Is Adobe Commerce the Right Choice for Your Business? Our Honest Review Reveals All!

Welcome to our Adobe Commerce Review! As a leading eCommerce platform, Adobe Commerce has garnered considerable attention in the industry. In this review, we'll take a deep dive into the features and functionality of Adobe Commerce, as well as the pros and cons of using it for your eCommerce business. We'll also provide expert tips and best practices to help you get the most out of the platform.

Whether you're a seasoned eCommerce veteran or new to the game, this review has something for you. So, let's dive in and explore all Adobe Commerce offers!

What Is Adobe Commerce (powered by Magento)?

Magento is an open-source eCommerce platform that annually processes over $100 billion in gross merchandise volume. It offers a range of features and customization options, including a headless architecture and third-party integrations. 

There are two versions of Magento: the free Open-Source version and the paid Commerce version (called Adobe Commerce), which includes additional features like B2B functionality, BI dashboards, marketing tools, and customer loyalty tools.

Adobe Commerce can be hosted on-premises or through Commerce Cloud, Adobe's cloud-hosted solution. 

• On-premises hosting means the platform is hosted and developed locally on the user's server or a third-party Magento host. 

• On the other hand, Adobe Commerce Cloud is a cloud-hosted solution offered by Adobe. This means the platform is hosted on Adobe's servers and accessed through the internet rather than being installed and run on the user's server.

What is Adobe Commerce Cloud?

Adobe Commerce Cloud is a cloud-based platform combining Magento Commerce's power with Adobe Experience Manager. It offers a range of tools for managing, personalizing, and enhancing e-commerce experiences and is suitable for businesses in various industries. The platform is built on the open-source Magento platform and includes both a free version (Magento Open Source) and managed enterprise versions (Adobe Commerce).

Although it offers a wide range of features to support eCommerce businesses, there are still a few challenges that eCommerce businesses may encounter:

• Using an outdated platform that drives away visitors.

• Having a website that is not mobile-friendly.

• Lack of development expertise within the internal team

As customer expectations continue to rise, eCommerce platforms must address these challenges and provide a seamless shopping experience to maximize success. This review will look closely at how well Adobe Commerce addresses these issues.

Ease of Use: A Key Factor in Choosing the Right eCommerce Platform

As a growing business owner, you know that streamlining your eCommerce operations is key to success. But with so many different tasks and responsibilities to juggle, it can be overwhelming to keep everything running smoothly. That's where a reliable eCommerce platform comes in.

A valuable eCommerce platform helps you prioritize every customer experience detail. Credit: AdobeCommerce

It's like having a virtual assistant working behind the scenes to handle all the little details, from displaying products and managing inventory to processing payments and handling shipping. With the right platform, you can focus on growing your business rather than getting bogged down in the details. 

Adobe Commerce could be worth considering for developers who value a platform with a proven track record. It has everything you need to keep your eCommerce operations running smoothly -

• Easily extendable APIs and modules to add new functionality to the platform.

• Robust security measures to protect online stores from potential threats.

• A platform optimized for fast performance, ensuring a smooth user experience for customers.

• It must be scalable and handle high traffic and large amounts of data. Therefore, I am making it suitable for growing businesses.

• Easy to integrate with other systems and platforms, such as CRM and ERP systems.

• And the headless architecture, of course. It allows developers to build and deploy the front-end of a website or application using any technology they choose, making it easier to create custom experiences and integrate with other systems.

Our Review: Regarding multichannel commerce experiences, Adobe Commerce stands out.

Built on the foundation of the well-known Magento platform, Adobe Commerce takes things to the next level by integrating with Adobe Experience Manager. This allows for creating truly exceptional digital experiences, all managed through a single backend.

One of the standout features of Adobe Commerce is its headless architecture, which decouples the front and back ends, allowing for independent development and flexibility across all front-end layers. This, combined with over 500 Rest and GraphQL operations, creates rich and connected commerce experiences accessible everywhere.

But Adobe Commerce doesn't just stop at eCommerce. It is also a key part of the Adobe Experience Cloud, a suite of marketing technologies (read further in our review) that work together to power seamless and differentiating digital experiences. With everything tied together and based on unified data, Adobe Commerce is a leading choice for B2B and B2C, as recognized by Gartner and Forrester.

Adobe Commerce’s Marketing Features

People often confuse Adobe Commerce and Adobe Marketing Cloud with questions like: "Are they the same platform?", "Does Adobe Commerce offer no marketing features?" and "Do I need to subscribe to Adobe Marketing Cloud to use Adobe Commerce?" 

To Clarify: Adobe Commerce is focused on the transactional aspect of e-commerce. Whereas Adobe Marketing Cloud is a suite of digital marketing tools helping businesses attract, engage, and retain customers through marketing campaigns and analysis.

Does the Adobe Commerce Platform Include any Marketing Features for Businesses?

