Bold Commerce Review (2023): An Application-Based Tool for Sensational Sales

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Bold Commerce is a comprehensive portfolio of eCommerce tools designed to enhance and optimize your profits.

But, what can it do for your business?

As any eCommerce organization knows, there’s more to running a successful business than having a stunning website. You also need endless ways to upsell, cross-sell, and nurture relationships with your customers.

The Bold Commerce granular tool package provides companies with the tools they need to keep you ahead of the curve. Whether you’re looking for something to support international selling or a strategy for world-class service, Bold has you covered.

Still wondering:

“What can Bold Commerce do for my bottom line?”

Read on to find out more.

What is Bold Commerce?

Bold Commerce is essentially a network of application delivered by a software development company.

What does that mean for you?

You can mix and match the tools you need from the Bold portfolio to build the ultimate eCommerce environment. At least – in theory.

Bold Commerce Features

Bold Commerce comes with tools for everything from automation, to subscription management and loyalty campaigns. Unfortunately, it also lacks a handful of features necessary for a full eCommerce suite too. For instance, there’s no:

  • Social media management
  • Email marketing campaign service
  • Product listing organization tool

There are also a handful of problems to face with Bold Commerce too. For instance, customers complain that, while helpful, the apps often slow down their website. Additionally, customer support can be difficult to get hold of when you need a quick response.

So, how do you figure out whether Bold Commerce is right for you?

Let’s start by looking at the features you can access, including:

  • 20 powerful apps (and counting) to build your eCommerce store
  • Bundled solution for wholesale, International sales, and personalization
  • Integration with Shopify, BigCommerce and countless other apps

Bold Commerce Checkout

boldcommerce checkout

Let’s start simple.

You can’t have an eCommerce solution without a reliable checkout, right?

Bold allows users to update their checkout functions with two major features:

  • Multi-currency billing – more than 150 currencies to choose from. Your customers can change their cash choices in real-time.
  • Bold Cashier: an out-of-the-box cashier service with multiple payment options, a developer-friendly API, and upsell opportunities after checkout

Bold Checkout comes with a handful of great features intended to improve the earning potential of your store.

How does it deliver more revenue?

Well, it allows companies to expand into multiple international markets with more than 150+ real-time currencies, and 54 languages to choose from. There’s even no need for additional credit card conversion fees either. Bold Commerce also integrates with all the leading payment options, such as Stripe, PayPal, and Net 30.

You can customize your checkout experience with branded pages and custom URLs. What’s more, when combined with the “Product Upsell” package, you can immediately offer consumers new deals after they’ve made their purchase.

The only problem? It’s not the easiest tool to use. Companies and developers often find themselves searching through countless pieces of data just to figure out how they can change the language on their system. Additionally, while the option to store credit card accounts is convenient on the one hand, it presents issues with PCI compliance and safety on the other.

Sure, there’s an open network for developers to use, but you’re going to need a very in-depth knowledge of checkout solutions to customize Bold. If you’re looking for a simple plug-and-play system, this might not be it.

Bold Commerce Conversion

Want to make the most of your conversion opportunities?

No problem.

Bold Commerce delivers a wide range of tools that will help to grow your revenue with post-purchase upsells, machine learning and more. The conversion-focused suite of applications on Bold Commerce is one of the most impressive things about the portfolio.

So, what can you do with Bold conversion?

  • Drive post-purchase upsells with automatic suggestions sent your customers. Your clients won’t even have to enter their payment info a second time to buy something new.
  • Bold brain for AI: The built-in analytics software “Bold Brain” analyzes crucial data points in your store to deliver custom product suggestions.
  • Simple sale management: Create store-wide sales with a single click – ideal for Black Friday and holiday deals

The use of artificial intelligence with Bold Brain is a particularly compelling feature.

It takes the guesswork out of creating compelling offers for your store and automatically generates cross-sell and upsell recommendations on your behalf.

With a little AI assistance, you can encourage your customers to spend more on any solution. There’s even the “Bold Motivator” app, which automatically adds gifts to carts when your customer pays a certain amount. Or, why not create product bundles to sell associated items together?

Unfortunately, Bold Brain has its drawbacks. You can end up with the same products in “related” and “popular,” which reduces your sales opportunities. There’s also a few functionality issues with the Bold Motivator too. It works “sporadically” at times, and not every order automatically gets a freebie as they should.

