In the 2023 edition of the independent reports Paradigm B2B Combine for Enterprise and Mid-market, commercetools outperformed B2B eCommerce vendors with 14 gold medals across both enterprise and mid-market solutions. With this record-breaking achievement, commercetools was recognized for its ability to deliver an exceptional modern commerce platform for manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers at scale.
With the B2B commerce market poised for double-digit growth in the years to come, B2B organizations are accelerating their efforts to deliver personalized, omnichannel and seamless customer experiences. For these firms to succeed, they need to find and select the right commerce platform to support them in this digital journey.
To help technology buyers make well-informed decisions without spending months in vendor research, the Paradigm B2B Combine reports by B2B eCommerce expert and industry veteran Andy Hoar provide a detailed breakdown of leading digital commerce vendors. Across 12 categories encompassing strategic pillars and product capabilities, each solution is recognized with a gold, silver or bronze medal. Furthermore, dedicated reports for Enterprise and Mid-market cater to each sector’s needs and vendor capabilities.
In the 2023 edition, commercetools Composable Commerce for B2B was one of the few vendors evaluated for both enterprise and mid-market — and set a new standard with 14 gold medals. For the enterprise market, commercetools scored 8 gold medals and received 11 medal-winning accolades, and is firmly placed as a leader in global B2B commerce.
commercetools Composable Commerce for B2B is a well-supported and flexible B2B eCommerce solution that offers an array of APIs from which a capable development team can efficiently and cost-effectively build compelling commerce experiences.
The Paradigm B2B Combine (Enterprise Edition)
For the third consecutive year, commercetools has surpassed previous evaluations as the company scored 10 gold medals across Enterprise and Mid-Market in 2022. This achievement is a testament to the evolution of commercetools Composable Commerce for B2B, which saw a string of innovations to support the ongoing digitization boost in the B2B space.
The evolution of commercetools Composable Commerce for B2B recognized
Since 2022, commercetools has scored at the top in strategic pillars, including the categories Vision & Strategy, Ability to Execute and Partner Ecosystem. The company also received gold medals in product capabilities like Integrations, Operations & Infrastructure, as well as Promotions Management.
commercetools received gold medals for four out of the five strategic pillars in 2023, a similar result to last year’s, and this time also collected gold-winning accolades for a wide range of out-of-the-box product capabilities for enterprise and mid-market. Highlights include Sales & Channel Enablement and Transaction Enablement in both enterprise and mid-market reports, which reflect the evolution and robustness of the commercetools Composable Commerce for B2B solution.
The Sales & Channel Enablement criterion evaluates functionality that enables customer-facing sales reps, channel partners, etc., to participate in the digital sales of goods and services. For example, does the solution offer strong quoting and pricing functions? Can the sales rep effectively order on behalf, co-manage and review orders of their customers?
With a buying portal for sales and customer service reps powered by commercetools, sales executives can serve their customers throughout the entire order journey, including full order approval and quoting workflows. With the Quotes API and the related roles and permissions feature for business units, commercetools supports a variety of complex buying scenarios, including quote generation, negotiation and management. In addition, through commercetools’ API-first solution, B2B firms can support any channel (indirect, offline, online), effectively enabling true omnichannel experiences.
Transaction Management, another indicator of a mature B2B offering, evaluates whether the vendor enables sellers to record and report on orders and transaction activity. With commercetools, B2B firms benefit from an omnichannel view of the shopping cart, with any cart updates immediately reflected on every channel and the possibility to “freeze the cart” to prevent discrepancies from price updates in potentially protracted collaborative buying processes. Other features add value specifically to address the complexity of enterprise B2Bs, such as:
Multiple shipping addresses and methods per cart and line item.
Choose whether to pay online or via a Purchase Order.
Customized view of the orders based on the merchant’s preferences within the business user tooling of the Merchant Center.
Many B2B firms run multiple business models from one platform utilizing commercetools and can leverage their analytics provider to harness data holistically. For instance, they can use what they learn from consumers to further power upstream supply chain selling, e.g., B2B2C data, to anticipate customer needs.
With the Audit Log feature, customers can also harness granular data in real-time, de-risking their overall set-up and allowing for faster debugging.
Moreover, the robust, flexible and configurable product modeling capabilities allow B2B firms to manage complex pricing, promotions and add-ons associated with product types.
Another win worth mentioning is the evolution of commercetools’ Marketplaces functionality, which received a bronze medal in enterprise and mid-market evaluations. By enabling digital sales across any channel natively, commercetools enables B2B firms to leverage marketplaces of all kinds in a plug-and-play manner (company-owned, third-party, horizontal or vertical marketplaces). This capability is further enhanced with pre-built integrations to marketplace platforms, such as Mirakl, as well as integration connectors to major channels, including Google Shopping.
Overall, commercetools Composable Commerce for B2B was recognized for various strengths, including its extensive set of APIs, robust capabilities for pricing, promotions and quotes, and a programming language-agnostic solution. The flexibility and extensibility of commercetools’ platform was also acknowledged, with one customer cited in the Paradigm B2B Combine saying that “You can bend it to your needs.”
In a nutshell, commercetools has made significant progress with out-of-the-box product functionalities that further support B2B players to adopt digital commerce faster and deliver outstanding experiences, which is reflected in the results compiled by Paradigm B2B Combine this year.
With the composable approach becoming the new paradigm for B2B businesses to modernize digital commerce for both enterprise and mid-market companies globally, solutions like commercetools Composable Commerce for B2B are primed to serve the ever-evolving and complex needs of B2B organizations in the years to come.
Download the 2023 Paradigm B2B Combine Digital Solutions for B2B for Enterprise and Mid-Market, and discover how commercetools performs in each category.
Manuela Marques Tchoe is a Content Writer at commercetools. She was a Content and Product Marketing Director at conversational commerce provider tyntec. She has written content in partnership with Facebook, Rakuten Viber and other social media platforms.