commercetools best of 2022: The top 10 reasons we’re successfully leading the future of commerce

At commercetools, every day is dedicated to challenging and changing the world of commerce. This year, we introduced Composable Commerce for B2B and commercetools for Growth, launched our first brand campaign featuring Will Arnett as The Naysayer, more than doubled our employee headcount and opened a new office in Valencia, Spain. 

Given all there is to celebrate, we decided to share our highlights from the year in a social media countdown! Here, we’ve consolidated all 10 of our top moments into a single blog post. Narrowing it down to 10 moments wasn’t easy, but it gives an idea of just how exciting 2022 was for us — and we help project why we feel so positive about the future of commerce. Enjoy!

Our #ctBestOf2022 kicked off with a LinkedIn Live Q&A featuring Dirk Hoerig, CEO at commercetools and  Jen Jones, CMO at commercetools. Aptly titled, “5 Questions with Dirk Hoerig: 2022 in Review,” the 25-minute session touched on a wide range of topics. Dirk offered his thoughts on the current economic uncertainty, the importance of partnerships, the evolution of B2B commerce and the growth of the European start-up system as well as shared his vision for the future of eCommerce and how he’s planning to scale the company culture at commercetools to adapt to our continued growth. 

While there were many amazing insights and inspiration packed into a short time frame, among the most valuable points he made was how important it is right now for business leaders to reassess their technology stack. As Dirk explained, “Technology is the direct bridge to your customer. The better you have an understanding of that, the better you can control it and the easier it will be for you to adapt your customer journey and create outstanding experiences.” He cautioned leaders to recognize, “if too much of your budget is going into maintenance and not innovation — and the core of your business is driving revenue and increasing customer retention — then you are spending your money wrong.” His advice: Make sure you have a team and an organization around you that can make the changes necessary to solve the problem.

Jen wrapped up the conversation by giving thanks to everyone who has supported commercetools throughout the year, commenting, “this growing community of modern commerce enthusiasts across our industry is what motivates us at commercetools to keep innovating every day.”

The second spot in our countdown goes to everyone's favorite person at board meetings (not!) — the #Naysayer! If you somehow missed our first-ever global brand campaign which launched in May 2022, actor Will Arnett helped us score major headlines and lots of social media hits with the “Naysayer,” his snarky personification of legacy tech. Throughout the year, he’s shown up at industry events, in airports, on billboards and in many of our blog posts as the antithesis of visionary business leaders who are embracing modern commerce technology. His “Naysayer Guides,” which attempt to justify why you shouldn’t care about your eCommerce experiences, make for a great laugh.  

While the character is a humorous take on outdated commerce platforms, what's not funny is actually being stuck on a monolithic platform — especially in 2023 when your customer's expectations require you to embrace modern commerce solutions. commercetools, on the other hand, is a company of #Yeasayers focused on helping you embrace modern commerce solutions that can not only ensure you have a competitive edge in 2023 but for years to come.

It would be remiss not to celebrate some of our amazing media hits this year, including Raconteur, Forbes and Adweek! As the founders of MACH™ and one of the leaders of the composable commerce movement, it's exciting to see these revolutionary principles making mainstream headlines. Plus, the media response to our Naysayer campaign confirmed for us that everyone really does love Will Arnett. And to think we thought it was just us!

The spectacular return of in-person events was a huge 2022 highlight for us. We attended multiple events, led sessions, hosted parties and met with customers, prospects and partners around the world at Shoptalk, Web Summit, CommerceNext, eTail™, K5, OMR and more. While we value every opportunity we get to share who we are and what we do, we find opportunities to connect in person to present our vision particularly rewarding.

In 2021, we announced we were deepening our relationship with Google by making commercetools available on the Google Cloud Marketplace. One year later, we became the recipient of not one but two awards from the company — the Google Cloud Retail Customer Award as well as the Partner of the Year Award for Retail Digital Growth. Our strengthened partnership even led to Carrie Tharp, Vice President of Retail and Consumer at Google Cloud giving the keynote address at our fourth Modern Commerce Day in late October. Her presentation was insightful and informative, and most importantly, reinforced commercetools belief that now is the time to embrace modern commerce. In Carrie’s opinion, “ If you as a leader — especially a digital leader, a data leader, a technology leader inside your organization — aren't feeling slightly uncomfortable with the roadmap in front of you as far as the pace of change, then you're moving too slow.”  

We're very proud of what commercetools and Google Cloud have been able to accomplish together in 2022 and look forward to an exciting new year ahead! 

In 2022, the fact that commercetools was recognized as a “Leader” in digital commerce by all of the top global research and advisory firms is an achievement worth celebrating. In their annual reports, Gartner, Forrester, IDC and Paradigm B2B pointed to commercetools as a company offering products and services that truly support the direction commerce is going in the future. One of our favorite quotes, from The Forrester Wave™ B2B Commerce Solutions, Q2 2022 report, stated, "commercetools is a fit for businesses with a clear and innovative digital strategy enabled by a cloud-native technology strategy and an unapologetically modern development team." We are definitely steadfast (and unapologetic) in our belief that composable commerce will drive the future of commerce or in our desire to ensure all businesses have the opportunity and the ability to embrace modern technology. All of the reports are available in Your Analyst Report Access Center.

We know there are a lot of companies out there trying to convince brands they offer the best eCommerce solution and we are incredibly grateful to our customers for entrusting us with their business. We love working with visionary folks and helping them turn their innovative ideas into incredible digital commerce experiences. Many of them, including AT&T, Bang & Olufsen and Mission Linen Supply have shared the incredible results they’ve recognized since transitioning to commercetools. Others, such as Sephora and Providoor, partnered with us in 2022 and are looking forward to seeing the tangible benefits our products deliver.

We are incredibly grateful for all our partners around the globe as they are behind many of the incredible wins and successes we achieved this year. From sales pitches and implementation projects to events and marketing initiatives, they’ve worked alongside us supporting the growth of the modern commerce movement and of our company. Our partners combined form an ecosystem that is part of the unstoppable force behind MACH and composable commerce.

In 2022, we hosted two global Partner Summit events— in Otocic Obonjan, Croatia and in Austin, TX. In addition to learning, networking and having lots of fun, these events inspired and excited us as well as reminded us why we work so hard and how much opportunity is still out there.

In May, commercetools officially became a member of the Deloitte Digital Alliance Ecosystem. As one of the smallest organizations (in terms of company size) to be invited, not only was it an incredible honor, it also further validated our position in the industry. This partnership brings with it the ability to better serve our mutual customers as well as collaborate on future opportunities. We have already kicked off initiatives with the Deloitte team, including the recent publication of a white paper focused on cross-border commerce growth.

Knowing many companies are struggling in this uncertain economy makes us even more grateful that our company is thriving. Thanks to the innovative, visionary spirit of our leadership, we’ve experienced continuous growth since our founding in 2006. Last year, we more than doubled our employee headcount and we’re still hiring. To celebrate, co-founders Dirk Hoerig and Denis Werner, flew the entire company to Berlin for an unforgettable summer party. Sure, we managed to get a little business done but the goal was to have fun and we embraced it fully — sightseeing, socializing, drinking and dancing until well past midnight!