The ever-evolving needs of customers have led to the rapid growth of e-commerce websites, which, in turn, prompted various software companies to develop digital and cloud-based e-commerce platforms, like Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Magento. If you’re planning to start an e-commerce site or are looking to implement a new e-commerce system for your existing business, you’ll find all the answers you need right here. We explore these two e-commerce platforms to find out which one is best suited to enhancing the digital side of your business.
Let’s Start with the Basics
One of the first things users look into is pricing. Magento starts at $2,000, and provides monthly and quote-based pricing. Salesforce is quote-based, due to the fact that you (as the user) have full control over which features and functionalities will be included, based on your current business requirements. This allows you to build a highly customised platform that is entirely based on your business needs, so you’re practically building it from the ground up. Thus, you only pay for the things that you truly need at the moment, making it an excellent investment for your business.
Bells, Whistles, and All That Jazz
Putting Salesforce and Magento side-by-side, you’ll find similar features and functionalities, like supported languages, device compatibility, and app integrations. In all three of these areas, it’s safe to say that Salesforce is more adaptable, as it offers more options compared to other competing platforms.
Salesforce can be used in 7 different languages: English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and Swedish. This alone allows for a wider market reach for any business. So if you are planning to bring your business to any of these countries, Salesforce would be an excellent choice, as you can easily tweak your website to serve multiple countries and locales. This will create more opportunities for your business today and more so, in the future.
When it comes to device and software compatibility, the platform works in Windows, Mac, Android, as well as with Linux – one feature that isn’t commonly available on other similar platforms. It’s also compatible with desktop and all types of mobile devices, making your e-commerce site accessible across all digital channels.
Both Salesforce and Magento have a huge library of business and social apps for integration, and Salesforce offers its ready-to-go native apps and 3rd party systems through its AppExchange. App integration is an important feature for any business software, because it allows you to consolidate all the software tools you need in a single location. No more toggling between screens or needing to memorise multiple login credentials.
Cloud Technology
Both of these e-commerce platforms utilise cloud technology for data handling. And while Magento is mainly an e-commerce tool, Salesforce, which started out exclusively as a CRM, has come a long way and has developed business technologies that blend data storage and cloud computing services to meet the ever changing demands of the market and needs of the customers. Today, Salesforce includes useful products like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Analytics Cloud. All these digital functionalities allow your business to maximise mobility and analyse customer behaviour, so you can create business strategies and processes to adequately support the digital side of your business.
e-Commerce Site Management Capabilities
Both Salesforce and Magento allow you to manage your content and operations, including SEO. The latter allows modification by working on the script, but it requires a specific skill set, specifically, programming expertise to do the backend work as needed. It is a process that Salesforce has made easy by making the software compatible with widely used operating systems, including Linux, and with every imaginable device being used today, giving your business a wider reach. The software can automatically analyse customer behaviour, including historical transactions, resulting in a more accurate approach to managing your site content and creating a more personalised online shopping experience for your customers. It allows you to organise shopping content in a way that appeals to your customers, and to create a store interface that is easy to use and guides your customers throughout their shopping journey.
Online and Physical Store Management
If you’re running a physical store and an e-commerce site at the same time, using a business platform that allows real-time consolidation of information from both ends is crucial, in order to effectively manage both sides of the business. The biggest advantage of Salesforce is that it comes on a SaaS platform, which is fundamental in cloud computing solutions. SaaS platforms allow a business to have constant, real-time access to information from both the online and physical stores, and makes managing sales and fulfilment from both sides of the business a seamless process. This makes it a more effective cloud solution than a PaaS platform, which is a hosted version of an on-premises platform, like Magento’s current cloud solution. It’s safe to say that Salesforce takes the lead on this one.
The Bottom Line
Considering the points mentioned above, your business can truly benefit from the features and functionalities that you can find in Salesforce Commerce Cloud. It’s designed with users and customers in mind, which makes it the CRM that it is today: the strongest, and most proven cloud-based platform on the market. At the enterprise-level, it also has stronger native capabilities in comparison to other options like Magento.
If you would rather not concern yourself with the nuts and bolts of managing your own e-commerce infrastructure, Salesforce Commerce Cloud is most likely the better platform for you. Salesforce has made it easy for you to build a robust system to effectively manage the digital side of your business. Its ready-to-use system tools let you personally design an easy-to-navigate website, packed with relevant content that enhances your customers’ online shopping experience from start to finish.
By combining website development tools and digital business technology, Salesforce allows you to take care of your business and your customers simultaneously.
To learn more about Magento and Salesforce, head over here to see a list of each platform’s features, side-by-side.
Further Reading
- Compare Magento vs Salesforce Commerce Cloud
- Optimizing Your Ecommerce Website Design to Boost Conversions
- 6 Differences Between On-Premises and SaaS Software
- 12 Benefits of Cloud Computing
- Magento Commerce vs Salesforce Commerce Cloud (Demandware) – Platform Comparison
- Elementary Digital: Magento vs. Salesforce
- Is Magento the Best CMS for Your Small Business?
- 4 Reasons: Why Cloud Computing in E-Commerce is Important?
