The Forrester Wave B2 C Co

FOR: eBusiness & The Forrester Wave™: B2C Commerce
Channel strategy
Professionals Suites, Q3 2012
by Brian K. Walker, september 24, 2012

Key TaKeaWays

Commerce suite Vendors don’t Just provide Basic Functionality;
They enhance Commerce Capabilities
Today’s marketplace is forcing eBusiness professionals to consider alternatives
to selecting solutions focused on just a transactional website. Vendors now offer
solutions that enable marketing, commerce, and service capabilities across many
consumer touchpoints and geographies.

The Commerce suite Market is growing as Firms look For
Multitouchpoint solutions
The B2C commerce suite market is growing as firms respond to changing customer
expectations. The growing importance of online, mobile, and social interactions
for serving customers across touchpoints with multiple brands, opportunities to
expand globally, and complex order management needs are driving the market for
commerce suite solutions.

iBM, hybris, oracle, and demandware lead The pack in The
Commerce suite Market
As previous technology becomes outdated, less effective, and more expensive
to maintain, improved multitouchpoint commerce features, business tools, and
solution flexibility will dictate which providers lead the pack. Vendors need strong
site management, content management, order management, and merchandising
tools to win with clients.

Forrester Research, Inc., 60 Acorn Park Drive, Cambridge, MA 02140 UsA
Tel: +1 617.613.6000 | Fax: +1 617.613.5000 | www.forrester.com

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals September 24, 2012

The Forrester Wave™: B2C Commerce Suites,
Q3 2012
The Solution Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
by Brian K. Walker
with Peter Sheldon, Zia Daniell Wigder, and Lily Varon

Why Read This Report
In Forrester’s 75-criteria evaluation of global business-to-consumer (B2C) enterprise-class commerce
suite vendors, we identified the 10 most significant software providers — Demandware, Digital River,
hybris, IBM, Intershop, Magento, Micros-Retail, Oracle (ATG), RedPrairie, and SAP — in the category
and researched, analyzed, and scored them. This report details our findings about how well each vendor
fulfills our criteria and where they stand in relation to each other to help eBusiness and channel strategy
professionals select the right partner for their B2C online and multichannel commerce solution.

Table Of Contents Notes & Resources
2 Businesses Continue To Aggressively Invest Forrester conducted product evaluations in
In Commerce Technology February 2012 and interviewed nine vendor
companies: Demandware, Digital River,
5 B2C Commerce Suite Evaluation Overview
hybris, IBM, Intershop, Magento, Micros-
10 B2C Commerce Suites Have Evolved Retail, RedPrairie, and SAP.
Substantially
14 Vendor Profiles Related Research Documents
SMB eCommerce Solutions 2012
19 Supplemental Material
April 12, 2012
The Agile Commerce Platform
October 19, 2011
eCommerce Technology Selection Checklist
April 4, 2011

© 2012, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available
resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester®, Technographics®, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar,
and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. To
purchase reprints of this document, please email clientsupport@forrester.com. For additional information, go to www.forrester.com.

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals
The Forrester Wave™: B2C Commerce Suites, Q3 2012 2

Businesses Continue to Aggressively Invest In Commerce Technology
Today, the global retail and business landscape remains uncertain: Traditional retail and direct-
to-consumer companies are under ongoing pressure to meet even low-single-digit comp store
increases.1 Yet commerce technology investment remains strong: 56% of companies report plans
to increase spending by 5% or more, and 18% plan to increase spending by at least 20% in 2012
compared with 2011 (see Figure 1).2

This level of investment is primarily driven by the ongoing growth of online and mobile channels,
with online retail growth averaging 12% in the US and Europe.3 Online and mobile commerce
are becoming critical components of today’s multichannel customer experience — whether the
customer buys online or not. In a sense, all businesses today are online; increasingly, they must have
a direct-to-consumer strategy, driving the demand for B2C commerce solutions overall. But other
important factors are driving investment in commerce technology, including the need for:

■ Cross-touchpoint solutions. The way we think of eBusiness technology has fundamentally
changed. No longer are businesses selecting a set of solutions and technologies to launch a site;
they are now selecting technologies that can support marketing, shopping, buying, and service
capabilities across a multitude of customer touchpoints. To accomplish this, today’s solutions
must enable consistent core platform capabilities to manage products, orders, and customer data,
integrating consistently with enterprise systems. At the same time, solutions must be open and
flexible to power websites, mobile sites, applications, call center interfaces, and in-store options.
This requires solutions frameworks, accelerators, and application programming interfaces (APIs)
that expose the platform in such a way to enable developers to much more easily develop new
customer experiences off existing platform capabilities. This represents a significant evolution
from the requirements that these solutions have needed to support in the past.

■ Increased flexibility. As consumer Internet-connected devices proliferate and incorporate
ecosystems like Amazon.com, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Taobao.com, and
Tencent, it seems that every business is prone to further disruption.4 The eBusiness leader
is snarled up trying to connect with, market to, sell to, and serve customers across an ever-
dividing Splinternet.5 Even with the advent of responsive design and HTML5 — which may
help simplify how these experiences are designed and supported — the Splinternet adds to the
complexity and cost of serving customers and puts pressure on enterprise content, marketing,
and commerce platforms to meet these emerging opportunities in an efficient and cost-effective
way.6 While many of these emerging touchpoints are unproven, businesses that can experiment
with, support, scale, and optimize emerging touchpoints have an opportunity to differentiate
themselves from competitors and capture new market opportunities.

