Every ecommerce business has to make this hard choice at some point. Do I go with BigCommerce or Shopify? Or do my research, build my own ecommerce platform, and automate everything myself? It’s a tough decision for any business owner. Factors like storage capacity, security features, customer support and DIY vs. being able to outsource your ecommerce needs all play a big role in helping you make that decision.
Big companies, small business, no matter what kind of organization you run, ecommerce platform is something more and more businesses consider when they start out. And since you’re already on this site, clearly you are looking for information on this particular topic.
Since the e-commerce marketplace is blooming (and digital space is getting more crowded) for online stores, it seems that choosing an e-commerce platform for building your business has become a trickier question every day. It is because people expects a lot from an e-commerce platform, especially from the best and most efficient one. They want their business to meet both the needs of customers and their own. If a customer is overwhelmed by the number receiving messages and ads about your product, how can you expect them to become a repeat buyer?
When choosing an e-commerce platform, you want the peace of mind that you’re picking the best one possible. But with so many options available, how do you know what e-commerce software will give you the greatest flexibility and scale? Here are some of the top e-commerce platforms for startups and established businesses.
How to Choose an Enterprise Ecommerce Platform
You’ve made it this far in building your enterprise, so you need to make sure you pick the ecommerce platform that best suits your needs and ambitions. Below are some of the most vital features, facts, and fine prints you should look out for when choosing an enterprise ecommerce platform…
Onboarding time
As an enterprise ecommerce owner, you want to get your online business up and running as quickly as possible. Fully hosted platforms like Shopify Plus, BigCommerce Enterprise and Squarespace Enterprise are ‘ready-to-go’ packages, providing everything you need for growing your enterprise, all in one place.
With these platforms, you don’t need to think about:
- Coding
- Hosting
- Bandwidth
- Software updates
- Security
- Web development tactics
Shopify Plus
Best Overall Enterprise Ecommerce Platform
At a glance
- Pricing: Minimum $2,000/month
- Enterprise requirements: n/a
- Currently powers: GymShark, NY Times, The Economist
- Quick fact: Used by 10,000+ brands in 175 countries
![shopify logo small website builder](https://obiztools.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/shopify-small.png)
Best Overall Enterprise Ecommerce Platform
4.6 out of 5 Top Choice Ease Of Use
3.5 out of 5 stars Design Flexibility
3.9 out of 5 stars Sales Features
4.5 out of 5 stars Website Features
4.2 out of 5 stars Customer Score
4.7 out of 5 stars Help and Support
3.8 out of 5 stars Value For Money
3 out of 5 stars
Shopify Plus Pros
Shopify Plus takes our top spot for a reason. Check out Shopify’s plus side below to see why:
- Quick and easy to get started: Shopify is a fully hosted ecommerce platform, so you don’t need to worry about coding your site’s backend or managing your bandwidth.
- Extensive range of plugins: Choose from over 3,000 apps to integrate with your online store, helping to improve the performance of your website in all areas of ecommerce.
- Cost-effective: Shopify Plus remains a far cheaper option than hiring a web development agency, and you have access to brilliant, 24/7 customer support.
- Process 10,000 transactions per minute: Shopify Plus will keep your store running without a hitch during sales spikes.
Shopify Plus Cons
Sadly, no ecommerce platform is perfect. Read the negatives to Shopify Plus here:
- Limited creativity: While you can customize your code through apps, you can’t create custom designs from scratch like you can on Magento or WooCommerce. However, this is the case for all hosted platforms, not just Shopify.
- Plugin costs can add up: Despite Shopify’s relatively low subscription costs, you might need to spend more on third party plugins than you would on BigCommerce, which offers far more built-in tools.
In our ease of use testing, Shopify came fifth but still received our highest customer score. Our users loved Shopify’s helpful onboarding and structured setup process, which makes creating your store easy and straightforward.
Shopify Plus is designed to make life easy for enterprise customers by handling hosting, updates, security, upgrades, and load testing for you.
