Why Enterprise Brands Are Migrating From Adobe Commerce to Shopify Plus

The ecommerce landscape is evolving. Technology is advancing. Consumer expectations are maturing.

As such, many mid-market and enterprise brands who once relied on Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento Enterprise) are now re-evaluating their tech stacks.

Their focus? Choosing a scalable, cost-effective, future-proof solution that can reliably deliver exceptional customer experiences whilst powering business growth.

Shopify Plus is a compelling alternative to Adobe Commerce, offering enterprise-grade capabilities without the cost or burden of complex development and store maintenance. In many instances, it is a faster, more powerful solution, which puts control back into the hands of ecommerce teams.

Many brands, including the likes of Gymshark, Culture Kings, The New York Times, and Spanx, have already made the transition from Adobe Commerce to Shopify. This is a trend that we are seeing accelerate rapidly.

In this article, we explore the key push and pull factors influencing enterprise migrations from Adobe Commerce to Shopify Plus.

Push factors: The core challenges of Adobe Commerce for enterprise brands

Our conversations with Adobe Commerce retailers typically reveal a number of common challenges, ranging from increased complexity and costs to lack of reliability and scalability. Let’s explore these frustrations in more detail.

Development & maintenance complexities

Whilst the open-source nature of Adobe Commerce enables users to make unlimited customisations, this requires advanced knowledge of the platform’s complex architecture. Even minor maintenance tasks can be challenging for non-developers to complete themselves.

As such, many brands choose to hire experienced Magento developers to handle updates and custom features – the cost of which can quickly add up.

Having to rely on developers to make changes can also delay the implementation of new functionality, making it difficult to remain agile and stay ahead of market trends. For enterprise brands, having the ability to launch new stores, test different markets and roll out changes quickly is crucial.

Peak period unreliability

Adobe Commerce is a self-hosted platform requiring an on-premise setup. Users must upgrade their servers in advance of peak events, creating extra burden and risk during these pivotal periods.

Note that whilst Adobe Commerce Cloud (the hosted version of Adobe Commerce) can scale with increasing visitors, it requires manual configuration and infrastructure management to handle peak demand effectively.

Ultimately, site uptime is dependent on hosting provider and setup. Poorly configured Adobe Commerce setups can experience downtime and performance bottlenecks during high traffic periods.

The platform has famously buckled under the pressure of peak events, including well-publicised Black Friday crashes for brands such as Gymshark and Bombas. Site downtime over crucial sales periods can frustrate consumers, damage your reputation and negatively impact revenue.

High TCO

Perhaps one of the most common frustrations revealed from our conversations with brands on Adobe Commerce is the platform’s high total cost of ownership (TCO). Significant investment is required for things such as hosting, infrastructure management, security patches, licence fees, site maintenance, upgrades, and testing and deployment of new functionality. These costs can often be unpredictable, making it difficult to plan budgets.

Compared to Shopify, research has revealed that Adobe Commerce has 42% higher implementation and setup costs, 42% higher platform fees and ecommerce stack costs, and 24% higher operating costs. For a $50m GMV retailer, it is not uncommon to calculate a $1m+ cost reduction over three years (including the project costs associated with replatforming). We frequently carry out these calculations for prospective clients and would be happy to help you with your business case (free of charge) if required.

Ultimately, the high TCO associated with Adobe Commerce means less budget can be allocated to growth-focused activities, hindering brands’ evolution.

Pull factors: Why enterprise brands are choosing Shopify Plus

Speed-to-market & agility

With its intuitive user interface, thousands of pre-built integrations, and drag-and-drop customisations, Shopify enables brands to quickly and easily roll out new store features, implement changes, and even test new markets without extensive development cycles. Functionality such as Shopify Flow and Shopify Functions allows users to streamline and automate tasks, no coding required.

This empowers retailers to remain agile, quickly adapting to changes in consumer demand and the wider industry. It also means that development teams can enjoy more time working on high-value initiatives.