■ Better order management to handle increased fulfillment complexity. Today’s direct-to-
consumer businesses are increasingly leveraging multiple fulfillment centers and drop-ship
vendors while adding cross-channel capabilities like ship-to-store and in-store pickup. Wal-

© 2012, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited September 24, 2012


Mart has even enabled customers to order online and then pay with cash when picking up the
order in a store.7 As a result, orders will no longer be fulfilled from a single fulfillment center.
Tomorrow’s orders will be sourced from a wide variety of locations that include not only the
fulfillment center but also drop-ship vendors, distributors, stores, and third-party logistics
providers that may either regionally stage high-demand products or support seasonal inventory
volumes — or both. Order management capabilities are critical to driving a high-quality
consumer experience. These capabilities may include business logic to support best-fulfillment-
node selection, flexible integration with a diverse supply chain, and customer service interfaces
to manage issues and exceptions. And to drive profitable orders, transportation and fulfillment
costs must be factors in how orders are routed and brokered.

■ Support for multiple businesses and regions from a common infrastructure. Today’s
multichannel businesses are increasingly multisite and multibrand businesses. This trend enables
more specific and targeted marketing opportunities for customers; they can also benefit from
search engine optimization (SEO) by enabling the use of more specific terms and metadata to
target related search terms. Innovative merchandising and marketing in areas like flash sales,
social commerce, and mobile commerce are also driving forces behind the need to support a
diverse set of sites and customer touchpoints from a common infrastructure. But global
commerce has also emerged from being a nice-to-have requirement to a must-have one — even
though many organizations may not yet be ready to fully invest in standalone sites and businesses
for new global markets. For many businesses, international markets present a long-term
opportunity to grow and diversify their global retail operations and/or brands.



Figure 1 Commerce Platform Investment Activity Is Significant

1-1 Companies’ investment in eCommerce technology will increase in 2012
“How is your investment in eCommerce technology changing in 2012 compared with 2011?”

Increase more than 20%
18%

Stay about the same
44%

Increase 5% to 19%
38%

Base: 140 eBusiness decision-makers

Note: No respondents told us that investment was decreasing.
1-2 More than half of companies plan to replatform in the next 24 months
“When, if at all, are you planning to change your eCommerce platform technology solution?”

We already have a project underway
We are not planning to replatform 6%
in the foreseeable future
17% Within 12 months
9%

More than 36 months
5% 12 to 18 months
12%

24 to 36 months
20%
18 to 24 months
25%
Base: 140 eBusiness decision-makers
(”Don’t know” responses have been removed from this analysis)

Source: May 2012 Global eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professional Online Survey
80141 Source: Forrester Research, Inc.



The Commerce Solutions Market Has Seen Many Significant Changes Recently
There have been a large number of mergers and acquisitions in the commerce solutions space over
the past two years, keeping bankers, lawyers, and, indeed, analysts busy. Old alliances have been
torn apart, new portfolios formed, and old sales arguments reconfigured.

In the past few years alone, IBM has acquired Sterling Commerce, Coremetrics, and Unica (among
others), proceeding to “blue-wash” the offerings and embark on an aggressive product development
and marketing initiative it terms “Smarter Commerce.” Oracle has acquired Art Technology Group
(ATG), Endeca, RightNow Technologies, and FatWire Solutions (again, among others) and sought
to rationalize the product portfolio and sales team organization as well as clarify the marketing and
partner messages. Micros-Retail bought Fry Multimedia, integrating the OCP product into Micros
and splitting off Fry as a design shop. RedPrairie acquired Escalate Retail and began to invest in
the Blue Martini product and “clienteling” in-store solutions while shedding some of the product
baggage. eBay acquired GSI Commerce and gained a controlling interest in Intershop while also
acquiring the remaining portion of Magento that it did not already own. CDC Software bought
relatively little-known commerce solution Truition and has struggled to re-energize it. And lastly,
we saw Demandware execute an initial public offering, rendering its software-as-a-service (SaaS)
business model and product strategy open for all to scrutinize and evaluate. Phew!

There may not be many significant independent players left in the market, but we can expect
partnering and potential changes of control to be ongoing forces as payments providers, content
management system vendors, enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors, and point-of-sale (POS)
vendors all react to the changing dynamics in their industry — especially the overwhelming need to
be multichannel, multitouchpoint, agile commerce solutions.8 We will also see many startups form,
SMB players move upmarket, emerging market solutions gain worldwide interest, and many point
solutions added to the rosters of the commerce solutions providers.

B2C Commerce Suite EVALUATION Overview
To assess how well the B2C commerce suite vendors meet the evolving needs of the market and to
determine how the vendors stack up against each other, Forrester evaluated the strengths and
weaknesses of top B2C commerce platform vendors across a range of business and technology criteria.

The Focus Of Our B2C Commerce Suite Forrester Wave
Our Forrester Wave evaluation focuses on the requirements and needs of the direct-to-consumer
online retail business. We have principally focused on products that enable:

■ Direct-to-consumer commerce shopping and customer experiences. These capabilities include
search/browse, rich shopping cart functionality, product comparison, promotions,
personalization, cross-sells, wish lists, registries, multichannel ordering, rich Internet application
(RIA) support, customer data management, marketing tools, and customer self-service.



■ Multitouchpoint and site management, content management, and business optimization.
These tools include product content management, web content management (WCM), online
marketing, analytics and testing, security, order management, and customer service.

■ The common integration needs of online retailers. These include integration to ERP systems,
merchandise planning systems, content management systems, customer service and customer
relationship management (CRM) systems, inventory management systems, finance and
accounting management systems, and business intelligence (BI) solutions.

