Magento vs Salesforce: Which is better for eCommerce Development?

Magento vs Salesforce

The question of whether Magento or Salesforce is better for eCommerce development has fueled an interminable debate between developers, merchants, and the official communities of Magento and Salesforce. When you have to choose between two equally sought-after cloud-based eCommerce platforms, each boasting a cove-table global reputation, big-shot clients, and cutting-edge functionality, the decision becomes impossible.

Even though both platforms help businesses enhance the digital side of their operations, both are marked by major differences in the technology stack, in back office capabilities and pricing, and appeal to different business needs. To settle the debate of Magento vs Salesforce once and for all, we delve in to a painstaking, multi-faceted comparison of both to help you choose the right platform to run a scalable eCommerce business with.

What is Magento?

Magento was created in 2008 as an eCommerce platform built on open source technology, which offers online merchants with total control over the look, content and functionality of their online store, as well as a host of powerful SEO, marketing, and catalog-management tools. Indubitably, Magento commerce cloud touts some of the best in-built multi-store capabilities that cater to the needs of both local and international business. Magento stack incorporates a blend of powerhouse technologies such as Apache, Nginx, Symfony, Varnish, and so on. Magento offers unparalleled scalability, allowing stores with only a few products to expand without boundaries down the road.

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Magento’s next-gen technology, global partner ecosystem, and extensions marketplace opens up a world of possibilities for businesses. With its well-integrated content management system, you can effortlessly create and publish compelling content pieces and deliver best-in-class shopping experiences without the need for developer support. Magento lets you transform your data insights into striking visualizations and boost sales with robust insights. If that wasn’t enough, leverage Magento’s vibrant developer and partner community and learn from a global commerce Eco system.

Top Brands who trust Magento

Magento is trusted by a bevy of globally recognized brands, which cements our belief in its capabilities. Some of the well-structured, high-performing, SEO-optimized, and well-designed Magento stores include Hally Hanson: Norwegian brand of sportswear and gear, Sigma beauty: British makeup brand, Ford, Monin: Beverages and coffee manufacturer, and Liverpool. Other big names that vouch for Magento include Hermes, Warby Parker, Fox Connect, Vizeom Nestle Nespresso, Landrover, Nike, Ahmad Tea, Christian Louboutins, Ferrari, Lee, JCB, and Olympus.

What is Salesforce Commerce Cloud?

As a leading B2C and B2B commerce solution, this amazing cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution is backed by SalesForce, and boasts its own infrastructure, servers, upgrades, security measures. With out-of-the-box features, robust tools, and powerful commerce portals, Salesforce Commerce Cloud allows you to streamline the purchasing process, offer a tailored buying experience, and create a beautiful commerce experience across all channels — mobile, social, web, and store.

Salesforce offers a robust merchandising functionality that lets you quickly build and setup a storefront without any difficulties. The all new page designer solution gives merchants more control over templates and content. Salesforce also packs state-of-the-art eCommerce functionalities, such as like multi-currency, multi-language, and multi-store capabilities to boost conversions across a global ecosystem. Not to mention, Salesforce optimizes the process of fulfilling and delivering customers’ orders across the globe, automates the payment process, and even manages returns and cancellation. Salesforce Commerce Cloud offers a seamless Omni-channel solution, which helps you boost the customer experience and fuel growth in your business.

Salesforce harnesses the power of AI to offer highly personalized recommendations, guarantee relevant, robust search results, minimize abandoned searches, interpret purchasing behavior, and diligently tailor category pages and search results to each shopper to boost conversions.

Top Brands that trust Salesforce

Some of the top global brands that use Salesforce include Acne Studios, UGG, T-Mobile, Aldo, Spotify, The New York Post, Macy’s, Toyota, Gap, TCS, Hugo Boss, Ralph Loren, Godiva, Burton, Tate Modern, Beats by Dre, Sweaty Betty, Puma, Accenture, NBC universal, American Express, The American Red Cross, Adidas, Canon, New Balance, Fila, Clarins, and L’Oreal.

Magento vs Salesforce: Hosting

One of the biggest differentiators between the two platforms is how they are hosted. Magento Commerce is self-hosted, which means that as a business owner, you are responsible for purchasing and setting up the hosting solution on your own. You can either host your own servers, in which case you will be responsible for maintaining and upgrading your own platform, or choose from 100s of providers online according to your budget and needed functionality. If something were to go wrong, you will get no support from Magento. However, Magento has recently launched Magento Enterprise Cloud Edition, positioned as a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution. This would enable fully customizable, secure, and scalable web storefronts, simplified integration with third-party systems, and a flexible eCommerce experience. However, keep in mind that Magento’s Cloud Commerce is cloud-based, and not a SaaS solution, which is why many people continue to opt for on-premise Magento hosting.

