Enterprise Level eCommerce in 2021
eCommerce has in some sectors become the predominant way commerce is performed these days with virtually everything, from groceries to televisions, becoming easier and often more convenient/cheaper when purchased online. Ecommerce platforms are now typically at a level where very little is left to desire and they are still evolving, while at a very slow/steady/measured speed, and the landscape has changed for potential eCommerce companies when it comes to choosing the right platform for their specific/bespoke needs.
This article is based on a study I am performing for a very large UK business wanting to move from their more offline-centric business to a more online-centric business.
First of all, we have to consider 2 types of websites and therefore 2 types of core functionalities involved in websites:
Online Store … Selling products/services online.
Web Presence … Promoting said products/services online - this also typically comes with the need to promote the business offering said products and services online.
What is typically the case already? Businesses will have some form of online presence and this, from a technical point of view, will have been achieved in a myriad of possible ways.
The build or buy decision has become far simpler, in my opinion, since building the equivalent of commercially mature eCommerce platforms is virtually always heavily skewed towards the “buy” option.
And from an enterprise-level point of view, a lot less of the advanced functional specifications can now be met by commercially supported eCommerce and content management systems.
Who are the dominant players?
Only 5 years ago this question would have been a lot harder to answer, but by now in 2021 strong options/players have emerged. Even beyond the past 5 years (for even 10+ years) the current winners have been strong contenders and did nothing less than impress us with their ability to sustain high levels of demand/uptime and commercial viability.
Online Store
According to BuiltWith there are only 3 eCommerce platforms in 2021 that warrant looking at regarding eCommerce: WooCommerce, Shopify and Magento - this, in my experience, is in addition to bespoke developments correct.
WooCommerce … an open-source WordPress plugin that in my experience satisfies entry-level eCommerce requirements, but suffers from all the intricate problems and advantages WordPress faces. PHP based, which has its downsides. Many plugins, with their advantages and disadvantages.
Shopify … built for eCommerce from the ground up with Shopify Plus being an enterprise-class offering. Their proprietary Liquid programming language paired with HTML/CSS/JavaScript offers unlimited options. Also many plugins with their advantages and disadvantages.
Magento … built for eCommerce based on PHP and “black magic” (in my opinion). Enterprise-level support is available at a rather high cost.
Bespoke … one thing to avoid in 2021 considering all the functionality offered by the other contenders in this space … except when very bespoke functionality is needed, but this is then isolated in its own bespoke environment and integrated as app/plugin or directly in code of the target platform.
Shopify is the clear dominant interest of eCommerce platforms these days, despite market share. Market share has been shown by ahrefs to be vastly different, and which stores actually get visitors or make money varies too.
Web Presence (CMS)
Again BuiltWith provides us with useful stats on what popular CMSs are used. What we will look at is WordPress, Wix (a bit), Progress Sitefinity, and Squarespace. In fact though, I will not look at Wix in any more detail beyond this, it is not suitable (and doesn’t aim to be suitable) for enterprise.
WordPress … an open-source system built on PHP that wanted to be the perfect blogging platform and grew to be a plugin-ridden choice for techies who don’t mind dealing with version incompatibilities and security risks (this sounds incredibly harsh but I have dealt with several clients over the past few years that had their WordPress platforms hacked or content becoming unmaintainable because of plugin conflicts). WordPress is at its heart still a blogging platform and never was ready for enterprise use, it was never aimed at that.
Wix … the only time I encounter Wix is when clients are having trouble getting their sites to rank on Google (some of Wix’s Ajax techniques are not helpful), when a website presents a mobile interface on large resolution screens and when a client wants their website migrated off Wix because they are becoming “more serious” about doing business online.
Progress’ Sitefinity … formerly Telerik, “used to create and manage websites accessed via desktop or mobile devices“. I have not used Sitefinity but judging by their client profile they seem to have established themselves well in the US (local/specialised) government, healthcare and FMCG sectors. This bespoke platform seems to sit somewhere between “classic“ and the most modern approaches to CMS.
Squarespace … having a new enterprise offering helps SQS be an even stronger contender in this space, but what solidifies its position originally is the total ease-of-use and beautiful front-ends it offers. This ease-of-use/good design with initial “out-of-the-box“ limitations. These can however be easily overcome with HTML/CSS/JavaScript.
