BigCommerce quick start

Prerequisites

• BigCommerce store on any plan (Standard through Enterprise)
• Store user with the Modify Apps permission
• At least ~200 orders for meaningful patterns
• Stencil or Page Builder theme (the FBT widget script is theme-agnostic; the Bundle Builder customer-facing page renders inside the standard storefront layout)

1. Install

Two install paths:

• App Marketplace, open the BigCommerce App Marketplace and search for Market Basket Analysis. Click Install, BigCommerce walks you through the OAuth scopes screen.
• Private install URL, for early access or multi-store rollouts, request a direct OAuth install URL at /contact. We email back a single-use URL scoped to your store_hash.

The app requests these scopes: store_v2_orders_read_only, store_v2_products, store_content_checkout (Scripts API for the FBT widget). After OAuth, BigCommerce redirects to the embedded app inside your store control panel.

2. Approve billing

BigCommerce billing runs through Stripe Checkout (not BigCommerce's native billing, the BC platform only meters its own platform fees). After install, the embedded app shows the plan picker:

• Starter, $49/month, FBT widget + Bundle Builder + deterministic engines.
• Pro, $199/month, adds AI bundle copy, ai_catalog engine, REST API + MCP access.
• Enterprise, custom, dedicated tenancy + SLA + multi-storefront. Talk to us.

3. Run your first mining job

The embedded admin opens to Jobs. Click Run now. Default engine is fp_growth, default window is 90 days. The job pulls orders via the BigCommerce v3 Orders API, mines rules in our hosted backend, and writes the opportunities back to the app.

4. Ship recommendations to the storefront

Two surfaces, both backed by the same opportunities:

1. FBT widget, registered via the BigCommerce Scripts API when you toggle Storefront widget in the app. No theme edit required, the widget renders below the buy box on every product page. To pin to a different location, use a Page Builder HTML widget with <div id="mba-fbt" data-product-id="{{product.id}}"></div>.
2. Bundle Builder, customer-facing page at /bundle-builder on your storefront. Shoppers pick a starter SKU, the app proposes three to five top-confidence add-ons, customer accepts and the bundle goes to cart as line items. Enable from Settings → Storefront features in the embedded admin.

5. REST API examples

Mint an API key from Settings → API keys (Pro tier only), then:

# Recommendations for a product (BigCommerce product ID)
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer mba_pro_..." \
  "https://app.marketbasketanalysis.com/api/v1/recommendations?\
store_hash=abc123&product_id=112"

# Substitutes for an out-of-stock SKU
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer mba_pro_..." \
  "https://app.marketbasketanalysis.com/api/v1/substitutions?\
store_hash=abc123&product_id=112"

Response shape is identical across platforms, see /docs/api.

6. MCP setup (Pro)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "marketbasketanalysis": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@marketbasketanalysis/mcp"],
      "env": {
        "MBA_API_KEY": "mba_pro_...",
        "MBA_STORE_HASH": "abc123"
      }
    }
  }
}

Host-by-host setup at /docs/mcp.

Troubleshooting

• FBT widget not appearing on the storefront, the Scripts API entry is registered lazily on the first toggle. Check Storefront → Script Manager in the BigCommerce control panel, you should see an MBA FBT script with location footer and All pages scope. If it's missing, toggle the storefront widget off and back on in the embedded app.
• OAuth “load” failure (302 loop), BigCommerce uses an app load JWT distinct from the install JWT. If your store has a custom domain or IP allowlist in front of the BC control panel, allowlist app.marketbasketanalysis.com for the load callback.
• Store-hash binding error after multi-storefront split, BC's multi-storefront feature creates new channel_id values under the same store_hash. If a recommendation lookup returns 404, scope by channel: append &channel_id=1234 to your API call.
• Bundle Builder page returns 404, the customer-facing route is registered when you enable Bundle Builder in the embedded app and propagates via BigCommerce's sitemap rebuild (up to 60s). Hard-refresh with a cache-buster query param before filing a ticket.

See also

• REST API reference
• MCP server setup
• Mining engines
• Configuration reference
• Need install help? Book a call.