Setting up push on BigCommerce comes down to four moves: pick the kind of push you want, connect the service to your storefront, trigger it from cart and browse events, and test it on a real phone before you send anything to customers. Most guides stop at browser web push. This one covers that route and the one we built StorePush around: lock-screen notifications through native iOS App Clips, with no email, phone number or app install required.
The time to do this is before your next ad budget goes out. The visitors who leave without buying are the largest audience your store has, and by default you have no way to talk to them.
TL;DR
- Web push on BigCommerce works through a script added to your storefront and an explicit browser permission from each shopper. Decline the prompt and you have no channel.
- Add scripts through BigCommerce's Script Manager, not by pasting into theme files, so you can switch them off cleanly.
- App Clip push reaches iOS shoppers on the lock screen without collecting an email or phone number, which fills the gap that opt-in prompts and email capture leave open.
- Test with a fresh browser profile and a real phone, one trigger at a time, before going live.
- StorePush has a Free plan at $0 per month. Pro is $50 per month plus a 5% commission on attributed recovered revenue.
Table of Contents
- What kinds of push can a BigCommerce store send?
- What you need before you start
- Two routes: browser web push or iOS App Clip push
- Step-by-step: connecting push to BigCommerce
- How to test that it actually works
- Troubleshooting common setup problems
- Where our approach differs
- Our view: ask less, earlier
- Plans and what they cost
- After setup: keep the funnel fed
- FAQ
- Sources
What kinds of push can a BigCommerce store send?
Before you touch a setting, decide what the push is for. Notification tools commonly cover several types: order and fulfillment updates, back-in-stock alerts, price-drop and promotion messages, cart abandonment reminders, post-purchase re-engagement, and internal alerts for your own team, such as low inventory or high-value orders.
For a store owner with limited time, we would rank them like this:
- Cart abandonment. The shopper showed the strongest intent and left. This is where revenue is most recoverable.
- Browse abandonment. Softer intent, but a far bigger audience.
- Price-drop and back-in-stock. They give the shopper a reason to come back that is not just "you forgot something."
- Order updates. Useful, but they do not recover lost sales.
Start with one. A store that launches with a single working cart trigger learns more in a week than one that configures eight and tests none.
What you need before you start
A clean setup takes about an hour if you have these ready:
- Admin access to your BigCommerce control panel. You need it for the storefront script settings and to view the live store.
- HTTPS on your storefront. Browser push generally depends on a secure connection. BigCommerce storefronts are served over HTTPS by default, but confirm that your custom domain shows the padlock.
- A list of your top pages. Cart, checkout and your top five product pages. These are where you will test triggers.
- A decision on tone. Push messages are short. Write two or three lines now: a cart reminder, a price-drop line and a back-in-stock line.
- A test device. An iPhone for App Clip flows and a desktop browser you can reset for web push.
Also check what your current stack already does. If your abandoned cart emails are running, keep them. Push is a second channel, not a replacement, and the two together recover more than either alone. For a head-to-head look, see how push compares with email on conversion.
Two routes: browser web push or iOS App Clip push
The setup differs a lot depending on the route.
| Browser web push | iOS App Clip push (StorePush) | |
|---|---|---|
| What the shopper sees | A browser permission prompt | A native iOS App Clip experience |
| Data required | None, but explicit browser permission | No email, phone number or app install |
| Where messages appear | Desktop and mobile browsers that allow it | The iPhone lock screen |
| Main weakness | Shoppers decline or ignore the prompt; blocked prompts never reappear | Built for iOS shoppers, so pair it with your other channels |
| Setup | Script plus verification file in many tools | Connect your BigCommerce store, then configure triggers |
Web push needs explicit permission, and that is the catch. Chrome also automatically blocks notifications from sites it judges intrusive or misleading, and with quieter prompts on, the shopper sees no pop-up at all, only a bell icon by the address. If you ask too early, you may burn the opportunity before the shopper has any reason to say yes.
That is why timing matters more than the tool. Our deeper comparison is in web push versus app push for e-commerce, and the opt-in sequencing we recommend on iPhones is in iOS push notifications for e-commerce.
Step-by-step: connecting push to BigCommerce
1. Create your account and pick a plan
Start on the free plan at storepush.io. Free is $0 per month, which is enough to prove that push recovers revenue in your store before you pay for anything.
2. Connect your BigCommerce store
StorePush integrates with BigCommerce, as well as Shopify, WooCommerce and custom storefronts. In the dashboard, add your store and follow the connection prompts. The result is a snippet that loads on your storefront and listens for shopping events: product views, add-to-cart, checkout started.
3. Add the storefront script
On BigCommerce, scripts go in through Script Manager. It lives in the control panel under Storefront, and BigCommerce documents it in its storefront scripts overview. Use it instead of editing your theme, for three reasons:
- You can turn the script off in one click if something breaks.
- A theme update will not wipe it.
- You can limit it to the pages that need it, such as product, cart and checkout.
Set the script to load on all storefront pages at first. Narrow it once you know which events you actually use. Some tools ask you to upload a verification file through WebDAV instead; if yours does, upload it to the exact path the tool names and confirm it opens in a browser.
4. Turn on the events you care about
In the dashboard, enable the event-based triggers: cart abandonment, browse abandonment, and price drop if you use it. Keep delays sensible. A cart reminder an hour or two after the shopper leaves feels like help. One 90 seconds later feels like surveillance.