How We Have Evolved Our Evaluations Of B2C Commerce Suites
We have taken a hard look at the requirements of our B2C commerce clients to understand how this
year’s evaluation needed to evolve, driven by the nature of the many inquiries and projects where
we support clients directly in their commerce technology selection projects. We made a number of
changes that have affected the criteria, scoring, and weighting within the Forrester Wave since our
evaluation of B2C commerce platforms in Q4 2010, including:

■ An increased emphasis on order management. While we increased the number of order
management criteria in our Q4 2010 B2C eCommerce platform evaluation, we have further
emphasized this capability in the criteria and their weighting in this evaluation. This is driven by
the increased complexity of clients’ B2C fulfillment scenarios, leveraging multiple fulfillment
centers, drop-ship vendors, participation in marketplaces, and use of physical retail stores as both
pickup points and fulfillment locations. Increasingly, clients are looking to solve all direct orders
via the commerce system, including the Web, phone, and mobile, as well as to support orders
initiated or fulfilled in stores. And that solution must also span multiple sites and geographies.
While existing ERP systems and warehouse management systems may have capabilities in these
areas, B2C companies are increasingly looking for third-party systems that specialize in order
management to meet these needs. Pairing these systems with commerce platforms is
advantageous, given that the platforms increasingly power multiple customer touchpoints.

■ An increased emphasis on site, product, and web content management. Product content
management and WCM capabilities are not new requirements for most commerce platforms, but
the stakes and the solutions have continued to increase as the sources of product content —
editorial, vendor-supplied, syndicated, and user-generated — have grown. Businesses are
increasingly seeking tools to improve workflow and efficiency, as well as tools that allow them to
leverage a variety of content across touchpoints and user experiences. This desire for greater
control over the customer experience — minimizing the need for developer or IT intervention
for every change — is a common reason why businesses are looking to migrate from homegrown
solutions or their existing first- or second-generation commerce solutions. The growth of
branded sites, flash sale sites, and globalization as well as the ongoing focus on SEO continue to
be key drivers for improved content and site management tools.



■ A focus on global multichannel and multitouchpoint product strategy. When evaluating
the strength of a vendor’s product strategy, we looked for a number of leading-edge strategic
capabilities that we expect to become increasingly important. These include “front-end”
capabilities such as multichannel/multitouchpoint site management capabilities, mobile
commerce, and in-store and call center solutions. We also included “back-end” suite
integration across critical modules for merchandising, site and content management, and order
management. We also looked at the accelerator or “starter store” (reference application) that the
solutions provide, and we examined support for multiple ownership and operating models, such
as on-premises, managed/hosted, and SaaS solutions with multiple remuneration models, such
as license, revenue share, and utilization. We also looked at how well these vendors understand
their clients and their clients’ business problems and how they work to build and refine their
product strategy as a result.

Our Evaluation Covers A Range Of Solution Types — From Licensed To SaaS
In this evaluation, Forrester focused on the leading commerce platforms for direct-to-consumer
online retailing — or B2C commerce. Evaluated solutions include a variety of delivery models and
the vendors that offer their solutions across these delivery models, including:

■ On-premises licensed software platforms. These applications can be implemented and run in-
house by internal IT resources, or they may be supported via various outsourcing models on a
client’s behalf. Typically, these platforms will offer the most flexibility over time. Often, systems
integrators (SIs) or commerce services providers (CSPs) implement and support these solutions.9

■ Hosted/managed platforms. Close cousins of licensed software applications, the vendors that
offer hosted/managed platforms typically implement and run applications on behalf of a client,
reducing the internal IT resources required to a bare minimum. A few hosted/managed
application vendors also allow clients to install and run applications internally via a license model.

■ SaaS platforms. SaaS solutions rely on a multi-instance application, where many clients use
the same technology and hosting environment. These solutions typically cost less to run, offer
the benefits of shared development and support, and may be implemented more efficiently for
clients. Downsides in the past have been a lack of flexibility and control and a sense that the
development needs of an individual client may be subject to the needs of the vendor or its larger
clients. This concern appears to be lessening as SaaS solutions continue to mature.

How The Criteria Are Organized
After examining past research, user need assessments, and vendor and expert interviews, we
developed a comprehensive set of evaluation criteria. We evaluated vendors against 75 criteria,
which we grouped into three high-level buckets:



■ Current offering. The criteria we selected to assess the strength of companies’ current offerings
are weighted heavily toward business user tools — a requirement that commerce executives have
told us is critical as marketing and merchandising take the front seat in commerce strategies. We
evaluated each offering against 15 groups of criteria: solution architecture; technology
architecture; multisite management; multiple device/touchpoint support; catalog, product
content, and site content management; B2C eCommerce features; marketing tools; customer
account management; customer service; order management; reporting and analytics; security;
community and social commerce; globalization/internationalization; and professional services.

■ Strategy. We compared the strategies of each company with the needs of commerce executives,
industry trends, and Forrester’s forward-looking vision of the commerce market to assess how
well each vendor is positioned for future success. We examined each vendor’s product road map;
planned B2C enhancements; target market and B2C focus; key technology partners and channel
strategy; commerce service providers; and cost of ownership.

■ Market presence. Many firms support online businesses with technology orphaned by vendors
that struggled to be profitable or have gone out of business. eBusiness and IT executives
must look for vendors with a strong and stable installed base, steady growth, and a network
of partners and resellers. To determine the current market presence for our evaluation, we
combined information about each vendor’s installed base, new customers, revenue, revenue
growth, and the financial resources to support the strategy and product development.

These B2C Commerce Suites Are The Best Of The Best
Forrester included 10 vendors in this assessment: Demandware, Digital River, hybris, IBM,
Intershop, Magento, Micros-Retail, Oracle (ATG), RedPrairie, and SAP.10 While we considered
including a large number of companies offering commerce solutions for this assessment, each of the
vendors we included has (see Figure 2):

■ A significant focus on — and market presence in — enterprise B2C commerce solutions.
Although many of the vendors included in this assessment serve clients in other market
segments — such as business-to-business (B2B), business-to-government (B2G), and business-
to-employee (B2E) — each has a focused product offering for its established B2C commerce
customer base as well as an ongoing to commitment to B2C commerce clients.