Bespoke … as with eCommerce there is no real need for bespoke websites when an off-the-shelf CMS can cover most of your needs. Bespoke developments will/should be limited to very specific needs like configuration wizards, hyper-specific UI elements/interactions, additional analysis and functionality (BI, AI/ML), integration with bespoke 3rd party systems, etc.
WordPress, while still the leading CMS, is seeing a steady decline in interest over the past 5 years.
Who else is there?
For the completeness of this analysis, I will pick and discuss some noteworthy entries in the top 1 million sites here.
eCommerce Systems
Content Management Systems
Suggested eCommerce Scenarios
From the above, we realise there are a few feasible solutions that emerge for enterprises. Elimination of the WooCommerce/WordPress combination is mainly due to security concerns paired with low maintainability of standards as well as lack of direct enterprise support. Elimination of Magento, Wix and Sitefinity happens for various reasons mentioned above. This leaves us with Shopify, Squarespace and bespoke development and a few usage scenarios.
Scenario 1: Pure Shopify
When Shopify is mentioned in these scenarios it might refer to Shopify Plus with its additional enterprise features and support levels - this is for high-revenue shops. In this scenario, Shopify is used as the main eCommerce platform and any additional template requirements for the “informative/marketing Web presence” are covered by extending the backend of Shopify using its inbuilt Liquid programming language and templating system. Additionally heavy use of meta-fields (on the back-end) can provide additional advanced features on the front-end.
Integration with fulfilment/shipping as well as other 3rd party systems would typically be achieved through Shopify apps. However, as with apps and plugins is always the case they have to be carefully selected to avoid undesirable dependencies and risks. Please note that the functionality offered by many apps can actually be achieved with Liquid code alone.
Scenario 2: Shopify + Squarespace
Since SQS has superior front-end design abilities and UI look-and-feel to Shopify pairing the 2 systems is my preferred choice. Shopify to do the heavy lifting revenue generation and SQS to be the beautiful informative front-end that entices visitors to stay longer, dig deeper and visit the online shop. Also, SQS can handle in very elegant ways things like forms, email campaigns while Shopify is also great at integrating with Google Ads, Facebook/Instagram stores, etc.
The domains to ideally be expected would be along the lines of https://www.domain.com and https://store.domain.com providing additional domain strength from both platforms.
Scenario 3: Shopify + Bespoke
This is virtually identical to scenario 4 except without the SQS integration.
Scenario 4: Shopify + Squarespace + Bespoke
This scenario combines the best of all worlds, using enterprise-level systems to the best of their designation.
Shopify (Plus) does eCommerce best at reasonable cost trumping build-or-buy decisions in the “buy” option. 3rd party integrations cover certain integration needs with 3rd parties (incl. fulfilment).
Squarespace does CMS with enough standardisation to ensure great UI and consistency, again being a clear “buy” option versus potentially building this kind of CMS or tailoring other platforms. Specific customisations can easily be done with HTML/CSS/JavaScript. Squarespace has great form abilities.
A dedicated server allows for organisation specific integrations with Shopify and SQS as either “apps”, “extensions” or via Ajax.
All 3 systems (Shopify, dedicated server and SQS) allow for easy integration with automation and email systems.
The result: the best of all worlds natively, with total flexibility to cover any imaginable functionality required.
Additional Thoughts
Here are a few more topics to consider in all of this.
Operating Systems
A lot of time, passion and energy is always wasted on discussion hosting environments, especially operating systems. In the suggested eCommerce scenarios OS is a choice we don’t have to make for key parts of the system. All OS decisions can be compartmentalized to have a low impact on the future of the system.
Integrations
Integrations with other platforms based on Microsoft’s Azure or Amazon’s AWS or similar cloud platforms/features are in all scenarios an option that can lead to very powerful extensions of the overall system.
Cross-Platform UI Challenge
An extra effort will be required to make Shopify’s and SQSs UIs match.
Performance
As long as the dedicated server is fast enough, ideally using compiled code rather than interpreted code, the entire system including Shopify and SQS will be very fast (for sure fast enough to satisfy Google’s Core Web Vitals).
Avoid 3rd party apps, plugins and extensions ALWAYS unless you know for sure there is no performance impact. It is always more effort/cost, but considerably faster to develop bespoke solutions that are highly targeted rather than taking the “easy (lazy) way out”.
Do you have any questions?
I know there are areas of this post I could have written more about, but I chose to keep it concise in its very first iteration. If you have questions or seek clarifications, please submit your question with this form.