5. Write the message and set the offer
Keep copy to a headline and one line. Name the product. Skip the discount on the first message; hold it for the second. If you want ideas for what a second or third message can say, our guide to 3 to 5 message winback sequences lays out a pattern.
6. Preview, then publish
Send a test notification to yourself before enabling any trigger for the public. Which brings us to the part most guides skip.
How to test that it actually works
A push setup that "saved successfully" can still be silent. Run this checklist on a real device.
- Fresh session. Open your store in a private window or a new browser profile so no earlier permission carries over.
- Trigger the event. Add a product to the cart, start checkout, then leave.
- Check the dashboard. The event should appear in your funnel view within minutes. If it does not, the script is not loading on that page.
- Receive the push. On iPhone, lock the screen and wait for the delay you configured.
- Tap it. The shopper should land on the cart or product, with the items still there. A push that opens the homepage wastes the intent.
- Check attribution. Complete a test purchase from the push and confirm that the revenue shows against that message.
Repeat for each trigger. It takes ten minutes each and prevents the embarrassing case where a customer gets a reminder for something they already bought.
Troubleshooting common setup problems
No notifications on desktop Chrome. Check whether the site was blocked. On Chrome, a shopper or tester can visit the site, click View site information, and turn Notifications on. If you are testing, this is the first thing to reset.
No prompt appears. With quieter notification prompts, Chrome shows a bell icon near the address bar instead of a pop-up. That is Chrome behaving as designed, not a broken install.
Events missing in the dashboard. The script is not on that page. Open Script Manager, check the page scope, and confirm the script is active. Also check that no consent banner on your store is blocking it before shoppers accept.
Push fires, but links open the wrong page. Check your trigger's destination setting. It should be the cart URL or the product URL from the event, not a static link.
Duplicate messages. You probably have two push tools loading at once, or a leftover script pasted into your theme. Remove the old one.
Messages arrive but nobody buys. Look at timing and copy before blaming the channel. One reminder with a product name and a clear next step outperforms a vague "come back" message.
Where our approach differs
Standard web push depends on a shopper saying yes to a browser prompt the first time they see your store. Email depends on a shopper typing an address at checkout, and plenty leave before that step. In both cases, the shoppers who leave quietly stay out of reach.
We built StorePush around Apple App Clips so the first ask does not have to be a data grab. The shopper gets a lightweight native experience, no app install, no signup, and you can reach them on the lock screen afterwards. That matters when more than 90% of your visitors leave without buying, because those are the people your other channels never touched.
Our view: ask less, earlier
We talk to store owners who have tried everything: pop-ups, exit-intent discounts, three-step email flows. The usual pattern is that the tools work for the 2% to 3% who were going to buy anyway, and the rest stay invisible.
Here is what we believe after building for this problem:
- The first ask should be small. A quiet alert that helps the shopper, like a price-drop notice, earns permission better than a discount demand.
- Owned audience beats rented audience. Building a list that does not depend on an email field means a lost cart is not a lost contact. We explain the idea in one push test that starts an owned audience.
- Do not rip out what works. Keep email. Use push first where email is slow or lands in a buried Gmail tab, and use SMS only where it earns its per-message cost. We cover the economics in our push-first SMS fallback guide.
- Measure revenue, not clicks. CTR heatmaps are useful, but the number that matters is attributed recovered revenue.
— Lucas
Plans and what they cost
If you want to try it, the pricing is simple and published at storepush.io:
- Free: $0 per month.
- Pro: $50 per month.
- Usage commission: 5% on revenue attributed to push-triggered purchases.
The commission is the part that keeps us honest: on paid plans we earn more when your recovered revenue grows. For a wider look at what push tools cost and how to budget them, see our push notification pricing guide. Ready to connect your store? Start with the free plan.
After setup: keep the funnel fed
Push recovers visitors you already paid to get. It does not replace getting them. If your product pages are thin or your category pages are not ranking, there are fewer visitors to recover in the first place. Automating that side of the work, for example with BigCommerce SEO automation, pairs well with push: more qualified traffic in, fewer abandoned carts lost.
A sensible first month looks like this:
| Week | Task |
|---|---|
| 1 | Connect the store, add the script, test one cart trigger |
| 2 | Add browse abandonment and review the funnel dashboard |
| 3 | Add a price-drop trigger on your top sellers, see our price-drop alert approach |
| 4 | Compare attributed revenue against your email recovery and adjust timing |
For more setup guides, browse the StorePush blog.
FAQ
Do I need a developer to set up push on BigCommerce?
Usually not. Adding a script through Script Manager and enabling triggers in a dashboard are both point-and-click tasks. Bring in a developer only if you run a heavily customized theme or a headless storefront and need events passed in by hand.
Will push notifications work if shoppers never give me their email?
Yes, that is the point of the App Clip route. StorePush sends to the lock screen without collecting an email address or phone number, so shoppers who would never fill in a checkout field can still be re-engaged. Browser web push also needs no email, but it does need the shopper to accept a permission prompt.
Why did my test shopper never see a permission prompt?
In Chrome, quieter prompts can replace the pop-up with a bell icon beside the address bar, and sites judged intrusive get blocked automatically. Reset the site's notification setting, test in a fresh profile, and delay the prompt until the shopper has done something meaningful.
Should I replace my abandoned cart emails with push?
No. Run them side by side. Push is faster and reaches people who left before entering an email, while email can carry longer content and reach shoppers who are not on a phone.
Sources
- OpenText Notifications BigCommerce integration overview
- Use notifications to get alerts, Google Chrome Help
- BigCommerce storefront scripts overview, developer documentation