You can manage all your stores, staff accounts, and automated workflows from one central location in your Shopify dashboard, and use automations to reduce the workload that comes with campaigns, discounts, or taxes. Shopify Plus starts at $2,000 per month – this covers standard setups and integrations, so more complex businesses will need a custom quote.
You can create an unlimited number of stores – you’re allowed 10 stores as part of your monthly subscription, and any extra stores after that cost $250 each.
The tax automation app Avalara Avatax costs $250 per month on top of your monthly plan. Shop Pay
Use Shopify’s app, previously Shopify Pay, to enable customers to save their shipping and billing information to accelerate the checkout process, and improve your conversion rates by 18%.
Shopify Plus Academy
Keep your business operating smoothly with brilliant customer support, plus access to the Shopify Plus Academy, featuring self-guided training dedicated to growing your business.
Fast Onboarding
Shopify doesn’t charge for migration, and although migration is your responsibility you have access to a Shopify Plus expert to talk through before you migrate. Once on Shopify Plus, a launch engineer will be on hand to guide you through setting up.
Most traditional vendors take up to 18 months to start selling – with Shopify, you can be up and running in four months or less! Shopify has over 100 themes, nine of which are free. Each one is professionally designed and follows ecommerce best practices to ensure your store looks its best. You can filter by industry, design layout, or even features such as image zoom or customer testimonials.
Shopify Plus Gallery
Click the image below to expand
![shopify](https://obiztools.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/shopify-logo.png)
Is Shopify Plus Right For You?
Brands like Gymshark, Lindt, Heinz, and Huel all use Shopify Plus’ scalable platform.
Further Information:
- Shopify Review: Read our in-depth review
- Shopify vs WooCommerce vs BigCommerce: Which platform wins the triple threat battle?
- Shopify vs Shopify Plus: What are the main differences?
- Shopify vs WooCommerce: Which one is right for your business?
BigCommerce Enterprise
Best for Onboarding Speed
At a glance
- Pricing: Quotes are usually for $500 to $15,000 per month
- Enterprise requirements: Annual revenue of over $1m
- Currently powers: Skullcandy, Ben & Jerry’s, Motorola
- Quick fact: Founded in 2009 and based in Austin, Texas
![bigcommerce logo](https://obiztools.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/website-builder-bigcommerce-min.png)
Best for Onboarding Speed
4.1 out of 5 Ease Of Use
3.3 out of 5 stars Design Flexibility
3.2 out of 5 stars Sales Features
4.6 out of 5 stars Website Features
3.6 out of 5 stars Customer Score
3.1 out of 5 stars Help and Support
3.4 out of 5 stars Value For Money
3 out of 5 stars Read Full Review
BigCommerce Enterprise: Pros
As the name suggests, BigCommerce is one of the biggest hitters in the enterprise game. Here’s why:
- Quick onboarding: 95% of BigCommerce Enterprise merchants have been set up within four months or less, boasting 50% faster setup times than most competitors.
- 24/7 customer support: You’ll receive support around the clock via email, live chat, and phone. You’ll also gain access to priority support through a Senior Technical Support agent, who can answer your call within 30 seconds
- Built-in features: Unlike Shopify Plus and its reliance on apps, BigCommerce Enterprise offers everything you need for scaling your enterprise built-in, saving you approximately $5,800-$30,000+ per year in app subscription costs compared to Shopify Plus.
- 99.98% uptime: BigCommerce won’t allow your website to crash even at your busiest times. The platform will also handle all upgrades and troubleshooting issues for you, without you needing to lift a finger.
BigCommerce Enterprise: Cons
Like all platforms, there are some small downsides to BigCommerce Enterprise, which you can see below:
- PayPal fees: There is no reduction in transaction fees when you sell products through PayPal’s payment gateway on the BigCommerce Enterprise plan, meaning you’ll pay the same amount of PayPal transaction fees as you would on BigCommerce’s ‘Basic’ plan.
- Limited to built-in features: While the built-in features are exceptionally strong, you’re unable to personalize and customize your store as much as you can with Shopify and its vast app market.
One of the best things about BigCommerce Enterprise is how quick the onboarding process is. 95% of BigCommerce Enterprise merchants have been set up within four months or less, with 50% faster setup times than most competitors.
