Adobe Commerce: yes or no?

There are a lot of decisions to make when you set up your eCommerce store.

What products will you sell? How much will you sell them for? Free shipping or no free shipping?

(Seriously, people love free shipping!)

Another choice you have to consider is the content management platform you’ll use to manage your store. Many businesses opt for WordPress as it’s free and flexible, but there are a massive range of alternative options out there.

Adobe Commerce is one of the choices that is available to you. Originally known as Magento Commerce, Adobe Commerce offers comprehensive functionality and information management all in one place. It’s no wonder it’s the platform of choice for brands including HP, Helly Hansen, and Coca-Cola!

So, is Adobe Commerce the right eCommerce platform for your business? Let’s look at the pros and cons.

p.s Want to see which platform is the perfect match for your eCommerce store? Download our free cheat sheet.

The advantages of Adobe Commerce

If you sell a lot of products online, you want a platform you can depend on. Adobe Commerce may very well be that platform! Here are some of the reasons why.

A wide range of features

When you’re launching a new site or are planning to replatform, you’ll have a laundry list of features you want your eCommerce store to have. Adobe Commerce is designed with large businesses in mind, making it a great choice if you want to save time online and ensure your products are seen.

Some of the features the platform has include:

• Scheduling updates at any time. Perfect if you want to get ready for the Black Friday and Christmas sales without getting out of bed to make website changes!
• The ability to let VIP customers preview new products and buy before everyone else. Loyal customers are happy customers, after all!
• Multi-domain features meaning you can host multiple international sites with ease. You’re one step closer to world domination with Adobe Commerce!
• Artificial intelligence which can be used to provide personalised search results and the right products to upsell and cross-sell to each shopper
• Automated category rules which make it easy to jump on trends and offer potential customers exactly what they want

Enhanced reporting capabilities

Knowledge is power in the eCommerce world. You want to see what products are selling fastest, what search terms shoppers are using, and why people might not be buying.

Adobe Commerce offers over 100 reports to export, alongside the option to create your own custom reports. This saves you valuable time and means your marketing team has all the information they need to make the right decisions.

Secure customer data

When you’re buying products and services online, you want to know that eCommerce stores are protecting your data. After all, you don’t want your personal information to fall into the wrong hands.

Adobe Commerce is the gold standard when it comes to online security. The platform is PCI level 1 certified, meaning that it follows all the rules and standards to ensure all card transactions that take place in your online store are safeguarded. In addition, content delivery networks and surge monitoring protect your store against distributed denial-of-service attacks that can force your website to go offline.

The disadvantages of Adobe Commerce

We’ve looked at some of the reasons why you should use Adobe Commerce, but it’s not right for everyone.

Hard to master

With so many different features, Adobe Commerce is one of the hardest platforms to learn. Many users comment on how long it took to get their heads around how the system works. For web admins used to the drag-and-drop functionality of platforms like WordPress and Shopify, there’s definitely a steep learning curve in place.

However, there is dedicated customer support for Adobe Commerce in place. If you have any issues or questions, you can speak to someone anytime of the day or night.

Expensive and designed for larger stores

All this fantastic functionality doesn’t come for free. Pricing is determined by how much money you intend to take in per year and average order value, but you can expect to pay at least ￡2.5k a month. This means Adobe Commerce is only a viable option if you plan to shift a lot of items online.

Plus, unlike paid-for platforms like Shopify, Adobe Commerce is self-hosted. This means you have to pay for hosting and to implement any updates.

(The good news? Adobe Commerce claims that typical customers experience a payback period of six months, meaning you don’t have to wait long to see that all-important return on investment.)

Some features don’t come as standard

With so much scope for customisation, you’d think that features like abandoned cart reminders, integration with Amazon, and gift card functionality would be usable straight out of the box, right?

Wrong. While you can implement these, you have to pay extra for the modules. Paying ￡80 to integrate abandoned cart emails can feel a little off when you’re shelling out nearly ￡3k a month.

Is Adobe Commerce right for me?

With unlimited sessions and SKUs, Adobe Commerce works best for well-established eCommerce businesses that have a lot of products to sell and manage. If you’re starting out or have more simple requirements, you may find that Adobe Commerce is a bit much.

Magento is the free, open-source version of Adobe Commerce, and the two platforms share a lot of similarities. This makes it a great alternative if you want most of the functionality without the hefty price tag. And of course, getting to grips with Magento makes replatforming to Adobe Commerce an easy option in the future.

Choosing the right platform for your business is a big decision. You want something that has all the features you need to successfully sell your products online and grows and evolves as you do.

Whether you choose Adobe, Magento, or one of the other alternatives available, Xigen’s web development experts will ensure your site looks fantastic and is perfectly optimised for the user experience.