Buyer's Guide: Enterprise E-Commerce Platforms

Executive Summary

An enterprise ecommerce platform runs the catalog, prices, cart, checkout and orders behind a company’s online sales, to consumers, to business buyers or to both. The eight platforms in this guide take seven approaches. Some come inside a CRM or ERP suite. Some are hosted platforms with published plans. One exposes every function as an API for your developers to assemble, and one is open source.

B2B selling adds the structure of the buying company: company accounts with buyer roles, prices and catalogs negotiated per account, quotes, approvals, and sales reps who order for a customer. Collaborative commerce adds partners to that structure: third-party sellers on a marketplace, dealers and distributors on a portal, and suppliers and fulfillment providers working from the same orders.

This guide explains composable commerce and when a suite fits better, compares headless and API options from the vendors’ own pages, sets out B2B and marketplace features, describes the approaches, lists what each vendor publishes about price, and covers replatforming without losing search traffic.

What Is Composable Commerce, and When Does a Suite Fit Better?

The MACH Alliance describes its MACH Principles as the framework for building enterprise technology that is open, composable, and connected. The MACH Alliance states that composable means capabilities you can assemble, replace, and evolve independently.

Sitecore defines composable commerce as a development approach that selects best-of-breed commerce components and combines them into a custom application built for specific business needs. Sitecore describes traditional monolithic commerce platforms as having more tightly coupled features and services in an all-in-one bundle.

The line between the two has blurred. Suites now publish headless APIs, and API-first platforms sell packaged add-ons. The question that separates them is who assembles and runs the pieces. With a suite, the vendor ships search, promotions, storefront and order management as one product on one upgrade path. With a composable build, your team or a systems integrator chooses each component, writes the integrations between them and owns the result.

Composable fits when you have a standing commerce engineering team, several brands or channels with different needs, and components you intend to keep, such as a search engine or a content management system. A suite fits when the team is small, the business model is standard, or most customer and order data already sits in the vendor’s CRM or ERP.

Count the integrations you would own in each case: catalog and product data, prices, inventory, orders, customer accounts, payments, tax, content and search. Each one needs an owner, monitoring and a plan for the day either side changes its API.

How Do Commerce Platforms Compare on Headless Commerce and APIs?

Every platform in this guide supports headless commerce, where your own front end calls the platform through APIs. They differ in how much else they ship and in who runs the platform. Each fact below comes from the vendor’s own pages.

API-first by design. commercetools describes Sphere as a unified commerce platform that brings together channels, customer context and commerce operations on a single headless foundation. commercetools states that every commerce capability is exposed as an independent, versioned API. You build or buy the storefront and the components around it.

Suites with headless options. Salesforce lists headless commerce, composable commerce, order management and payments among the features of Commerce Cloud. Salesforce offers headless Commerce APIs for cart, checkout, catalog, account and wishlist. SAP states that SAP Commerce Cloud supports headless commerce through an API-first approach and a decoupled JavaScript-based storefront layer. SAP states that prebuilt integration is based on SAP Integration Suite, which helps connect SAP Commerce Cloud with other SAP and third-party applications.

Hosted platforms with headless storefronts. Shopify lists headless storefronts among the Plus plan's growth tools: up to 25 custom React-based storefronts built with Hydrogen and deployed on the Oxygen edge network. Shopify states that with Shopify for enterprise, businesses can use Shopify's full platform or choose only the components they need and connect them with existing systems. BigCommerce states that Multi-Storefront creates multiple storefronts at different domains and deploys products across each domain from a single control panel.

Who runs it. Adobe states that Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service runs on a fully managed software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution where Adobe is responsible for most operational aspects. Adobe states that Adobe Commerce on Cloud runs on a fully managed platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solution, and that on-premises projects are hosted on customer-managed infrastructure. For each model, ask who applies updates and security patches, and how long a version stays supported.

Comparing modularity. An API for a function is not the same as the freedom to replace it. List the functions you would run on another product, such as search, promotions, content or order management. Ask each finalist to show that function switched off, the other product connected in its place, and the data kept in step.

Which Platforms Support B2B and Collaborative Commerce?

B2B commerce brings the buying company into the store. The core features are company accounts with roles, prices and catalogs negotiated per account, quotes, purchase approvals, ordering on behalf of a buyer, and payment on terms. Collaborative commerce extends this to partners: third-party sellers on a marketplace, distributors and dealers on a portal, and suppliers and fulfillment providers on shared order flows.

Company accounts and quotes. Adobe states that a company administrator can build a company structure of divisions, subdivisions and users with different roles and permissions. Adobe offers a Quotes feature to initiate price negotiation between a company buyer and seller. Under B2B Accounts and Segmentation, Salesforce lists account and buyer entitlements, negotiated pricing, tailored promotions and personalized catalogs, and buyers purchasing on behalf of other accounts, businesses, or locations. BigCommerce lists account pricing, buyer portals, quote workflows and approval controls for wholesalers, manufacturers and distributors.

B2B in a higher plan or an add-on. Shopify states that unlimited B2B catalogs and direct catalog assignment to company locations are available only on the Shopify Plus plan. commercetools lists Advanced B2B APIs among its add-ons; they model any account hierarchy with Business Units and add buyer approval flows and quote management. Shopware lets sales representatives access assigned customer accounts and create orders and quotes on their behalf. Shopware states that customer-specific prices can be brought from an ERP or another business system into Shopware via API, so each customer sees its agreed prices at login.

Several business models on one platform. SAP states that SAP Commerce Cloud supports B2B, B2C, and B2B2C commerce. commercetools states that Sphere supports B2C, B2B, D2C, marketplaces, subscriptions and any hybrid in between.

