Built a custom podcast hub

Built a custom podcast hub inside BigCommerce — no app, no plugin, just clean code 🎙️

PepperBall (pepperball.com) runs "The First Response Podcast," but BigCommerce has zero native podcast support. Their episodes were buried in the blog with no way to browse, play, or filter them.

So I built a full podcast experience directly into their Stencil theme:

- Custom episode grid that auto-pulls blog posts tagged "podcast" — zero manual updates when new episodes drop - Episode durations fetched live from the Buzzsprout RSS feed - Featured episode slider with tag-based detection - Modal player — visitors listen without leaving the page - Conditional banner + title swap on the blog tag page via URL detection - Pagination, hero banner, semantic HTML, and SEO metadata throughout

All done with Handlebars, vanilla JS, and SCSS through Page Builder custom widgets — fully manageable by their marketing team, no developer needed for day-to-day updates.

BigCommerce doesn't have to feel limited. 12+ years building custom storefronts on BigCommerce, Shopify & WordPress.

https://pepperball.com/first-response-podcast/

#BigCommerce #eCommerce #WebDevelopment