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Exploring The World of Adobe Commerce: A Beginner’s Guide

  • DATE PUBLISHED (31/0/2023)
  • READ TIME (5MIN)

Adobe Commerce is a licensed version of what was formerly known as ‘Magento Commerce.’ Adobe acquired Magento commerce in 2018 for $1.68 billion. Since then, the Adobe eCommerce platform has combined the best of the Adobe and Magento brands, including a world-class, open-source B2B and B2C eCommerce platform and java-based cms capable of creating personalized digital experiences for customers. And that’s why Adobe’s eCommerce platform is rated among the top in the United States. 

This blog will explore how to use Adobe Commerce to maximize your e-commerce success. From managing your online store to analyzing the costs of Adobe Magento and a closer look at What is Adobe Commerce/Magento, you will get some insightful know-how about getting the most out of this powerful platform.

What is Adobe Commerce (Magento)? 

Magento, acquired by Adobe Commerce, is a platform for building and managing e-commerce websites. It is an Open source eCommerce CMS platform. 

Let's go back in history and look at Magento's journey to become Adobe Commerce.

  • Magento started its journey as an open-source platform in August 2007. In 2009, the paid enterprise version of the product was introduced.

  • eBay purchased the Magento ecommerce platform in 2011, intending to modernize its architecture. As a result, Magento 2 debuted in 2015.

  • In May 2018, Adobe paid $1.68 billion to acquire Magento. That was the start of one of the market's most robust eCommerce platforms' rebranding journey.

  • Magneto's enterprise version was renamed Adobe Commerce. Magento is still an open-source project, and Adobe Commerce is a premium version of Magento.

Brands today have complex commerce needs. They have multiple businesses under the brand umbrella and deliver to various geographies with multiple payment types, languages, currencies, and business audiences (b2c, b2b). 

Adobe commerce, powered by Magento, is unique in its ability to handle this level of complexity within a single platform. As a result, businesses can deploy multi-site configurations and scale to b2b, b2c, and marketplace applications from one place. 

How does Adobe Commerce Work?

Adobe Commerce is a powerful commerce engine. It offers AI and advanced data-sharing capabilities on a unified platform. That means b2c businesses who want to combine b2b or other emerging commerce models can create end-to-end personalized experiences. 

  • It seamlessly integrates into the ERM, CMS, and CRM tech stack. It is flexible, extensible, and scalable.

  • It makes data management effortless because of its cloud-based functionality.

  • Thanks to its headless architecture, you can update all customer-facing data without disrupting the backend logistics.

  • Centralized data, advanced search, and merchandising capabilities help build the right experiences for customers. 

How does the Data Flow in Adobe Commerce (Magento Platform)?

In Adobe Commerce's Enterprise edition, the master database and slave database are two different components of a database architecture that work together to provide a scalable and high-performance platform for managing e-commerce websites.

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The master database is the primary database that stores all of the website's data, including customer information, product catalogs, orders, and other information. In addition, it responds to every read-write request made by the website, such as when users add something to their shopping cart or when a new product is cataloged.

The slave database, on the other hand, is a replica of the master database used to offload some of the read requests from the website. This allows the website to handle more traffic and requests without slowing down, as the slave database can take some of the read requests and free up the master database to focus on more critical tasks.

Overall, the master and slave databases in Adobe Commerce's Enterprise edition work together to handle large amounts of traffic and data without compromising performance.

The community edition of Adobe Commerce, on the other hand, relies only on a single database system. With the help of third-party tools/extensions or customization, it is possible to implement the master-slave database architecture. Still, it will score additional costs (minus technical support from Adobe Commerce).

What are the Adobe Commerce Features?

"What’s in Adobe Commerce that makes it worth buying when I can build a store with the free, open-source version?”

Some of you may be considering an eCommerce platform for a new project. Relying on Adobe Magento commerce open source is a fair idea. But, open source has its limitations. Like b2b commerce, content staging, advanced marketing tools, custom reports, and some extensions like the page builder have minimal capabilities.

If you are fast-growing or working in multiple business models, your store will require more than a dozen customizations and modules to compete. So, let's take a side trip to understand everything Adobe Commerce offers.

Manage Commerce Across Multiple Business Models

Some popular eCommerce platforms cater to either businesses or consumers. Shopify, for example, is primarily a b2c platform with no b2b capabilities for customer pricing or custom catalogs. On the other hand, Salesforce commerce cloud does provide b2b commerce, but only as an additional commerce suite that you must purchase and integrate with your Salesforce.

Adobe offers all business modes on a single commerce system, whether b2b, b2c, d2c or if you want to operate across all of them. 

