BigCommerce Stencil Framework: a New Era of Web Development on Hosted Platforms

The best solution for ecommerce website development is now here to relieve our dependence on the restrictive and rigid SaaS – Software as a Service.

Recently, BigCommerce has launched the Stencil framework that gives power, flexibility, and convenience with complete freedom in working with a hosted shopping cart.

Read on, and by the end of our post, you will understand what BigCommerce Stencil framework is and how it can change the way ecommerce websites are being developed, customized and managed.

These features and benefits will give a peek inside the BigCommerce Stencil Framework.

LOCAL DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT FOR LESS HASSLE

BigCommerce Stencil doesn’t interrupt your live ecommerce website during development changes or customizations. The developers must make a copy of the theme first on their local system before making any changes. Whatever they change or experiment with on your site is being done locally.

This single feature has four clear benefits for both the developers and the site owners.

i) Fast development

BigCommerce Stencil provides ready-to-use libraries and components to help build ecommerce websites faster on their local system. Its proven architecture and coding structure increase the productivity of the developers.

ii) Work locally on the real site data

The local environment created by the BigCommerce Stencil fetches the real site data through its API. It makes the clone site very close to the real site. It removes one step of testing with the actual site data after going live, which often takes extra time in adjustments.

iii) Reduced error probability

Coding and testing on an ecommerce website during its development normally create numerous bugs and issues. Most ecommerce business owners are worried because they may lose sales or leave their online customers unhappy due to inconvenience caused by a development error.

BigCommerce Stencil's local development reduces the chances of errors and keeps the ecommerce site owner satisfied because every change is done locally. All errors are identified and fixed quickly on the local site.

iv) Shareable development work

The developers can put their client at the top of the development process by sharing the site through an IP address BigCommerce Stencil assigns. The clients can see in real-time how the changes are being made and how it will look on their live site after implementation. It encourages collaboration and constant feedback from the client as well as keeps the development process moving along.

HANDLEBARS TEMPLATING LANGUAGE TO MANIPULATE ANY DATA OBJECT

All hosted platforms come with limitations regarding customization. Normally, when the ecommerce site owner asks for a specific change or need, the developers often say that they can’t work on this area because the hosted platform does not allow them to add custom code or change functionality.

One of the clear benefits of BigCommerce Stencil framework is that it broke all the limitations and barriers in the development on the hosted platform by integrating handlebars template language.

The developers have complete access to all data objects. They can manipulate any Stencil data object, like product objects, cart objects, and customer objects by using handlebars.js expressions.

YAML FRONT MATTER FOR FETCHING ANY SEGMENT OF THE SITE CONTENT INDIVIDUALLY

In the old BigCommerce theme framework (BluePrint), the theme had to load a larger set of data even if you only had to use a small part of it. When the catalog is large, the site speed is affected as the developers had to enable the use of the entire catalog to display specific contents, like promotions, featured products, best sellers, most viewed products, etc.

BigCommerce Stencil is powered with YAML front matter to display any site content on any page differently. YAML uses variables, attributes and tags to pull the content on the page. The developers can create blocks on each page template to set where and how to show the content.

BROWSERSYNC FOR SYNCHRONIZED CROSS-DEVICE TESTING IN REAL-TIME

Manually loading each page for each device takes a lot of time. BigCommerce Stencil comes with the Browsersync feature to view the changes across all screen sizes.

Today, ecommerce websites are designed responsively, so when the developer is working on any site, they will need to test it across all screen sizes. Browsersync makes testing more efficient.

EASY & FAST DIY THEME CUSTOMIZATION

Most e-retailers do not know how to code. Also, they lack resources, i.e. time & money, to learn to code. A specialized BigCommerce Stencil developer can make the life of the site owner much easier for small scale changes and modifications.

BigCommerce Stencil gives the capability to build a powerful user interface that can be handy to edit the layout with just a few mouse clicks. All it requires is a specialized and experienced BigCommerce Stencil designer to the reap full benefits of this capability.

Now you can make your site stunning in your own way and can change the look and feel of your ecommerce with ease!

TRIGGER ANY ACTION BASED ON ANY ACTION

If you know how your customers think, you can drive them to take another step by triggering any specific message or feature once they complete any task. Bigcommerce Stencil enables ecommerce websites to take advantage of different behaviors and actions of their customers.

There was already a growing demand by BigCommerce site owners to trigger specific features, functions, messages or alerts by capturing the actions of online customers. And now it is here and available.

For example, if the customer is leaving shopping cart page without checking out, you can show them a message inviting them to chat live with the support for any help or query in mind.

A specialized BigCommerce Stencil developer can define certain specific actions based on the customer’s actions. This enhances user interaction throughout the shopping process, browsing and navigation of the site, product searching & viewing, and initiating the checkout process.

THEME STYLE VARIATIONS

You pay for one theme with just one variation and style, but BigCommerce Stencil allows turning it into up to 4 different themes. BigCommerce Stencil allows developers to configure and customize the parent theme to create up to 4 theme variations in total.

Each theme variation can have a different font family, color scheme and effects. Once developers get them ready for you, you will not need any coding to apply them.

This year you can instantly change the look and feel of your website on Christmas, Cyber Monday or fall season with uniquely configured theme variations.

You just need to select the right theme variation from the thumbnails appearing on your dashboard and apply it with mere a click.

RICH FRONT-END UI/UX DEVELOPMENT

User experience is the most important aspect of any ecommerce website. The specialized developers of BigCommerce Stencil framework can effectively use the developer toolkit to design an intuitive and modern user interface that makes real sense.

MODERN STANDARDS AND PRACTICES FOR FASTER PAGE LOADING

The top ecommerce websites load their pages in less than 3 seconds. Today, modern online buyers are impatient and will not wait very long for the page to load. No matter how beautiful and functional your ecommerce website is, you can’t improve conversion if it takes forever to load.

BigCommerce Stencil conforms to the best web performance standards and practices. The BigCommerce Stencil developers dug into the web performance metrics of the top e-retailers to learn how the top sites perform on the web. We have seen a remarkable improvement in page loading speeds while using the Cornerstone theme as compared to the site built on Blueprint.

PERSONALIZATION

Personalization is all about targeting specific content aimed at a particular group of customers. BigCommerce Stencil gives total access and control over the entire site content and makes it viewable to individual customers differently.

When your competitors are showing the same content or products to all of their customers, you will be able to show specific categories or products, contents, promotions or offers to particular customers of your preference. This approach is very effective for customer acquisition.