In 2020, the top 10 eCommerce software vendors accounted for nearly 63.9% of the global eCommerce applications market which grew 8.4% to approach nearly 6.1 billion in license, maintenance and subscription revenues.
Shopify led the pack with a 14.9% market share riding on a 21.1% jump in eCommerce license, maintenance and subscription revenues. Adobe was #2, followed by Salesforce (ex Demandware), SAP and HCL Technologies.
We ask the simple question: Who’s buying eCommerce applications from whom and why? And we provide the answers – supported by decades of research – to our clients around the world. (Sample from our Apps Database)
Through our forecast period, the eCommerce applications market size is expected to reach $7.4 billion by 2025, compared with $6.1 billion in 2020 at a compound annual growth rate of 3.9%.
| Exhibit 2: Worldwide eCommerce Software Market 2020-2025 Forecast, $M | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | 2020 | 2025 | 2020-2025 CAGR, % |
| Total | 6100 | 7393 | 3.9% |
Source: Apps Run The World, December 2021
Top 10 eCommerce Software Vendors
eCommerce applications include those designed for shopping cart automation, order management, inventory management, Web-based point of sale, multi-channel retailing, procurement, sourcing, and supplier relationship management.
New apps from the likes of SAP and Shopify are taking eCommerce to the next level with more personalization and integrated capabilities such as mobile storefront, ad retargeting and subscription management.
Here are the rankings of the top 10 eCommerce software vendors in 2020 and their market shares.
| Rank | Vendor | 2019 eCommerce Apps Revenues, $M | 2020 eCommerce Apps Revenues, $M | YoY Growth | 2020 eCommerce Market Share, % | Recent Developments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shopify | Subscribe | Subscribe | 21.1% | Subscribe | In May 2020, Shopify unveiled a business account and debit card called Shopify Balance, a “Buy Now, Pay Later” option called Shop Pay Installments, and a new Local Delivery product. Shopify also announced its AI-powered fulfillment network is now actively accepting merchant applications. Shopify Balance will include Shopify Balance Account, Shopify Balance Card, and Rewards (offering merchants cashback and discounts on everyday business spending like shipping and marketing). |
| 2 | Adobe | Subscribe | Subscribe | 7.9% | Subscribe | In April 2021, Adobe unveiled a multi-year collaboration starting with the integration of ShopRunner, an e-commerce platform, and a subsidiary of FedEx Services, with Adobe Commerce. The integration gives Adobe merchants access to FedEx post-purchase logistics intelligence, which helps them drive demand, reduce cost and gain customer insights. |
| 3 | Salesforce.com | Subscribe | Subscribe | 14.0% | Subscribe | Salesforce helped retailers around the world double down on digital as they navigated new challenges, including scaling their eCommerce operations. Between November 1 and December 31, 2020, Salesforce customers drove more than 204 million online orders on Commerce Cloud, while delivering fast, easy, and personalized digital experiences to shoppers. The increase in online shopping is a consequence of the pandemic. |
| 4 | SAP | Subscribe | Subscribe | 5.0% | Subscribe | In November 2020, SAP completed the acquisition of Emarsys. The Emarsys products will be added to the SAP Customer Experience portfolio. With the integration, SAP Customer Experience will power a foundation of omnichannel personalized engagement, meeting customers where and when they choose to engage, on their preferred channels, and on their terms. |
| 5 | HCL Technologies Ltd. | Subscribe | Subscribe | 3.3% | Subscribe | HCL Commerce, after acquiring IBM WebSphere Commerce, is gearing up to expand its presence in the large enterprise business segment. HCL Commerce with API-first architecture and the cloud-agnostic platform is well-positioned to support headless commerce, drive B2B and B2C use cases from a single unified platform and provide AI-driven capabilities to drive personalized customer engagements. |
