10 Best Enterprise eCommerce Platforms: A 2024 eCommerce Solutions Buyer Guide

The Best Enterprise eCommerce Platforms (in No Particular Order)

1. Shopify Plus
2. BigCommerce Enterprise
3. Adobe Commerce (Magento)
4. Clarity eCommerce Framework (CEF)
5. Salesforce Commerce Cloud
6. Oracle CX Commerce
7. SAP Hybris Commerce
8. IBM WebSphere Commerce
9. Sitecore Experience Cloud
10. WooCommerce

Types of Enterprise eCommerce Solutions Available

Which eCommerce enterprise solutions you choose isn't something that should be taken lightly. The many types of enterprise commerce solutions are geared toward different kinds of businesses, which eCommerce industry they're in, and where the enterprise business is in its lifecycle.

Before we start talking about how to choose between the best enterprise eCommerce platforms, it's important to investigate what type of eCommerce software you will be best for your business operations.

SaaS Enterprise eCommerce Solution

SaaS stands for software as a service. Saas eCommerce platforms are very common for eCommerce, but they are also available for support services such as CRM, advertising, marketing campaigns, analytics, and more. SaaS is growing in all of these industries and is a multi-billion dollar industry, mainly do to its easy of use and the cloud eCommerce solutions it offers.

All-in-One Solution

A SaaS solution provides the software in its entirety and therefore is often preferred by small businesses that don't need much customization. A small business that doesn't have a dedicated tech employee or one that doesn't have a developer on retainer will often choose a SaaS platform because everything pertaining to the business is in one place.

SaaS options are often touted as being "all-in-one" systems. By using the service, a customer can get secure many online operations, such as hosting, security, assistance with payment gateways, adhering to PCI DSS compliance, customer data management, CRM, and backups of information. SaaS platforms also provide a content management system (CMS) for eCommerce site design and product pages, as well as top lead management software for better lead organization.

The Downsides to SaaS

While a SaaS platform is a viable option for some businesses, its lack of flexibility—and the limited types of eCommerce it can deliver—means that customization can be very limiting. Many people also don't like the total cost of ownership of a perpetual SaaS as a subscription.

When you think of SaaS eCommerce platforms, think of them as being a "jack-of-all-trades, master of none." The online software is trying to satisfy the most common needs of as many companies as possible, which means that specific needs aren't addressed until enough of their customers request it. That could be "never," especially if a company has very specific business processes when it comes to inventory and shipping.

The lack of access to the code-level control that addresses the specific needs of your online business may never be met by the SaaS eCommerce platform. This can be a non-starter for some businesses that have very specific needs.

Workarounds are available to connect SaaS to on-site platforms, and moving information from a SaaS to a more flexible solution is also possible. Still, it's important to recognize the limitations of a fully hosted eCommerce platform.

Headless Enterprise eCommerce Solution

Headless eCommerce platforms have certain similarities to SaaS platforms. For instance, the enterprise eCommerce hosting options and back-end functionality can handle security, PCI DSS compliance, and inventory management. This is the "headless" part of the equation.

The Difference with Headless

The primary difference is that the front-end and back-end are decoupled. This allows the front end—the "head"—to be customized separately from the back end. This vastly increases the flexibility of all customer-facing parts of your site without compromising the integrity of your back-end information. Everything can be as complex as it needs to be on the back end, but the separated front end ensures that customers still have a seamless customer experience.

Headless eCommerce flexibility allows for complete control over the front end, the most common example being the eCommerce website. This allows for third-party integrations of non-native applications, including social media channels, to be laid on top of the back end.

Automation of marketing is another key component. The public-facing website can be changed as much as possible by marketing teams or a web development agency. Front-end changes, like weekend sales banners, can be made without the need to involve the back-end development team. Creative teams also don't have to deal with advanced coding languages to create custom designs, which reduces site development costs associated with a traditional eCommerce website builder.

Multi-Store Headless

Headless eCommerce software is an excellent way to change things up faster and at more regular intervals for an online business. The head is also an excellent option if you have the need for multi-store eCommerce management and multiple sites, where the back-end inventory stays the same, but front-end sites change.