Salesforce uses a cloud-based SaaS solution for its eCommerce platform. Salesforce hosting comes with a suite of fully managed SaaS services, and offers an ideal solution for those who do not want to handle their own server updates, management, SLA, and maintenance. The team will take care of all the technical aspects so that you can focus on your business strategies. Although Salesforce hosting naturally comes with a bigger price tag, it alleviates you from worrying about in-house maintenance, security and updates provisions. One of the biggest benefits of Salesforce hosting is its markedly greater scalability as compared to Magento. Whether your business is going through big growth spurts, or is already receiving heavy amounts of traffic that is burdening your current platform, Salesforce hosting caters for scalability without any downtime. Additionally, Salesforce has multiple data centers across the globe. All records — up to the last transaction are backed up for high availability and performance.

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However, one area where Salesforce lags behind Magento is the limited level of customization it offers. Unlike Magento, there is a limit to the features one can implement and configure in Salesforce. Not to mention, there are strict approval procedures that have to be adhered before you can alter any line of code or install a new module.

Magento vs Salesforce: Merchandising Capabilities

The main task of an eCommerce platform is to allow you to sell products online, which is why merchandising capabilities of both the platforms matter more than you think. While both the platforms have above par product, order and inventory management functionalities, there are some key differences which we will delve into.

Magento’s strong suit is the host of merchandising features it offers to users.  The user interface is quite user-friendly, giving a quick checkout option along with the choice of shipping. Magento’s visual merchandising capabilities make it a breeze to choose between applying attribute-based rules or simply drag your chosen products to the top of the page.  Magento also offers recommendations via the user’s activity on the site and general responses to products overall (e.g. most popular products over a set time period. Magento also offers layered navigation where users are allowed to filter product results at a category level based on product attributes.

Magento also support multiple product types, such as simple, configurable, grouped, bundles, gift card, virtual and downloadable, and cross-selling and up-selling opportunities. What’s more, Magento supports different promotion types, such as gift cards, catalog and cart price rules, shipping and so on, and allows store owners to create loyalty and rewards programs and organize private and flash sales. Numerous third-party integrations let you increase functionality, where sky is the limit.

Salesforce also shines in its amazing stack of merchandising capabilities, which contribute to its popularity among fashion related stores. The platform enables advanced promotions that can be applied at any stage of the process, allows you to queue products ahead of time, and supports the selling and promotions of digital products, such as variation master, variation group, variation product, Product set, and product bundle. Salesforce also offers robust merchandising functionality to quickly build a storefront without any hassle, such as effective catalogue management, powerful search feature, customer segmentation capabilities, and cross-sell, up-sell and product recommendation opportunities. Built-in a/b testing capabilities for merchandising allows you to test what works and tweak accordingly. However note the since Salesforce is a CRM, it has little or not any B2B features at all. In order to possess both B2B and B2C capabilities, you’ll need to purchase another B2B-specific eCommerce solution. Furthermore, you cannot directly build a loyalty program on Salesforce without third-party integrations.

Magento vs Salesforce: Multi Currency and Multi-Language

Both offer stellar multi-store functionality, with capabilities that facilitate global trade such as multi-currency and multi-language. However, Salesforce offers far more sophisticated multi-currency and multi-language support. With multi-store capabilities, you can choose from among various languages for different store views. Generally, Salesforce offers support for more languages as compared to Magento. In a multi-currency setup, users across the globe can use their local currency to view all records and reports on Salesforce.  Using Salesforce, you can effortlessly configure product data, availability and description based on the region you are located in.

Magento vs Salesforce: Content Management

Magento offers robust content creation tools that enable merchants to create best-in-class shopping experiences without need for developer support. Incorporate a blend of content formats – such as images, videos, and banners – and offer your customers with a flow of fresh content with an intuitive drag-and-drop content management interface. Customized Page Builder helps you create page designs according to your preferred layout, create content updates, preview them live, and schedule publication without dependencies on other teams. Magento’s page builder gives you total control over your site content for maximum engagement.

Previously, Salesforce had no content management functionalities, which meant that store owners who needed such capabilities implemented them via extensions.  You couldn’t make changes to your page without effective training or help from professionals. Thankfully, Salesforce Commerce Cloud now provides a well-built Content Management System with the introduction of an all-new page builder, which helps your eCommerce store run smoothly as it does not require programming experts to work on the backend.

Magento vs Salesforce: Customization

When we talk about the degree of customization that both platforms offer, know that Magento is an open-source platform that grants merchants access to the entire system, which means that there is no limit to what you can change – be it writing custom code to making core adjustments. Magento gives you total control over every part of your storefront because you are building and maintaining it all yourself. On the other hand, Salesforce is more focused on offering stability and performance rather than total freedom. While Salesforce gives you total control over the front and back-end, know that servers, core, and code are off-limits. You cannot tweak any line of code without seeking approval from Salesforce developers.  Not to mention, Magento offers thousands of extensions and themes, which means that you can customize your store to your liking. You can hire Magento B2B Development services to help you create the store of your dreams! On the other hand, Salesforce offers fewer 3rd-party integrations and users have to pay more or customize more for integrations that Salesforce does not support.

