commercetools was recognized as a Leader for the fourth consecutive year in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ report based on its completeness of vision and ability to execute. Here, we explain our understanding of the report and highlight how we are driving global commerce success for our customers.
Gartner released its Magic Quadrant for E-Commerce for the first time in 2008, at a time when eCommerce was still in its infancy. A Magic Quadrant provides a graphical competitive positioning of four types of technology providers in markets where growth is high and provider differentiation is distinct: Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries and Niche Players. By applying a graphical treatment and a uniform set of evaluation criteria, a Magic Quadrant helps readers quickly ascertain how well technology providers are executing their stated visions and how well they are performing against Gartner’s market view.
As digital commerce continues to increase in popularity and new technologies, and channels and shopping trends are constantly emerging, we believe resources such as the Magic Quadrant have become even more valuable to business leaders. As the pandemic proved, making the right technology decisions for your organization can be the difference between survival and failure in times of uncertainty and change.
Today, it’s become evident that organizations with modern, flexible commerce solutions in place are better equipped to adapt to unexpected market shifts and evolve to meet new challenges. In fact, many commercetools customers, including Harry Rosen, Mission Linen Supply and Pret A Manger were unprepared for the pandemic but were able to thrive by migrating to our composable commerce solution.
Even though the pandemic is behind us (thankfully), having a robust digital commerce solution in place is still incredibly crucial for driving business growth. After all, the opportunity is just too big to ignore considering that The Forbes Advisor has predicted that 20.8% of total retail purchases will happen online in 2023 and that by the year’s end, global e-commerce market sales will top $6 trillion USD.
For us, being recognized as a Leader in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce report reinforces our unwavering belief that composable commerce will drive the future of digital commerce. With its cloud-native, component-based, tech-agnostic architecture, composable systems are able to give organizations the flexibility and agility to deliver the unified experiences customers expect today. And, in its report, Gartner predicts that by 2025, organizations that offer a unified commerce experience by frictionlessly moving customers through journeys will see at least a 20% uplift in total revenue.
Since launching the company in 2012, commercetools’ founders Dirk Hoerig and Denis Werner have been proponents of the principles of composability. Our first product, a headless backend commerce engine, was designed as a component-based, cloud-native, technology-agnostic solution that provided an open, composable environment that allowed IT teams to create unique features and experiences. At the time, business leaders were so used to the restrictive nature of monolithic, legacy platforms, it was hard to convince them that there was a viable alternative.
It’s incredibly gratifying to see how much commerce has evolved since then. While for many, composable commerce is still uncharted territory, we, along with the partners in our vast ecosystem, are dedicated to helping brands across the globe navigate the journey. We already have a strong presence in Europe and North America, and a growing customer base in Latin America and Asia/Pacific regions, and in May of this year, we launched operations in China.
commercetools Composable Commerce for China enables enterprise brands to confidently tap into the spending power of the Chinese consumer. It delivers all of the benefits of a composable solution plus the availability, security and performance commercetools has become known for. This is combined with custom features designed specifically to meet the unique requirements of the Chinese market.
Expanding into China is only one of the ways we’re supporting the digital growth of our customers. We also launched commercetools Checkout this year to provide our composable commerce customers with an easy-to-implement checkout capability. It enables you to insert checkout at any point in the customer journey, elevating the shopping experience and driving more conversions. For example, you can add QR codes in unexpected physical locations — such as on a product package or on the back of a stadium seat to incent purchases — a trend that’s incredibly popular in China.
2023 marks the fourth consecutive year we’ve been named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, however, we’re not resting on recognition. We know commerce isn’t going to stop evolving, and so we’ll continue to innovate to ensure your business can confidently thrive in the future, no matter what comes next.
To learn more about commercetools position as a Leader, download your complimentary copy of the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant report today.
Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce, 21 August 2023, Mike Lowndes, Yanna Dharmasthira, et. Al.
Learn more about the Gartner Magic Quadrant methodologies and how to use the research.
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.