If you grow so quickly that your entire front end has been revitalized by a more advanced team of web developers, headless eCommerce solutions are the way to go.

Open-Source/On-Site Enterprise eCommerce Solutions

On-site enterprise eCommerce software offers one of the most powerful options and are often used by enterprise businesses. They are also an excellent option for companies that are anticipating expedited growth, a situation in which a self-hosted platform makes the most sense. Most large businesses create their own open-source eCommerce platform if they are going to keep everything on-site.

Easy Code Changes

Open source enables businesses to alter the code as much as they need, creating custom eCommerce solutions that caters to back-end needs such as business processes, employee needs, customer support, ERP/CRM, and inventory management for sales channels on a multi-store eCommerce platform.

Front-End Communication

It also couples with front-end needs such as customer-facing websites, including the eCommerce store, shopping carts, and connections to third-party apps for payment gateways and shipping options. Web developers and back-end staff can work together or separately.

It's All About Flexibility

The key is flexibility. Enterprise-level businesses can get the exact website they need and have no limitations on the front- or back-end. This level of tailoring of a custom eCommerce platform for enterprises—many times built from the ground up—comes with a considerable cost of ownership.

This is true when getting the platform ready for launch, but it also requires maintenance in the years afterward to fix bugs with other apps and ensure security is upheld. There are also costs associated with the servers.

Open-Source/Cloud-Based Enterprise eCommerce Solution

This type of enterprise eCommerce platform is similar to an open-source/on-site option for eCommerce. Using an off-site cloud eCommerce platform reduces the need for server investment, and cloud computing can also deliver automatic backup in multiple locations, including site information, data, analytics, and inventory.

Cloud hosting can also give an enterprise eCommerce business additional security opportunities run by the hosting service.

Budgeting For Your Enterprise eCommerce Software

Budgeting is one of the most important parts of your plan for building an enterprise eCommerce system. You need to find the perfect platform that will meet the needs at launch as well as the plan to grow your business in the future. Here are some of the most common costs associated with eCommerce software.

The Cost of the Platform

The platform itself will be a considerable part of your budget, whether it's paying the bulk upfront for open-source or having a recurring SaaS subscription cost.

Development Costs

Open-source and headless options often come with development costs. You'll also have to decide whether you'll be hiring developers to become employees or if you'll sign an agreement with an outside team to build and maintain the system.

Third-Part App Costs

Even if you build your eCommerce system from scratch, there will always be third-party apps that you'll need to take advantage of via API endpoints. For instance, you won't be creating your own payment system that takes every credit card and talks to every bank in every country. Similarly, you won't be creating a worldwide shipping and tracking system.

Those apps are already built, tested, and ready to take advantage of. Such apps will add to the cost of ownership of the platform, but they're worth it.

Website Design Costs

High-end web design is a must when launching an eCommerce website. Not only should a website be attractive to customers, but the user experience is vital to reducing friction to sales.

Building Speed

What's your schedule for the launch of your online store? Rushed jobs will always cost more, especially when dealing with developers. It may also limit the number of eCommerce features you'll be able to launch with.

Migration Costs

You already have lots of information in your current CRM, ERP, enterprise platform, or similar data storage tool (unless you're a startup, of course). Getting this information ready for selling online is a science and an art, since data is often entered over the course of years and might not be as clean as you'd like it.

Don't rush this step or spend too little to make it happen. It's a vital part of creating the best experience on your online business for your current customers, salespeople, shippers, and anyone else that relies on the data you already reference. Creating a source of truth now will prevent so many problems in the future for your eCommerce website.

Maintenance Costs

The only constant with an online business is change. The internet changes around your enterprise systems whether you like it or not, and maintenance of an online store ensures that their customers are always able to buy.

When it comes to online selling platforms, security is the most important aspect that is constantly changing over time. Hackers come up with more and more advanced ways to attack, and that means having someone—or even a team—to ensure that selling online stays safe. You not only have to be careful with your customers' personal information by also with payment processing of their financial information.

