We know we’ve been growing fast at VTEX. Now, global market analyst IDC confirms just how fast. We ranked as 2018’s fifth fastest-growing digital commerce company in IDC’s 2019 Worldwide Digital Commerce Software Market Analysis. During that time, our market share grew by 37.3%.
As excited as we are by the IDC report, we know the reason for our fast growth is our customers. We listen to what they need, deliver it as seamlessly as possible and help them succeed. And what we offer is right in line with what IDC found that retailers look for in an eCommerce platform.
What retailers want from digital commerce platforms
According to IDC, retailers want their eCommerce solution to be
- Cloud-based. Retailers are increasingly moving to the cloud, but the cloud isn’t just for retail. Consumer brands are also exploring cloud commerce, and B2B isn’t far behind. Cloud-based unified commerce is rapidly becoming the industry standard. That’s because it can eliminate gaps in customer data and operational visibility between channels to create a more seamless experience for shoppers and a more efficient operation for sellers. Auto-scaling cloud infrastructure like VTEX helps merchants make the transition to digital commerce even when their operations are complex.
- Fast to implement. Customers can usually implement VTEX in a few weeks, so they can move quickly to the next level of digital commerce. The alternative—a self-hosted solution that requires website design, testing, revision and more testing— can take many months to implement properly. And creating a platform in-house that has all the capabilities of a cloud-based unified platform—one that keeps pace with the constant updates and improvements that cloud commerce delivers—is a major, ongoing challenge.
IDC found that retailers also look for unified commerce platforms with
- Customer analytics built in. When your sales channels are all unified in one place, it’s easier to create personalized experiences for them, target them with the promotions they want and deliver content they’re looking for. That can include customized landing pages, localized content in your online store, and personalized in-store interactions, to name a few possibilities.
- Great mobile customer experience. Consumers love mobile shopping—if product pages load fast, the store is easy to navigate, and checkout is easy. As MarTech Advisor put it in their top CX recommendations for 2020, “mobile first, because mobile is usually the first impression.” Without a friction-free, seamless mobile experience, customers are increasingly likely to shop elsewhere.
That’s crucial, because mobile is becoming the channel of choice for many consumers, especially those in the 18-to-34-year old range. Sixty-one percent of shoppers in that age group have made a mobile purchase in the past month. And the average smartphone shopper now spends more than $1,700 per year on their mobile device.
VTEX helps clients deliver the great experience mobile shoppers expect. Our serverless development platform delivers rapid page loads, an optimized store framework and secure, one-click checkout—no password required.
- Multiple payment options to increase conversions. Today’s consumers expect to be able to pay for their purchases in their local currency with preferred payment methods, no matter where in the world they are. Depending on the local market, your shoppers may want to pay with an online bank transfer like SoFort or iDeal in the EU, direct debit, a credit card popular outside the U.S. like China-based UnionPay, or an e-wallet like PayPal.
These options matter, because they can increase conversions and reduce shopping cart abandonment. To help our clients meet this customer demand, VTEX provides multicurrency support plus integrations with several popular payment methods.
What’s next for digital commerce?
When it comes to the future of eCommerce, we’re giving our customers a head start.
We were interested to see IDC include microservice architectures in its top forecast assumptions for digital commerce. We’re already there!
We created VTEX as a microservices platform because we know it benefits our customers. Our platform updates are automatically delivered through the cloud, so our customers enjoy continuous improvement in store function with no update-related downtime or extra costs.
IDC also sees more retail moving toward autonomous transactions like subscription services. The number of subscription retail services increased 40% from 2017 to 2018, and major retailers like Amazon have taken subscriptions from niche to mainstream. Convenience is part of what’s driving the subscription market. But the growth in subscription services is also meeting consumers’ desire to have someone curate products and narrow down what can seem like an endless array of options. To meet the rising demand for subscription options, VTEX makes it easy for stores to set up recurring transactions at intervals they select, using tokenized credit card payments.
Predictive deliveries are on their forecast list. So is customer control of order fulfillment. VTEX already enables predictive inventory and optimized logistics with its distributed order management system. VTEX also supports a variety of fulfillment options so you can offer your customers a menu of delivery choices—even multiple fulfillment options within one order.
Finally, IDC predicts going forward, retailers will need “a full view of their customers across touchpoints.” We give our clients a unified view of their customer data across channels so they can deliver personalized product suggestions online, create in-store experiences and provide a seamless omnichannel customer experience.
We’re excited about helping our customers move into the next phase of digital commerce, and ultimately that’s what our growth is all about.
Are you preparing to choose an eCommerce platform? Download our ECommerce Platform Selection guide now to get a roadmap to the right choice.
