Moving from Adobe Commerce B2B - is Shopify a good fit?

A move to Shopify B2B can be a good choice in specific B2B scenarios. Shopify has traditionally been strong in B2C, but the Shopify Plus offering has evolved to support many B2B use cases—particularly for companies looking for simplicity, speed, and scalability.
Below you'll find the main points we recommend you use for your evaluation.

 

Read on to get our perspective on when Shopify is a good choice in B2B Commerce.

 

 

 

Simplicity and Speed over Heavy Customization

 

Shopify is hard to beat in the category "Quick setup and time-to-market". It's a fully hosted SaaS solution and comes with low maintenance and easy interface for admins. 

 

Shopify is strong if you don't have a technical team to manage and run your shop, and you don't have a strong dependency on developers and other technical staff. 

 

B2B Needs Are Mid-Level in Complexity

 

To see if Shopify fits your needs, you need a deep dive to identify your actual needs. Do you need custom ERP Workflows, Advanced Quoting or maybe complex approval chains? 

What you do get and/or can do with Shopify are things like:

• Customer-specific pricing and product visibility
• Net payment terms
• Purchase orders and draft orders
• Self-serve portals
• B2B-only storefronts or hybrid B2B+B2C

 

The above are just a few examples, and there's much more flexibility in Shopify than what is the general perception. Especially through the various apps that are available, or custom apps that can be built to create a desired feature, that is not available out of the box. 

 

Standardized or Low-Configuration Products

 

You will get the most value from Shopify B2B if your products are straightforward, and the orders don’t require complex configuration or bundling.

If you have a complex inventory and pricing logic, or rely on complex CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) calculations, you will have to evaluate further to see if would work out for you. 

Multi-Channel or D2C+B2B Model

 

Shopify is strong when you work in the unified commerce space. Things like B2B and D2C storefronts, centralized admin and reporting and Omnichannel capabilities are strong Shopify points. Note that Shopify also has a POS offering, making it a strong player if you have physical stores along with your webshop. If you want consolidate your digital sales into a single platform with consistent branding and operations, Shopify has some pretty strong points. 

A Modern, Cloud-Native Tech Stack

 

Shopify’s API has a very large ecosystem and app marketplace. Through the years Shopify has been in the market, there are a lot of pre-built integrations for to search engines, ERP systems, CRMs, email and marketing platforms etc. 

You have the flexibility to run your own storefront if you prefer that, but utilizing the full hosted infrastructure by Shopify should count towards why you consider Shopify in the first place. 
 

Cost Predictability and Lower TCO Are Priorities

 

With Shopify it is easy to predict your cost. You have a base subscription plus some transaction fees, that are simple to calculate.

You do not have to think about hosting or upgrade costs, and absolutely fewer ongoing devops costs compared to Adobe.

 

Maybe Yes? Maybe Not? Need an evaluation?

 

There are obviously a lot of factors that come into play when evaluating a future platform. 

We hope that the above has given some guidelines and inspiration, but surely there are other factors, beyond just the technology, that must be considered. 

If you don't really want to pay the cost that follows the amount of transactions, there are also other options to consider. 

We find it important to look at the full picture of your business operations when choosing a platform. There are people that have to use the platform, and it has to support and make your business grow, and not hold you back. If you don't have a technical team in-house, or a trusted technical partner, Shopify is a strong contender.  

 

  

Reach out! Let us help you to see if Shopify is the right choice or not - we know a thing or two about ecommerce platforms and technology.