Benefits of Top Enterprise eCommerce Platforms

Every enterprise-level business should consider all of the benefits associated with upgrading their online store and how advanced eCommerce software can lead to business growth.

Choosing from among the best enterprise eCommerce software isn't always easy, which is why it's important to review each to find out which is best for their eCommerce business needs.

Payment Gateway Integration

Being able to add a trusted payment gateway is a must for every enterprise eCommerce platform. Payment processing apps allow you to securely take every kind of payment imaginable, from checks to credit cards, bank cards to crypto. Real-time currency conversion is a powerful option if your online store solution sells internationally.

Multi-Store Support

Not every business runs a single eCommerce store. A powerful eCommerce solution will be able to handle multiple sites that draw from a single inventory (or drop shipping list) and therefore make sure of multi-channel or omnichannel commerce.

An enterprise eCommerce business may have different sites for C2C, B2B, and B2C. The B2C store might route customer complaints to the regular customer support team, but a B2B site may have a dedicated account manager. Every eCommerce site can have its own workflow on the front end but funnel to accommodate overarching business needs on the back end.

B&M Stores/BOPIS

Multi-store is important, but so is the ability to sell in multiple venues. An enterprise platform should be able to connect online stores with their brick-and-mortar counterparts, track inventory for both physical and digital stores, transfer times between them as necessary, and allow "buy online, pickup in store" (BOPIS). This significantly improves multi-channel or omnichannel shopping experiences.

Enterprise software must also integrate user data seamlessly among all customer experiences, whether they're having an item delivered, picking it up after paying for it online, or buying an item after browsing in a physical location. This kind of customer management ensures that loyalty programs are up-to-date and receipts are kept digitally.

Data Collection

Collecting and analyzing data is one of the surest ways that enables businesses to grow. An enterprise eCommerce platform that collects this data—or has endpoints that can accommodate apps that specialize in this information—has a distinct advantage over ones that don't.

Mobile Optimization

More than half of web searches are done via mobile devices, and that means its critical for you to make sure your website is optimized for cell phones and tablets. This is a vital part of the omnichannel experience.

If you specialize in business-to-business, you might think that it's not as important to optimize for mobile devices. While it's true that customer may finalize their orders on desktops or laptops, the research often takes place on mobile devices. Being mobile-friendly is also an important criterion in how well search engines rank your website.

Flexibility and Scalability

No matter how much you plan, reality can change the way your business performs. While many businesses were hurt due to the recent global pandemic, others, such as those that made and sold personal protective equipment (PPE), thrived. The types of enterprise commerce software, as well as the platform they're on, should be flexible enough to accommodate surges in traffic and scale as necessary to prevent crashes, DDOS attacks, and site slowdowns.

ERP/CRM Migration and Integration

Integration is a vital part of enterprise commerce software. Companies that have existing data in enterprise resource planning software (ERP) CRM should be able to connect it to the eCommerce software or import it in the most efficient way possible.

No company wants to manually enter every product into a new online store or transfer all of their data one field at a time. If an enterprise system doesn't have a way to easily import preexisting data, you might want to find a headless ERP option that can clean up and standardize information.

Choosing the Right eCommerce Platform for Your Enterprise

Business development doesn't just mean coming up with a sales plan; it's about finding an enterprise platform that can deliver results.

Because the needs of every business's online store are different, we can't flat-out tell you which is best for your company. The following enterprise platforms are presented in no particular order.

Shopify Plus: Pros and Cons

Founded in 2006, Shopify is one of the oldest-surviving online commerce platforms. Shopify Plus, its enterprise-level offering, has been around for nearly a decade. It will handle PCI compliance and other security measures.

A primary complaint about Shopify Plus is that it relies on third-party applications for functionality that goes beyond its standard offerings. This will lead to additional expenses based on the features you need for your business. Extensions, themes, plugins, and the use of the Shopify Plus payment provider can also lead to additional transaction fees.

Pros:

• Shopify Plus offers solid uptime stats for a SaaS.
• A significant amount of the security is handled by the Shopify Plus platform, including PCI compliance.
• Shopify Plus offers a surprising level of customizability for SaaS and delivers admirable easy of use.