■ A profitable or stable business with at least $20 million in revenues and client momentum.
To ensure that the vendors we evaluated will remain viable in this evolving market, Forrester
limited its analysis to companies that have the resources and momentum to sustain themselves
through variable market conditions. Each of these companies has a minimum of $20 million in
annual commerce solution product sales, is profitable or indicates it is approaching profitability,
and has at least 50 existing clients as well as positive sales momentum.



■ The ability to support enterprise-class commerce clients across multiple B2C verticals.
Forrester defines enterprise-class commerce as websites transacting more than $100 million in
online sales annually. Many clients of the assessed vendors may be transacting less than this, but
these solutions are running one or more sites at this level and have demonstrated this capability
across clients in multiple B2C verticals. Vendors that primarily serve clients in one specific
vertical, such as software or media, were not included in this report.11

Forrester did not include companies in this assessment with a primary focus in other related market
segments, such as:

■ B2B-focused solutions with limited current B2C commerce capabilities. We may consider
companies like BigMachines, Ignify, Insite Software, NetSuite, and Oracle’s Siebel in the future
as their B2C commerce capabilities evolve, but they do not have a mature B2C-focused solution
today. We may evaluate these, as well as many of the companies represented in this B2C
commerce suite evaluation, in upcoming research focused on B2B commerce. Past research is
also available for B2B commerce solutions.12

■ Solutions focused on small and medium-size businesses (SMBs). This includes solutions from
companies such as Amazon.com (Webstore by Amazon), eBay (ProStores), Shopify, Volusion,
and Yahoo (Yahoo Merchant Solutions), which tend to serve clients operating with less than $10
million in annual online revenues. However, we have written research on these and many other
SMB commerce solutions in North America and Europe.13

■ Full-service solutions aimed at providing a suite of capabilities for commerce companies.
We have written separate research on and an overview of the capabilities of full-service solutions
like Amazon, eCommera, GSI Commerce, ModusLink Global Solutions, OneStop, PFSweb, and
Speed FC.14

■ Digital- or media-focused solutions. These providers focus their solutions on media, software,
online subscriptions, and other virtual or digital goods. We have written separate research on
vendors that specialize in the unique requirements of selling digital goods, including asknet,
Avangate, BlueSnap’s Plimus, cleverbridge, and Elastic Path Software.15 Digital River, a provider
included in the current B2C commerce suite evaluation, also offers solutions for this market.



Figure 2 Evaluated Vendors: Vendor Information And Selection Criteria

Product version
Vendor evaluated
Demandware SaaS

Digital River SaaS

hybris 4.7

IBM 7.0

Intershop 7.0

Magento 1.11

Micros-Retail 4.0

RedPrairie 2012.1

SAP WCEM 2.0

Vendor selection criteria
The vendor’s product was generally available at the time of data collection, with at least three references
available for contact.

The vendor has a focused product offering for, an established customer base in, and an ongoing
commitment to B2C commerce.

The vendor generates at least $20 million in annual eCommerce platform software and services sales, is
profitable, and has at least 50 clients with positive sales momentum.

The vendor demonstrates the ability to support enterprise-class direct-to-consumer businesses with sales
of more than $100 million per year with the product evaluated.

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

B2C Commerce SuiteS Have Evolved SubStantially
Since our last evaluation in 2010, we have seen the welcome evolution of many commerce platforms
and solution suites. This evolution is driven in part by solution providers’ focus on changing client
requirements, as well as by the significant merger and acquisition activity over the past two years.
Since our earlier detailed evaluation, we have seen dramatic improvements and advances from many
of the evaluated solution providers as well as across the market as a whole. As a group, these systems
are poised to support their clients as they increasingly move into multichannel and multitouchpoint
commerce and support the next generation of customer shopping and research touchpoints.
However, our evaluation also highlights very important differentiators and models this year.



Our evaluation uncovered a diverse and complex market in which (see Figure 3):

■ IBM, hybris, Oracle, and Demandware lead the pack. IBM, hybris, and Oracle offer strong
eCommerce capabilities, the ability to support multiple touchpoints and multichannel
requirements, and strong or very strong business management tools. IBM has the lead in order
management capabilities with its Sterling Commerce solution, whereas hybris and Oracle have
less mature solutions in this area. Demandware offers a SaaS solution with strong multisite
and effective merchandising tools, but its order management solution is nascent and aimed at
smaller and less complex clients at this stage. IBM, hybris, and Oracle offer traditional software
application licensing models but have also worked to add flexibility that utilizes third-party
hosted/managed or SaaS models.16

■ Micros-Retail, Intershop, RedPrairie, and Digital River offer compelling solutions. Each
of these vendors offers strong eCommerce capabilities, with varying multitouchpoint and
multichannel capabilities. Each offers strong to moderately strong eCommerce features and
moderately effective business management tools, but the vendors vary considerably in areas
such as product catalog management, WCM, order management, and support for globalization/
internationalization. Micros-Retail offers strong merchandising tools, differentiated testing,
and effective site and content management tools. Intershop has made significant strides, largely
through leveraging its relationship with GSI and their joint “next-generation” V11 project, but
the company still lags the market leaders. RedPrairie has combined the former Escalate Retail
Blue Martini product with its order management system (OMS), call center, and supply chain
solutions, but it has yet to see the benefit of its investment in the core eCommerce solution.
Digital River is largely geared toward smaller enterprise or midmarket clients, and it continues
to focus on consumer electronics, software, and manufacturing clients.

