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OrderCloud
Experience limitless possibilities with leading headless ecommerce
Future-proof your ecommerce strategy with personalized digital commerce for any business model.
Impact for every team
FOR MARKETERS
Total flexibility
FOR DEVELOPERS
Rapid development
FOR TECHNOLOGISTS
Modern MACH architecture
Future-proof your ecommerce strategy
Sell everywhere
Transcendent ecommerce
Order Management
Enterprise Marketplace
AI-Enabled Commerce
Get the support you need at any stage of your journey
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What industry experts say
Reporter
Title
IDC Marketscape: Enterprise Headless Digital Commerce Applications 2024
IDC Marketscape: Worldwide B2B digital Commerce Applications 2024
Frequently asked questions
Ecommerce, short for electronic commerce, refers to the buying and selling of physical or digital products, and services on the internet. Also referred to as a digital marketplace, ecommerce enables beginners and advanced ecommerce store owners to sell online.
Ecommerce encompasses a wide range of activities and go-to-market models. Common types of ecommerce include businesses selling to consumers (B2C), businesses selling to other businesses (B2B), consumers selling to consumers (C2C), marketplaces where either consumers or businesses are buying from (and often selling to) other businesses and consumers (B2X marketplaces), social media selling, and more. Modern ecommerce strategies should encompass both your business’ ability to act as an online business with your own ecommerce site or ecommerce store, as well as your business’ ability to sell via external suppliers and marketplaces, such as Amazon.
In today’s business landscape and with today’s online shopping expectations, brands are required to be able to make any touchpoint transaction ready. This creates the possibility for any digital experience to be an ecommerce experience.
- Hosted platforms: These are fully managed solutions where the provider handles hosting, maintenance, and security.
- Self-hosted platforms: Businesses manage their own hosting and infrastructure, providing more control and customization.
- Headless platforms: These decouple the front-end user interface from the back-end ecommerce functionality, offering greater flexibility and customization e.g., OrderCloud.
- Marketplace platforms: These support multi-vendor marketplaces, allowing multiple sellers to list and sell products on a single platform (e.g., Amazon, eBay).
- Scalability: Ensure the ecommerce platform can grow with your business, handling increased traffic, expanding product catalogs, and future go-to-market channel needs.
- Ease of use: Look for the ability to deliver a user-friendly interface for both customers and your team managing the site.
- Customization: Evaluate the customization options to reflect your brand identity and meet unique business requirements.
- Features and integrations: Assess available ecommerce features and integration capabilities for things like online payment options, shipping solutions, marketing tools, and third-party applications.
- Security: Prioritize platforms with robust security measures to protect customer data and transactions.
- Cost: Compare pricing structures, including upfront costs, transaction fees, and ongoing maintenance expenses.
- Support and resources: Consider the quality of customer support, documentation, and community resources available.
- Performance and reliability: Look for platforms with high uptime guarantees and fast loading times.
By evaluating these factors, you can choose the best ecommerce platform for your business’s growth plan.
- Microservices architecture: Look for platforms that offer modular components (microservices) for functionalities like product management, order processing, and payment processing. This allows flexibility in scaling and updating specific services without affecting the entire system.
- API-first approach: Emphasis on platforms that provide robust APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to seamlessly integrate with other systems, services, and third-party applications. APIs enable flexibility in creating custom front-end experiences and integrating with various marketing, CRM, and analytics tools.
- Cloud-native: Platforms designed to leverage cloud infrastructure offer scalability, reliability, and performance advantages. They should support automatic scaling, load balancing, and disaster recovery features inherent to cloud environments.
- Headless Architecture: The platform should decouple the front-end presentation layer from the back-end commerce functionality. This separation allows businesses to deliver consistent user experiences across multiple channels (web, mobile, IoT) while independently updating and optimizing each channel.
- Flexibility and customization: With a MACH architecture, businesses can easily adopt new technologies, experiment with different front-end frameworks, and customize user interfaces to meet specific branding and user experience goals.
- Security and compliance: Strong emphasis on security measures, including data encryption, secure API endpoints, and compliance with industry standards (PCI-DSS, GDPR). Cloud-native platforms often offer built-in security features and compliance certifications.
- Scalability and performance: Ability to scale horizontally (adding more instances, supporting unlimited products) and vertically (upgrading resources) based on demand. Cloud-native platforms inherently support scalability to handle fluctuations in traffic and transaction volumes.
- Analytics and insights: Advanced analytics capabilities to provide real-time insights into customer behavior, sales trends, and operational performance. Integration with analytics tools helps in making data-driven decisions and optimizing marketing strategies.
- DevOps and continuous delivery: Support for DevOps practices like automated testing, continuous integration, and continuous deployment (CI/CD). This ensures rapid deployment of updates and improvements without downtime.
- Support for emerging technologies: Ability to integrate with emerging technologies such as AI for personalization, AR/VR for enhanced shopping experiences, and voice commerce interfaces are part of a modern ecommerce strategy. MACH architecture facilitates experimentation and adoption of these innovations.
Businesses adopting MACH architecture for ecommerce platforms prioritize flexibility, agility, scalability, and integration capabilities to meet the evolving demands of digital commerce. These ecommerce features enable businesses to innovate quickly, deliver superior customer experiences, and maintain competitive advantage in a rapidly changing market landscape.
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