Cons:

• Being a SaaS, Shopify Plus doesn't offer the customizability of many eCommerce platforms (except for approved third-party offerings).
• Additional applications and Shopify Plus themes and plugins can add to monthly expenses.
• Transferring data via Shopify Plus APIs can lead to problems because of the platform's API limits.

BigCommerce Enterprise: Pros and Cons

BigCommerce is a well-known SaaS online sales platform that started as a sales outlet for small-to-medium enterprises (SME). Six years ago, it started courting larger businesses with BigCommerce Enterprise, an upgraded SaaS offering with more powerful features for SaaS retail.

BigCommerce Enterprise has open APIs that allow for more front-end customization. Because it's a SaaS solution, it's easy to scale. The primary complaint about it is the considerable SaaS subscription cost.

Pros:

• The headless aspect allows businesses to choose their own front end via API access.
• BC Enterprise is a good option for both B2B and B2C.
• As a SaaS eCommerce platform, it scales with you.

Cons:

• Some customers who are only familiar with SaaS solutions might find the technical aspects of a headless platform like BigCommerce Enterprise difficult to understand.
• The high price point for subscription software (aka SaaS) that you don't own.

Adobe Commerce (Magento Commerce): Pros and Cons

Magento Commerce is a known brand and has a loyal following; Adobe recently acquired Magento Commerce and renamed it Adobe Commerce. It can be cloud hosted or hosted on-premises.

Because of the huge number of third-party integrations available, many needs have been addressed by the Adobe Commerce development community. Unfortunately, this can also increase the cost significantly.

Pros:

• Adobe Commerce has a strong developer community to help resolve issues with the platform as they arise.
• Either cloud hosting or on-premises hosting is available for Adobe Commerce.
• Adobe Commerce offers a front-end no-code page-building tool to create simple pages.

Cons:

• As an open-source option, Adobe Commerce requires considerable work from developers and designers to get the most out of it compared to other eCommerce platforms.
• With Adobe Commerce, PCI compliance and updates are the responsibility of the client, which leads to additional costs for development or third-party applications.

Clarity eCommerce Framework (CEF)

Clarity eCommerce Framework, often shortened to CEF, is a powerful and flexible platform solution. It offers dynamic features straight out of the box, but it's also expandable to meet your business needs. Developers can create custom apps as needed or use the API endpoints to add requested functions, and single-tenant features allow the platform to be tailored to each business.

Clarity is also an excellent choice when it comes to specialized enterprise eCommerce software needs that involve C2C marketplaces or auction sites, as well as HIPAA eCommerce.

Pros:

• CEF offers the ability to integrate with back-office infrastructure, including the most difficult many platforms have difficulty with.
• This platform is an excellent option for traditional eCommerce, marketplaces, and auction sites.
• Fully tailored to your needs, whether you choose the one-time price with zero required ongoing fees, or monthly subscription SaaS model.

Cons:

• Cost associated with customization of the platform.
• CEF is a development platform giving you unlimited flexibility to customize the platform to your needs, which requires a Discovery process to map out your exact requirements.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud: Pros and Cons

Salesforce Commerce Cloud, formerly known as Demandware, is a SaaS-based eCommerce with headless option that focuses on businesses interested in managing and improving their omnichannel approach to eCommerce. This includes optimizing for mobile and desktop as well as keeping physical stores and internet stores connected via integrated eCommerce.

The primary complaint about Salesforce Commerce Cloud as a cloud-based eCommerce option is that complex websites aren't easy to create and will likely require developer intervention.

Pros:

• Salesforce Commerce Cloud is a good SaaS-based solution for omnichannel needs.
• Salesforce Commerce Cloud offers simple inventory and shipping across multiple channels.
• Salesforce Commerce Cloud has AI features to boost customer engagement.

Cons:

• It isn't as easy to create a website on Salesforce Commerce Cloud as it is on some SaaS offerings.
• SF Commerce Cloud isn't as customizable as open-source options.

Oracle CX Commerce: Pros and Cons

The Oracle Commerce cloud eCommerce option is a platform designed for both large and small businesses. Its omnichannel capabilities let businesses run multiple sites with a single subscription, and it boasts many built-in features that don't require additional costs.

