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Commercial Shop Systems

Commercetools

Fabian Wesner
This page reflects our views and assessments. All information is sourced from publicly available information and does not represent the vendor’s official position.
Name
URL
Architecture
Typical scenarios
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Project Hosting
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Code-access
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Gartner Magic Q 23
1
Commercetools
Headless SaaS platform
B2B
B2C
SaaS
No Access
Leader
No results from filter
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Evaluation

⭐ Highlights

Commercetools covers all essential features for both B2C and B2B use cases.
It hides much of its complexity internally, making it relatively easy to use.
It doesn’t enforce the use of a specific programming language.
Self-developed storefronts and middleware can be hosted by Commercetools, avoiding shared-responsibility situations.

👍 When to use

For enterprise customers with advanced yet standard e-commerce needs.
Shops that require unlimited scalability.
Companies with small IT teams (e.g., two frontend- and two backend engineers).

👎 When to avoid

Most marketplace setups that require dedicated user interfaces for merchants.
Projects with unique requirements that require frequent or extensive custom code changes.
Companies that require an on-premise solution for compliance, data security, or other reasons.

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Functionality

Commercetools is feature-complete for B2C shops and also has advanced functionality for B2B scenarios, like business units, approvals, quoting, custom pricing, etc.

B2C
ℹ️
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Basic B2C Features
Search & Filtering
Gift Cards
CMS
OMS
PIM
Multi-Store
Call Center
Configurable Products
Multi-Warehouse
Location-Based Inventory
Multi-Locale
Multi-Currency
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B2B
ℹ️
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Quotation & Offer Management
Packaging Units
Measurement Units
Approval Workflows
Shopping Lists
Business Units & Organizations
Roles & Permissions
Products-per-Customer
Price-per-Customer
Volume Prices
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Marketplace
ℹ️
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Merchant Portal
Multi-Merchant
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📖 You can request a feature guide here:
🌐
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Development approach

Bird’s eye view

A typical setup could look like this:
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image.png
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When building a project with Commercetools, the typical steps may include:
Manual configuration of your shop in the Merchant Center
Development of your Custom Storefront based either on their templates or from-scratch (see below)
Optional: Creation of pages and content in their visual site builder, called Studio
Integration with other systems via self-developed Custom Middleware

⁠

Storefront approach

Projects may start building from scratch or use their frontend solution, which is an entire suite of tools, that consists of
a Next.js based storefront, pre-integrated with Commercetools. There are templates for B2C
🌐
⁠
and B2B
🌐
⁠
scenarios.
a hosting environment that is based on a Node.js environment (Extension runner) and a frontend delivery system (Frontend delivery) based on Netlify and GCP
and a visual site builder for non-technical users called Studio
🌐
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​
image.png
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image.png
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Embedded SaaS Checkout

Projects can decide if they implement their checkout themselves or use Commercetools’ one-page checkout that ships with a configurable user interface
🌐
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.

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image.png
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Integration middleware

Typically, customers want to integrate their shop with other IT systems, such as ERP, warehouse-software or PIM.
Since Commercetools is a closed system, these integrations must be custom developed using various techniques, like their APIs, an Import-API
🌐
⁠
for bulk imports and the event system
🌐
⁠
.
Teams that are using Java, can use the official Java-SDK
🌐
⁠
.

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image.png
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Merchant Center

Commercetools is managed through their admin UI, called Merchant Center. It's used for initial configuration and for managing entities such as orders, customers, and products:
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image.png
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💡 Instead of manually configuring the shop via the Merchant Center, developers can also provision environments using Terraform (see
blog post
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).
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image.png
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Merchant Center Extensions

You may want to add custom pages and logic to the Merchant Center, which is a SaaS application (so direct code modifications are not possible).
Commercetools uses a technique called Micro Frontend, allowing you to implement a small application that leverages their authentication and UI Kit for a consistent look and feel. This mini-app is then integrated into the Merchant Center, appearing as a seamless part of the interface.
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image.png
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Hosting options

While Commercetools is fully managed by their team, your custom storefront and middleware require a scalable, high-availability hosting solution. You can either use any cloud provider, such as Vercel, Netlify, or Heroku, or leverage their Connect solution, which offers a managed hosting environment.
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https://docs.commercetools.com/connect/
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image.png
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Case Studies

All information is based on public sources and manually curated. Projects that are completely hidden from the public, are excluded. Contact us to contribute
contact@roq.tech
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↪️ You can expand each record to view more detailed information about each case study.
Company
Shop URL
Industry
Type
Shop Description
1
APG & Co
https://www.apgandco.com/
Fashion & Lifestyle
B2C
The shop sells fashion collections across multiple channels for Australian consumers.
2
Audi
https://www.audi.de/de/brand/de/myaudi-informationen.html
Automotive
B2C
The shop allows customers to buy and activate car upgrades via the myAudi app, offering features like on-demand purchases across multiple European countries.
3
Bang & Olufsen
www.bang-olufsen.com
Consumer Electronics
B2C
Luxury audio systems and accessories, focusing on combining online and physical retail experiences.
4
Bikes.de
https://bikes.de
Retail
B2C
Marketplace
The shop sells bikes and e-bikes, offering test rides and repair services via a network of local dealers in Germany.
5
BMW
In-car shop
Automotive
B2C
B2B
The in-car shop offers automotive products, accessories, and bookable services like maintenance and upgrades.
6
Cargo Crew
https://www.cargocrew.com/
Wholesale
B2B
Marketplace
The shop sells work uniforms, offering bulk orders and personalization options for businesses in 80 countries.
7
Danone
​
Food & Grocery
B2C
B2B
The shop supports direct-to-consumer strategies for managing product shortages and local market adaptations, selling nutrition products across 120 markets.
8
Express
https://www.express.com/
Retail (Fashion)
B2C
The shop offers fashion products and accessories, supporting online and in-store shopping, with fast updates and scaling during high-traffic events.
9
Just Eat Takeaway
https://www.thuisbezorgd.nl/
Food & Grocery
B2C
B2B
The shop serves as a marketplace for food and non-food items, allowing restaurant partners to order from third-party sellers.
10
Loomstate
https://loomstate.org
Fashion & Lifestyle
B2C
B2B
The shop offers sustainable workwear, focusing on transparency, traceability, and customized options for business customers.
11
Nieuwkoop Europe
https://www.nieuwkoop-europe.com
Wholesale
B2B
The shop sells plants, planters, and related products with a B2B focus, offering personalized commerce for different customer segments in over 40 countries.
12
Normet
https://store.normet.com
Mining and Construction
B2B
Equipment and services for underground mining, focusing on enhanced e-commerce and digital solutions.
13
Treedom
https://www.treedom.net
Retail
B2C
B2B
The shop sells trees and agroforestry services, supporting global biodiversity and community-based projects.
14
Vision Healthcare
https://www.vitaminexpress.org/
Retail (Healthcare)
B2C
B2B
There are multiple shops that sell healthcare products, including nutritional supplements, across multiple brands and markets in Europe.
No results from filter
⁠
Evaluation
⭐ Highlights
👍 When to use
👎 When to avoid
Functionality
B2C ℹ️
B2B ℹ️
Marketplace ℹ️
Development approach
Bird’s eye view
Storefront approach
Embedded SaaS Checkout
Integration middleware
Merchant Center
Merchant Center Extensions
Hosting options
Case Studies
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