TD Bank Launches a BigCommerce-Powered Platform: What's It About?

TL;DR:

This TD Bank eCommerce Platform - powered by BigCommerce - is not going to tip any scales, but it does have advantages for both parties. TD Bank is the second-largest bank in Canada.

TD Bank says it is "launching" an eCommerce plaform, but what I think it means ultimately is that they are distributing eCommerce and tying it to TD Bank as a payment processor - though even that does not appear to exclusive. (TD Bank is not pre-configured, the merchant must go to the standard BigCommerce payment processor page and set it up).

For BigCommerce, this tie-up has 3 benefits:

1 - It gets a huge bank in the market out there pushing a solution powered by BigCommerce. In a world where BigCommerce desperately needs more distribution and earned media, there is only upside here.

2 - It frees up BigCommerce's sales team from focusing on SMB sales and pushing this to a regional player. This lets the BigCommerce sales team focus more on up-market solutions.

3 - It's not lost on me that BigCommerce's first distribution deal here is with a Canadian bank - Shopify's "hometown". Somewhat of a pointed stick in the eye aimed at Shopify.

For TD Bank, the advantages are simple:

1 - More stickiness for their merchant banking offerings - particularly for small businesses.

2 - To the extent that Shopify is a huge provider in Canada, it is certainly possible that TD Bank sees a world where its merchant processing business could be threatened by Shopify's preference for Stripe. After all, Shopify has a large and growing financial services revenue stream including capital/lending -- functions traditionally reserved for banks. Is Shopify a threat to the revenue stream of traditional banks?

Shopify's playbook for a long time has been to focus on entrepreneurs who need solutions, successfully growing many of them into much larger players. BigCommerce is looking to borrow a little bit of this mojo with the TD Bank offering here.

It's a low-risk play for BigCommerce with some marketing advantages and likely even cash flow. For TD Bank, it's a nice hedge but the downside for TD Bank is clear:

Does TD Bank offering an eCommerce platform have any credibility with its intended audience? Does TD Bank know how to sell an eCommerce platform to its customers and the market? Smart money would bet against this (especially in a world of many options), but these two questions will be the ultimate determining factor of the success here.