BigCommerce’s Rumored Acquisition Talks With Adobe Are Back on the Table

The ecommerce platform wars may be about to get dramatically more complicated. Multiple sources close to the matter say that BigCommerce and Adobe have resumed preliminary acquisition discussions — conversations that reportedly collapsed once before in late 2024 — and that this second round is being taken more seriously at the executive level on both sides. While neither company has commented publicly, the rumor has been ricocheting through partner channels, agency Slack groups, and the merchant community with enough specificity to warrant attention.

BigCommerce’s stock ticked up 4.2% on unusually heavy volume on the afternoon of May 19th, a move that at least three agency operators who spoke with Ecommerce Times attributed to the rumor spreading through partner networks. The company’s market cap currently sits around $680 million — a fraction of Adobe’s $180 billion valuation, making a deal financially plausible without being transformative for Adobe’s balance sheet.

What Are the Reported Terms Being Discussed?

Sources familiar with the alleged conversations say the discussions are early-stage and that no term sheet has been signed. However, one agency partner who claims to have spoken with a BigCommerce channel executive described the framing as Adobe potentially absorbing BigCommerce as a “commerce execution layer” to sit beneath Adobe Experience Manager and Adobe Commerce — formerly Magento — rather than replacing either product outright.

“The way it was explained to me, Adobe wants a native SaaS storefront it actually owns that isn’t carrying Magento’s technical debt. BigCommerce would give them that without a two-year rebuild,” said one agency principal who requested anonymity due to ongoing platform partnership agreements.

That framing would represent a significant strategic shift for Adobe, which has spent the better part of three years trying to reposition Adobe Commerce (Magento) as an enterprise-grade composable commerce solution. The platform has faced persistent criticism over its total cost of ownership, developer overhead, and sluggish release cadence relative to Shopify’s velocity. Magento’s open-source community, once among the most vibrant in ecommerce, has reportedly shrunk significantly as merchants migrate to Shopify and BigCommerce.

How Would This Impact BigCommerce Merchants and Partners?

For the roughly 45,000 active BigCommerce storefronts — including brands like Skullcandy, S.C. Johnson, and Revelyst — the immediate concern would be platform continuity and roadmap clarity. BigCommerce CEO Travis Hess, who joined the company in early 2024 after leading the agency side at Accenture’s commerce practice, has spent considerable energy rebuilding merchant confidence following the company’s difficult 2022-2023 period of leadership turnover and slowing growth.

“Travis has done real work stabilizing the ship. If Adobe comes in and turns this into a product integration project rather than a standalone platform investment, a lot of mid-market merchants are going to start taking migration calls from Shopify and Salesforce,” said Michelle Covey, VP of Commerce Strategy at digital agency Ercule Commerce Group, in a conversation with Ecommerce Times.

Agency partners appear split. Larger systems integrators with deep Adobe Experience Cloud relationships — firms like Valtech, Perficient, and EPAM — would theoretically benefit from a combined Adobe-BigCommerce offering they could sell into enterprise accounts. Smaller BigCommerce-specialist agencies, however, are reportedly anxious that an acquisition would shift the platform’s go-to-market toward Adobe’s direct enterprise sales model, compressing agency margins and squeezing out boutique partners who lack Adobe partner status.

• BigCommerce currently has roughly 4,200 certified agency and technology partners globally
• Adobe’s commerce partner ecosystem is concentrated among a much smaller group of large SIs
• An acquisition could eliminate BigCommerce’s existing partner tier structure within 18-24 months, sources allege
• Mid-market merchants on BigCommerce Enterprise plans (typically $30K-$120K ARR) would likely be the most vulnerable to platform uncertainty

Where Does This Leave Adobe Commerce and the Magento Community?

Perhaps the most charged question in the rumor’s wake is what an Adobe-BigCommerce deal would mean for Adobe Commerce — the paid, enterprise version of Magento. Adobe acquired Magento in 2018 for $1.68 billion and has invested heavily in repositioning it as a composable, API-first platform. But the results have been mixed at best. Multiple enterprise merchants who spoke to Ecommerce Times on background described Adobe Commerce implementations costing between $800K and $2.5M, with ongoing maintenance overhead that strains internal engineering teams.