Adobe Commerce offers some marketing features to businesses, although these are less comprehensive than those in Adobe Marketing Cloud. 

It includes tools for email marketing, such as abandoned cart recovery emails and newsletters. It also includes tools for managing and displaying product recommendations and cross-selling to customers. Other marketing-related features in Adobe Commerce include:

• Coupons & Discounts: Tools for creating and managing coupons and discounts to encourage customer loyalty and increase sales.

• Customer Segmentation: Businesses can create segments of customers based on various criteria, such as location, purchase history, and more. This can be useful for targeting marketing campaigns & personalizing the shopping experience.

• Customer Reviews and Ratings: Adobe Commerce includes features for collecting and displaying customer reviews and ratings, which can help increase trust and credibility with potential customers.

Do Businesses Need to Pay Extra for Marketing Cloud if They Already Use Adobe Commerce?

Yes, Adobe Marketing Cloud is a separate product from Adobe Commerce and requires an individual subscription. Businesses using Adobe Commerce can also subscribe to Adobe Marketing Cloud to access its full suite of digital marketing tools. It is optional to have a subscription to Adobe Marketing Cloud to use Adobe Commerce. Still, the two products can be used together to create a more comprehensive e-commerce and digital marketing solution.

Our Review: Adobe Marketing Cloud for eCommerce Businesses

Adobe Marketing Cloud is an ideal digital marketing solution for eCommerce businesses, with powerful and comprehensive features. Here are 5 highly beneficial features:

1. Marketing Automation: Adobe Marketing Cloud includes tools for automating marketing campaigns and activities, such as abandoned cart emails, personalized email campaigns, and more. This can help eCommerce businesses save time and increase efficiency.

2. Email Marketing: It includes various email marketing tools, including templates, segmentation, and automation features. This can help eCommerce businesses build relationships with customers and drive sales.

3. Analytics and Reporting: Advanced analytics and reporting tools help eCommerce businesses track the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns and make data-driven decisions.

4. Personalization: Businesses can personalize their customer experience through dynamic content and targeted recommendations. This can improve customer engagement and conversions.

5. Advertising: Adobe Marketing Cloud includes tools to help eCommerce businesses reach new customers and drive sales. The platform can manage and optimize advertising campaigns across various channels, including search, social media, and display. 

Is Adobe Commerce SEO-friendly?

Adobe Commerce is designed with SEO in mind, featuring built-in features, integrations with third-party SEO tools, and a strong developer community. These resources can help improve your eCommerce website's search engine visibility and ranking while providing valuable data and insights for optimizing your website's SEO.

Built-in SEO Features:

• Customize URLs for products and pages to improve search engine visibility.

• Use meta tags to provide information about webpages to search engines and improve ranking.

• Generate and submit sitemaps to help search engines discover and index pages more efficiently.

Popular SEO Integrations:

• Integrate with Google Analytics to track website traffic and analyze user behavior for SEO opportunities.

• Integrate with Google Search Console to monitor and maintain website presence in search results.

Popular third-party tools to track website traffic, analyze competitors, and conduct keyword research are Ahrefs, SEMrush, and MOZ.

Reporting Tools on the Adobe Commerce Platform

Running an eCommerce business involves tracking many complex data points, and knowing where to focus your attention can be challenging. Adobe Commerce's full-featured reporting and visualization function help you get a handle on all the important metrics and information related to your business.

You can create multiple dashboards, generate various reports, export data in multiple formats, control access permissions, and automate the sharing of insights by scheduling reports to be delivered directly to any email inbox.

These tools make it easier to stay on top of the data that matters for your business and make informed decisions.

Our Review: Features that Make Adobe Commerce Reporting Work

• Adobe Commerce's reporting tools include unlimited dashboards you can build, save, and share as needed.

• Organize dashboards into categories to help your team focus on the most important metrics.

• Easy exporting options include extracting data as a CSV or XLSX file and downloading charts as a PDF, PNG, or SVG.

• Set different permission levels to ensure privacy and control access for team members.

• Use the intuitive report builder to turn data into visualizations or tables, create formulas, and filter and organize data.

• The advanced SQL report builder lets you query your entire data warehouse and create custom reports.

• Email report scheduling lets you stay informed automatically and schedule reports for colleagues.

Integration with Adobe Commerce

Adobe Commerce offers a range of tools and resources that make it easy for businesses to connect their systems and processes with the platform. Some of the key features of this integration support include:

• A flexible architecture that supports a variety of integration approaches and protocols.

• A set of APIs and integrations that enable businesses to connect their systems and processes with Adobe Commerce.

• The ability to create custom integrations using the Adobe I/O platform and Adobe's integration partners.

• Tools and resources to help businesses plan, build and manage their integrations, including the Integration Playbook and Adobe Partner Connect.

• Support for integrations with third-party systems and services, including CRM, ERP, and CMS systems.