Marketplaces and partner networks. VTEX states that its platform is designed to enable enterprise brands and retailers to orchestrate their network of consumers, business partners, suppliers, and fulfillment providers in one place. VTEX states that customers can launch and scale their own marketplace with third-party sellers. Sitecore states that OrderCloud powers custom eCommerce experiences, order management, and marketplace applications.

For each B2B feature, ask whether it is in the base product, a higher plan or a paid add-on, and whether it works through the headless APIs as well as in the vendor’s own storefront.

Vendors in Enterprise E-Commerce Platforms

Representative vendors include Adobe Commerce / Magento, BigCommerce, commercetools, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, SAP Commerce Cloud, Shopify Plus & Commerce Components (Shopify for enterprise), Shopware and VTEX. The list is alphabetical, is not a ranking, and is not for sale. How we choose vendors

The approaches below follow two questions: what the platform is sold with, and how much of the stack your team assembles. Several products reached their current names through acquisitions and renames, so names on older contracts may differ.

Commerce in a CRM suite. Salesforce states that in 2016 it completed the acquisition of Demandware, which is now a part of Commerce Cloud.

Commerce tied to the ERP. SAP states that SAP Commerce Cloud is the evolution of SAP Hybris. SAP offers SAP Commerce Cloud, cloud ERP edition, which it says is built to connect natively with the ERP a customer already runs.

Commerce in an experience suite, run as SaaS, PaaS or on premises. Adobe uses the name Adobe Commerce (Magento) for its B2B and B2C enterprise solutions.

Hosted platforms with published plans. Shopify opened its infrastructure to the biggest retailers with Commerce Components by Shopify (CCS), which it calls a composable stack for enterprise retail. The help page at that product’s address now describes the enterprise offer covered in the headless section above. Commerce (Nasdaq: CMRC) states that it is the parent company of BigCommerce, Feedonomics and Makeswift.

An API-first headless platform. The platform in this approach is described in the headless section above. It suits teams that will build the storefront and choose the surrounding components themselves.

A unified commerce and marketplace platform. VTEX trades on the NYSE under the ticker VTEX. VTEX describes its commerce product as a unified commerce platform for D2C, B2C, B2B, and Marketplaces. VTEX lists self-service portals, custom pricing, and complex order flows for business buyers.

Open-source platforms with paid plans. Shopware states that it was founded in 2000. Shopware states that Shopware 6 is completely free and released under the MIT License. Medusa uses an open-core model, with the core licensed under the MIT License. Medusa states that there is no lock-in with Medusa Cloud and that customers can export their data to run Medusa on their own infrastructure.

Commerce from a content platform vendor. Sitecore describes Sitecore OrderCloud as an API-first, headless cloud platform for B2B, B2C, and B2X.

Eight platforms across seven approaches; Shopify and BigCommerce share one. Medusa, evaluated in the previous edition, is covered in the text above, as is Sitecore OrderCloud. The approaches were set first, and the platforms were then selected from those the previous edition evaluated. No row in this table is for sale. The roster check for this edition also covered Spryker, Elastic Path, Optimizely, Kibo Commerce and Scayle, and any commerce vendor can make its own case in the Spotlight below.

How Are Enterprise Ecommerce Platforms Priced?

Two of the eight publish an enterprise list price in US dollars. Shopify lists the Shopify Plus plan in US dollars at $2,500 per month on a 1-year term and $2,300 per month on a 3-year term. Shopify states that more complex, higher-volume businesses might pay a variable platform fee based on revenue and business model, which differs for B2B and D2C companies. BigCommerce lists its Performance plan starting at $1,499 per month, billed annually, with prices in US Dollars. BigCommerce states that it charges no payment fees for its embedded payment providers, of which it offers more than 20.

The suites and the API-first platform quote. Salesforce lists Commerce Cloud B2C Premium with 100 sites and 3,500 Price Books, and gives no price for it. Salesforce lists Commerce Cloud B2B Growth Edition, for businesses selling to businesses, as Contact for Pricing. commercetools states that its pricing is order-based rather than GMV-based. commercetools asks buyers to contact it for pricing.

Open source moves cost from the license to hosting, development and support. Shopware states that with Community Edition a merchant can adapt the store with access to the source code, choose its hosting and implementation partners, and start with no platform license fee. Medusa states that it handles infrastructure and security, with no GMV tax or special licenses.

Ask each vendor what its fee is charged on: orders, gross merchandise value (GMV), revenue, sites or storefronts. A fee on GMV or revenue grows with sales. A fee per order grows with order count, so a business with many small orders pays more under it. Model both against your three-year sales forecast, then add implementation, integrations, apps or extensions, hosting where you run the platform, and payment processing.

How long does implementation take for Enterprise E-Commerce Platforms?

A replatforming changes URLs, templates and often the site structure, so search traffic is at risk. Google advises preparing a URL mapping from the current URLs to their new format, then configuring the server to redirect from the old URLs to the new ones. Google states that 301 and other permanent redirects do not cause a loss in PageRank. Google states that for medium-sized websites it can take a few weeks or more for Google to start showing the new URLs instead of the old ones, and longer for larger sites. Google recommends planning changes to a site one after the other, not everything at the same time.

Plan the data move as carefully as the pages: products and prices, customer accounts and saved addresses, open orders and returns, gift card balances, subscriptions and B2B contract prices. Decide which system is the source of truth for each after go-live.

What should you ask vendors about Enterprise E-Commerce Platforms?

Ask each finalist to answer in writing and to show each answer with your data.

Enterprise E-Commerce Platforms RFP package: 130 questions, 10 demo scenarios and a vendor scorecard

RFP packages are a separate paid product. Vendors do not pay to appear in buyer guides.

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