You’ll also receive support around the clock via email, live chat, and phone. You’ll gain access to priority support through technical support agents with varying expertise, from account management to in-house catalog transfer services.
BigCommerce comes with most of its features built into its platform, which saves you and your team the time and effort of adding tons of apps and integrations to make your site run smoothly. You have to contact BigCommerce’s sales team for a custom quote for its Enterprise platform. However, these quotes usually fall between $500 and $15,000 per month depending on the size of your business and your specific needs.
It’s worth noting that because BigCommerce comes with most of its features already built-in, you can save money on apps and third-party integrations because a lot of it is handled in-house. Here’s a selection of useful features that come with BigCommerce Enterprise:
Product search function
Create product search filters, and personalize the user experience with suggestions (based on the user’s language, location, and purchasing history) in order to improve the chance of making a sale.
400 API calls per second
BigCommerce Enterprise supports 400 API calls per second (compared to Shopify Plus’ 10), meaning you can sync large product catalogues within minutes rather than hours.
250+ local payment methods
With BigCommerce Enterprise, you can sell your products to every corner of the world, through the platform’s ability to accept over 250 types of payment in over 100 countries.
Multi-layered security
Keep your online store secure with multi-layered security and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection, helping to prevent hackers from disrupting your hosting services in order to stop users using your website.
Local staging
View all your web design changes in real time before you publish your updates, whether you’re updating your desktop or mobile site. BigCommerce has 166 themes in total – of those, most of them are premium designs costing between $150 and $300 each. 12 are free, but you get more choice if you pay for your theme.
Your theme will be fully customizable and come with built-in HTML, CSS, and Javascript – you can edit your design using drag-and-drop, making it easy no matter your tech experience.
With BigCommerce’s WordPress integration, you can even build your site on WordPress while making the most of BigCommerce’s backend functionality!
BigCommerce Enterprise Gallery
Click the image below to expand
![bigcommerce logo](https://obiztools.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/bigcommerce.png)
Do You Want to Scale With BigCommerce?
BigCommerce’s fast onboarding helps you start selling sooner, and its tools are designed to help you grow.
Further Information:
- BigCommerce vs Magento: Who wins the big battle?
- BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: How do they compare?
- BigCommerce vs Shopify: Which titan wins the clash?
Squarespace Enterprise
Best for Personalized Support
At a glance
- Pricing: Custom plans starting at $20,000 per year, dependent on business needs
- Enterprise requirements: N/A
- Currently powers: N/A
- Quick fact: Squarespace has the best designs that we’ve tested so far
![squarespace logo](https://obiztools.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/squarespace-new-featured-logo.png)
Best for Personalized Support
4.5 out of 5 Ease Of Use
4.2 out of 5 stars Design Flexibility
4 out of 5 stars Sales Features
3.4 out of 5 stars Website Features
4.2 out of 5 stars Customer Score
4.3 out of 5 stars Help and Support
3.5 out of 5 stars Value For Money
4.4 out of 5 stars Read Full Review
Squarespace Enterprise: Pros
Squarespace is another all-in-one platform that handles the technical upkeep for you, while providing in-house tools for marketing, SEO, design, and more.
- Design: Squarespace’s award-winning templates are clean and classy, perfect for brand-conscious businesses. You even get a consultation with Squarespace’s in-house design experts to learn about best practices and receive design recommendations for your brand.
- Personalized onboarding: Squarespace’s experts advise you on how to best optimize your site for search engines, and guide you through using Squarespace’s SEO and marketing tools. You also get personalized onboarding from a dedicated account manager, tailored to your business goals.
- In-house tools: Squarespace manages the technical aspect of your site, such as fully managed cloud hosting, but also provides in-house marketing and SEO tools, security measures, and more.
Squarespace Enterprise: Cons
- Small extension store: Although Squarespace does have an extensions store where you can add third-party integrations to your site, it’s pretty small. This gives you less customization over features than other platforms such as Shopify or WooCommerce.
