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The State of Big Cartel in 2023

Updated Nov 24 2023

Big Cartel is an ecommerce platform for artists and makers.

In this report, we'll cover the following essential statistics on Big Cartel usage.

Download a complete list of Big Cartel stores with a paid account.
Create a free account to get a feel for the data we provide.

Big Cartel Growth

At present, there are 186,282 live stores running on the Big Cartel platform.

Here is the historical growth of stores running Big Cartel.

  • Big Cartel stores increased 10.0% quarter-over-quarter in 2023 Q3.
  • Big Cartel stores increased 55% year-over-year in 2023 Q3.
Quarter
Active Stores
2020 Q3
117,347
2020 Q4
135,666
2021 Q1
144,697
2021 Q2
162,271
2021 Q3
166,631
2021 Q4
169,353
2022 Q1
167,785
2022 Q2
165,644
2022 Q3
184,003
2022 Q4
186,199
2023 Q1
190,283
2023 Q2
196,922
2023 Q3
199,047
2023 Q4 (to date)
186,282
Active Stores by Quarter

Note: the store counts displayed in this section are based on actual historical store counts.

It's hard to know exactly when a Big Cartel store was first created but we use a heuristic that includes historical DNS data which provides a reasonable approximation.

Social Media Usage On Big Cartel Stores

Ecommerce brands use social media sites to engage with millions of consumers. Instagram and Facebook are the dominant social media sites for ecommerce stores, by far, with Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube also having notable usage.

  • Instagram is used by 36.3% of Big Cartel stores.
  • Facebook is used by 20.9% of Big Cartel stores.
  • Twitter is used by 8.5% of Big Cartel stores.
Type
Stores
Instagram
67,623
Facebook
38,883
Twitter
15,753
Pinterest
4,340
YouTube
1,322
Facebook Group
664
Tiktok
335
LinkedIn
54
WhatsApp
20
Yelp
7
Snapchat
7

Contact Information On Big Cartel Stores

Email remains an extremely popular communication channel for merchants. Many merchants also provide a phone number so that their customers can reach them instantly.

  • 2% of Big Cartel stores have an email on their website
  • 1% of Big Cartel stores provide a phone number on their website
Type
Stores
Email
3,875
Phone
2,437

Top Categories For Big Cartel Stores

Here is the breakdown of industry verticals for stores on Big Cartel.

  • 22.9% of Big Cartel stores sell Apparel products.
  • 11.4% of Big Cartel stores sell Arts & Entertainment products.
  • 7.9% of Big Cartel stores sell Beauty & Fitness products.

Top Countries For Big Cartel Stores

Here are the top countries for stores using Big Cartel.

  • 4.5% of Big Cartel stores are in United States
  • 3.0% of Big Cartel stores are in United Kingdom
  • 0.7% of Big Cartel stores are in Australia
  • 0.6% of Big Cartel stores are in Canada
Country
Stores
1,395
1,103
905
530
438
329

With a paid account, stores can also be segmented by region and city.

Number Of Employees For Big Cartel Stores

Here is the breakdown of Big Cartel stores by the number of employees.

  • 99.9% of Big Cartel stores have Unknown employees.
  • 0.0% of Big Cartel stores have 1 - 9 employees.
  • 0.0% of Big Cartel stores have 25 - 49 employees.
Employees
Stores
Unknown
186,180
1 - 9
34
10 - 24
12
25 - 49
15
50 - 99
10
100 - 249
12
250 - 999
13
1000 - 4999
5
5000+
1

Number Of Products Sold For Big Cartel Stores

Here is the breakdown of Big Cartel stores by the number of products that they sell.

  • 57.6% of Big Cartel stores sell 1 - 9 different products.
  • 2.3% of Big Cartel stores sell 10 - 24 different products.
  • 1.1% of Big Cartel stores sell 25 - 49 different products.
Products Sold
Stores
1 - 9
107,221
10 - 24
4,256
25 - 49
2,048
50 - 99
267
100 - 249
706
250 - 999
144
1000 - 4999
24
5000 - 9999
7
10000 - 24999
8
100000 - 249999
3

Top Technologies on Big Cartel Stores

We're tracking 125 different technologies that have 741,165 collective installs on Big Cartel stores.