Your company gains access to all of the tools required in the b2b segment, such as fast ordering, quoting, custom catalogs, and price lists. In addition, the dashboards are interactive and give the whole experience more strength by letting you add new functionalities or alter current ones to suit your business requirements.

Inventory Management

Adobe Commerce is a platform that provides a range of tools and features to help businesses manage their inventory more efficiently. These tools can be used by companies of all sizes, including B2B, B2C, and D2C, to streamline their inventory management processes and improve their overall operations.

Inventory and its management are especially critical if you are a growing business. The requirements for medium to large-scale enterprises are much more than managing hundreds of SKUs. It involves handling massive catalogs, multiple international locations, and many information sources about the warehouses.

One key feature of Adobe Commerce is its ability to integrate with various systems and platforms, such as accounting software and fulfillment providers. This integration allows businesses to manage their inventory across multiple channels and systems from a centralized location, making tracking stock levels, updating prices, and processing orders easier.

Another valuable feature of Adobe Commerce is its support for advanced inventory management techniques, such as forecasting and stock replenishment. It allows businesses to anticipate customer demand better and ensure that they have enough stock to meet that demand without overstocking or running out of stock. In addition, it saves so much manual work and drastically decreases unnecessary errors.

Overall, it’s a comprehensive and user-friendly platform for managing inventory that helps you streamline a focus on improving operations and better-serving customers.

Headless Commerce (PWA Studio)

With Adobe's PWA (Progressive Web App) studio, businesses can create and manage their e-commerce websites and applications without needing a traditional website or app interface.

The website's front end and back end are separated, enabling businesses -

  • Give their customers highly customized and engaging experiences. 

  • Produce unique, branded experiences that reflect their values and personality. It boosts customer engagement and drives more sales.

  • Build multi-channel experiences. Customers can switch between several channels, such as web, mobile, and in-store, without losing their place or having to repeat information, thanks to a back end integrated with the rest of the business's systems and procedures.

In short, if you want your eCommerce business to be mobile-ready, adapting the PWA technology is the best way forward.

Sales & Ad Channels

Adobe's ad and sales channels are a valuable resource for businesses looking to expand their sales and reach new customers. By leveraging these channels, businesses can increase their visibility, improve their marketing and advertising efforts, and maximize their exposure.

  • Amazon Marketplace

Adobe offers an extension that brings a direct bridge between your store and Amazon - the biggest marketplace. Its direct integration into the Adobe commerce store opens an opportunity to sell to over 170 million Amazon customers. The features include full synchronization of products, automatic inventory update, automatic intelligent repricing, and the option to choose Amazon fulfillment.

  • Google Shopping

Adobe eCommerce platform offers integration with Google Shopping. It allows businesses to sell their products on Google and manage their Google Shopping ads (performance tracking, real-time bids, and targeting adjustment) from within the Adobe Commerce admin panel.

Business Intelligence, Reporting & Visualization

Adobe's AI system Adobe Sensei is present across the Adobe platform. For eCommerce, this integration means simplified and seamless operation optimization. For example, businesses can leverage intelligent product recommendations based on trending products in their store and customer preferences. In addition, you will have access to aggregated data representing how each recommendation will impact the business growth.

Adobe's business intelligence feature paints a comprehensive picture of your business's operations. It aggregates data from all sources, including the store and social media, and centralizes it in a single cloud-based warehouse.

With advanced visualization, it's become easier to check up on metrics like AoV, CLV by channel, and popular purchases by returning customers. These reports on metrics that matter most for your decision-making help you make data-informed decisions - like on ad spends.

How Much Does Adobe Commerce Cost?

You can get Adobe Magento eCommerce services in two categories: Open Source and Commerce/Enterprise. 

The commerce edition has features, but you can also run a successful business on open source.

Before you dive headlong into thinking about - why open source is better? Why should I spend on Commerce?  Can I still use open source for production? Let’s first understand what these two categories offer to meet your eCommerce business requirement. Because some customers' criteria are based on revenue, some want to use their eCommerce website as a lead generation tool.

1. Open Source (Formerly called Community) -

Small businesses most prefer it. It is powerful and free to download from the website, but it also means you need development knowledge as it’s not a plug-and-play type. Many businesses use a third-party theme or have an in-house development team to create a theme.

Another important aspect of using open source is security. The Magento platform generally releases around 4 security patches in a year. So, you need a trusted, Magento-certified team to apply those patches.

Suppose you are a business that sells B2B. In that case, you will probably need additional functionalities targeted for B2B customers, like shared catalogs and some pricing features, and it’s not available on open source.