Despite this, the Bold Commerce Conversion package is an excellent piece of eCommerce tech – brimming with selling opportunities that most users love.

Bold Commerce Customization

These days, consumers want more control over their purchasing options.

Your clients are searching for self-service opportunities, personalized product bundles and more.

So, you’re probably wondering:

How will Bold Commerce help me to deliver this customization?

Through a combination of the Product Builder and Product Option apps, Bold Commerce helps your clients customize their orders. They can create unique software products from scratch or design their own bundles. There’s even an option to show your customer a 2D or 3D image of their finished product too!

So, what does this mean for you?

  • Create custom products from scratch: Give audience members the opportunity to create their own personalized products with the options you provide.
  • Edit custom products during checkout: Give your customers the option to alter their product right there on the cart page.
  • Offer global option sets: Use a one-click tool to apply changes to a bulk selection of products at once.

Bold Customization is a simple but effective eCommerce app package for people who want to offer personalized goods. The fact that you can make changes to your products in the checkout is particularly appealing. It makes it less likely that your audience will lose interest when they hit the back button and have to start again.

Of course – the apps aren’t perfect.

The display can be pretty unattractive in some people’s opinion, and it doesn’t always adapt to your theme. What’s more, if you need conditional logic, you’re only going to get limited results. Expect to use some expert help to set your system up too. It’s not as easy out-of-the-box as Bold’s sales materials would have you believe.

International Selling

Ecommerce is an excellent business opportunity for many reasons.

Let’s face it – who doesn’t love the idea of running a company from the web?

One particularly great thing about the digital world is that it makes it easier for companies to sell their products all around the globe. Whether you offer software or items, you can upgrade your checkout to suit any customer.

How does Bold Commerce help you do that?

With the Bold “Everywhere” package of course. This tool delivers multi-language, multi-payment checkout opportunities to work on any platform. You can access:

  • Payments in more than 150 real-time currencies (no extra credit card fees required)
  • Language support for over 45 languages
  • International shipping, tax, and VAT estimations

What’s more, the Bold Commerce global selling security is designed to scale with your business. The servers you use will adapt to predicted changes in customer demand (such as during holidays). There’s also full PCI and GDPR compliance included with your checkout experience.

When it comes to customization, you’ll also be able to alter the appearance of your checkout to suit consumers around the world.

If you run a brick-and-mortar store, you can also install the Bold Store locator or Mapply to display a personalized map on your site. This an excellent way to get the attention of Google and draw new visitors to your store. The map works on any mobile – in any country.

Setting up your preferred currency is a little bit tricky, but once you get the hang of it, you’re ready to go.

Bold Commerce offers one of the best international selling solutions in the eCommerce market.

Loyalty Tools

One-off customers are great.

Repeat customers are even better.

Bold Commerce’s suite of loyalty tools is designed to help you capture and maintain the attention of your target audience. The Bold Loyalty system offers:

  • Flexible rewards with coupons, points, and free items.
  • Custom tiers to help you build loyalty plans through Bold Membership
  • Custom returns policies to improve your business reputation

Ultimately, Bold Commerce gives today’s brands an easy way to set up simple and straightforward loyalty programs with their store. Widgets activate immediately upon installation and allow you to add bonus points to repeat purchases, or gifts for individual sales.

With the addition of the Bold Brain AI tool, you can also evaluate your customers and figure out which freebies and rewards they’re most likely to respond to. You can even offer exclusive pricing and content to the people who buy the most from your business.

So, what’s the catch?

As mentioned above, the AI is a little tricky. However, if you can get it running smoothly, it does deliver some useful insights for loyalty purposes. Additionally, there’s no option for sending emails – which would make the whole membership service a lot better to manage. It’s much easier to track your loyalty strategies when you have an email nurturing campaign set up.

Bold Commerce Subscriptions

So, what if you run a subscription-based business. Can Bold Commerce still help you?

Thanks to “Bold Subscriptions,” the answer is a resounding “yes.” This app portfolio comes with strategies to manage everything from memberships to subscription boxes.

Powerful and flexible, the apps allow businesses to set up:

  • Recurring product purchases: Let your customers subscribe to get the same products every month.
  • Subscription boxes: Create a range of scalable subscription boxes with customization, mystery options and more.
  • Cancellation reduction: With Bold’s AI strategy, you can use conditional logic to help you retain subscribers.

