Integrations · BigCommerce
The integration takes an afternoon. Europe takes a quarter.
BigCommerce connects to Expandly through an API account you create inside your own store, so there is no server work, no file to install and nothing added to your storefront. That part is genuinely quick. What sets your European launch date is the tax and product compliance underneath it, and this page is honest about which is which so you can plan against real timings rather than optimistic ones.
Where we stand with BigCommerce
A native API connection
You create a store-level API account and give us three credentials. No bridge file, no FTP access, no plugin in your stack and nothing for your host to accommodate.
Multi-storefront friendly
Running a separate storefront per market is a pattern this platform supports well, and one catalogue behind several storefronts is exactly the shape our system is built for.
Marketplaces alongside, not instead
Your BigCommerce orders sit in the same queue as Amazon, bol.com, eBay and TikTok Shop, drawing on the same European stock, so adding a channel later is a listings exercise.
The honest timeline
Which parts are fast, and which parts you cannot rush
Expansion timelines slip because the quick work is visible and the slow work is not. Connecting a store, importing a catalogue and building a localised storefront all produce something you can look at within days. A German VAT registration produces nothing you can look at for four months, and until it lands you cannot legally trade there.
So the sequence matters more than the effort. Start the registrations in week one and the fast work fills the waiting time. Start them after the site is ready and the site sits idle while the queue runs.
Time to live
What takes how long
Approximate, and honest about the spread. Everything in the first two bands can run while the third is in progress, which is the whole trick.
Hours
Connecting the store
Create the API account in BigCommerce, hand over the credentials, and the connection is live. Order statuses are mapped and your categories sync in during the same session.
Days
Catalogue in, matched and mapped
Products import, then get matched across your channels so one stock figure governs all of them. Larger catalogues take longer to reconcile than to import, and how your variations are named decides how much of that is automatic.
Weeks
Stock into region, translations live
Your first shipment moves, clears and is put away at our Netherlands or UK warehouse. Product content is translated for the markets you are entering and published out to your storefronts and marketplaces.
3 to 4 weeks
Netherlands VAT registration
The fastest route into the EU, and the reason a brand wanting to trade this quarter usually starts in the Netherlands. Our warehouse is already there.
~11 weeks
UK VAT registration
A separate regime from the EU since Brexit, with its own registration, its own producer responsibility position and its own Responsible Person appointment where one applies.
16 to 20 weeks
Germany VAT registration
Measured from a complete and verified submission, and every follow-up request from the authority restarts the clock. This is why we build the document set once, properly, with certified translations included, and why it starts in week one.
If you want to be trading in Europe this quarter, the decision that matters is not which platform you are on. It is whether the registrations started this month.
Connecting
Three credentials, and what happens after
Worth setting out precisely, because it is the shortest connection process of any platform we support and there is nothing for a developer to build.
For whoever administers the store
The short technical answer
You create an API account inside BigCommerce and pass us three values from the credentials file it generates: the Client ID, the Access Token, and the store Context string, which takes the form stores/<id>. That is the whole connection. Nothing is installed, no server access is needed, and revoking it is a single action inside your own store.
After that: your BigCommerce order statuses are mapped one to one onto ours, your store categories sync in so products keep the structure you use, and we set your merge preference so products match correctly across channels.
Then the mechanic. An order on any connected channel comes into Expandly, which adjusts stock centrally and pushes the corrected figure out to every other channel, so a sale on your store corrects your marketplace quantities rather than appearing on them. Listings are mastered in Expandly and published out to BigCommerce and everywhere else, and warehouse movements feed the same central figure as sales do.
What we handle
The work behind the timeline
Registered and filed
VAT registration in every market you sell or hold stock in, then ongoing filing. Producer responsibility registrations, label review before anything prints at volume, and Responsible Person appointment for the EU and separately for the UK.
Stock in region
Inventory at our Netherlands warehouse for EU demand and our UK warehouses for UK demand, keeping the two customs regimes apart. Orders ship locally and returns come back locally, assessed and restocked or reworked in market.
One set of numbers
Storefronts, marketplaces and trade orders reported side by side with cost price included, so you read contribution rather than revenue. Filing deadlines and stock events raise alerts before they bite.
Selling direct in Europe also asks things of the storefront itself: local payment methods, how a discount may be displayed, the German accessibility requirements, statutory returns and the trader information that has to appear with the product. Those sit with your storefront configuration rather than with us, and we work through the split with you on the review call.
Global Expansion Pathway™
Do the slow things first
The timeline above is the Global Expansion Pathway™ in practical form. Compliance and Logistics come before Omni-Channel, delivered as the E-commerce Expansion Multiplier™, because the slow items gate everything after them and the fast items do not. A brand that sequences it the other way spends the registration window looking at a finished storefront it cannot legally sell from.
Questions
What BigCommerce merchants ask
Do you need access to my store admin?
Only the API credentials you generate yourself, and you can revoke them at any time from inside BigCommerce. There is no app installed on your store and no login shared.
We run a separate storefront per market. Does that work?
Yes, and it is a good shape to be in. One catalogue behind several storefronts is how the system is designed to work, and it means a price or stock change is made once and lands everywhere.
Can we keep selling in the US while this happens?
Nothing about connecting changes your existing trading. Your US orders keep flowing exactly as they do now, and they appear alongside the European ones once you are live so you are comparing markets rather than reconciling systems.
Which market should we start with?
It depends on your category, your margin after landed cost and how soon you want revenue. The Netherlands is the fastest route to a VAT number and our warehouse is already there, while Germany is the largest continental market and the longest queue. Most brands we work with end up in all three base markets, and the order is a commercial decision rather than a compliance one.
Find out what your realistic first trading date is
Thirty minutes on your markets, your categories and your catalogue. You will leave with a sequence and a date rather than an estimate.
This page is general guidance and not advice on your brand’s specific position. Timings are typical ranges from our own registration and onboarding data, offered as planning guidance rather than a guarantee for your application. Connection detail reflects our current integration. Tax, product and producer responsibility rules differ by market and change, so talk to our compliance team about how they apply to your products and markets before you make a filing, a registration or a launch decision.