Here is a heavyweight battle among the eCommerce world that would make a rumble in the jungle: Wordpress, with its plugin of WooCommerce, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud. The former powers 35% of the internet’s websites, while the latter is a highly functional and scalable eCommerce platform.
To figure out which platform is suited to which type of business, let’s dig deeper into each of them, and weigh up their strengths and limitations.
Most of us have come into contact with Wordpress while on our adventures across the internet. Whether you’ve set up your website, have been reading blogs, or have shopped online, the chances are that you’ve stumbled across Wordpress sites with the WooCommerce plugin, which is the only serious eCommerce platform worth considering for Wordpress — considering that it was Wordpress itself that built WooCommerce.
Wordpress with WooCommerce
One of the first significant benefits of Wordpress, especially when compared with Salesforce Commerce Cloud, is that it’s free to use — Wordpress as well as its plugin WooCommerce; This enables incredible ease of access for anyone who wants to set up shop online.
And this free ride extends down into the design of the platform; there are quite literally thousands of themes and designs that you have free access to customize your site. However, there is a large selection that does cost money, but there’s a wide array to choose from without spending a penny.
Another benefit of Wordpress relates to its huge slice of the internet’s website market. Considering it powers just over one-third of the internet, there is a whole universe built around it and continues to specialize in it, i.e. armies of software developers, endless plugins. By now, it’s undoubtedly cemented into the foundations of the internet, and its huge slice of pie is certainly tasty for current and future developers.
A third strength of Wordpress is that it gives you absolute control. If you feel like exporting your entire site so you can chop and change almost anything without doing damage to your original live site, you can do that. Or less dramatically, if you want to use the .htaccess to configure a specific rule of your own choosing, then that’s possible.
A final benefit is its content management system, which is incredibly popular with its users because it seamlessly integrates your content to your site. This is especially true since its unveiling of its Gutenberg editor, which makes it easier to utilize shortcode and HTML, simplifying the process.
Now it’s time to consider the not-so-great aspects of Wordpress with WooCommerce, beginning with its small space for scalability. If your site earns a larger following, then the userbase also grows, which makes it more challenging to handle, and slows down the speed of your site — which is a big killer for scaling.
This is the logical conclusion that stems from its biggest weakness, which is that, fundamentally, Wordpress was not built to be an eCommerce platform, but a blogging platform. It is very much centered around content, and no matter what it builds for eCommerce purposes, it simply can’t compete with the big boys and girls that were born into this world to handle complex creation and heavy online traffic. And one of these big kids is Salesforce Commerce Cloud.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud
As its name implies, Salesforce Commerce Cloud is hosted on the cloud and not by you, so that issues around limited space for scaling simply disappear — at least fade into the background.
Another benefit of SF Commerce Cloud is that its marketing features are all built-in and are unrivaled by other platforms. Its powerful features mean that you’re able to make any sale on any product for any specific customer base under almost any conditions. For example, you can create a promotion for only people who live in Kansas City to see 25% discounts on all products that happen to be blue and white. But this promotion is only available from 6 am to 12 pm and to customers that have already spent more than $100 on your site. That scenario is incredibly specific and incredibly possible with SF Commerce Cloud, and incredibly difficult or impossible with other platforms.
Another powerful strength is its in-built testing capabilities, particularly A/B testing. Inside of the platform is a staging environment, the playground for testing, given that any changes here don’t go live on the original site. Being able to test out different experiences is a core element for growth, and SF Commerce Cloud delivers excellent testing capabilities.
In terms of limitations, the cost of the platform creates a fort around its usability, which only provides access to companies that are either large enough to afford it or ambitious enough who are projecting big growth.
So Which Platform Suits Your Business?
If you are a keen user and deep fan of the simplicity of Wordpress with WooCommerce, and you have a content-first approach, then you’re likely to squeeze all of the benefits from the platform. Also, if your company is small and intends to remain the same size, for example if you’re niche, then Wordpress is also a great platform. Lastly, if you desire total control over the mechanisms of your site, and hate the idea of its day-to-day running being in the hands of “outsiders” then Wordpress provides you exactly that — full control.
Alternatively, if you’re a large company that wants a rich environment to continually build and improve its site, and also receives a lot of traffic, then Salesforce Commerce Cloud gives you that capability. Also, if you’re a smaller company that expects or is projecting growth, then the platform is ideal for scale. Finally, if you can’t stand the constant issues and small problems of hosting and maintaining your own site, and want to put it into the hands of others while you concentrate on more important things, then Salesforce Commerce Cloud is your go-to eCommerce platform.
laptop eCommerce concept -DepositPhotos
