Sunnyland Farms Evolves a Heritage Brand for the Modern Shopper with BigCommerce
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From farm roots to digital growth
Sunnyland Farms, a family-owned pecan farm and gourmet gift business based in southwest Georgia, has long been synonymous with quality. Known for its premium nuts, candies, and exceptional gifting experience, the 78-year-old brand had reached a tipping point with its legacy ecommerce system.
With peak season approaching and a complex tech stack slowing them down, Sunnyland turned to digital agency LimeLight Marketing to guide their next chapter. The team needed a modern platform that could meet both customer expectations and operational demands, and they found it with BigCommerce.
CHALLENGE
A strong brand limited by weak systems.
Sunnyland Farms had built a strong reputation over 78 years, but its .NET-based ecommerce platform couldn’t keep pace with the brand’s evolving needs. While the previous system offered customisation, it came at a steep cost: every update required developer involvement, and simple changes to content or promotions often meant delays, workarounds, or unexpected scope creep.
These limitations became especially problematic during peak season, when expectations were highest and pressure on the backend systems surged. “We would develop something and then realise immediately we needed something else,” said Alex Wilson, President and CEO of Sunnyland Farms.
The platform’s rigidity created additional strain across departments. Annual tech budgets were quickly depleted, internal teams were spread thin, and sales and service teams lacked the tools they needed to act quickly.
“I spent a lot of time troubleshooting in the background, making manual changes for things that should have worked properly and never got worked out,” added Mandy Phil, IT Director at Sunnyland Farms.
Sunnyland also faced several ecommerce-specific challenges unique to its business model. With gifting as a core revenue driver, they needed to support complex business rules, including multi-address shipments, scheduled delivery windows, and custom messaging, all within a seamless checkout flow. Their previous platform simply couldn’t support those expectations without piling on technical debt.
That’s when the Sunnyland team partnered with LimeLight Marketing to explore more modern, flexible solutions, and discovered BigCommerce as the platform that could support their growth.
“I spent a lot of time troubleshooting in the background, making manual changes for things that should have worked properly and never got worked out.”
MANDY PHIL, IT DIRECTOR, SUNNYLAND FARMS
SOLUTION
Custom checkout built for complex gifting needs.
With gifting as a major revenue driver, especially during the holidays, Sunnyland needed a checkout experience that could do more than just process orders. Customers needed the ability to ship to multiple addresses, include personal messages, and select calendar-based delivery windows, all in one seamless transaction. Their previous platform had made these experiences feel disconnected, if not entirely impossible.
That’s where LimeLight Marketing came in. As Sunnyland’s trusted digital partner, the agency helped lead a full-scale migration to BigCommerce and rebuilt the site’s entire checkout experience to support gifting workflows out of the box. BigCommerce’s flexible APIs and open architecture gave LimeLight the tools they needed to deliver a highly customised, user-friendly solution.
“Gift giving is a major aspect of Sunnyland Farms’ business,” said Brandee Johnson, CEO of LimeLight Marketing. “BigCommerce’s customised checkout allowed us to enable calendar-specific deliveries, personalised messages, and multi-shipment addresses, all in one seamless experience.”
The new checkout didn’t just improve the customer experience. It helped reduce cart abandonment, increase fourth-quarter conversions, and ensure Sunnyland could deliver on its brand promise during its most critical season.
Seamless integration with internal systems.
Beyond customer-facing improvements, Sunnyland needed a platform that could work with their existing tech infrastructure. Not against it. The business relies on long-standing internal systems, including a custom-built shipping program and a robust phone ordering operation that remains an essential part of the customer experience.
Working closely with Sunnyland’s team, LimeLight Marketing developed multiple backend integrations to ensure BigCommerce could serve as a central hub across systems, channels, and departments. BigCommerce’s open API architecture made it possible to connect legacy tools and modernise critical workflows without sacrificing performance or flexibility.
“Sunnyland Farms uses a custom-built shipping program, and BigCommerce’s API allowed us to seamlessly integrate with that platform,” said Johnson.