The range of apps offered by Bold Commerce’s subscription services allows customers to build the boxes they’re looking for and creating their own subscription strategy. There’s also the option to scale your subscriptions on demand.

Bold subscriptions come with a 60-day free trial. However it’s a little chunkier than some of the other options on the market. Orders may not go through if you don’t manage the back-end properly. So we recommend making sure that you have the right developer on hand when you’re installing Bold Commerce.

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Bold Commerce Ease of Use

So, how easy is it to use Bold Commerce?

Well, that depends on who you ask.

All of Bold’s applications are designed to work out of the box – with excellent functionality straight after install.

However, if you want to customize your apps through the open API, then you’re going to need some developer expertise.

For those who need extra help, Bold Commerce offers the option to partner with suppliers. There’s also a wide selection of documentation available if you want to create custom front-end experiences, customize the look of your system, or adjust your strategies.

One particularly great thing about Bold Commerce is that it’s designed to scale with your company – without the fuss.

Thinking you can’t afford any downtime?

No problem, Bold Commerce is built on industry-leading servers. They’ll naturally scale to suit the needs of your traffic. That means fewer missed opportunities.

Bold Commerce Pricing

bold commerce pricing chashier

The pricing for Bold Commerce works on a DIY subscription method.

Essentially, you buy what you think you’ll use. If you only need the “essentials,” then you can pay $29.99 per month for a handful of essential features. On the other hand, if you need capabilities like customized consumer portals, and build-a-box subscriptions, you’ll need the Advanced package.

The advanced package comes for $199 per month and offers priority support for your team.

There’s also the $399 per month Professional package, which comes with everything in the Advanced package and more. You get a dedicated account manager; the much-needed email upsell the rest of the packages are lacking, and a cashier app.

Extensions

Bold Commerce is designed to work with most of the sales tools and CRM systems you already use. It naturally integrates with Shopify, Magneto, and other essential platforms. What’s more, there are impressive integrations with Xero and QuickBooks too.

It’s accounting software, inside your eCommerce strategy.

That means that you can do a lot more than just manage your sales with Bold Commerce. You can also ensure that you’re tracking your cash flow accurately for tax purposes.

Few other eCommerce tools offer integration with accounting services too. This is a service that really makes Bold Commerce stand out.

Customer Support and Assistance

As with most companies, Bold Commerce has its hits and misses when it comes to support.

The company claims to have the manpower and experience to deal with any issues or outages whenever they arrive. However, if you want personal guidance, then you’re going to need a more expensive package.

The professional package comes with a dedicated account manager to ensure that you get the most out of the Bold Commerce experience. Even the Advanced kit comes with priority support.

So, what if you’re just an essentials user?

Well, in simple terms, you’ll have to wait. Some consumers report waiting days for a response when something on their site or checkout isn’t working.

Of course, you can always check out the community help center, or school of Commerce to see if you can find solutions to your problems there.

Conclusion

Bold Commerce is an excellent suite of eCommerce applications.

There are plenty of apps to help you improve the bottom line on your eCommerce store.

Unfortunately, there are down sides to Bold Commerce too. At the moment, while most of the concepts behind the company are brilliant, the execution doesn’t always deliver. You may need some expertise from a developer to unlock the potential of your apps. What’s more, it helps to pay the extra for the dedicated account manager too.

Additional, social and email eCommerce options are limited. Email opportunities are only available for the highest-paid tier, and they’re in BETA mode. On the other hand, “Social Autopilot,” tool for social engagement only focuses on Twitter – which is a bit of a missed opportunity.

So, is Bold Commerce right for you?

If you’re looking for state-of-the-art functionality to boost the performance of your stores, then you can’t go wrong with Bold Commerce. Some of the areas that it excels in includes:

  • Integrations with all leading CRM apps, as well as Xero and QuickBooks
  • Exceptional conversion applications to boost upsell opportunities
  • Impressive AI access with Bold Brain
  • Wide range of packages to choose from
  • Customization options available to suit any business.

Rebekah Carter

Rebekah Carter is an experienced content creator, news reporter, and blogger specializing in marketing, business development, and technology. Her expertise covers everything from artificial intelligence to email marketing software and extended reality devices. When sheโ€™s not writing, Rebekah spends most of her time reading, exploring the great outdoors, and gaming.

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