“Adobe Commerce has a perception problem it hasn’t been able to shake. If they absorb BigCommerce, the smart play is to sunset Adobe Commerce for new logos within three years and migrate the install base. But that migration alone would be a catastrophe to manage,” said one former Adobe Commerce product manager who left the company in 2025.

The Magento open-source community — historically a powerful advocacy network — has reportedly been watching Adobe’s moves with increasing suspicion. Unconfirmed posts on the Magento Community Forum and in private developer Discord channels suggest some long-time Magento community leaders view a BigCommerce acquisition as further evidence that Adobe has no long-term commitment to the open-source ecosystem.

Is Shopify Watching This Closely — and Should Merchants Be Worried?

Sources inside Shopify’s partner organization say the company is “absolutely paying attention” to the Adobe-BigCommerce rumor, though they characterize the reaction as opportunistic rather than defensive. Shopify’s enterprise motion has accelerated meaningfully in 2025 and early 2026, with the company reportedly adding more than 340 net-new Shopify Plus merchants in Q1 2026 alone — many of them migrating from Adobe Commerce and BigCommerce.

Shopify’s recently expanded commerce components offering and its deepened integrations with Salesforce and SAP have positioned it to absorb enterprise merchants who become nervous about platform stability at either BigCommerce or Adobe Commerce. Agency sources say Shopify’s partner development managers have already begun reaching out to BigCommerce specialist agencies with co-selling proposals — a move that several agency principals described as “suspiciously well-timed.”

• Shopify Plus reportedly runs approximately $2,000/month base for most mid-market merchants, making it competitive with BigCommerce Enterprise on price
• Shopify’s Hydrogen/Oxygen headless stack has matured significantly, reducing one of BigCommerce’s traditional headless advantages
• Several BigCommerce-certified agencies told Ecommerce Times they have already begun acquiring Shopify Plus certifications as a hedge

What Are BigCommerce and Adobe Actually Saying?

As of publication time, both companies’ communications teams have declined to comment on the acquisition rumors. BigCommerce’s investor relations page shows no merger-related disclosures, as would be legally required once discussions reach a material stage — suggesting the talks remain genuinely preliminary, or the rumors are overstated. Travis Hess made no reference to strategic transactions during BigCommerce’s most recent partner webinar on May 12th, though sources say he fielded questions about Adobe after the session ended, deflecting with what one attendee described as “carefully non-committal language.”

“He said something like, ‘We’re always evaluating what’s best for our merchants and our platform’s long-term health.’ Which, honestly, tells you nothing and everything at the same time,” recalled one agency partner who attended the webinar.

Adobe’s commerce leadership has been similarly quiet. Amit Ahuja, Adobe’s SVP of Digital Experience Business, has not addressed the rumors publicly, though his LinkedIn activity — including a recent repost of a BigCommerce B2B commerce case study — was noticed and screenshot by at least a dozen people in the BigCommerce partner community, who read perhaps too much into the gesture.

What Should Merchants Do While This Plays Out?

For operators currently on BigCommerce — or evaluating it as a migration target from Magento — the practical advice from platform-agnostic consultants is consistent: don’t make a rushed decision based on unconfirmed rumors, but do pressure your BigCommerce account team for roadmap commitments in writing, and begin a lightweight platform audit to understand what a migration would cost if circumstances change.

The realistic timeline, if an acquisition is genuinely in motion, would likely place any public announcement in Q3 or Q4 2026 at the earliest. Adobe’s fiscal year ends in November, and a deal of this nature would almost certainly require multiple board approvals, regulatory review, and shareholder votes on BigCommerce’s side given its public company status.

What’s clear is that the rumor itself — regardless of whether it materializes — has already done work in the market. Agency partners are hedging. Merchants are asking questions their account managers can’t fully answer. And Shopify’s partner team is reportedly working the phones. In ecommerce platform politics, sometimes the rumor is the story.