- Not a dedicated ecommerce platform: Unlike the other platforms on this list, Squarespace doesn’t only cater for ecommerce sites. It still has high quality ecommerce features, it’s just not quite as specialized as its competitors.
Squarespace is easier to use than self-hosted platforms like Magento and WooCommerce, although it still takes a little time to get to at first. The good news is that Squarespace Enterprise comes with top notch, personalized onboarding to get you set up for success as soon as possible.
You get a dedicated account manager who gives you a personalized onboarding relevant to your specific business goals, and also have access to Squarespace experts who can walk you through Squarespace’s SEO and marketing tools. Squarespace Enterprise costs $4,900 per year – it’s best to contact the Squarespace team directly to get more specific pricing terms. There’s a simple form to fill out if you want to find out more:
Click the image to get in touch with Squarespace Enterprise In our ecommerce testing we were impressed by Squarespace’s inventory system, as well as its website features such as blogging tools.
While Squarespace’s features are super scalable and flexible, for growing with your business, they’re also suitable for smaller enterprise stores. If you’re just starting out in the world of enterprise platforms, Squarespace is a great choice – it’s manageable for stores of all sizes.
Collaboration
Squarespace Enterprise has a good focus on making collaboration easy, so that teams can work together as effectively as possible. You can set different roles and permissions for members of your team to help improve efficiency – this is especially efficient if you’re working with freelancers as well as an in-house team.
Advanced Support
If you feel that you need ongoing, personalized support for your site to succeed, no matter the size of your business, Squarespace Enterprise is set up to help you.
You get a dedicated Account Manager who regularly reviews your site to provide unique recommendations and insights into performance, security, and analytics. This level of personalized guidance is an awesome resource for taking your store to the next level.
On top of this, you also receive:
- Tailored onboarding when you start with Squarespace Enterprise
- Design consultations to help achieve your brand vision
- SEO consultations to better optimize your site and boost traffic to your site
Squarespace has the best designs we’ve seen on the market. Its templates are clean, modern, and stylish, as well as customizable using both drag-and-drop and code. This makes Squarespace a top choice for businesses who really care about their storefront’s visual branding.
There are over 100 templates to choose from covering a range of industries – many of them come with relevant features automatically built-in. For example, a restaurant template will already come with a booking feature installed.
You can consult with one of Squarespace’s design experts to learn about ecommerce best practices and get tailored design recommendations to realize your brand vision.
Squarespace Enterprise Gallery
Click the image below to expand
![squarespace logo](https://obiztools.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/squarespace-logo-165.png)
Do You Want a Stunning Storefront?
Squarespace Enterprise not only has the best templates, it also has outstanding, personalized support.
Further Information:
- Read our Squarespace Ecommerce Review to get a better understanding of Squarespace’s core ecommerce features and whether they’re right for you
Magento Commerce
Best for Pro Web Developers
At a glance
- Pricing: Licensing fees from $1,988/month, on top of hosting, domain name, and site development costs which can cost anywhere between £100k and $1m depending on the project.
- Enterprise requirements: Bespoke quotes based on your annual turnover
- Currently powers: Paul Smith, Barbour, HP
- Quick fact: Acquired by Adobe in 2018 for $1.68bn
![magento logo](https://obiztools.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/magento-logo.png)
Best for Pro Web Developers
4 out of 5 Ease Of Use
2.5 out of 5 stars Sales Features
4 out of 5 stars Website Features
4.2 out of 5 stars Help and Support
5 out of 5 stars Value For Money
3.5 out of 5 stars
Magento Commerce: Pros
Magento Commerce is a self-hosted platform, which means you have total creative freedom – provided you have the coding know-how!
- Integrations: Magento Commerce boasts an unrivalled choice of integrations, offering extensive creative control.
- Advanced features: Magento Commerce was built for users with web development experience, providing highly flexible and complex ecommerce features.
- Large developer community: As a self-hosted platform, there is no dedicated Magento support team. Instead, it has the largest community of developers in the ecommerce industry, offering support for your issues and answers to your questions.
