Gartner, a consulting and market research firm, has released its latest Magic Quadrant report, identifying the top eCommerce solutions worldwide based on their features.
This year, over 160 platforms were evaluated, and only 19—depicted in the graphic below—met the criteria for inclusion:
The study aims to assist anyone seeking to enhance their eCommerce operations by providing insights into companies that help businesses transition to new commercial models.
Gartner focuses on eCommerce platforms leveraging transformative technology to deliver exceptional shopping experiences. These platforms supply crucial information for customer purchase decisions and use data-driven rules to prepare orders for payment.
To be listed in the quadrant, a platform must satisfy the following criteria (as of July 31, 2024):
This year introduces a novelty: due to the competitive market, providers needed to fulfill one of these three growth scenarios in terms of annual client acquisition, revenue growth, and total digital commerce revenue:
After evaluation, eCommerce platforms are ranked based on execution ability and overall vision, resulting in four categories:
Leaders are recognized for their strong execution and comprehensive sector vision. According to Gartner, Leaders “demonstrate the ability to offer extensive and robust commerce functionality. They provide commerce solutions across various industries and business models that can scale to accommodate large transaction volumes and significant levels of digital commerce GMV. They deliver sales and support services directly and through a robust ecosystem of application, service, and integration partners.”
They also offer additional application features or partnerships that integrate with their main commerce platform. They innovate, often through platform technology upgrades, new products and functionalities, and investments both inside and outside core digital commerce platforms, alongside programs that enhance customer success.”
Platforms in this category include:
Visionaries possess a comprehensive digital sector vision but less capacity. They “have the potential to disrupt established commerce markets through innovation. They integrate new technologies and business models, creating new opportunities for client engagement and differentiation.”
Innovators are individuals or companies that frequently disrupt existing markets through innovation. They can introduce new technologies or architectural methods to their platforms, adopt imaginative pricing strategies, or target a specific market segment. They often rapidly attract new customers by pinpointing an underserved market niche.
In this category, you will find:
Gartner describes challengers as offering commercial capabilities that may have a more limited scope compared to leaders, but they excel within that specific area. Challengers might focus on fewer industries, geographical locations, business models, or customer GMV size segments.
They invest in innovation crucial to their target markets. They leverage their R&D resources, investments, profits, and market reputation to grow quickly or attract a new type of customer.
Niche companies focus on a small section of the market, providing effective and profitable solutions. Gartner explains, “They often target smaller or emerging market opportunities or smaller end-user companies. Niche players often lack geographic or transactional scale.”
Adobe Commerce can be deployed on-premises or in public clouds (with or without managed services by Adobe), available globally on Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure.
BigCommerce is a leading open SaaS and composable ecommerce platform that empowers brands and retailers of all sizes to build, innovate and grow their businesses online. BigCommerce provides its customers sophisticated enterprise-grade functionality, customization and performance with simplicity and ease-of-use. Strengths:
Commercetools is a multi-tenant SaaS offering available on Google Cloud Platform, AWS, and Microsoft Azure. It serves many industries, primarily retail, manufacturing, wholesale, life sciences, and healthcare.
It has a strong presence in Europe and North America, as well as a small base in Latin America and Asia/Pacific, including China.
Elastic Path offers two platforms: Self-Managed Commerce and Composable Commerce. The former is self-hosted, and the latter is a multi-tenant SaaS offering hosted on AWS in North America and EMEA. According to Gartner, “Elastic Path primarily serves clients in the high-tech, IT, manufacturing, and retail sectors based in North America. It mainly sells to mid-sized organizations with an annual GMV of less than $55 million, but it has some larger clients.”
HCL Software features HCL Commerce Cloud, a hybrid single-tenant and multi-tenant platform available on AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. It supports larger enterprises in a diverse set of industries, the most common being retail, manufacturing, and telecommunications. Clients are primarily located in North America and Europe, with fewer in Asia/Pacific and Latin America.
Infosys Equinox is the new niche player in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, offering comprehensive solutions tailored to specific market needs
Nox is a new niche player in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant. It boasts a modern architecture featuring over 25 independent modules, which can be deployed as multi-tenant SaaS solutions on any public cloud. These are accessible through AWS and Microsoft Azure marketplaces.