■ SAP and Magento lag behind. These two vendors can offer well-placed solutions for the right
client, but they lag behind the competition as solutions for the enterprise B2C eCommerce
client. SAP’s solution is unique in this evaluation as the product is not intended to really stand
alone as a commerce platform; rather, it aims to help SAP ERP/CRM customers extend that
product to support eCommerce. While holding promise in terms of reducing integration
complexity and simplifying the management of the solution — especially for on-premises,
IT-led programs — the combined solution requires third-party CMS tools and lacks overall
competitive capabilities when compared with the wider market. Magento is a commercial open
source solution that has enjoyed remarkable success since it launched its open source product —
Magneto Community Edition — targeting small businesses five years ago. However, at its core,
the “enterprise edition” remains geared toward these smaller clients, with the extensions that
target more sophisticated clients falling short.



This evaluation of the enterprise B2C commerce suite market is intended to be a starting point only.
We encourage readers to view the detailed product evaluations and adapt the criteria weightings to
fit their individual needs through the Forrester Wave Excel-based vendor comparison tool. We also
encourage clients to review the research on other solutions types and segments and to leverage their
inquiry access to learn more before beginning a selection process.

Figure 3 Forrester Wave™: B2C Commerce Suites, Q3 ’12

Risky Strong
Bets Contenders Performers Leaders
Strong

IBM
hybris Go online to download
Oracle ATG
the Forrester Wave tool
Demandware for more detailed product
Micros-Retail Intershop evaluations, feature
RedPrairie comparisons, and
Digital River customizable rankings.

Current SAP
offering Magento

Market presence

Full vendor participation

Incomplete vendor participation
Weak

Weak Strategy Strong




Figure 3 Forrester Wave™: B2C Commerce Suites, Q3 ’12 (Cont.)

Demandware

Micros-Retail
Digital River
Weighting
Forrester’s

RedPrairie
Intershop

Magento
hybris

SAP
IBM
CURRENT OFFERING 50% 4.02 3.13 4.31 4.53 3.57 2.45 3.58 3.32 2.59
Solution architecture 5% 3.35 1.90 4.45 5.00 4.00 2.00 3.45 3.00 2.45
Technology architecture 5% 3.90 2.80 4.30 4.50 3.30 2.60 4.00 3.30 2.80
Multisite management 7% 4.00 3.00 5.00 5.00 3.00 2.00 3.00 3.00 2.00
Multiple device/touchpoint support 5% 5.00 2.00 4.00 4.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 4.00 2.00
Catalog, product content, 15% 4.00 2.51 4.79 4.00 3.52 2.30 3.97 3.00 2.30
and site content management
B2C eCommerce features 10% 4.20 2.75 4.40 4.35 3.40 2.50 3.90 3.35 2.20
Marketing tools 5% 4.15 3.05 4.50 4.55 3.50 2.60 3.65 3.75 2.15
Customer account management 5% 4.00 4.00 4.00 5.00 4.00 3.00 4.00 3.00 3.00
Customer service 5% 3.50 3.00 4.00 4.50 3.00 2.50 3.50 3.50 3.00
Order management 15% 3.52 3.27 4.28 4.53 3.27 2.24 3.83 4.07 3.06
Reporting and analytics 3% 3.65 3.35 4.00 4.65 3.35 2.60 3.80 2.60 2.20
Security 5% 5.00 5.00 3.00 5.00 5.00 2.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
Community and social commerce 2% 4.00 3.00 3.00 4.00 3.00 2.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
Globalization/internationalization 10% 4.45 4.20 4.55 4.85 4.45 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.10
Professional services 3% 3.90 3.55 3.90 4.35 3.45 2.45 3.65 3.45 2.35

STRATEGY 50% 4.05 2.45 4.10 4.70 3.10 2.60 3.00 3.00 2.00
Product road map 50% 4.00 2.00 4.00 5.00 3.00 2.00 3.00 3.00 2.00
Planned B2C enhancements 30% 4.00 3.00 4.00 4.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 2.00
(next 24 months)
Target market and B2C focus 10% 4.00 4.00 5.00 5.00 4.00 3.00 4.00 4.00 2.00
Key technology partners and 5% 5.00 3.00 3.00 5.00 3.00 4.00 3.00 3.00 2.00
channel strategy
Commerce service providers 5% 4.00 0.00 5.00 5.00 3.00 4.00 1.00 1.00 2.00
Cost of ownership 0% 3.00 1.00 3.00 4.00 4.00 5.00 2.00 2.00 0.00

MARKET PRESENCE 0% 3.05 3.55 3.90 4.70 2.55 3.25 2.55 2.25 3.60
Installed base for this version of 30% 3.00 4.00 4.00 5.00 3.00 4.00 1.00 2.00 3.00
the product
New customers (past 12 months) 20% 3.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 2.00 4.00 2.00 2.00 4.00
Revenue 25% 2.00 5.00 3.00 5.00 2.00 2.00 4.00 2.00 3.00
Revenue growth 15% 5.00 2.00 5.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 5.00
Financial resources 10% 3.00 2.00 4.00 5.00 3.00 3.00 4.00 3.00 4.00
All scores are based on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong).



vENDOR PROFILES

Leaders Provide Robust And Flexible Commerce Capabilities
Leaders in our B2C commerce suite evaluation include:

■ IBM. IBM’s WebSphere Commerce represents a highly flexible and scalable enterprise B2C
eCommerce solution; it shows significant adoption within the top tier of eCommerce retailers and
continued successful growth. The suite is strengthened through the added capabilities of IBM’s
Sterling Commerce OMS solution along with the Coremetrics and Unica product integrations.
The IBM solution combines a rich set of eCommerce capabilities with a flexible service-oriented
architecture (SOA) and integration capability, enabling the product to be extended and
customized. However, clients have reported concerns over the total cost of ownership, as IBM’s
solutions are less contemporary and use fewer open source elements and conventions that today’s
developers are able to learn quickly. Business user tools such as the IBM Management Center have
evolved, although they are no longer industry-leading, necessitating further investment by IBM.
IBM has a very strong product strategy focused on core product enhancements as well as the
building out of a comprehensive suite of multichannel capabilities. A soon-to-be-released SaaS
offering combining WebSphere Commerce and Sterling Commerce in a cloud-based format will
be a compelling option for clients that may otherwise be drawn to Demandware.

