BigCommerce Unveils Catalyst Storefront Technology, Empowering Rapid Launches of Composable Ecommerce Experiences

BigCommerce, a leading Open SaaS ecommerce platform for fast-growing and established B2C and B2B brands, and member of the MACH Alliance, announced the availability of Catalyst, its next generation storefront technology, for developers and agency partners.

Purpose-built for the needs of mid-market and enterprise B2C and B2B brands and retailers, Catalyst is designed to provide a simplified starting point for BigCommerce customers, ecommerce developers and agency partners to easily and quickly build online stores using a composable architecture. Catalyst combines popular headless technologies and proven best practices – based on over 4,000 existing headless implementations – into a reference storefront targeting Google Lighthouse scores of 100 out-of-the-box. The experience Catalyst provides sets a formidable standard for shopper UX and conversion rates, establishing a high bar by default for brands using it as their foundation. To enable a world-class developer experience, Catalyst increases the pace of development without sacrificing quality, with fully customizable storefront components and a streamlined GraphQL API client optimized for the latest version of Next.js and React Server Components.

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“Catalyst introduces BigCommerce’s reference composable architecture, equipping developers with the most preferred, highest performing technology, and brand users with the world’s best no/low-code Next.js visual editor,” said Brent Bellm, CEO at BigCommerce. “This new reference architecture serves as a composable starter kit to help customers launch faster and with greater success. Our partners now have a simplified gateway to offer their clients a comprehensive ecommerce solution that easily unlocks the full potential of composability on the BigCommerce platform.”

A key component of Catalyst is Makeswift, a composable page builder for websites built using the popular Next.js framework that BigCommerce acquired in the fourth quarter in 2023. Makeswift simplifies the visual administration of storefronts and content pages, including content sourced from DXP and CMS providers such as Amplience, Contentful, Contentstack, Strapi and WordPress or prominent search-and-merch solutions such as Algolia and Bloomreach (also a CMS provider).

“Catalyst enables brands and retailers to create incredible customer experiences faster, and we’re looking forward to helping customers drastically reduce their time to market with this new set of tools,” said Alan Pledger, Makeswift co-founder. “Since joining the BigCommerce team, we have been impressed with their vision for the future of composable commerce. Makeswift’s visual page-building capabilities help marketing teams quickly and easily deliver amazing customer experiences without the need for developer support.”

SOURCE: Businesswire