Costing: 

  • Since the open source is free, you don’t have to pay Adobe for hosting. But you must take caution while picking up the hosting solution as your business needs an optimized server to host a feature-rich system that will take a heavy load on the server. The costs can start from $80/month and go up depending on the store size and needs. For example, if you have a million SKUs, your store will have a million visitors, and that kind of traffic needs a large server capacity. 

  • You can implement many features from the commerce edition through third-party extensions. So, the cost of buying those extensions and their integration will become part of the overall budget. You must figure out the right product, platform technology, and Magento hosting partner. 

2. Commerce (Formerly called Enterprise)

Paid enterprise-level solution. It is suitable for large businesses with complex products with variations (large number of SKUs) and requires scalability as a major eCommerce feature.

So, let’s say you are doing a business of around a million dollars online, then having a Commerce solution & SLA to back your business is worth the value. Your business will get a dedicated account manager, the ability to raise tickets and get technical help if there are bugs.

The commerce edition comes with personalization and segmentation baked in.  There are commerce reporting tools that are not available with open source. For example, BI tools provide next-gen reporting to help analyze your business. Then there is a dotmailer bundled in the core of Magento 2 commerce edition. 

Costing: 

Paid hosting follows tiered pricing that depends on the business size. It starts from $20K and goes up. You can get discounts with more extended contracts. The support team gives the final quote after understanding the business requirements. 

Factors Affecting the Costs:

  • Discovery and Solutioning - Identifying a roadmap for an eCommerce system. It includes gathering all the requirements, what you want to build for the store, and what features and functionality you want to use.

  • User Interface Design- Includes designs for desktop, mobile, and other devices.

  • Front-end development

  • Integrations & Backend - It involves ERP systems, Java, CSS, and other systems your eCommerce business needs to interact with.

  • Configuration- Your store needs payment processing, shipping, taxes, transactional emails, and other features to function properly online.

  • Staging - Moving the site from development to testing atmosphere, running the browser and device tests.

Expected costs to cover these stages - $50K to $100K, depending on the project’s complexity.

Maintenances - 

A store with multiple apps and extensions needs an additional budget to maintain and upgrade them regularly. The yearly budget should be 10-15% of the initial development budget. Also, consider upgrading to the latest platform to benefit from the latest security patches.

We have a formula to help with this decision and have prepared a breakdown of all the features and pricing

Summary

The medium- to large-scale eCommerce businesses that 

  • have a complicated product catalog, 

  • want to expand their business and significantly,

  • demand cutting-edge AI-powered services. 

They should adopt the Adobe eCommerce platform. Managing complex business operations on a single platform is simplified by Adobe Commerce's flexibility, multiple third-party integrations, and built-in marketing and analytics capabilities.

Ready to create your online store? Getting started with eCommerce has never been easier. Following this comprehensive guide on What is Adobe Commerce/ Magento, you can start selling online today.

If you need any help, we are here to help start your journey into entrepreneurship. Drop us an email at hello@coderapper.com.

FAQs

Is Adobe Commerce the Same as Shopify?

No, Adobe Commerce and Shopify are two different e-commerce platforms. Adobe Commerce is a powerful and flexible platform that offers a high degree of customization and advanced functionality, while Shopify is a simpler, more user-friendly platform popular among small and medium-sized businesses.

Is Adobe Magento Free?

No, Adobe Magento is not free but a paid e-commerce platform. However, it offers a range of pricing plans, and the cost of using Adobe Magento depends on which edition of the platform you choose and any additional features you may want to add. 

Is Magento a CMS?

Yes, Magento is a content management system (CMS) for e-commerce websites. In addition to its core e-commerce functionality, it offers a range of tools for managing website content, such as creating and managing pages, blog posts, and other types of content.

Does Magento Need Coding?

Yes, Magento does require coding knowledge to access and modify a wide range of features and customization options. Therefore, familiarity with coding languages like PHP and MySQL and front-end technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is essential

Who Uses Magento?

From small startups to large enterprises in different industries, including retail, fashion, electronics, home, and garden, use Magento as a popular e-commerce platform.  Some well-known companies that use Magento include Nike, Lenovo, and HP.

Is Magento Easy to Learn?

The ease of learning Magento will depend on your familiarity with coding and e-commerce concepts and your goals for using the platform. However, Magento provides resources to help users get started. Many 3rd party resources are also available to assist in learning the platform. 

Is Magento Front-end or Back-end?

Magento offers both front-end and back-end functionalities. Front-end refers to designing and customizing an online store, while the back-end includes managing products, processing orders, and handling customer interactions. Front-end functionalities can be managed through templates and themes, while back-end functionalities require more technical expertise.