Bigcommerce Unveils 2016 Roadmap & Announces Stencil Launch

2 mins

Bigcommerce has set out its vision for 2016, revealing an eventful roadmap for all to see.

The popular eCommerce solution was chosen for two awards last year here on CMS Critic; The 2014 Critic's Choice Award for Best Enterprise eCommerce Solution and The 2014 Critic's Choice Award for Best eCommerce Solution for SMB.

Bigcommerce also welcomed a new CEO during 2015, in the form of Brent Bellm.

Tim Schulz, the Bigcommerce Chief Product Officer outlined their 2016 roadmap in a blog post. Here's a summary.

Bigcommerce 2016: From Themes to Point of Sale

Here's a breakdown of the areas Bigcommerce is planning on improving throughout the course of 2016:

Storefront & Themes
Product Management
Inventory Management
Marketing & Conversion
Analytics & Reporting
Checkout & Payments
Shipping Solutions
Accounting
POS & Offline Selling
Social Media & Social Commerce
Marketplace Selling, i.e. Amazon, eBay, Rakuten
B2B Features

Thats a broad range of areas for Bigcommerce to focus on. I don't doubt their ability to cover each one, but it's certainly going to be interesting to see how they fit it all in.

Introducing Stencil

Along with their roadmap unveiling, Bigcommerce also made an interesting announcement in the form of Stencil.

According to Bigcommerce, Stencil will be, “the world’s leading design framework for branded storefronts,” and it's due for release within the next few months.

An early partner making use of Stencil made the following comments about the tool:

“To me, Stencil is what makes Bigcommerce unique compared to other ecommerce platforms. It gives theme developers the flexibility and freedom the industry is desperate for.”

It certainly sounds like an interesting design tool, although there doesn't really seem to be much information on it as of yet. The finer details aren't being advertised right now, it seems.

However, you can sign up to become an early-access developer for Stencil, to test drive it for yourself.

Overall, it looks like Bigcommerce will be busy in 2016, and that can only be a good thing for its growing user base.

Also, be sure to explore more of Bigcommerce through our CMS Directory.