Commerce unveils AI-led eCommerce & payments updates
Wed, 6th May 2026 (Today)
Commerce has announced a set of product updates across its eCommerce platform and related services, covering storefronts, B2B tools, payments and AI-led shopping.
The rollout includes upgrades to the BigCommerce platform, wider channel support through Feedonomics and new features designed to support transactions involving AI agents.
Core platform changes include multi-language tools, expanded promotions management, more flexible catalogue rules, additional catalogue filtering, faster checkout and backorder support. The updates are intended to improve global selling, simplify product administration and help merchants manage stock availability more closely.
The multi-language changes include translation APIs, localised URLs and sitemaps, and built-in translation management tools. In catalogue management, merchants will no longer face unique product naming requirements. New filtering options let teams sort products by factors including category and inventory, and save those views for repeated use.
Checkout performance is also part of the update, with load times reduced by one second, which Commerce linked to higher conversion rates.
Promotion tools have also been expanded, with new options including promotion banners, the ability to stack multiple coupons, bulk coupon generation and discounts tied to shipping methods.
For merchants dealing with stock shortages, Commerce has added backorder controls with SKU-level limits. That allows businesses to continue taking orders for unavailable items while setting tighter boundaries around what can be sold.
Storefront changes
Outside the core platform, Commerce outlined several changes to storefront technology. Makeswift on Stencil is now in beta, giving merchants a way to create more flexible front-end designs while keeping existing implementations in place.
Commerce also detailed Native Hosting for Catalyst, which will provide managed hosting on Cloudflare through a command line interface. The offering includes log retention and custom domain support.
Makeswift users are also getting batch translation jobs. The feature is designed to let teams localise a whole site or launch a new locale in one process, while keeping review and approval controls before publication.
"Commerce is giving merchants the infrastructure to move faster, the flexibility to handle complexity and the ability to succeed in new commerce channels as they emerge," said Vipul Shah, Chief Product Officer, Commerce.
"These new improvements reflect a stronger platform and new offerings and capabilities designed to help merchants turn innovation into measurable growth," Shah said.
B2B focus
Commerce also introduced a number of tools aimed at manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors, including AI-driven purchase order automation, event-driven webhooks and pricing logic based on cascading price lists.
It is also working to bring its B2B and B2C platform experiences closer together, with the aim of allowing merchants selling to both types of customer to manage operations through one control panel and one storefront API layer.
"B2B commerce is one of our core strengths," said Lance Owide, Vice President of B2B Product, Commerce.
"From automating purchase orders to simplifying complex pricing models, we're helping manufacturers and distributors reduce operational friction and scale more efficiently, while continuing to support the depth and complexity their businesses require," Owide said.
One customer cited by Commerce, AS Colour, said the changes had reduced manual work in its operations.
"Automating purchase orders and improving how we manage pricing has been a significant unlock for our business," said Joe Sharplin, Head of Ecommerce, AS Colour.
"We're reducing manual work, minimising errors and delivering a more seamless buying experience for our customers," Sharplin said.
Payments and channels
In payments, Commerce has continued to expand BigCommerce Payments built with PayPal, along with Stripe integrations and support for additional local and alternative payment methods. It positioned those changes as part of an effort to reduce friction at checkout.
Feedonomics Surface, its self-service feed management product, is also extending support to Microsoft Ads, TikTok and Pinterest alongside Google and Meta. The tool is used to sync and distribute product data across sales and advertising channels from one interface.
Commerce said early adoption had already led to millions of products being synced across channels. It added that existing BigCommerce small business users of Surface recorded about 24 percentage points greater year-on-year gross merchandise value growth in November 2025 than peers not using the product.
AI commerce
Another part of the announcement centres on what Commerce describes as agentic commerce, where AI systems take a larger role in product discovery, decision-making and transactions.
This includes enriched product data through Feedonomics, distribution across AI-driven discovery surfaces including ChatGPT, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, PayPal and Stripe, and checkout experiences designed for agent-enabled transactions while merchants retain control of the customer relationship.
Commerce also said merchants will be able to add conversational search and AI-assisted shopping tools to their own storefronts. Another tool, BigCommerce Companion, is intended to support day-to-day merchant operations.
"Commerce as an industry is entering a phase where the distance between discovery and transaction is shrinking rapidly," said Sharon Gee, Senior Vice President of Product for AI, Commerce.
"Our focus is on making sure merchants can reap the benefits of agentic commerce while maintaining control of their data, their customers and their operations," Gee said.