.
ProWellTech has had its eye on BigCommerce for a few quarters, thanks in part to its initial public offering in 2020. But the company is also interesting as its regular earnings results provide a glimpse into the world of e-commerce growth at independent digital retailers. Shopify, a major competitor to BigCommerce, offers a similar glimpse into the ecommerce world.
Shopify was already integrated into Walmart in mid-2020.
Looking ahead, it will be interesting to see if the Walmart partnership helps BigCommerce continue its improved sales growth. The company is in a market share race with Shopify. While BigCommerce’s rival has seen impressive growth through its integrated solutions like payment services, the Austin-based company emphasizes what it calls a more open model. Shopify charges a lot of customers A percentage of their transaction volume for using their own third-party payment solution, which Bellm described as a “tax” during an interview.
Revenue from “Merchant Solutions” at Shopify that it generatesmainly“From” Shopify Payments payment processing fees ” grew 116% in 2020 to just over $ 2 billion.
With BigCommerce entering into a partnership with Walmart that is the same as Shopify’s, we’re not just seeing two ecommerce platforms giving their customers as much market access as possible, but two different business philosophies competing with each other. Similar to Microsoft Teams and Slack, it’s a contest to watch.