E-commerce platform technologies - statistics & facts
Online shopping would not be possible without software technology behind online stores. E-commerce platform software enables the complex fulfillment process from inventory management and product listing to online ordering and checkout. As e-commerce has grown to an industry worth six trillion U.S. dollars, so has increased the market revenue from e-commerce software. Business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce contributed to most of the spending on e-commerce platform technologies, reaching double the spend on business-to-business (B2B) platforms. By 2025, B2B e-commerce is forecast to catch up slightly, with expected platform investments worth 4.2 billion U.S. dollars.
Shopify, WooCommerce, and Salesforce represent the biggest players in the hosted e-commerce market, with Shopify servicing the highest number of stores worldwide. They are ahead of website builder Squarespace, whose commerce revenue has significantly grown over the past two years. Financial figures indicate that most leading companies provide commerce services via all-in subscription packages.
Over six in ten retail companies plan to migrate to headless commerce platforms by 2024, while over 20 percent of them already use them. E-commerce shops based on headless systems can integrate with third-party applications and sale channels — from social networks to voice commerce, including augmented or virtual reality.
However, retailers aiming for even higher levels of customization may often opt for composable commerce — a modular solution that allows companies to quickly bring their products to market while integrating with preexisting technologies. Despite the implementation process introducing new challenges due to a lack of in-house capacity, composable commerce solutions are still considered the most viable e-commerce tech option for more retail organizations wanting to expand their online stores in the future.
E-commerce as a service
Consumer brands, retailers, and distributors operating on the web favored Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions over on-premises systems. In the former case, an external company hosts server infrastructure and provides all updated features, whereas on-premises e-commerce requires in-house infrastructure that must be fully managed by the enterprise running the store. In times of great customization and complex multichannel customer journeys, hosted e-commerce is often the ideal solution for companies willing to sell their products or services online.Shopify, WooCommerce, and Salesforce represent the biggest players in the hosted e-commerce market, with Shopify servicing the highest number of stores worldwide. They are ahead of website builder Squarespace, whose commerce revenue has significantly grown over the past two years. Financial figures indicate that most leading companies provide commerce services via all-in subscription packages.
Switching to headless commerce
Traditional online stores are also called monolithic because the back- and front-end of the website function as a combined infrastructure that is very difficult to maintain. For this reason, companies have switched to headless commerce, where the front-end is independent from the back-end, ‘the head’, and thus easier to customize and duplicate; for instance for mobile versions of online shops.Over six in ten retail companies plan to migrate to headless commerce platforms by 2024, while over 20 percent of them already use them. E-commerce shops based on headless systems can integrate with third-party applications and sale channels — from social networks to voice commerce, including augmented or virtual reality.
However, retailers aiming for even higher levels of customization may often opt for composable commerce — a modular solution that allows companies to quickly bring their products to market while integrating with preexisting technologies. Despite the implementation process introducing new challenges due to a lack of in-house capacity, composable commerce solutions are still considered the most viable e-commerce tech option for more retail organizations wanting to expand their online stores in the future.