Magento Commerce: Cons
On the flipside, self-hosted platforms provide little in the way of support, and can surprise you with hidden costs:
- Hidden costs: Unlike Shopify or BigCommerce, you’re required to buy your own hosting, domain name, and security certificates. Also, Magento will charge your business between $1,000 and $5,000 if vulnerabilities are found within your code during security checks.
- Costly migrations: Your online store will undergo expensive and time-consuming migrations once every few years. For example, Magento recently migrated to Magento 2 Commerce.
- Slows with scale: Many enterprises handling lots of transactions and customer data have complained about bugs and slow-loading speeds when upscaling.
Magento Commerce isn’t as easy to use as Shopify, BigCommerce, or Squarespace because it’s a self-hosted enterprise platform. This means you’re in charge of hosting, security, updates, and so on. While some appreciate this level of control, others can find it time consuming.
This is why we recommend Magento Commerce for web developers who have the confidence, time, and skills to create and manage their store without getting bogged down by the technical side.
We’ve also heard complaints from companies handling a high volume of transactions about bugs and slow load speeds as they attempt to grow their business. This is something to bear in mind as you grow.
On the plus side, Magento has recently introduced drag-and-drop design functionality (as you’d find on Shopify or BigCommerce) for your site’s front-end, meaning you can reshuffle your visual content with ease. However, you’ll still need to code your backend. Magento Commerce pricing starts at $1,988 per month – however, you also need to budget for hosting, domain name, extra security and backup software, and any developer fees you may require.
You may enjoy Magento Commerce’s more flexible pricing, but it also means that Magento Commerce is harder to put a definite price estimate on. Realistically, it’s likely to end up as a more expensive option than Shopify Plus. Magento Commerce comes with a great set of features to help scale your business. We were impressed by its inventory system in our testing – its bulk import feature and revenue reports are particularly useful.
Other features worth mentioning include:
Instant purchase
Your customers can use previously stored payment and shipping information to skip checkout steps, creating a faster and easier process – especially for mobile users.
Product suggestions
Set automated rules to determine which of your products will be suggested to certain customers, whether you want to suggest related products or more expensive options, to help increase sales. Magento’s themes are all optimized for ecommerce, and give you plenty of customization options. We like the Page Builder because it makes customizing your design much easier than relying on code – you can tailor your storefront using drag-and-drop instead.
The downside is that Magento only has 11 themes to choose from in-house, so you may want to source your theme from a third-party site such as ThemeForest. The themes listed in the Magento Marketplace range in price from $0 to $499 each.
Magento Gallery
Click the image below to expand
![magento logo](https://obiztools.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/magento-logo.png)
Is Magento Commerce Right For You?
Magento Commerce is great if you have plenty of technical confidence and time to make your site a success.
Further Information:
- Read our Squarespace Ecommerce Review to get a better understanding of Squarespace’s core ecommerce features and whether they’re right for you
WooCommerce for Enterprise
Best Low Cost Option
At a glance
- Pricing: As an open-source plugin, it’s free to install, but you’ll need to add it to an existing WordPress site – which comes with its own setup costs.
- Enterprise requirements: n/a
- Currently powers: Weber NZ, CoolBlueWeb, OutPut
- Quick fact: WordPress runs 40% of websites around the world
![woocommerce logo](https://obiztools.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/woocommerce-logo.png)
Best Low Cost Option
4.2 out of 5 Ease Of Use
3.5 out of 5 stars Sales Features
4.1 out of 5 stars Website Features
3.9 out of 5 stars Help and Support
5 out of 5 stars Value For Money
4.4 out of 5 stars
WooCommerce for Enterprise: Pros
With WooCommerce, you’re working with a trustworthy brand in WordPress. Here are some of the biggest ticks that make WooCommerce tick:
- Flexibility: As a WordPress plugin (similar to an app), WooCommerce can be installed and used to support any part of your online store, whether it’s the entire backbone or simply a key component of your content structure.
- Cheap themes: WooCommerce has 28 in-house themes which start from just $39, which you can customize to your heart’s content (if you know how to code).
- Secure code: WooCommerce is audited by industry leading coding experts to ensure it follows best practices and maintains high coding standards, keeping your enterprise store in safe hands.