• Integration with the Adobe Experience Platform allows businesses to bring customer data from Adobe Commerce and other sources to create a holistic view of the customer journey.

Our Review: Adobe Commerce excels in integration with a flexible architecture, comprehensive APIs and integrations, and valuable tools and resources. It also offers strong support for integrations with third-party systems, making it a popular choice among developers for their clients. You can read more about integration possibilities with Adobe Commerce here.

Apps/Plugins for Adobe Commerce Stores

Merchants with eCommerce stores on Adobe Commerce can use plugins and add-ons to expand the capabilities of their stores and add new features. These can be downloaded from Adobe Marketplace or third-party developers and installed on the merchant's store to provide additional functionality and improve the user experience. 

Some examples of plugins and add-ons that merchants can use include payment gateways, shipping and fulfillment solutions, marketing tools, and customer service solutions. To use plugins and add-ons are typically installed on the stores through the Adobe Commerce administration panel and then configured to meet their specific needs.

Pros & Cons of Adobe Commerce 

Pros:

• Robust set of features and tools for building and managing eCommerce stores.

• Strong support for customization and extension through APIs and integrations.

• Integration with the Adobe Experience Platform allows for a holistic view of customer data and journey.

• Strong developer community and support resources.

• Provides a seamless omnichannel experience for customers.

Cons:

• It can be expensive, especially for businesses with high transaction volumes.

• The complexity of the platform may require merchants to invest in specialized development resources.

• Some features and integrations may require additional fees or subscription costs.

Adobe Magento eCommerce Review: Top-rated Features According to Users  

Here are some of the features that users of Adobe Commerce rated 5 stars on G2, TrustRadius, and Capterra:

• Advanced Personalization: 

Its advanced personalization capabilities have been highly rated. They allow businesses to create personalized customer experiences based on their browsing and buying history.

• Integrated Marketing: 

Its integration with Adobe Marketing Cloud has been highly rated, allowing businesses to create targeted marketing campaigns and analyze customer data across multiple channels.

• Advanced Analytics: 

Its detailed analytics and reporting tools have been highly rated, allowing businesses to track key performance indicators and make informed decisions about their e-commerce strategy.

Adobe eCommerce Pricing Guide

Adobe categorizes the commerce services into Adobe Commerce Pro and Managed Services.

Adobe Commerce Pro is a subscription-based e-commerce platform with advanced features and support for businesses looking to sell their products online. It is available in three pricing tiers: Standard, Premium, and Ultimate.

Managed Services is a custom solution to help businesses optimize their e-commerce operations and achieve their goals. It includes personalized support, consulting services, and integration with other Adobe solutions. In addition, the pricing for Managed Services is customized based on the business's specific needs.

Here is an updated table that reflects the current pricing structure for Adobe Commerce:

According to Adobe Commerce reviews and ratings, the platform offers a range of pricing options for e-commerce businesses, including a free plan with basic features and three paid plans with advanced features and increasing levels of support and customization.

In addition, its integration with Adobe Marketing Cloud and support for multiple sales channels make it a strong choice for businesses looking to grow their online sales.

FAQs

Is Adobe Commerce the Same as Magento?

Adobe Commerce and Magento are related but not the same product. Adobe Commerce is a cloud-based e-commerce platform developed by Adobe, while Magento is an open-source e-commerce platform that Adobe acquired in 2018. Adobe Commerce is built on the Magento Open-Source technology and includes additional features and support.

Is it Worth Getting into Adobe Commerce?

Whether or not it is worth it for a business will depend on its specific needs and budget. Adobe Commerce is a cloud-based e-commerce platform with a range of pricing options, including a free plan, a Standard plan starting at $2,000/month, a Premium plan starting at $40,000/year, and a custom Ultimate plan. It offers advanced e-commerce & marketing features, personalized support, and integration with Adobe Marketing Cloud. 

Can Adobe Commerce be Trusted?

Adobe is a well-established and trusted company with a long history of offering high-quality products and services. Adobe Commerce, a product from Adobe, can be considered a reliable and trustworthy platform used by many businesses worldwide and has received positive reviews for its features and support.

What are the Disadvantages of Using Adobe Commerce?

Adobe Commerce is a commercial platform that may only be suitable for some budgets and requires a learning curve. In addition, it integrates with other Adobe products and is cloud-based, which may be a disadvantage for businesses with specific hosting needs. Therefore, businesses should consider these potential disadvantages carefully when evaluating whether Adobe Commerce is the right platform.

Is Adobe Commerce Worth it for a Small Business?

Adobe Commerce's integration with Adobe Marketing Cloud and support for multiple sales channels can help small businesses grow their online sales. It offers a range of pricing options, including a free plan with basic features and three paid plans with advanced features and increasing levels of support and customization.

Small businesses should evaluate whether the features and pricing of Adobe Commerce align with their goals. Read the blog above to know more about Adobe Commerce Review.