BigCommerce Catalyst and Makeswift

BigCommerce Catalyst Announcement and the Addition of Makeswift

BigCommerce recently unveiled in a press release: the acquisition of Makeswift, a pioneering composable page builder startup headquartered in Atlanta. This strategic move sets the stage for the launch of Catalyst, a cutting-edge headless repository that promises to revolutionize the landscape of online commerce.

BigCommerce. Composable. Headless.

Catalyst represents a fusion of top-tier technologies commonly utilized in headless builds within the BigCommerce ecosystem. At its core lies the addition of Makeswift, which is the new height of Catalyst's innovative vision. This low-code/no-code composable page builder empowers users to craft sleek, lightweight websites in mere minutes, requiring minimal to no coding expertise.

What is BigCommerce Catalyst?

For seasoned developers, Catalyst offers a gateway to unparalleled customization. By seamlessly integrating custom react components, BigCommerce developers can enrich the page builder's functionality, creating a dynamic user experience. Remarkably, these enhancements can be effortlessly accessed and deployed within the same composable page builder by individuals with limited or no development background. This seamless integration streamlines the process of enhancing a company's ecommerce site, bridging the gap between development and business-facing teams.

Why did BigCommerce Acquire Makeswift?

Currently, Makeswift is primarily designed for creating landing pages. However, based on information from both the Makeswift and BigCommerce teams, they are collaborating to expand the functionality of the page builder to be applicable in other contexts, such as product listing and product detail pages. We anticipate this expansion to be available in the near future, especially given the frequent updates being pushed by the Catalyst team at Makeswift.

In essence, Catalyst represents a paradigm shift in ecommerce development. It empowers developers to focus on crafting cutting-edge components while providing marketing and business teams with unprecedented control over page content and layout. This holistic approach transcends the limitations of traditional content management systems, ushering in a new era of flexibility and efficiency in online commerce.

Catalyst and the Future of BigCommerce

Catalyst is a paradigm shift for BigCommerce development that will pioneer the way for businesses to complete headless builds faster and with fewer resources. With the flexibility and speed that a Next.js starter kit brings to the ecommerce scene, it is almost certain that we will see more and more businesses kickstart their ecommerce platforms with Catalyst. With the out of the box power of the Catalyst repo, the cost of entry has also been lowered for the headless commerce category. With this elevated jumping off point, smaller businesses now have a viable and affordable option for building a headless ecommerce solution.

Limitations of Catalyst Headless Ecommerce

While Catalyst sounds like the perfect solution for many of the headless ecommerce pain points it is not without its limitations. The biggest limiting factor is that it is built on the Next.js platform, so companies that have in-house development in another frontend framework will have to either transfer frontends, or find a way to integrate Next into their stack.

Related Article: Setting Up Strapi Graphql in BigCommerce Catalyst

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