WooCommerce for Enterprise: Cons
Clue yourself up on the downsides of WooCommerce for Enterprise. For starters, it can’t match Magento Commerce for creative freedom, or Shopify Plus for ease of use:
- Lack of support: Unlike with Shopify or BigCommerce, there is no dedicated support team to rely on to help with your issues. Instead, you’ll need to consult other web developers, which is much more time consuming and expensive.
- Ease of use: Like all self-hosted platforms, WooCommerce is difficult to use if you don’t have the technical ability. If you don’t have any coding experience, then we’d recommend using hosted software like Shopify or BigCommerce.
- Hidden costs: While the plugin WooCommerce is free to install, you’ll need to pay for a hosting provider, a domain name, SSL security, themes, apps, and other resources, such as support from web developers.
WooCommerce is another open-source ecommerce enterprise platform, meaning you need hosting in order to launch your store. It’s still not quite as easy as Shopify or BigCommerce, but it’s more beginner-friendly and easier to manage than Magento Commerce.
WooCommerce is a good middle ground if you want tons of control and flexibility, without the technical challenge that Magento presents.
Because WooCommerce is so popular, it’s also easier to find tailored hosting for your store – for example, Bluehost has WooCommerce specific hosting plans to make your life as easy as possible. WooCommerce itself is free, but to use it you’ll need a WordPress site and hosting. The main cost involved is your hosting fees – enterprise level businesses usually need more advanced hosting, such as managed WordPress, VPS, or dedicated plans.
Depending on the hosting you need, you can expect to pay between $10 and $120 per month.
You also need to budget for WooCommerce extensions, such as WooCommerce Bookings or Google Ads.
Some extensions are free, like Google Analytics or Mailchimp, while others you have to pay to install. For example, WooCommerce Bookings costs $249 (billed annually), while USPS Shipping Method costs $79 (billed annually).
Despite all this, WooCommerce is the best low cost option because you have total control over how much you want to spend on your site. You can choose cheap hosting and opt for free or cheap extensions, making WooCommerce an affordable and flexibly priced option. WooCommerce is an ecommerce plugin that can turn your website into a powerful online store. However, it doesn’t possess as many built-in features as you’d find on a fully hosted, ‘ready-out-the-box’ platform like BigCommerce. Below are the best features found on WooCommerce for Enterprise:
Add WooCommerce to any WordPress site
You can add the WooCommerce plugin to any WordPress site to add ecommerce functionality. WooCommerce’s in-house features include secure payments, shipping options, tax calculations, shipping rates, and label printing.
WooCommerce Mobile App
You can manage your store on the go using the WooCommerce Mobile App, which is compatible with both iOS and Android.
Using the app, you and your team can:
- Create and edit products
- Manage orders
- Get real time notifications
- Track your store statistics
If you run multiple businesses on WooCommerce, you can also switch between different stores, all from your phone.
One-click refunds
Offering your customers the chance to get money back instantly will improve the overall user experience, and should encourage repeat sales.
Most of your features come from WooCommerce extensions – you can add whichever features you need from the WooCommerce Marketplace. This is why WooCommerce is such a customizable platform – you only need to install the features your business really needs!
It’s also worth mentioning that some important features are reliant on your web host to provide, such as storage and bandwidth. That’s why it’s important to choose a reliable web host like Bluehost for your enterprise business, to avoid your site crashing or running too slowly. What WooCommerce lacks in features, it makes up for with its unlimited coding capabilities. You can customize everything from your homepage right to the checkout page, to ensure your online store accurately reflects your unique brand.
WooCommerce for Enterprise Gallery
Click the image below to expand
![woocommerce logo](https://obiztools.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/woocommerce-logo.png)
Do You Love WooCommerce’s Flexibility?
WooCommerce is a flexible, affordable choice – you control how much money you spend on your site!