Magento Commerce and Salesforce Commerce Cloud Pricing

Magento offers two versions, While Magento Open Source is free and open source, it offers limited capabilities, and you have to pay up for additional extensions and integrations to enhance the look and features of your store. The other version, Magento Commerce, starts from $2000 per month, and includes a host of features, such as promotions and pricing, search engine optimization, site and content management, catalogue management, catalogue and product browsing, checkout, payments, and shipping, customer loyalty, support for global sites, customer accounts, analytics and reporting, 24/7 email and customer support, high availability infrastructure, layout ad theming, business intelligence, and order management capabilities, among others. A cutting-edge Magento 2 Development Company can help you fully leverage the full suite of Magento functionalities.

On the other hand, the Salesforce Commerce Cloud has no fixed costs, and the charges vary according to the size of the enterprise and its turnover. This is why we cannot exactly predict how much Salesforce will cost you.

Choosing The Right Ecommerce Store Designer

After this comparison, we are sure that you would be better positioned to select between Magento and Salesforce. However, you must understand that the outcome depends on which Magento or Shopify website design agency you choose. That’s because every design agency has a different expertise level. So, when you go out on a hunt to find the perfect store designer, always check their testimonials, analyze their portfolio, and always ask about the post-development maintenance support.

The Final Verdict

Well, but now you must have made your opinion. Personally, we prefer Magento stores because they allow the development of an eCommerce store with an enhanced feel, look, and customized functionality. In addition, the platform enables developers to create a highly interactive interface for the optimum customer shopping experience. Sure, Salesforce is excellent as it helps manage the sales funnel and clients, but it doesn’t focus on store improvement. That being said, Magento is a better option for developing a customer-centric store. So, you can hire the Magento or Shopify mobile app builder for creating the Magento store (some Shopify developers can also work with Magento so that you can hire from the available resources).

FAQs:

1)Is Magento better than Salesforce?

Magento and Salesforce are two powerful eCommerce platforms, each with its strength and limitations. So, when you are looking to choose one, you must consider your unique business requirement, budget, and other aspects.

Generally, if you have an existing eCommerce store with a decent layout, interactive interface, and bringing inadequate revenue, then you may opt for Salesforce. That’s because Salesforce brings in advanced features to help you engage more interactively with customers to up your game. It will also help you to bring in more sales with a seamless and convenient sales process.

Alternatively, if you are looking to develop an interactive, functional, and sales-driven eCommerce store, Magento Enterprise Development is your best option. The platform brings endless customization options with powerful features that can help you create and manage a highly functional online store. Also, with Magento, it’s easier for you to manage a store’s content with a dedicated Content Management System (CMS) and attract more traffic through Magento Optimization Services.

2) Does Salesforce have an eCommerce store?

Yes. Salesforce Commerce Cloud is a robust cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that brings in high scalability, advanced features, and functionalities to assist online merchants in creating and optimizing a highly functional and sales-driven eCommerce store.

The Salesforce Commerce Cloud has remained one of the best eCommerce platforms for online merchants, especially for B2B businesses looking to target large retailers. The B2B commerce cloud module offered by Sales Commerce Cloud is specifically meant to assist B2B online stores in expanding their wholesale business.

3) Is Magento the best eCommerce platform?

Yes. Magento is one of the best Omni-channel ecommerce platforms that bring in powerful features and functionalities for eCommerce stores. The platform offers endless customization options, assisting online merchants in creating highly interactive and functional stores to attract more traffic and make more sales. Magento custom extension development also ensures that your eCommerce store stays ahead of the competitive curve with advanced features, robust marketing, a convenient sales funnel, and exceptional user experience.

4) Is Salesforce commerce cloud self-hosted?

Salesforce Commerce Cloud is offered as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, thus offering robust cloud computing solutions for online merchants. As a cloud-based platform, Salesforce Commerce Cloud provides users instant access to real-time information for all online and offline store operations. This ensures that you are able to create highly efficient and sales-driven processes and maximize revenues.

5) How is Magento cheaper than Salesforce?

Magento Commerce pricing plans are based on the annual revenues of its users, starting from USD 24,000 annually. While it may seem expensive, the total cost of ownership for the platform is much affordable since it gives users access to various advanced tools, including the B2B module, Business Intelligence, Fastly, Page Builder, CDN, and others. Thereby, with one annual payment, online merchants can get the flexibility, scalability of the platform, and advanced tools required to maximize the store’s efficiency and revenues.

On the other hand, Salesforce follows a Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) or “Shared Success” principle for pricing. This means that online stores will be paying upward of 3% of the total GMV for the platform. Also, eCommerce stores would have to pay the “success tax,” which simply means that the more sales you make, the more cost you pay for the platform.

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