It sounds cliche to say it’s been a big year for commercetools. However, looking back on all the events over the last 12 months, it’s just the truth. This year, we established our company as the leader in composable commerce, and with so many organizations recognizing that composability is the key to future success, it’s put a spotlight on us. We expanded our product portfolio, hired more people, won industry recognition, introduced internal initiatives and launched our first-ever global conference. Most importantly, of course — we drove success for our customers. Some of the most significant highlights of 2023 are showcased below, but, the truth is, we’re just getting started.
Delivering innovation at speed
While we release updates multiple times a day, we had over 20 major product releases this year. We can’t highlight all of them in a single blog, but we’ve selected a few to spotlight below.
We shipped a lot of stuff that mattered to our customers and our partners. We had significant releases in Frontend, B2B, Premium Support, Checkout and Connect — all things that help us tell the portfolio story better and more robustly.
Chief Product Officer, commercetools
commercetools Checkout debuted in May. A fully customizable robust payment solution, it’s designed to turn every touchpoint into a sales opportunity. As it’s plug-and-play, it reduces implementation time and effort by 80% so our customers can start recognizing value more quickly.
In September, we introduced commercetools Connect, an integration framework offering reliable, low-code connectors that make adding new components and functionalities a swift, seamless experience. It empowers customers to effortlessly build a commerce system that caters to their unique business needs.
More and more of our partners are proud that they are working on, or have released integrations with Connect.
co-founder and CEO, commercetools
Finally, we launched Premium Support in November, a solution that provides elevated services, enhanced SLAs and personalized guidance to ensure our customers can launch outstanding commerce experiences with commercetools.
Leveling up our executive leadership
Blaine Trainor joined commercetools as Vice President of Global Partnerships and Alliances. As our partner network has been recognized as one of our biggest strengths, bringing in a strong leader with industry experience who understands the importance of partnerships was critical.
It's been an incredible and welcoming first year at commercetools. We’ve accomplished a lot in a very short amount of time: We’ve relaunched our Partner Program to include updated measures of partner success, incentives to drive new business with, and for, our sales team, and put increased focus on customer time to value with commercetools. We restructured the team to maximize the alignment with and productivity from our key SI, ISV and Infrastructure partners. Finally, We raised millions of dollars of sponsorship for key events including regional marketing events, partner summits, trade shows, and of course, Elevate.
Vice President, Global Partnerships and Alliances
Next, to support our continued growth and global expansion plans, we created a new position — Chief People Officer. In June, we tapped Roxana Dobrescu for the role. She accepted the challenge and in less than six months has spearheaded multiple initiatives focused on increasing transparency, building community, fostering flexibility and encouraging personal growth.
It’s extremely important to us to build a culture with personality — it needs to scream commercetools and be almost aggressively authentic. My vision is to foster a bold, dynamic, yet adaptable environment, where people can cultivate their learning agility, find purpose, and ultimately, a community.
Chief People Officer, commercetools
In September, on the heels of hitting multiple company milestones, we announced our third major hire of 2023. Dan Murphy, came on board as our first Chief Financial Officer. While he spent the first three months immersing himself in learning about our products, customers and organization, he is ramping up for 2024.
Although it's only been a short period of time, I’m excited to have joined a fast-growing company with a top-notch list of customers and a significant market opportunity. The passion of our employees continually impresses me. In 2024, I’m looking forward to helping grow the business and add value, not only in the finance function but across the organization.
Chief Financial Officer, commercetools
Gaining industry accolades and awards
In 2021, we achieved Unicorn status, a designation given to private companies with a valuation of over $1 billion. This year we achieved Centaur status. As less than 200 companies are Centaurs — this achievement is a significant milestone for commercetools.
It felt a little bit unreal, standing in Times Square with all of these billboards and then finding our name on top of it [the NASDAQ tower]. It was a great experience.
co-founder and CEO of commercetools
Throughout the year we continually received recognition that reinforced our position as the leader in global commerce. Here’s a roundup of our biggest awards and accolades:
Named a Leader in 2024 Gartner®️ Magic Quadrant™️ for the Fourth Year in a Row
Named a B2B digital commerce applications leader in IDC Marketscape Midmarket
2023 Google Cloud Industry Solution Partner of the Year Award
Recognized as a leading solution provider on B2B digital commerce solutions by Paradigm B2B Combine
Winner of the 2023 RetailTech Breakthrough Award for eCommerce Solution of the Year
Spreading composability across the globe
Events are integral to the growth of commercetools— and had a presence at almost 100 of them in 2023. Whether we’re hosting a field event, participating in a trade show or giving a presentation at a conference, our focus is not on selling our products but on sharing insights that help business leaders understand the value of composable commerce.