■ hybris. As a solution, hybris has continued to mature over the past two years — and gained
market share quickly as a result. Specifically, hybris has made significant improvements to its
product’s site management tools, content management tools, and order management capabilities.
While hybris severed its relationship with Endeca (which was acquired by Oracle), the company
acquired iCongo in a creative deal that made iCongo’s key investors the lead ownership group
of hybris.17 Taking advantage of the team and solution experience at iCongo, hybris turned to
redevelop an OMS solution and hosted offering. Its progress in these areas is notable for an
enterprise software solution, illustrating the contemporary nature of the hybris architecture.
The key differentiators of hybris remain strong product content management tools, catalog
management, enterprise integration, and globalization/internationalization capabilities. Its
eCommerce features have also matured notably, and there is a well-defined ability to extend the
product and customize it to develop differentiated eCommerce sites across a variety of verticals.
This remains a young company growing very quickly, which continues to raise questions of the
potential for over-commitment to clients by either hybris or its partners, which are adding and
scaling their hybris-trained teams exceptionally quickly.

■ Oracle. Oracle declined to participate in this evaluation directly; however, Oracle’s ATG continues
to be a leader in B2C eCommerce platform solutions. A number of factors have led to a perceived
loss in position among the best-of-breed solution providers. First and foremost was the acquisition
of ATG by Oracle. Customers are eager to understand how Oracle is fitting ATG into its overall
Oracle software and solution offerings, which is only now beginning to be communicated. A series



of related acquisitions — such as RightNow, FatWire, and, most notably, Endeca — has
complicated matters. Despite that, ATG combines a strong and well-rounded eCommerce feature
set with an array of targeting, personalization, and customer interaction tools. Oracle’s unique
differentiator at this point is the opportunity to combine ATG and Endeca, adding search-driven
customer experience management to a commerce platform offering — something that Oracle is
just beginning to execute. However, Oracle’s order management solutions — eBusiness suite, Siebel,
and Fusion Distributed Order Orchestration (DOO) — are not as strong for B2C multichannel
applications. The biggest question for prospective Oracle customers at this point is its vision for
ATG, Endeca, RightNow, and Fusion DOO as an integrated commerce solution offering.

■ Demandware. Demandware has improved its solution in terms of our evaluation perhaps more
than any other solution from our previous evaluations. Demandware accomplished this through
significantly improved site and content management tools; the addition of a still relatively basic
but improving order management and call center solution; the addition of commerce service
providers to support client integrations; and the development of open commerce APIs to extend
the platform. Demandware’s LINK program remains a differentiator, along with its developer
portals and customer training. Look for Demandware to continue to improve its business
management tools and the sophistication of its integration capabilities. While it remains
committed to its revenue share model, Demandware appears ready to introduce an alternative
“utilization” model soon, aimed at larger prospective clients and partners.

Strong Performers Blend Different Strengths With Some Weaknesses
Strong Performers in our B2C commerce solution evaluation include:

■ Micros-Retail. Micros-Retail has completed the integration of the Fry solutions into its
offerings, spitting out the services and products while pulling the Fry OCP commerce solution
into MICROS and turning what was left of Fry into an interactive agency focused principally
on MICROS customers. While the OCP product remains a very strong eCommerce solution
with key differentiators in areas such as merchandising and customer targeting, MICROS has
yet to fully integrate its order management and call center solutions with the OCP product so
that it can sell and support these effectively as a suite. It seems the product development traction
was affected by MICROS’ decision to develop a lodgings-industry-focused product based on
OCP; it also showed some indecisiveness in integrating the Fry product and sales teams with
MICROS. However, MICROS has a significant opportunity to leverage OCP and its other
commerce offerings in a well-integrated multichannel and multitouchpoint solution with the
right investment. Customers will want to see further development of a MICROS OCP partner
network as well as improved hosted offerings for MICROS to be fully competitive.



■ Intershop. Intershop has made significant progress since our last evaluation, although it still
has room to improve before becoming a best-of-breed solution. The core improvements in
the Intershop product came from the joint development work it did with GSI Commerce and
a number of supporting partners. Many of these improvements are in the latest versions of
Intershop and in GSI’s next-generation V11 product, and they will continue to become evident
over time. However, it still needs to deliver improved site and content management tools that
business users can leverage, minimizing the need for ongoing developer and IT support. Many
of Intershop’s largest clients have reported improved satisfaction with Intershop, but they are
also more reliant than ever on Intershop’s professional services for support. Intershop has basic
order management and product content management capabilities, but many more sophisticated
customers will require third-party solutions in these areas. While Intershop has benefited
from the controlling stake that GSI (and now eBay) have taken in the company, there remains
a nagging lack of clarity as to the long-term role that Intershop will play in an eBay or GSI
Commerce solutions offering. This lack of clarity will continue to plague Intershop’s customer
and partner growth, particularly in North America.

■ RedPrairie. RedPrairie acquired Escalate Retail and its collection of commerce solutions —
including Blue Martini, Ecometry, and GERS Retail Systems. The company has performed some
surgical product portfolio rationalization and combined these different solutions with RedPrairie’s
order management and supply chain solutions. On paper, this combination makes for a dynamic
capability set able to meet the eCommerce, OMS, CRM, and supply chain management
requirements of retailers looking to embrace multichannel retailing across digital touchpoints.
However, RedPrairie’s Blue Martini commerce platform lags the market-leading solutions in
support for enterprise B2C commerce. RedPrairie has already made a notable investment in its
platform and integration with other RedPrairie products, and this continued focus on eCommerce
business solutions and multichannel features will be very important for current and future clients.
Focus may be a challenge for RedPrairie as it looks to add commerce platform solutions to its base
supply chain and transportation management offerings, but it has a strong vision and appears
committed to developing solutions for its core retail and grocery markets.