Salesforce Commerce Cloud
Best for International Business
At a glance
- Pricing: You pay 1-2% of your sales
- Enterprise requirements: Own over 5 online stores
- Currently powers: Adidas, GoPro, L’Oreal
- Quick fact: Formerly known as Demandware
Salesforce Commerce Cloud: Pros
Based in the Cloud (i.e. based entirely on the internet without any hardware), Salesforce Commerce Cloud is infinitely scalable. If you like the sound of this platform’s biggest pros, then may the Salesforce be with you:
- Salesforce software: You can easily integrate your ecommerce store with Salesforce’s other cloud-based CRM (customer relationship management) software to create consistency across your business.
- Great for international brands: Manage multiple storefronts from one back-end, while accepting different types of currency and efficiently using different languages on each store.
- Customer support: Unlike Magento or WooCommerce, you can benefit from comprehensive 24/7 support, while the Salesforce Commerce Cloud support team will handle all core system upgrades for you.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud: Cons
There are some not-so-silver linings to Salesforce Commerce Cloud, namely in its high cost of ownership and lack of intuitive design tools:
- Inflexible: It’s not the most intuitive platform to use, so you will struggle to build an efficient, professional-looking store if you don’t have the web development experience.
- Expensive: Because you’re paying a percentage of your sales in order to use Salesforce Commerce Cloud, you will cut deeper into your profit margin the more money your business earns each year. So, if your business generates $20m-$500m each year, you may end up spending $200,000+ per year on Salesforce!
Salesforce is convenient if you’re managing sales through a lot of different channels, or selling in multiple countries. You can handle everything from one place, streamlining your processes.
However, Salesforce isn’t a very intuitive platform to use, which can be frustrating – especially for those without a lot of tech experience or web development skills. You have to request a custom quote to get a real idea of Salesforce Commerce Cloud pricing. Pricing is calculated in different ways for B2B and B2C businesses:
- For B2B businesses pricing is based on order volume
- For B2C businesses pricing is based on gross merchandise value
The three plans for B2C business are:
- Starter – for launching your business
- Growth – for improving better customer experiences and growing your store
- Plus – AI-powered commerce with CRM integration
The Starter plan can power one website, while the Growth plan can power up to five. If you have more than five you’ll need the Plus plan, which has no site limit. Salesforce Commerce Cloud specializes in customer relationship management, and has great tools for creating a consistent customer experience across multiple channels. This makes it ideal for international stores trying to create a smoother, more consistent customer journey.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud’s other standout features include:
Omni-channel selling
With Salesforce Commerce Cloud, you can manage (and sell products from) your online store, social media channels, mobile site, and brick-and-mortar store, all in one place.
Customer data reports
This platform will gather data and insights into the shopping behavior of your customers using its own personalization engine, called Einstein, and use that data to personalize the user’s shopping experience – helping to improve conversions and increase sales. You’ll struggle to create a stylish, professional site using Salesforce Commerce Cloud without coding skills, as it’s not the most intuitive editor we’ve seen. Squarespace makes it much easier to create a professional-looking site without a developer.
What does a great ecommerce experience mean to you?
When you’re deep into ecommerce comparison shopping, it’s easy to forget why you’re picking an ecommerce platform at all. Do you really need to find the best ecommerce platform? At the end of the day, there is no best choice for everyone. Instead, look for the right ecommerce platform that lets you serve your customers the best ecommerce experience that makes shopping online feel easy.
Beyond simply the best online store builder, think about the other business tools those platforms offer. It’s often beneficial to use a seamlessly integrated ecosystem, consisting of your online store, payment processor, POS, and even small business lender. Shopify, for example, has an entire suite of tools that help you manage every aspect of your business, and an App Store with over 4,000 apps to help you customize the experience for your customers and your team.
Conclusion
It’s time to review the ecommerce platforms available. When building an online business, it’s not as simple as picking a good domain name and buying some hosting. There are numerous factors you need to consider for your business including ideal hosting provider, getting the right domain name and focusing on conversion rate optimization.
Ecommerce is one of the biggest business out there in the world. It is a platform that enables businesses to sell their products, services and information online. Ecommerce uses an electronic commerce model, which promotes business to customer interaction online by using technology such as databases, software, hardware, Internet, payment systems etc. Since the customer can buy products and services at any time from any place, companies should build ecommerce platforms to reach new customers and keep old ones.