LimeLight also developed a custom phone ordering app that plugs directly into BigCommerce, enabling the sales and customer service team to enter and manage orders with the same consistency and efficiency as online transactions. “Phone orders are still a major aspect of Sunnyland’s business,” said Johnson. “We were able to develop Zest Desk, a custom-built app that plugs seamlessly into BigCommerce’s API to deliver a unified ordering experience.”
Together, these integrations helped Sunnyland streamline operations behind the scenes, removing manual work, reducing errors, and giving internal teams more control over the entire order lifecycle.
Empowering the team with speed and control.
Before migrating to BigCommerce, even simple site updates at Sunnyland required outside help or developer-level expertise. Product edits, image swaps, and promotional changes often stalled in the queue, slowing down marketing execution and limiting the team’s ability to adapt during peak season.
Today, that’s changed. With BigCommerce’s intuitive backend and user-friendly control panel, Sunnyland’s marketing and ecommerce teams can manage site updates and campaigns with more speed and independence.
“BigCommerce allows our team to do more on the backend, and it flows through to the front end,” said Wilson. “Even I can go in and make basic changes, which just wasn’t possible before.”
That new agility has created room for experimentation, faster turnaround on seasonal promotions, and more strategic alignment across channels. Sunnyland now has the flexibility to update content, merchandise products, launch bundling and upsell offers, and run cart-level promotions, all without technical delays.
“Today we just put a new product on the website and did it all ourselves,” said Phil. “It didn’t require any outside help.”
“BigCommerce’s customised checkout allowed us to enable calendar-specific deliveries, personalised messages, and multi-shipment addresses, all in one seamless experience.”
BRANDEE JOHNSON, CEO, LIMELIGHT MARKETING
“BigCommerce allows our team to do more on the backend, and it flows through to the front end. Even I can go in and make basic changes, which just wasn’t possible before.”
ALEX WILSON, PRESIDENT AND CEO, SUNNYLAND FARMS
RESULTS
A more flexible, scalable platform for peak season and beyond.
Since migrating to BigCommerce, Sunnyland Farms has gained the agility, stability, and feature depth it was missing, all while preserving the premium customer experience it’s known for. From backend operations to frontend flexibility, the brand is now equipped to scale confidently, especially during its high-volume holiday season.
“BigCommerce gave us a high-performing, flexible ecommerce platform that allows Sunnyland to grow and scale,” said Wilson. “That’s exactly what we were looking for. Something stable and built for long-term success.”
With the support of LimeLight Marketing, Sunnyland was able to launch on time, on budget, and with a fully customised checkout experience tailored to its business model. Internal teams are now empowered to make changes without technical bottlenecks, while backend integrations reduce manual work and improve accuracy across fulfillment and phone orders.
Sunnyland has also seen improvements in conversion efficiency, particularly during its peak gifting season. With multi-recipient checkout, calendar delivery, and personalised messages all built into the experience, shoppers can complete complex orders with ease, and come back year after year.
“The overall experience has been extremely positive from the beginning to the actual implementation, and we're extremely happy with everything we've gotten so far from LimeLight,” remarked Wilson.
“The overall experience has been extremely positive from the beginning to the actual implementation, and we're extremely happy with everything we've gotten so far from LimeLight.”
ALEX WILSON, PRESIDENT AND CEO, SUNNYLAND FARMS
LOOKING AHEAD
Less technical maintenance, more customer care.
With its new platform in place, Sunnyland Farms is shifting its focus from tech maintenance to business growth. Freed from the constraints of a custom system, the team can now invest more energy in acquisition, promotions, and delivering standout customer experiences, especially during the busy holiday season.
“We're a 78-year-old company, soon to be 79 years old,” said Wilson. “The site works. I don’t have to worry about it thanks to BigCommerce. Now let’s get more people to it.”
By streamlining the ecommerce foundation, Sunnyland can confidently move into its next phase: scaling both online and offline, while preserving the values and service that have defined the brand for generations.
“The site works. I don’t have to worry about it thanks to BigCommerce. Now let’s get more people to it.”
ALEX WILSON, PRESIDENT AND CEO, SUNNYLAND FARMS
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