■ Digital River. Digital River is best known for supporting software clients’ eCommerce needs
with checkout, payment, and digital and physical fulfillment needs. But as that market has
plateaued to some degree and new entrants have challenged Digital River’s market dominance,
Digital River has diversified into providing broader B2C commerce capabilities. However, the
solution remains somewhat limited by this heritage and lacks the features to compete as a best-
of-breed multichannel and multitouchpoint solution. Digital River will appeal to consumer
electronics and digital goods companies looking for a discrete eCommerce solution paired with
full-service capabilities such as payments, fulfillment, and customer service. Digital River has
some strengths in globalization, payments, and security.



Contenders Present Unique Opportunities
Contenders in our B2C commerce solution evaluation include:

■ SAP. SAP Web Channel Experience Management is a solution long in development by SAP.
The product is implemented in either an on-premises or hosted/managed fashion. The goal of
the solution is to enable a client with a heavy investment in SAP’s ERP and CRM solutions to
leverage that capability in online commerce. Therefore, areas such as order management and
customer service are inherently intended to leverage the other SAP applications. However, SAP’s
Web Channel Experience Management solution also assumes you will run the digital channels
off CMS solutions, such as SAP’s preferred partner CoreMedia, which notably has little market
presence outside Northern Europe. This assumed level of both SAP investment and reliance
on third-party solutions for such central commerce capabilities will limit the appeal of the SAP
solution, though it will be a great fit for some. Ultimately, though, many competitive solutions
also integrate deeply with SAP, making SAP Web Channel Experience Management perhaps less
appealing as a standalone solution.

■ Magento. Magento’s growth over the past few years has been remarkable. Tapping into a PHP
developer and agency community with a low-cost or free licensing model and a well-matched set
of solution capabilities for the small online business, Magento has also made inroads in the
midmarket and enterprise market. However, upon close evaluation, Magento still lacks the core
features and partner extensions to compete in the enterprise arena, with particular gaps in areas
like CMS, OMS, and customer service features. Magento is a strong fit for a smaller online
business inside a larger enterprise — such as a smaller brand or emerging market solution — and
will continue to appeal to companies seeking a high degree of customization on the platform, but
the solution lacks many of the multichannel capabilities required today. The development of
eBay’s X.commerce web services solution — which eBay dubs a “fabric” — may enable Magento
to add these features through partners more effectively at some point in the future.

There Are Many Important Players Beyond Those We Evaluated Here
The commerce solutions market is a diverse one, and there are additional solutions that may be
relevant to companies looking for a commerce platform or services. There are numerous platforms
to support companies of different sizes, levels of sophistication, geographies, as well as different
channels and touchpoints. Some additional solutions to consider include:

■ MarketLive. MarketLive offers an effective product aimed at the midmarket eCommerce
retailer, and it continues to gain momentum in the midmarket specialty retail segment with
a well-priced and well-rounded solution. MarketLive has also improved options for working
with its integration partners or a customer’s own IT staff for launching and optimizing a site
post-launch. MarketLive has more than doubled its R&D investment over the past several years
with a focus on expanded merchant tools, order management, and content management, which
continues to position it well in the midmarket specialty retailer solution segment.



■ GSI Commerce. GSI has been hard at work over the past few years — together with Intershop
and a number of partners — in developing its next-generation V11 platform. The platform
holds much promise for both GSI and its customers, not to mention GSI’s parent, eBay. For
GSI, the new platform will be an important departure from a model in which GSI staff had to
execute almost every change and update to the site on a client’s behalf; it will move to one in
which customers will have self-service business management tools and GSI will be much less
involved day to day. Alongside the Intershop-based commerce platform, GSI has developed
a Sterling Commerce-based retail OMS and a business intelligence (BI) suite for reporting
capability, both of which may prove to be key differentiators. However, migrating customers to
this next-generation platform is a significant undertaking fraught with risks, and impatient and
frustrated customers will add to the challenge.

■ Elastic Path Software. Elastic Path is an effective eCommerce solution but has some limitations
that reflect its specific vertical focus. Elastic Path now largely focuses on digital goods and
subscriptions, making it relevant to the media, telecom, and software industries in particular.
These industries have a subset of eCommerce requirements that differ from those of other B2C
eCommerce verticals, although these are often very specialized. As a result, areas such as WCM,
product content management, and order management receive much less focus or require third-
party solutions as well as Elastic Path. Somewhat uniquely, Elastic Path ships source code with
its application and leverages many common open source frameworks and products, enabling
developers to extend and customize the product widely. However, Elastic Path has struggled to
develop partners to support clients, limiting its growth as a commerce solution.

■ Ascentium. Late in 2011, Microsoft announced that it was dropping its Commerce Server
product; this had been the market leader in the early days of eCommerce but had lagged in
our recent evaluations. Ascentium — through its acquisition of Cactus Commerce — became
the beneficiary of Microsoft’s exit from the commerce solutions market; Microsoft handed
the Commerce Server product over to Ascentium due to its history of building the product
and technical expertise with it.18 With that transition complete and with customer and partner
support in place, Ascentium is now beginning to invest in the Commerce Server product and is
developing compelling partnerships that will help it attempt to regain relevance as an enterprise
commerce solution. This will be a challenge for a product that today resides within an agency
and that may lack the resources needed to innovate and invest, but it is welcome news for a
market in need of Microsoft-centric enterprise commerce solutions.



