What is SAP Commerce Cloud: Your ultimate guide to enterprise ecommerce 2024

SAP Commerce Cloud is the top ecommerce platform for businesses, tailored for B2B, B2C, and B2B2C companies. With a vast set of features for businesses of multiple sizes coming from different industries, SAP Commerce Cloud has an offer that few other solutions can compete with.

In this guide, you'll learn all about SAP Commerce Cloud: what it is, the main features, integrations, and benefits, as well as challenges that come with the platform and ways to navigate them. Use it to leverage Sap Commerce Cloud for your business advantage! 

Key takeaways

• SAP Commerce Cloud is an advanced cloud-native omnichannel commerce solution designed for B2B, B2C, and B2B2C enterprises. It offers a broad set of features and enables customizations, making it a perfect choice for large enterprises.

• Merchants choose SAP Commerce Cloud because it offers personalized customer experiences, omnichannel capabilities, a scalable infrastructure with room for customization, and seamless integration with other SAP solutions. 

• Despite its numerous benefits, SAP Commerce Cloud can pose challenges in some areas, like the high cost of ownership, complexity of implementation, and poor UX. Enhancing SAP CC with a Frontend as a Service solution can help mitigate those challenges. 

What is SAP Commerce Cloud? 

SAP Commerce Cloud is an ecommerce platform designed for global enterprises. It offers advanced B2B, B2C, and integration capabilities, and is implemented across various environments to provide clients with tailored experiences.

Intelligent selling services, bespoke customer engagement, and omnichannel capabilities set SAP Commerce Cloud apart from its competitors. SAP Commerce Cloud is mostly catered toward large enterprises, prioritizing various features for accelerated growth for industry-specific solutions. 

SAP Commerce Cloud explained

SAP Commerce Cloud isn’t just your usual ecommerce tool. This platform offers intelligent selling services and comprehensive capabilities for improved commerce experiences, with a set of features that's very hard to find anywhere else.

Businesses opt for SAP Commerce Cloud mainly because of how vast the offer is, and how much you can achieve through the platform. Through its broad set of features, it's more than capable of managing B2C and B2B needs efficiently, making it a versatile choice for merchants across different industries.

While SAP Commerce Cloud is not the only player in the market, its feature set has made it a go-to platform for many large organizations. It can effectively address the complex requirements of large-scale businesses, which is why it’s so widely used.

And even though Sap Commerce Cloud is not a perfect platform (more on that below), you can successfully navigate its shortcomings with modern solutions such as composable commerce . 

Key features of SAP Commerce Cloud

SAP Commerce Cloud has an impressive set of features for ecommerce companies of different sizes:

• Omnichannel capabilities

• Personalized customer experience

• Industry-specific solutions

• Cloud infrastructure 

• Composable commerce possibilities

Let's take a look at each of them one by one.

1. Omnichannel capabilities

With SAP Commerce Cloud’s omnichannel capabilities, you gain the ability to deliver a cohesive and integrated shopping experience across various channels. 

This includes all: online, mobile, and brick-and-mortar stores, centralizing product content management, personalizing customer interactions, and streamlining order processing within a unified system.

SAP Commerce Cloud’s specific omnichannel features include:

• Intelligent selling services for gathering and evaluating real-time data about behavior throughout each customer’s shopping journey;

• One-to-one customer engagement through tools like Emarsys , which gives the ability to engage with customers through multiple channels;

• Product content management, helping customers find up-to-date product details no matter where they shop;

• Personalization and targeting to deliver tailored content based on customer behavior across all touchpoints​;

• Order management in a single platform.

2. Personalized customer experience

One of the main selling points of SAP Commerce Cloud is truly personalized experiences. 

SAP Commerce Cloud achieves that by using tools such as SmartEdit to create and customize personalized website content, or the Personalized Recommendation service that suggests items based on user data, search results catered to the user, and affinity recommendations based on how the user interacted in the past. 

These context-driven tools collaborate to enhance the user experience, cater to customer interests, and drive sales.

3. Industry-specific solutions

SAP Commerce Cloud gives you a range of pre-loaded features for different industries mainly through Industry Accelerators . Those are ready-to-use, industry-specific templates that provide omnichannel commerce solutions, made for immediate deployment.

These industry accelerators are designed to speed up the implementation of ecommerce solutions for merchants. They are made to address the challenges and needs of different industries and include pre-made storefront templates. 

Currently, SAP gives you the ability to use the Financial Services Accelerator, Citizen Engagement Accelerator, Travel Accelerator and Telco and Utilities Accelerator.

Aside from integrating an industry accelerator or two, you can benefit from industry-specific solutions with robust management capabilities for products, catalogs, and promotions, all customized to meet the unique requirements of each industry. 

4. Cloud infrastructure

Cloud architecture is designed with a focus on agility and flexibility, made specifically for handling high traffic volumes. This makes it a perfect choice when you need to quickly adjust to business requirements. With a robust cloud infrastructure, companies also benefit from high availability and reliability that minimizes downtime. 