One of the most common pieces of feedback we receive from former Adobe customers is how much their ecommerce team is enjoying using Shopify. The fact that it’s flexible, intuitive and can often be managed without using developers is a key point-of-difference.

Increased reliability during peak events

As a fully-hosted, cloud-based SaaS platform, Shopify Plus’ managed infrastructure automatically scales with traffic, ensuring reliable performance even during high-traffic events – without users having to provision extra servers or run load testing. Retailers can benefit from 99.99% average uptime and stores that load twice as fast as those on Adobe Commerce.

Over the 2024 Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend, sales peaked at a record-breaking $4.6 million per minute, with Shopify remaining strong under immense demand.

Faster pace of innovation

Shopify’s pace of innovation is unmatched. The company’s R&D spend in 2024 totalled over $1.3B, with a team of 4,500 R&D employees dedicated to improving features and functionality. Shopify has committed to rolling out hundreds of product updates twice a year through Editions, many of which are available right away without requiring any version upgrades.

Whilst the legacy Magento platform was once heavily invested in, Adobe’s product roadmap in recent years has deprioritised commerce in favour of other solutions such as Adobe Experience Cloud. Note also that on Adobe Commerce, any platform updates require time and budget to implement yourself.

Cost savings

On average, Shopify’s TCO is 29% lower than that of Adobe Commerce.

Contributing to this reduction in costs is Shopify’s SaaS-based pricing model. Brands using Shopify Plus can benefit from much more transparent, predictable pricing compared to Adobe Commerce, with things like hosting, CDN and security all included in the recurring platform fee.

As we’ve covered above, it’s significantly cheaper and quicker to build on Shopify (and to manage your store thereafter) because of the reduced reliance on developers. It’s 40% faster to launch a new storefront on Shopify compared to Adobe Commerce – meaning brands can leverage developer resource more efficiently, avoid delays, and focus on driving revenue in a much shorter timeline.

The cost savings associated with moving to Shopify can unlock budget for growth initiatives, often resulting in post-migration improvements in performance, SEO, conversion rate and revenue.

Standout analyst rankings

Shopify is consistently being ranked above Adobe Commerce by expert analysts. For example, it was named a ‘Leader’ in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™, with a higher ability to execute than Adobe.

And in the 2024 Forrester Wave™: Commerce Solutions for B2C Vendor Assessment, Shopify received the highest possible scores across 12 criteria. It was rated significantly higher than Adobe Commerce in terms of the strength of its strategy and current offering.

In terms of B2B commerce, an area where Shopify has historically been perceived as weaker than Adobe Commerce, Shopify is now out-ranking its long-time competitor. The 2024 Forrester Wave™: Commerce Solutions for B2B Vendor Assessment named Shopify as a ‘Leader’, whilst Adobe Commerce was ranked as a ‘Strong Performer’.

Case study: Natural Instinct’s migration from Adobe Commerce to Shopify Plus

Frustrated with spiralling licence charges, development complexities and relentless security patch management on Adobe Commerce B2B, the team at leading pet food retailer Natural Instinct sought an ecommerce platform that would help lower costs and reduce deployment times.

After considerable research, they engaged Swanky to support their migration to Shopify Plus.

Reflecting on Adobe Commerce vs Shopify Plus, Phil Keen, Managing Director at Natural Instinct, commented:

“There is simply no comparison between platforms and Shopify Plus was the clear winner.”

We completed an accelerated migration ahead of the brand’s Adobe licence renewal date, helping Natural Instinct avoid a significant fee.

Read more about this B2B migration from Adobe Commerce to Shopify Plus.

Migrate from Adobe Commerce to Shopify Plus with Swanky

Shopify Plus is emerging as the preferred choice for many enterprise brands, enabling faster growth with less operational complexity.

If you’re an ecommerce leader looking to replatform from Adobe Commerce (Magento Enterprise) to Shopify and future-proof your digital operations, reach out to our solutions team to discuss how Swanky can help.

You may also find our comprehensive comparison of Magento vs Shopify useful.