Supplemental MATERIAL

Online Resource
The online version of Figure 3 is an Excel-based vendor comparison tool that provides detailed
product evaluations and customizable rankings.

Data Sources Used In This Forrester Wave
Forrester used a combination of four data sources to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each
solution:

■ Hands-on scenario-based lab evaluations. Vendors spent one day with a team of analysts who
performed a hands-on evaluation of the product using a scenario-based testing methodology.
We evaluated each product using the same scenario(s), creating a level playing field by
evaluating every product on the same criteria. Scenarios for this evaluation focused on routine
commerce management and content tasks. For more on scenario-based evaluation, refer to our
report on the scenario-based commerce technology evaluation process.19

■ Vendor surveys. Forrester surveyed vendors on their capabilities as they relate to the evaluation
criteria. Once we analyzed the completed vendor surveys, we conducted vendor calls where
necessary to gather details of vendor qualifications.

■ Product demos. We asked vendors to conduct demonstrations of their product’s functionality.
We used findings from these product demos to validate details of each vendor’s product
capabilities. Demos for this evaluation focused on core commerce features, differentiation of the
products, and the business user tools used to manage client sites.

■ Customer reference calls. To validate product and vendor qualifications, Forrester also
conducted reference calls with two of each vendor’s current customers.

The Forrester Wave Methodology
We conduct primary research to develop a list of vendors that meet our criteria to be evaluated
in this market. From that initial pool of vendors, we then narrow our final list. We choose these
vendors based on: 1) product fit; 2) customer success; and 3) Forrester client demand. We eliminate
vendors that have limited customer references and products that don’t fit the scope of our evaluation.

After examining past research, user need assessments, and vendor and expert interviews, we develop
the initial evaluation criteria. To evaluate the vendors and their products against our set of criteria, we
gather details of product qualifications through a combination of lab evaluations, questionnaires,
demos, and/or discussions with client references. We send evaluations to the vendors for their review,
and we adjust the evaluations to provide the most accurate view of vendor offerings and strategies.



We set default weightings to reflect our analysis of the needs of large user companies — and/or
other scenarios as outlined in the Forrester Wave document — and then score the vendors based
on a clearly defined scale. These default weightings are intended only as a starting point, and we
encourage readers to adapt the weightings to fit their individual needs through the Excel-based
tool. The final scores generate the graphical depiction of the market based on current offering,
strategy, and market presence. Forrester intends to update vendor evaluations regularly as product
capabilities and vendor strategies evolve.

Endnotes
1
Comp-store refers to comparable store sales. This compares retail sales at stores open for more than one
year and is a metric that’s commonly used to gauge the performance of retail stores.
2
Source: May 2012 Global eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professional Online Survey of 66 eBusiness and
channel strategy professionals.
3
Source: Forrester Research Online Retail Forecast, 2012 To 2016 (US) and Forrester Research Online Retail
Forecast, 2011 To 2016 (Western Europe).
4
Interaction ecosystems include the combination of Apple’s iOS, Mac OS, iTunes marketplace, and Apple TV,
for example. Other interaction ecosystems include: Google’s Android, Chrome OS, Wallet, and Google+;
Microsoft’s Windows 8, Office, Bing, and Xbox; and Facebook. Often, these ecosystems are combined and
integrated with third-party services to develop innovative opportunities to interact with, sell to, and serve
customers.
5
For more on the Splinternet, see the January 26, 2010, “The Splinternet” report.
6
For more on responsive design, see the July 12, 2012, “Understanding Responsive Design” report.
7
Source: Christine Hauser, “Growth in Retail Sales Slows From Last Year’s Numbers,” The New York Times,
July 5, 2012 (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/06/business/economy/retail-sales-fell-short-in-june.html).
8
For a vision of the commerce platform of the future, see the October 19, 2011, “The Agile Commerce
Platform” report.
9
For more on systems integrators and commerce services providers, see the February 24, 2012, “The
Forrester Wave™: Global Commerce Service Providers, Q1 2012” report and see the February 9, 2012, “How
To Select A Commerce Services Provider” report.
10
While Oracle chose not to provide full information for its solution, we placed it in the Forrester Wave based
on our knowledge of Oracle’s solution from past analysis and publicly available information in order to
provide a complete picture of the competitive landscape.
11
For an overview of digital-goods-focused commerce solutions, see the November 7, 2011, “Market
Overview: Digital Commerce Solutions 2011” report.
12
For an overview of B2B eCommerce platforms, see the December 7, 2009, “Market Overview: B2B
eCommerce Platforms” report.



13
For an overview of SMB-oriented eCommerce solutions, see the April 12, 2012, “SMB eCommerce
Solutions 2012” report.
14
For an overview of the full-service eCommerce solutions marketplace, see the October 31, 2008, “Market
Overview: Full-Service eCommerce Solutions” report.
15
For an overview of digital-goods-focused commerce solutions, see the November 7, 2011, “Market
Overview: Digital Commerce Solutions 2011” report.
16
Note that hosted/managed and SaaS offerings from IBM, hybris, and Oracle differ in a number of ways
from the full enterprise software licensed product reviewed in this report.
17
For more on the hybris acquisition of iCongo and what it means for the market, read the following blog
post: Brian K. Walker, “hybris & iCongo Come Together: What It Means,” Brian Walker’s Blog For eBusiness
& Channel Strategy Professionals, August 22, 2011 (http://blogs.forrester.com/brian_walker/11-08-22-
hybris_icongo_come_together_what_it_means).
18
Cactus Commerce was actively engaged in product development for Microsoft’s Commerce Server for many
years prior to its acquisition by Ascentium.
19
For more on using scenarios in technology evaluation, see the May 17, 2010, “Scenario-Based eCommerce
Technology Evaluation Process” report.


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