How to Use Customer Groups in BigCommerce

Hey, you guys! Are you looking at the customer groups feature on BigCommerce and wondering if it might solve some business problems for you? Or maybe you’re considering moving to BigCommerce to use this feature for something like a wholesale system for your customers?
I get this question a lot, and I have many customers who use this feature. Honestly, the documentation out there barely scratches the surface of what it can do.
Today, I want to go over how it works, what it can do, and show you some of the built-in features, along with a bit of code near the end to highlight why this feature is so powerful.

Who Am I? (00:32)
Before we get started, my name is Kal. I’m a developer and store owner, just like you. I also run the eCommerce Growth community for store owners. Every week, I post more eCommerce videos, so if you find this helpful, make sure to subscribe and hit the bell so you don’t miss any future content!

BigCommerce Competitive Advantage (01:35)
BigCommerce’s customer groups are a huge competitive advantage over platforms like Shopify. Shopify does have apps that attempt to recreate some of this functionality, but BigCommerce’s built-in feature, being part of the core database, is far superior.
This means anything out there can interact with it, and you can choose what appears on the page using Stencil code. This is much cleaner, more performant, and better for indexing—because you’re not hiding things with JavaScript after the page loads.

BigCommerce Pricing Plans & Feature Availability (02:41)
This feature—Customer Groups—is available in the Plus plan and above (Pro and Enterprise). If you’re on the Standard plan, you’ll need to upgrade to Plus to access this.
BigCommerce reps often highlight the Price Lists feature, which is only available in Enterprise plans. Price Lists are great for setting prices on a per-product level for different customer groups, but that’s not the only way to discount products. I’ll show you how to do this even on lower-tier plans.

Customer Groups Overview (04:21)
At a high level, customer groups allow you to:
Discount products (category-wide or product-specific)
Show different content (pages, categories, menu items, etc.) to different groups
Hide/Show components (e.g., buy buttons, pricing) for specific groups
For example, you might have a site where only wholesalers can see prices and place orders, while everyone else just sees products.

Creating a Customer Group (06:01)
To create a customer group:
Go to Customers > Customer Groups in BigCommerce.
Click Create Group, and name it (e.g., “Wholesale”).
You can apply Category Discounts (e.g., 10% off a specific category), Product Discounts, or Store-wide Discounts.

Example: Discount by Customer Group (07:11)
You can easily apply a flat discount (e.g., 40% store-wide) to a customer group. If you need per-product discounts, this is where the Price Lists feature (available in Enterprise) can come in handy, especially for large inventories.

Customizing Category Access by Group (08:19)
You can also limit which categories a customer group can see:
Select a group and uncheck certain categories.
For example, Ford Transit Vans can be hidden from the default group but visible to wholesale customers.

Testing Group Functionality (09:42)
Test how customer groups work by logging in as a specific customer from the Customers tab in BigCommerce and selecting Login. This lets you see exactly what a customer in a particular group sees on your store.

Promotions & Coupons for Customer Groups (12:04)
BigCommerce offers Automatic Promotions and Coupon Promotions. With automatic promotions, discounts are applied based on rules (e.g., subtotal thresholds or customer group membership).
You can exclude or include specific customer groups when setting up promotions.
Example: Offer free shipping for retail customers who spend over $75, while excluding wholesale customers.

Price Lists for Enterprise Customers (15:02)
If you’re on Enterprise, you have access to Price Lists, where you can apply custom pricing on a per-product basis for specific customer groups. This is very useful for managing large inventories.

Code Customizations with Customer Groups (16:23)
Now let’s dive into some custom code.
First, create a copy of your theme to work on.
Use Stencil code to display content only to certain customer groups. For example, you can hide prices for non-logged-in users or show different images based on group membership.

Example: Show/Hide Content with Code (19:24)
Using if-statements in Stencil, you can conditionally show content, like images or prices, based on the customer’s group:
If the customer is in the Wholesale group, show one image.
If they are not, show a different image.
This can extend to hiding elements like buy buttons or showing a special menu for wholesale customers.

Wrap-Up (34:00)
BigCommerce’s customer groups feature is incredibly powerful, whether you’re managing wholesale, offering discounts, or simply tailoring the user experience. With built-in features like promotions, price lists, and the ability to customize with code, it’s a major advantage over competitors.

Conclusion (36:11)
Thanks for sticking around! There’s so much more you can do with customer groups, and I’ll be creating follow-up videos to go over specific use cases. Be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you plan to do with this feature.