That said, the flexibility that SAP Commerce Cloud offers can be both a blessing and a curse to developers. When working with the platform, it’s worth keeping in mind some of the most important best practices for development . 

5. Composable commerce possibilities

Composable commerce offers a flexible approach to modern ecommerce by leveraging headless architecture. This setup allows businesses to integrate best-of-breed solutions and create customizable frontends while maintaining robust back-end functionalities. 

SAP Commerce Cloud supports the composable model through its API-first approach, and the composable storefront layer can be accessed via integrating with Composable Storefront (formerly Spartacus) (which comes with its fair share of pros and cons).

Transition to composable without replatforming

LEARN HOW

The Frontend as a Service approach with SAP Commerce Cloud

Frontend as a Service (FEaaS) enables merchants to create user-friendly experiences using pre-built components, without undergoing costly and complex replatforming. SAP Commerce Cloud’s integration capabilities ensure that you can connect various touchpoints, from web to mobile, and third-party services.

However, it needs to be said that unless it’s already a part of your SAP Commerce Cloud setup, it can be tough to connect Composable Storefront with a modern CMS or add the latest ecommerce features. It’s a prebuilt storefront, so you’ll face challenges with customization.

Since Composable Storefront also relies heavily on SAP's backend, it will be challenging to integrate with non-SAP systems.

Alternatives, such as Alokai’s SAP CC integration , can easily give you better performance, easier customization, and greater integration flexibility, offering a more tailored approach to building user interfaces.

Integration with other SAP Solutions

The SAP solutions, including SAP Commerce Cloud, integrate with various backend systems and services, including S/4HANA . This integration establishes a cohesive commerce and business operations environment. 

Similarly, the integration with SAP Service Cloud facilitates a high-quality customer service experience, aligns with backend CRM and ERP systems, and enhances the overall customer journey.

The possibilities are many. So what are the most important integrations that ecommerces can benefit from? Let's take a closer look.

SAP Marketing Cloud

Integrating SAP Commerce Cloud with SAP Marketing Cloud offers several benefits, including:

• Enhanced data flow between the systems;

• Personalized marketing campaigns and targeted discounts based on customer behavior;

• A unified view of customer interactions;

• Improved segmentation;

• Enhanced analysis;

• Boosted effectiveness of marketing initiatives and customer experience.

SAP Customer Data Cloud

Integrating SAP Commerce Cloud with SAP CDC enables tailored registration and login choices that help to adhere to data protection regulations and offer consumers effortless authentication and registration. 

This integration supports informed decision-making for revenue growth and enhanced customer support, all while ensuring the secure handling and consent replication of customer data.

SAP Sales Cloud

SAP Sales Cloud will give you functionalities like intelligent selling services and personalized customer engagement. This, alongside robust content and inventory management capabilities within SAP Commerce Cloud, gives plenty of room for growth for your ecommerce solution.

Third-party integrations

While integrations within the SAP ecosystem are great for enhancing the platform’s capabilities, with third-party integrations things get a little bit complicated. 

Because of SAP Commerce Cloud’s complex architecture and proprietary protocols, integrating with external systems often requires custom development and detailed knowledge of SAP’s integration framework. This can quickly become time-consuming and costly. 

Additionally, maintaining compatibility with frequent updates and ensuring data consistency across platforms can be difficult. The reliance on SAP’s APIs and middleware might limit flexibility and increase dependency on SAP’s ecosystem. 

Fortunately, there are ways to navigate that. For example, integrating microservices gives you a quick way to add flexibility and scale their ecommerces, without having to disrupt the core system. 

SAP Commerce Cloud in action: solutions for B2B & B2C

One of the biggest advantages of SAP Commerce Cloud is its versatility; SAP prides itself on being a solution tailored for both B2B and B2C clients.

But what's in store for each business model? Let's take a closer at what exactly can SAP Commerce Cloud offer to B2B and B2C merchants. 

B2B benefits of SAP Commerce Cloud

B2B transactions are often complex and require a system able to handle them without issues. For B2B merchants , SAP Commerce Cloud offers:

• Streamlined and automated processes resulting in operational cost reduction. For example, MVV Enamic uses SAP Commerce Cloud to digitize its quotation processes, which makes it possible for their sales team to conclude a contract twice as fast.  

• Boosted revenue by reaching more customers through multiple channels. The construction company Alfanar boosted its business transactions by 150% by using SAP Commerce Cloud to expand its market reach.  

• Enhanced customer experiences lead to higher retention rates and customer loyalty. With SAP Commerce Cloud and related integrations, Bosch Power Tools Accessories saw an estimated 65% rise in customer engagement across 35 markets globally. 

• Scalability opportunities and ability to handle complex B2B operations. By replacing its outdated ecommerce system and making use of SAP Commerce Cloud, the construction company LGMG managed to improve the speed of order processing and shipment approval cycle by 25%and 20% respectively. 