Unfortunately, problems that arise can take a long time to fix. Because of this, customer reviews tend to be lower than with other eCommerce software options.

Pros:

• CX has a host of features right out of the box, such as simple search functionality and product recommendations for customers.
• This enterprise eCommerce platform can handle selling and managing intangible items such as subscriptions and tickets.

Cons:

• Though customizable, CX is far from the most powerful eCommerce platform available.
• Problems can be difficult to solve even with tech support.

SAP Hybris Commerce: Pros and Cons

SAP Hybris Commerce is an advanced cloud-based solution different from the SAP SaaS. This eCommerce solution takes the commerce side and combines it with CRM software to deliver better analytics and more control over the customer experience. A business can also mix and match with other products to customize the experience to get something closer to what they're looking for.

Complaints for SAP eCommerce tend to be about the prices, which stems from features that many of their customers aren't using.

Pros:

• The focus on CRM delivers helps customize the customer experience and improve customer support.
• SAP Commerce Cloud offers omnichannel support to standardized customer experiences.
• This enterprise software offers easy Salesforce integration and automation.

Cons:

• SAP Hybris is one of the most expensive options on the market.
• While the feature list is impressive, customers end up paying for features they may not make use of.

IBM WebSphere Commerce

IBM's offering for enterprise software is WebSphere Commerce. Like most of what IMB does, WebSphere focuses on some of the largest businesses in the world. While it started as an on-premises solution, there is also a SaaS offering option available.

Because it caters to the world's largest businesses, they're not really an option for most businesses, even if they are enterprise-level. The cost of the platform and development costs scare most businesses away.

Pros:

• This eCommerce platform is a good option for the largest B2C and B2B companies.
• WebSphere offers excellent customer support.

Cons:

• WebSphere caters to extremely large enterprises.
• The complex nature of such a platform requires many developers on both the front and back end.

Sitecore Experience Cloud: Pros and Cons

Sitecore Experience Cloud focuses on end-to-end customer content customization, utilizing its AI to deliver user-specific shopping experiences. It offers a cloud-based headless content delivery option that allows front-end customization separate from back-end processes.

Unfortunately, Sitecore is complex and requires experienced developers to get it going and keep it running.

Pros:

• The Sitecore AI eCommerce can help tailor shopping experiences per customer.
• Sitecore has developed a helpful community that can guide experienced developers through the process of setup and maintenance.

Cons:

• Sitecore Experience Cloud requires extensive developer experience and upkeep compared to other eCommerce platforms.
• This eCommerce platform can be expensive compared to other options.

WooCommerce: Pros and Cons

We include WooCommerce on our list not because it's made for enterprise-level businesses but because it's common for people to ask, "Is WooCommerce a good option for enterprise businesses?" After all, it is one of the most popular shopping platforms and is a common place for businesses to start.

In short, the answer is "no," WooCommerce is not a good option for large businesses. It is much too vulnerable to attacks (its popularity makes it a common target). It is also slow.

Pros:

• WooCommerce has over 50,000 plugins, making it very customizable.
• The price is acceptable for small companies not looking for a lot of power.

Cons:

• The fact that it's built on WordPress and uses additional plugins creates unnecessary security risks.
• WooCommerce does not have the scalability that many businesses need.
• Developer fees can be significant for launch and upkeep.

How to Choose Enterprise eCommerce Software

Choosing which enterprise eCommerce solution to use isn't always easy. Every company is different, from its size to its ambitions to the industry it serves. Each one needs to perform extensive research to ensure the right platform is chosen from among the many choices.

Now that you are better informed about what to look for in an enterprise-level eCommerce platform and some specifics about each of the most common options, you'll probably want to schedule some demos. Be sure to discuss costs, schedules, data migration costs, security updates, and other maintenance.

Equally as important is finding eCommerce software that can scale along with your business as you plan for the future. Find one that can grow with you steadily but just as easily accommodate your needs if your business blows up tomorrow. Find the best eCommerce platform, and that's more likely to happen!