Adobe officially consolidated the branding of Magento Commerce and Adobe Commerce Cloud to the single brand of Adobe Commerce earlier this year. Adobe Commerce is the leading eCommerce platform for medium to large enterprises, and who could be surprised by that? It’s robust, has a solid track record and – most importantly – scales up to your ambition, no matter how big your business goals. However, Adobe Commerce isn’t a beginners eCommerce solution. If we’re talking in terms of SMEs, it would sit firmly at the ME end of the spectrum.
The native range of functionality that Adobe Commerce offers can easily handle most of the challenges you’ll face when growing your business. If you’re a manufacturer or a wholesaler, you’ll be sure to appreciate its extensive, self-serve and native B2B capability, as you’ll need to consider custom catalogues, tiered pricing, quotes, company credit, and approval processes for your customers.
If direct-to-consumer (D2C) isn’t on your radar yet, it should be. The high street is in a state of flux, which means you need to get your brand closer to the consumer. Adobe supports the D2C model natively and, crucially, if you have multiple websites for those B2B, D2C or B2C presences, you can run them all from the same instance of Adobe Commerce.
Equally, think about the other requirements you might have for sub-brands, country-specific differences, language variations… Adobe Commerce handles them all, allowing you to seamlessly manage and report on all fronts from a central interface. This is often more of a convoluted process where other eCommerce platforms are concerned, such as the likes of Shopify and BigCommerce.
But despite Adobe Commerce having arguably the most robust, fully- realised feature set of all the eCommerce platforms out there, it does have some limitations. In all the years that PushON has been working on complex site builds, we’ve had countless clients asking for a particular feature that would support their D2C business model but isn’t available as a core asset. Don’t let that put you off though – there are countless extensions and tools that can be easily integrated with Adobe Commerce to achieve your goals.
Email and marketing automation
Ah, good old email. Your heavyweight solution for making money. It may have been around for ages, but this only proves how effective it is for making eCommerce work for a business. The hardest job in eCommerce is getting someone to make that first transaction, and emails are your best bet for improving conversion and building brand loyalty.
To make email work for your business, there are a few key elements to consider, with data being at the heart of the operation. Choose your marketing automation platform carefully. Platforms that allow you to deliver real-time, behaviour-based activity, with a 1-2-1 relationship between customer and email content – such as an abandoned basket journey – will ultimately lead to higher conversion rates. Segment your customers intelligently based on their characteristics and aim to enhance your data through preference forms.
In everything you do, aim to be as personalised as you can and show your customers you care about what they want.
Our top recommended platforms do everything you need and more – here are the market leaders to use in tandem with Adobe Commerce:
Dotdigital – a fantastically well-run business that offers plenty of support and integrates perfectly with Adobe Commerce. It’s a full marketing automation platform, so it has a lot to offer.
Klaviyo – businesses stay loyal to Klaviyo for a reason, and it’s because there’s not much that this versatile, full marketing automation plaform doesn’t do.
On-site search
Just as you’d expect, Adobe Commerce comes with an excellent native search capability, Elasticsearch, which is used by many high-volume websites. Just this year we’ve seen the introduction of Live Search powered by Adobe Sensei, which delivers a lightning-fast, super relevant, and intuitive search experience.
On-site search is possibly one of the most useful tools you can have in your eCommerce armoury. In its most basic form, it needs to help your customer quickly find what they are looking for and present it to them to buy. The tricky thing is that people tend to search in different ways, using different words and phrases, all for the same thing.
A search tool that automatically understands what the customer wants and can present it to themas well as offering viable alternatives takes some expertise.
Aside from what’s built into Adobe Commerce, there are some excellent third party services to help you with this.
Klevu – undoubtedly a market leader in the sector and one of PushON’s top recommendations. Plus, they’re a lovely bunch of people, which always helps! We’ve worked with them since the early days, and despite their growth, their founder is still always happy to jump on a call with us.
Algolia – a reliable solution that boasts several handy features, Algolia does exactly what it says on the tin – no wonder it’s so popular.
Product Information Management (PIM)
One of the huge growth areas we have seen is in PIM. It’s another valid extension of core eCommerce functionality because it is so powerful. Process-driven management of your product information is more valuable than you probably imagine.
Having high-quality, detailed content supporting your inventory not only helps your eCommerce website look good,
but also allows those products to be found by customers and ensures that you have a good opportunity to address their needs in the lead up to purchase.
There are a couple of key players in the market when it comes to PIM…
Akeneo – one of the first PIM platforms to get involved with Adobe Commerce, Akeneo knows it inside and out, which makes them extremely reliable.
Pimberly – we love a fellow Mancunian business, but Pimberly boasts a lot more than just its Northern roots – it’s a well-built platform with a clear focus on doing PIM magnificently.
Reviews
Word of mouth. Trusted recommendations. Reviews are not only expected, but they are also actively searched for – it’s the feedback from previous purchasers that help to guide and encourage a customer to purchase. It’s not just your brand that matters, though – the provider that you use to display your reviews also brings your brand credibility.
Trustpilot – 5 stars on Trustpilot is now THE mark of credibility for a business, thanks to the business that took digital reviews to a whole new level.
Feefo - another well-considered and well-managed package that resonates with consumers around the world.
Order Management Systems (OMS) and Warehouse Management Systems (WMS)
OMS and WMSs are more important than ever – if you can’t meet your customers’ expectations by giving them up-to-date stock information, they’ll just go somewhere else. And who can blame them, when there’s a whole market full of competitors who can deliver the goods?
Whether your stock is in your warehouse, a shop or another third-party location, efficient management is the most certain way to keep your cashflow in good order – and as we all know, cash(flow) is king.
Brightpearl - a market-leading operations platform with one of the most expansive feature sets around. Plus, Brightpearl is international in scope and capability. Read our guest blog detailing how you can streamline your sales process with PushON and Brightpearl
Linnworks - boasting an extensive feature set at an affordable price, Linnworks is geared to take eCommerce business on board from a very early stage.
Summary
eCommerce may be the future of your business, but it takes some planning, which includes having the right skills in place to not only understand the functionality but to be able to use it well. Technology is a facilitator of people, so make sure you find good ones and look after them – after all, they are what will help you make your business a success. They are the greatest means by which you can extend your eCommerce capability. To find out how PushON can kick start, revitalise or overhaul your eCommerce strategy, contact us today!
