Big Commerce to Salesforce

Owned by Jodie Miners
Last updated: Dec 14, 2014
4 min read

So, you have a Bigcommerce Web Store, and you have Salesforce. You would like to have a Contact and/or Opportunity created in Salesforce whenever someone buys something. And of course your Bigcommerce store has custom fields - who wouldn't? 

This should be easy, right? Wrong. We are 15 years into the 21st century and we still can't do this stuff easily. Unbelievable! In this case, I think it's going to require custom code. 

Oh, for a laugh, try entering Salesforce in the Bigcommerce support portal. Salesforce is just not something you can ignore like that Bigcommerce! 

Requirements

  • Bigcommerce to Salesforce integration
  • On completion of Sale in Bigcommerce
  • For only particular Products
  • Create record in Salesforce
    • Contact and Account OR
    • Contact and Account and Opportunity, but ideally
    • Contact and Account and Opportunity and Opportunity line items. 
    • Hey, I would even go with being able to create a Lead. 
  • Include Configurable Fields in the data to be integrated. 
    • (But don't get me started as to why the Configurable Fields are at the product level!). 
    • This is why I need to filter on different products, because I need to handle the different Configurable fields into different fields in Salesforce (or rebuild the store). 
  • Allow for different currencies. 
  • Lookup if the Contact exists or create a new one. 
  • Be able to set different fields on creation of Contact or Opportunity
  • Potential to create Products in Bigcommerce from Salesforce at a later date. 
  • Potential to also integrate with Xero at a later date either directly Bigcommerce to Xero or via Salesforce (see Salesforce to Xero)

Notes:

  • This is a NPSP implementation, so I can do it without creating Accounts, then matching accounts to contacts. 
  • They don't sell lots of products in one go, so I could do without creating Opportunity Products. 

Bigcommerce Say

Bigcommerce's chat line says, "hey, we offer a CSV Export, isn't that enough?" NO! It's absolutely not. 

Bigcommerce's features show the following Integrations available https://www.bigcommerce.com.au/apps/cloud-integration/?filter=all&sort=popular

  • Kevy
  • OneSaas
  • Zapier. 

The Appexchange lists

  • Cloud Conversion CRM
  • Kevy again
  • e-Bridge Connections

Let's look at each one in turn, and a few others. 

Integrations

Of the three that are listed, Zapier would be my first bet - simple and straightforward, but a bit limited - but if it can be done with Zapier, that is good. It's cheap!

Zapier

Good Points

  • Cheap
  • Simple
  • Limited
  • Easy to set up. 
  • Can filter which records to bring across
  • Can set fields as default

However being simple, is is very limited:

  • Can't reliably create Contact and then Opportunity
  • You have to keep on top of it, log in and check it regularly to ensure nothing slips through. 
  • Can't create the products on the Opportunity. 

OneSaas

Interestingly, I don't think OneSaas at the moment does BigCommerce to Salesforce integration. They have a new system - their legacy system does say that it does it, but the new system doesn't. 

The legacy system at least does an integration of some sort. However:

  • It is a full sync only - no partial sync
    • It also syncs Products
  • Can't control which fields are created
    • So I would have to create a lot of workflows to update fields as required. 
  • It does not create Contact Roles on the Opp - vital for NPSP. 
  • You have to keep on top of it, log in and check it regularly to ensure nothing slips through. 
  • I just don't like things that sync indiscriminately. 
  • It creates duplicate accounts in the NSPS - so really does not work well at all with the NPSP. 

Good things

  • It creates the products on the Opportunity - no other app does. 

Kevy

I have had Zero support from Kevy even after 2 emails and talking to someone in person at Dreamforce, but I tried it anyway. 

Unfortunately, Kevy only seems to do full synchronisation - I don't want that as it would mean a lot of work on my side to check on which records have been synced and dealt with. 

Plus it's expensive for a NFP - $100/month. But, if it was the only option and it worked really well, sure I could justify that pricing. 

Workato

Oh I wish Workato supported BigCommerce - but it doesn't yet. Email sent to them. 

Cloud Conversion CRM

Looks interesting. They have a product called Cloudgento (hmm, wonder where that name comes from), that works with Magento currently but they have a blog post from May 2014 saying Bigcommerce is going to be supported in 30 days - no sign of it yet. Email sent to them. 

eBridge Connections 

Does not seem to connect from Bigcommerce to Salesforce directly - seems to require an Accounting system in the middle. No pricing on their website. Email sent to them. 

Mulesoft

Yeah, may be a possibility, but at $1200/month, you may as well build a custom integration.  

Bigcommerce Issues

Salutation

Yeah, I know it's modern to not deal with salutations, but when you are working with customers for whom Salutations and postnominals are a very big deal, it is important to at least be able to use them. Bigcommerce has no Salutation field. (I could get away without postnominals, but I need to know what Salutation this person is when I then email them to say thanks for purchasing). 

Billing Fields

We need to find out their membership number to ensure they get the right pricing for being an association member. This goes on the billing form and there is no way to integrate that with anything. 

Configurable Fields

It puts the Configurable fields all onto the product description, so the product description gets bigger than 255 chars and then can't be imported into Salesforce. 

API

There are Custom Fields (or User Defined Fields) available on the Order Addresses - there seems to be NO WAY to get these fields via the API. Unbelievable! Also, Big Commerce does not seem to support developers apart from telling them to ask questions on Stack Overflow - there is probably 10 questions asking for how to access these Custom Fields and absolutely no answers. 

 

 

Overall

Using OneSaas I can at least get some data into Salesforce. With the following work-arounds that need to be done manually. 

  • Look up into BigCommerce to see the Salutation and the membership information and update the Contact record. 
  • Add the Contact Role to the Opportunity
  • Update all the fields on the Contact required to process the Sale
  • Check for any duplicates created.