What is cloud-native commerce?

Build faster and scale further with cloud-native commerce

With its pioneering API-first, microservices-led and cloud-native approach, commercetools gives enterprises the building blocks to deliver unique, seamless experiences across every touchpoint.

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What is cloud-native?

Being cloud-native means building and running software that's flexible, scalable and resilient — designed for the cloud from the ground up, not simply moved onto a cloud server. commercetools is built as a truly multi-tenant, cloud-native platform, so you get automatic scaling, resilience and continuous updates without managing any infrastructure.

The benefits of cloud-native

Cloud-native architecture gives enterprises the scalability, resilience and efficiency to deliver great customer experiences across any channel.

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Scalability and power

Cloud-native architecture gives you far more computing resources than a traditional hosted solution — from automatic scaling to global reach — so you can continually deliver great customer experiences.

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Always up-to-date and secure

Cloud infrastructure is constantly kept up to date — not just performance and features but security too. Providers undergo ongoing certifications and audits, giving you peace of mind without lifting a finger.

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Better, faster applications

The cloud lets you build better and faster applications, with a huge range of provider technologies to enhance every key area. Cloud-native commerce is what lets you take full advantage of them.

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Lower total cost of ownership

You only pay for the cloud resources you actually consume, so costs scale with demand instead of sitting in idle infrastructure — lowering your total cost of ownership.

Cloud-native is the foundation for resilient commerce

Cloud-native architecture provides the scalable, resilient foundation needed to run commerce across every channel and workload.

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API-first connectivity

Connect commerce capabilities across systems, channels and AI agents through flexible APIs that enable real-time interactions and actions.

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Real-time data access

Give AI the contextual data it needs to understand customers, products, inventory and business rules to make smarter decisions.

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Flexible experience orchestration

Deliver adaptive experiences across web, mobile, IoT and emerging AI channels while maintaining control over the customer journey.

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Continuous innovation at scale

Evolve your commerce capabilities as new technologies emerge without disrupting existing experiences or core systems.

How to build on cloud-native commerce

Build the right solution for your business by combining modular commerce capabilities.

B2C Commerce

Deliver seamless B2C journeys across digital and physical channels with connected product, pricing, inventory and customer data.

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B2B Commerce

Assemble complex B2B commerce flows using modular building blocks for account hierarchies, contract pricing, approvals and self-service purchasing.

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AgenticLift

Add a modular layer for agentic commerce on top of your existing stack. Enable AI-powered shopping experiences by connecting autonomous agents to your commerce capabilities.

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WHY COMMERCETOOLS 

Leading enterprises building on commercetools

The brands, retailers and B2B organizations leveraging commercetools.

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Cimpress

The leader of mass customization of bespoke prints launched 2 large projects in 5 weeks, thanks to headless commerce.

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Customer story header leebmann24

Leebmann24

The automotive eCommerce retailer increased basket size by 22% while simplifying developer experiences.  

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Adelco customer story header image

Flügger

The manufacturer and distributor of paints increased conversion rates by 500% after rebuilding eCommerce in only 3 months.

Read Story
Resources

Explore cloud-native commerce insights

Explore resources, best practices and expert perspectives on building flexible commerce experiences.

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Blogpost from invisible to buyable stages of AI readiness commerce
Blog

From on-prem to cloud-native SaaS: A better way to scale your business

A plain-English look at cloud-native SaaS — how it scales automatically, absorbs traffic peaks, and lowers total cost of ownership.

Blogpost autonomous commerce
Blog

How to get started with cloud-native architecture for commercetools

How commercetools runs across multiple regions and availability zones to keep commerce scalable, resilient, and always on.

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Whitepaper

Migrating Your Commerce Platform to the Cloud

A practical guide to moving off on-prem to cloud-native infrastructure — migration strategies, performance, and security, with commercetools and Google Cloud.

Frequently asked questions

Learn more about how cloud-native commerce works and what it means for enterprises.

What is cloud-native?

Cloud-native describes software built specifically to run in the cloud — architected from the start for automatic scaling, resilience and continuous updates, rather than simply moving existing apps onto a cloud server.

What's the difference between cloud-native and cloud-hosted?

Cloud-hosted ("lift and shift") means running traditional software on cloud servers. Cloud-native means the software is designed for the cloud — using elastic scaling, multi-tenancy and managed infrastructure for full scalability, resilience and lower cost.

How does cloud-native benefit enterprise commerce?

Elastic scaling for traffic spikes, high availability during peak demand, automatic security and performance updates, and pay-for-what-you-use economics that lower total cost of ownership.

Is commercetools cloud-native?

Yes. commercetools was built cloud-native from the start as a multi-tenant platform on AWS and Google Cloud across certified data centers in Europe, the US and APAC — with no infrastructure to manage.

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