  • Cloudflare is used by 100.0% of Big Cartel stores.
  • Cloudflare CDN is used by 99.9% of Big Cartel stores.
  • reCAPTCHA is used by 75.3% of Big Cartel stores.

Here are the top 10 third-party technologies, ordered by number of installs, across all Big Cartel stores.

Technology
Stores
186,271
186,185
140,281
86,436
74,658
38,132
3,576

Top Shipping Carriers Used By Big Cartel Stores

  • USPS is used by 4.6% of Big Cartel stores.
  • UPS is used by 1.2% of Big Cartel stores.
  • Royal Mail is used by 1.1% of Big Cartel stores.

Here are the top 10 shipping carriers across all Big Cartel stores.

Shipping Carrier
Stores
USPS
8,626
UPS
2,246
Royal Mail
2,137
Fedex
1,760
Australia Post
701
Canada Post
389
Correos
197
New Zealean Post
39
La Poste
26
Japan Post
25

Big Cartel Store Top-level Domain Distribution

.com is the most popular top-level domain for Big Cartel stores. This is not surprising since alternate top-level domains have only been introduced somewhat recently and there is still a certain cachet associated with .com domains.

That said, you'll find stark regional differences in certain countries. In Australia, .com.au is the most common top-level domain with .com a close second. This is the exception however as .com domains dominate in virtually all other countries.

  • 92.8% of Big Cartel stores have a .com domain.
  • 1.5% of Big Cartel stores have a .co.uk domain.
  • 0.7% of Big Cartel stores have a .net domain.
Top-level Domain
Stores
.com
172,818
.co.uk
2,832
.net
1,257
.com.au
817
.org
685
.co
666
.store
640
.us
605
.ca
584
.shop
547

Top Big Cartel Stores

Here are the top stores, powered by Big Cartel, ordered by store rank.

Name
Domain
Rank
Created
Museum of Death
27,541
2016/12/30
5060™ by Machine56
36,537
2019/04/19
CatLABS
56,950
2016/12/30
Abprallen
70,321
2018/09/28
Official Arthur Treacher's
76,763
2022/03/11

New Big Cartel Stores

Here are the 5 highest-ranked stores added most recently.

Name
Domain
Rank
Created
CHEER UP Official
1,824,043
2023/11/24
Set Sail Studios
1,831,012
2023/11/24
My Booklandia
2,145,389
2023/11/24
santofilms
3,213,211
2023/11/24
Sweet Gossip
3,313,362
2023/11/24

Stores Switching to Big Cartel From Other Platforms

Over the last 90 days, Big Cartel has taken 944 merchants from competitive ecommerce platforms.

Here are the top stores that have switched to Big Cartel from competitive ecommerce platforms.

Name
Domain
Rank
Last Platform
Changed
Ayeola Omolara Kaplan
1,073,026
Ecwid
2023/10/31
Relax Watch Shop
1,188,109
Shopify
2023/11/25
Damnation Audio
1,466,625
Squarespace
2023/10/04
MADEBYB.
1,496,097
Shopify
2023/11/02
Mister Suds
2,168,219
Shopify
2023/10/15

Stores Switching from Big Cartel To Other Platforms

Over the last 90 days, Big Cartel has lost 482 merchants to competitive platforms.

Here are the top Big Cartel stores that have recently changed to a competitive platform.

Name
Domain
Rank
New Platform
Changed
Luxury Blanks by Rue Porter
37,950
Shopify
2023/10/29
Major Bendies
160,454
Shopify
2023/10/12
Renown USA
181,281
Shopify
2023/11/21
www.sunshinesoapandcandle.com
489,258
Shopify
2023/09/25
NOT2TWINZ
645,038
Shopify
2023/10/13

Get more insights on Big Cartel stores

Our search interface is easy to use and helps you find the Big Cartel stores that are relevant to you.

You can segment stores on a variety of dimensions:

  • Social Media accounts
  • Email address
  • Phone numbers
  • Country
  • Third-party technologies
  • Creation date
  • Platform
  • Top-level domains
  • Domain status
  • Domain type
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