Kibo provides a multi-tenant SaaS solution hosted on AWS or Google Cloud Platform. It offers services for B2B/B2C commerce, order management, and subscription commerce, available individually or as a package.
Liferay is a new niche player in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, featuring Liferay Commerce, its native Liferay DXP module. It is available in three versions: multi-tenant SaaS for basic use cases, platform as a service (PaaS), or on-premises deployments. Cloud versions are globally available on the Google Cloud Platform.
Optimizely offers two platforms: Commerce Connect and Configured Commerce, which are implemented as single-tenant SaaS on Microsoft Azure. Optimizely caters to various sectors, notably manufacturing, wholesale, and distribution, with a client base primarily in EMEA and North America.
OroCommerce is a global SaaS platform that can be implemented on OroCloud (PaaS), public clouds, private clouds, and on-premises. It serves distribution, manufacturing, and wholesale sectors, with some presence in automotive and high-tech industries.
Salesforce offers three multi-tenant SaaS products: B2C Commerce (geared towards large-scale consumer sales for retail or wholesale customers), B2B Commerce (focused on manufacturing or wholesale clients), and D2C Commerce (for smaller-scale direct-to-consumer sales).
Sana Commerce is a new niche player in this Magic Quadrant, offering a B2B Sana Commerce Cloud platform. It can be hosted on a public cloud, but is typically deployed as a single-tenant SaaS application on Microsoft Azure. It includes Sana Pay, a native B2B-optimized payment platform, within the license fee.
SAP Commerce Cloud encompasses several offerings, such as PaaS (a hybrid single-tenant platform hosted on Microsoft Azure with multi-tenant SaaS components). It targets retailers, manufacturers, consumer products, professional services, wholesalers, and large organizations, with global availability. SAP also provides a Premium and a Composable edition.
Scayle features a modular commerce engine, available as multi-tenant SaaS with single-tenant SaaS options on AWS. It includes functionalities like OMS, DAM, PIM, search, payment, promotions, headless web storefronts, a mobile app suite, and modules for unified retail commerce.
Shopify is a multi-tenant SaaS platform, offering an optional standalone checkout and cart solution without a graphical interface. All services are operated on Google Cloud Platform.
According to the Magic Quadrant: “While other open-source digital commerce projects shift towards becoming commercial products, PrestaShop has remained committed to its open-source offering. This steadfast approach suggests the provider may not reach Gartner’s revenue thresholds through its current model, but it maintains a strong market presence in EMEA in terms of downloads and live stores.”
Shopware provides the Shopware 6.5 commerce cloud, built on the PHP Symfony framework, available under a commercial license for both on-premise and cloud setups (as either SaaS or hosted/managed). An open-source version is also available, though it lacks the B2B suite features.
Spryker Cloud Commerce OS can be deployed as PaaS, with an option to extend or compose code under a SaaS model. It is generally set up on AWS but is also compatible with Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.
For an additional fee, it offers three entirely SaaS modules: Composable Storefront, a tool for interface development; App Composition Platform, a no-code integration hub; and Spryker Enterprise Marketplace, a platform for market operations.
Virto Commerce is a new niche player in the 2024 Magic Quadrant. This platform is built on .NET and set up as a single-tenant PaaS on Virto Cloud and Microsoft Azure by default, and can also be implemented on other public clouds chosen by the client, private clouds, or on-premise.
VTEX is a multi-tenant SaaS platform implemented on AWS, with 22 separate modules that can be purchased individually or as a bundle in five areas: digital commerce, distributed order management, marketplace operations, channel management, and experience management.
“We are not only a partner for growing brands in the most demanding markets, but we are also setting the standard for eCommerce for those already established brands,” states Mariano Gomide de Faria, Co-CEO & Co-Founder of VTEX, adding that “Our journey has led us to penetrate some of the world’s most complex markets and also to advance digital commerce in the United States with the trust of brands like Colgate, Stanley Black & Decker, U.S. Electrical Services Inc., and Hearst. All of this has honed our current approach with refined expertise and a playbook built on resilience. We are proud to be recognized as a Challenger by Gartner.”
Photo: ChatGPT
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Δ