In March we attended Shoptalk, making a strong statement with a 2-story booth featuring messaging that boldly proclaimed us, “The Leader in Global Commerce.”
It was a very different vibe this year — it was gratifying seeing everyone come to our side. For a long time, we, as a company, were out there in the wilderness and nobody understood what we were doing. Now, the market has moved in our direction. Everyone is talking about composable commerce backed by MACH® architecture.
Chief Strategy Officer, commercetools
As we added multiple unique features to commercetools Composable Commerce for B2B in 2023, we also put a big focus on B2B events in 2023. We partnered with Master B2B on a host of different events and activities to help B2Bs navigate the digital transformation needed to meet the needs of today’s buyers. Michael Scholz was constantly on stage sharing insights on the B2B market — he certainly made a big impression at B2B Online Florida as the moderator of Day 2 events.
To cap off an exciting, full year of event activity, in November we announced the launch of our first major conference, Elevate - The Global Commerce Summit™. The in-person event, set for April 16-18, 2024, will be held at the Miami Beach Convention Center.
We are bringing together — from all over the globe — customers, partners, commercetoolers and thought leaders to talk about the future of commerce and present ourselves as the leaders on our big stage that we will own.
Chief Marketing Officer, commercetools
Nurturing our company culture
Nothing that commercetools does to help businesses deliver outstanding commerce experiences would be possible without employees, who not only are experts in what they do but feel good about coming to work every day. That’s why we have multiple resources and programs in place to support our professional and personal growth. This year, we introduced a few new initiatives. Here, are a few of our favorites:
In late 2022, our DEI team kicked off a campaign to encourage employees to start ERGs to help build a more welcoming, inclusive culture. This year we launched Women in Tech (WIT), BLK Leaders, Planet Earth Alliance and Open Minds.
We all have different challenges we face, but when you have a group of people you feel you can connect with, you’re going to be more comfortable presenting your true, authentic self. And, as a result of sharing your struggles, collaborating and learning from one another, you’re able to grow on a professional level.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Leader, Americas
To reinforce our commitment to creating a family-friendly and inclusive workplace culture at commercetools, we launched commercetools’ Kid Boxes in our offices. These are dedicated spaces where children can explore and engage in a variety of stimulating activities when accompanying their parents to work.
This innovative policy, launched in November, goes above and beyond statutory parental leave benefits. Now, we offer a substantial 26 weeks for the first caretaker and 10 weeks for the second caretaker, creating a more balanced and supportive environment for parents globally.
Driving success for our customers
commercetools now boosts over 450 customers. Some like Audi, Bang & Olufsen, Cimpress and Express have been reaping the benefits of our headless, composable solution for a few years now while others discovered the power of composability this year. We’re delighted every time a customer shares data on improved site performance, increased conversion rates, higher average order values, faster time to market, lower operating costs or any other positive result. Here, are a few of our favorite quotes from customers who went live this year.
We're already seeing returns on the average order value size 2.5 times what we had previously. And a big part of that is just because we can create a better experience, we can get things out faster. Our team doesn't have to work within the confines of the monolith anymore.
TECHNICAL PRODUCT MANAGER, ACE SOUTHERN
It was prudent for us to buy commercetools as an accelerator into the marketplace to get us where we needed to go. I suppose everything we did could have been done on our own, but it wouldn't have been very economical and it wouldn't have been very fast.
SENIOR DIRECTOR AND CHIEF ARCHITECT, ZORO.COM
We had our biggest BFCM period ever this year, breaking records for sales, traffic and concurrent users — all without a hitch on commercetools.
CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, KITCHEN WAREHOUSE
Migrating to a new cloud infrastructure for composable commerce has had a significant impact on the performance and scalability of our online store, and ultimately our business success.
CO-FOUNDER AND OPERATIONS DIRECTOR, CARGO CREW
Here’s to the future!
It’s an exciting time in the evolution of commerce, which makes being part of a company committed to driving the future of commerce an incredible experience! It seems there’s something new and innovative happening every day. As every employee is contributing to the company’s growth and to making the vision of our founders a reality, the energy surrounding the company is palpable.
We have great product market fit at a time when the industry needs what we have to offer. I’m looking forward to putting all the plans the marketing team has been working on all year into place into 2024.
Chief Marketing Officer, commercetools
To learn more about how commercetools is leading the transition from monolithic platforms to composable commerce, read our blog, commercetools: Spearheading the future of composable commerce.
Anita J. Temple is the Corporate Journalist at commercetools. She was a fashion editor at Women’s Wear Daily (WWD) and W Magazine before launching a career as a freelance writer and creative producer. She has written content and worked on a wide range of marketing projects for companies including Dreamworks, Walmart, Coca-Cola, Verizon, and Adidas.