What is Ecommerce Software?

If you want to level up your ecommerce operations in 2025, here are the five leading platforms you should take a look at.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud combines AI, automation, and data from across your business to help you deliver smarter, faster, and more personalised ecommerce experiences. It’s built to serve B2C and B2B businesses and works seamlessly with the entire Salesforce platform.

• Pros: Built-in AI for powerful personalisation, real-time customer insights from unified data, and the flexibility to grow with your ecommerce site.
• Cons: It might be more robust than smaller teams need.

Shopify gives you the basics to launch quickly, with built-in tools, flexible templates, and a strong app store. However, you’ll likely hit its backend limits once your operations get more complex.

• Pros: It has a simple setup, is easy to use, and integrates with many apps.
• Cons: Not built for personalisation or complex business logic at scale.

BigCommerce gives you a solid foundation for multichannel selling, with built-in SEO tools, flexible product management, and the ability to scale without switching platforms.

• Pros: Great built-in features for SEO, multichannel, and product catalogue management.
• Cons: Custom setups or advanced integrations often require a developer.

WooCommerce is an open-source plugin that turns your WordPress site into a fully functional online store.

• Pros: Highly customisable and built with content-driven brands in mind.
• Cons: Custom setups or advanced integrations often require a developer, and it needs regular updates and maintenance to stay secure.

Wix eCommerce lets you build an online store quickly using drag-and-drop design tools, making it a good fit if you only sell a few things. It’s great for getting started, but you may find it limiting as your product range grows.

• Pros: It’s easy to set up, visually flexible, and beginner-friendly.
• Cons: It is not ideal for advanced ecommerce or larger inventories.

Choosing the right ecommerce software is a decision that will affect every part of your business, from how you run things day-to-day to how you scale. Here’s what to think about before you make your choice.

First, figure out what problem you’re trying to solve. Are you trying to expand internationally, increase mobile sales, or bring all your customer data into one place? Knowing your goals will help you pick the right software that can actually support them.

Think about what you need, like advanced shipping tools, a built-in CRM, or the ability to manage inventory across multiple channels. Write down what you need now, but also what you think you might need in the future.

You and your team will be using this software every day, so it should be easy to use. Look for something that has simple workflows, reduces admin time, and has a clean, user-friendly dashboard.

Will this platform grow with you? You need something that can handle your business as it expands. It should support your growing store, customer base, and traffic without slowing down. Plus, uptime is crucial – if your site goes down, you’re losing sales.

Your platform must work with the tools you already use, whether it’s ERP software, payment gateways or analytics. With Salesforce, all your systems naturally talk within our ecosystem and beyond with thousands of apps on our AppExchange .

Set a budget early on and stick to it. Some platforms seem affordable at first, but the costs can quickly add up with extra features or usage-based pricing. Make sure you’re clear on the full cost before you commit.

1. Shopping basket software
   This is the heart of your online store. It’s what allows customers to add items to their virtual shopping basket, calculate taxes and delivery costs, and securely process payments.
2. Payment processing software
   This is a must-have for any ecommerce business. It securely manages online payments and ensures smooth, reliable transactions. This software makes it possible for your business to accept a variety of payment methods, including credit cards, Apple Pay, Afterpay, POLi, and ZipPay.
3. Inventory management software
   This software helps you monitor stock levels so you always have items available when customers want to purchase them. Inventory management software should offer real-time updates on product quantities, automate reordering processes, and offer omnichannel capabilities.
4. Order management software
   This technology helps you to simplify the order fulfilment process. It’s a platform for managing orders, inventory visibility, payments and invoicing, delivery details, and updates to customers' order status.
5. Delivery and fulfilment software
   Delivery software efficiently manages the back end of product delivery. It integrates with carriers, automates delivery processes and provides real-time tracking information for you and your customers.
6. Marketing and analytics software
   These tools help you uncover customer behaviour patterns and fine-tune your marketing strategies. Marketing software monitors website traffic, scrutinises customer data, and delivers key metrics for strategic decisions.
7. Customer relationship management (CRM) software
   CRM software consolidates data about customer interactions no matter where they occur, manages contact information, and helps you stay connected to current and potential customers. CRM is a tool that allows you to translate all the details and data you collect about your customers into useful business information.
8. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software
   This is a comprehensive solution for managing all aspects of your business. ERP software integrates various business functions into a single platform, including finance, inventory, manufacturing, and customer relationship management.

When you're running an ecommerce business, every hour counts and every customer interaction matters. The right software doesn’t just help you sell; it transforms how you operate, market, and grow. Here are five key ways ecommerce software makes your life easier.

Let your platform handle the busy work. Inventory updates, order routing, refunds, and customer emails can all run in the background so your team can focus on higher-impact work.

You’ll be able to sell across borders with ease. You’ll be able to support multiple currencies and manage conversion rates, localise languages, and manage duties and taxes, all from one central system.

The more you know about your customers, the better you can serve them. Salesforce gives you AI-powered insights and deep analytics to help you understand buying behaviour and optimise your store in real-time.

For example, Australian fashion brand R.M.Williams started using Salesforce's analytics tools to gain insights into their customer preferences, which they then used in their online marketing. This contributed to a 34% increase in revenue and a 20% lift in conversion rates.

Create seamless journeys across web, mobile, and social. With AI personalisation baked in, every touchpoint feels faster, easier, and more relevant to each customer.

Ecommerce software helps you adapt fast, whether you're launching new products, running promotions, or responding to customer trends in real-time. With built-in tools to test and optimise, you’ll be able to turn traffic into sales even faster.

Success isn’t only about choosing the right ecommerce software – you also need to make sure you’re using the technology to its full potential. Here’s how to get the most out of your technology.

What good is the best ecommerce software if your teams don’t know how to use it? When you implement new tools, consider how they will affect the workflows and day-to-day operations of your employees.

It’s best to determine a change management strategy before you introduce new software and discuss how these tools will help each team member be more productive and efficient.

To get the most out of your digital shop front technology, it’s important to keep product data up-to-date and accurate with high-quality images, detailed descriptions, and clear pricing.

Follow best practices when it comes to image sizing, code optimisation, third-party integrations, and plug-ins. These are typically the culprits behind slow-loading shop fronts that cause customers to leave your site and shop with competitors.

Security and data privacy should be a joint effort between you and your ecommerce partners. It’s important to use version control for monitoring code changes, authenticating anyone accessing APIs, and encrypting data transmissions. This ensures that your ecommerce experiences run safely and smoothly.

Headless commerce is when your online store is built separately from the front end (what customers see) and the back end (where the business operations happen). It lets businesses create customised online stores that integrate seamlessly with social media, apps, and websites.

AI and machine learning help businesses give customers a more personalised shopping experience by improving product recommendations and predicting what they’ll want to buy next.

Omnichannel strategies ensure customers have a seamless experience, whether they’re shopping online, in-store, or on social media. It helps businesses keep everything consistent across all platforms.

Generative AI is already changing the way people shop. More and more, consumers expect to be able to ask voice assistants for help, have increasingly complex conversations with chatbots, and perform site searches using images and natural language.

By integrating social media features, businesses can harness user-generated content and social proof to foster trust and drive conversions.

Ecommerce software helps you sell smarter, move faster, and connect everything from product to payment. When your tools talk to each other, you’re free to focus on what actually drives growth.

If your business is ready to scale with AI, automation, and personalisation built in, Salesforce Commerce Cloud gives you everything you need, all in one place. Watch a guided demo today to see what’s possible with world-class ecommerce software.