Why migrate from commercetools to Shopify Plus?

Cloud-based headless commerce platform commercetools is a solution built on MACH principles (Microservice-based, API-first, Cloud-native and Headless). A leading solution in the composable commerce ecosystem, it provides APIs to power highly flexible digital commerce experiences. It is also a founding member of the MACH Alliance.

However, increasing numbers of retailers are finding that the reality of building with commercetools is more time-consuming, costly and frustrating than they had anticipated. For this reason we’re seeing a growing (and perhaps surprising) trend of larger retailers such as Universal Music migrating from commercetools to Shopify.

There are broadly two reasons for this.

Some retailers remain persuaded by the advantages of building a composable commerce stack, but are looking for a more flexible solution and a lower total cost of ownership than commercetools can provide.

In some instances, brands who have made the move to headless/composable recognise that they made this transition too early in their journey, and that their commercetools solution is putting a drain on budgets and (ironically perhaps) negatively impacting their ability to innovate. 

How does Shopify compare to commercetools?

Whilst Shopify has traditionally been strawmanned as a monolithic platform, and its suitability for enterprise brands frequently downplayed by the composable commerce movement, the tide is changing rapidly.

The launch of Commerce Components by Shopify (CCS) has cemented Shopify as a genuine contender amongst composable commerce solutions. It also validates Shopify’s place in the enterprise ecommerce market, with the capability to power the biggest and most complex global retailers.

For brands wanting the flexibility of a composable commerce solution, without the tech burden and user challenges of commercetools, CCS combines the high-performance, intuitive foundation of the Shopify platform with the ability to pick and choose modular components and access flexible APIs. Retailers on Shopify can now build digital commerce experiences – and scale their businesses – with more flexibility than ever before.

If you’ve been overwhelmed by your experience of commercetools and are looking for a more manageable, scalable solution that your in-house team is able to deploy more efficiently, there are various options available to you using Shopify Plus. These include headless options deploying Hydrogen (Shopify’s modern React framework) and Oxygen (Shopify’s edge network hosting counterpart), and even a more conventional tech stack built upon Store 2.0 (which unlocked a new level of functionality and flexibility for store owners and developers when it was released in 2021).

An intuitive platform known for enabling and expediting innovation, Shopify empowers users to deploy new features and campaigns quickly and easily, without the need for technical support. What’s more, Shopify retailers also have access to the platform’s market leading app and third-party ecosystem, as well as an advanced suite of checkout customisations in the form of Checkout Extensibility.

Versatile, flexible and remarkably scalable, Shopify Plus is a hugely powerful – yet affordable – commerce solution with an altogether compelling value proposition for enterprise retailers.