SAP Commerce Cloud is able to address the unique challenges of B2B commerce. The platform's flexibility, personalization capabilities, and integration with the broader SAP ecosystem make it a great choice for large enterprises. However, if you're a small business, it can be a bit too complex to manage. 

B2C benefits

The main benefits SAP Commerce Clouds brings to B2C companies include: 

• Robust capabilities for core ecommerce operations like managing product catalogs, pricing, promotions, and inventory;

• AI and ML technologies for providing relevant product recommendations and personalized content;

• The platform’s overall flexibility allows vendors to adapt to changing market demands and customer expectations faster.

New Era is a prime example of a B2C company that has seen increased sales and customer satisfaction using SAP Commerce Cloud. By delivering an omnichannel experience, and offering pre-loaded promotions to boost conversions and sales, New Era gained robust ecommerce capabilities and the flexibility to quickly introduce new features to their customers. 

The challenges of using SAP Commerce Cloud

SAP Commerce Cloud is a great solution but, of course, it's not perfect. The most important challenges of using the system include the high costs, complexity of implementation and customization, as well as monolithic nature of the platform. 

So how can companies navigate them?

Cost considerations

SAP Commerce Cloud can be expensive, with significant upfront costs for licensing and implementation. 

Setting up SAP Commerce Cloud often requires hiring experienced consultants or developers to customize and integrate the platform with existing systems.

The costs, unfortunately, don’t end there. Additionally, ongoing maintenance and support can add to the expenses, and the platform can quickly become more pricy as you add more features and integrations. So in general, the more you add, the more you have to pay.

For small and medium-sized businesses especially, that can quickly become a problem. According to our SAP Commerce Cloud executive report , 66% of respondents thinking about replacing their frontend architecture admit they need a more cost-effective solution.

Frontend as a Service is a great way to address this need, as it significantly lowers operational costs and can reduce time to market by half - without the need for pricy replatforming. 

Implementation and training

Implementing SAP Commerce Cloud can be challenging and time-consuming, not to mention it requires a very high level of technical expertise. This means you need a solid in-house team at your disposal, which of course translates to high costs.

SAP Commerce Cloud’s complexity means it often requires extensive training, with your team needing to pass additional courses to effectively manage and use the features. 

The implementation process itself can quickly become difficult, involving detailed configurations and customizations that not all organizations can handle. Companies can also have trouble with SmartEdit, the content management tool for SAP, which requires training and may need extra enhancements for effective content distribution on top of that. 

Fortunately, you can navigate this by choosing one of the SmartEdit alternatives that offer less complexity and more advanced tools at the same time.

Monolith system

SAP Commerce Cloud is, at its core, a monolith system. While this architecture provides stability and a set of integrated functionalities, it also comes with the typical challenges associated with monoliths: lengthy development cycles, a long time to market for new features and updates, and a subpar UX experience. 

In an era where headless commerce reigns and decoupled systems offer greater flexibility and faster adaptability, SAP's monolithic nature feels a bit outdated. 

The headless commerce approach allows for greater flexibility in managing the user interface independently, enabling quicker updates and a more tailored customer experience. Adapting it will help you to address the challenges of a monolith system, and adapt to the future of ecommerce. 

How to maximize SAP Commerce Cloud performance? 

While SAP Commerce Cloud gives you robust capabilities, maintaining optimal performance requires consistent monitoring and fine-tuning. Seeing how the platform is a monolith system in nature, performance is a bit harder to navigate – but not impossible. 

Regular health checks

Due to its monolithic nature, scaling specific parts of the system, such as the frontend or particular services, can be difficult. This can lead to inefficient use of resources and performance bottlenecks during peak traffic periods.

As a general rule, you should remember to carry out regular health checks and performance tuning to keep enhancing the UX. Implementing responsive design, adhering to accessibility standards, and performing load testing to identify and resolve bottlenecks all help to maximize the performance of the platform.

Customization

There’s also one important thing companies can try:customization. Depending on the way you approach it, customizing SAP Commerce Cloud can have a substantial impact on operations by improving ecommerce experiences, simplifying purchase processes, and providing more control over omnichannel commerce.

Addressing performance issues with SAP Commerce Cloud means using customization and additional solutions that can give you the flexibility you need without impacting performance.

Choose Alokai for SAP CC

Alokai is a Frontend as a Service solution that enhances SAP Commerce Cloud by allowing businesses to keep SAP CC on the backend while benefiting from cutting-edge headless frontend technologies for optimal user experience.

With Alokai for SAP Commerce Cloud , you get an intuitive and well-designed UI that boosts user engagement, making it easy for customers to find products and complete purchases, which boosts conversion. The architecture allows easy integration and customization to meet specific business needs, with developers able to use familiar tools and frameworks as the solution is framework agnostic. 

Curious to learn more? Learn all about the benefits of using Alokai with SAP CC