Thank you for your response.  Bista as it turns out never produced a functioning connector.  Their ERPinCloud system is based off Odoo 8. 

To "narrow" the scope of my original question, I am wondering if anyone has any experience with making a connector like this and might have foresight on how to build it so it is functional.  I am working with a developer with experience, however I am new to odoo and I don't want to forget any functionality which could affect Odoo work flow/user experience while spec'ing this out. 

In order to get information about integration with 3rd party e-Commerce, you may want to study the generic OCA Odoo Connector:

- http://odoo-connector.com/

and the connector for Magento:

- http://odoo-magento-connector.com/

Regarding to BigCommerce, this was done by BistaSolutions some time ago:

- https://www.bistasolutions.com/resources/blogs/category/odoo-bigcommerce-integration/

Regarding Emails: Please do not mix questions, however, the geographic location of the server has not so much to do with spam filters (as long as the server is not located in a country, which usually gets blacklisted), but that is a completely other story, not even related to Odoo.