| 6 | BigCommerce | Subscribe | Subscribe | 41.5% | Subscribe | In July 2021, BigCommerce acquired Feedonomics, a full-service data feed management platform. With Feedonomics, BigCommerce merchants maximize their omnichannel sales and return on ad spend. In the US, eCommerce channel ad spending is expected to surpass $41 billion by the end of 2024, representing nearly 15% of all digital ad spending. |
| 7 | VTEX | Subscribe | Subscribe | 17.3% | Subscribe | In February 2021, VTEX acquired Workarea, a cloud commerce platform provider, to strengthen its presence in and commitment to the U.S. and Canadian markets. The deal brings VTEX’s U.S. headcount to nearly 100 employees. Workarea’s customers have added more than $1 billion in gross merchandise volume (GMV) to VTEX, accounting for 20% of the company’s total GMV in the U.S. and Canada. |
| 8 | ChannelAdvisor | Subscribe | Subscribe | 10.7% | Subscribe | In October 2021, ChannelAdvisor has released ChannelAdvisor Commerce Network, an in-platform experience designed specifically for brands and retailers searching for preferred selling channels for their products. |
| 9 | FastSpring | Subscribe | Subscribe | -8.7% | Subscribe | In June 2021, FastSpring published expansion plans in their global commerce platform to support B2B SaaS and downloadable software companies with sales teams. FastSpring’s B2B suite of tools includes a Digital Invoicing solution (which allows software companies to quickly create and manage quotes, POs, and invoices, and process recurring payments) and Interactive Quotes (which provides sales representatives a guided selling solution to quickly explain even the most complex pricing, gather insights about the prospect through quote activity tracking and close deals, all within a single collaborative quoting experience that is integrated with leading CRMs) |
| 10 | Optimizely(formerly Episerver) | Subscribe | Subscribe | 18.2% | Subscribe | In September 2021, Optimizely introduced a data core service, enhancing its digital experience platform (DXP) with deeper analytics and unified data insights across its suite of products. The service launch follows the company’s unification of the Optimizely and Episerver brands and acquisition of Zaius in March 2021, as Optimizely continues building one platform for digital marketers and digital product managers for today and the future. |
| Subtotal | Subscribe | Subscribe | 12.1% | Subscribe | ||
| Other | Subscribe | Subscribe | 2.6% | Subscribe | ||
| Total | 5626 | 6100 | 8.4% | 100% |
Source: Apps Run The World, December 2021
Other eCommerce software providers included in the report are: 2Checkout (ex Avangate), 3dcart, ACI Worldwide, Inc., Amazon Web Services (AWS), Aptean, Aptos, ARI Network, Asseco Group, Automattic, Brightpearl, BroadVision, Capillary Technologies, CDK Global, ChannelAdvisor, Cleverbridge, Constellation Software Inc., Construction Industry Solutions Corp., Cox Automotive, CSG Systems International, Deem, Digital River, Ekm Systems, Elastic Path, Episerver, FastSpring, First Data, Fiserv, GFI Informatique, GHX, Heartland Payment Systems, a Global Payments Company, Insite Software, Intershop, iptor, Jack Henry & Associates, Kentico Software, Kibo, Kingdee, Kooomo, Liferay, Inc, NCR Corporation, Odoo, OrderDynamics, Pronto Software, PROS Holdings, Retail Solutions, Reynolds and Reynolds Company, Sage, Travelport, Unilog, Volusion, Inc., VTEX The True Cloud Commerce Platform, WisageTech, Works Apps and many others.
Custom data cuts related to the eCommerce Applications market are available:
- Top 80 eCommerce Applications Vendors and Market Forecast 2020-2025
- 2020 eCommerce Applications Market By Industry (21 Verticals)
- 2020 eCommerce Applications Market By Functional Market (16 Markets)
- 2020 eCommerce Applications Market By Country (USA + 45 countries)
- 2020 eCommerce Applications Market By Region (Americas, EMEA, APAC)
- 2020 eCommerce Applications Market By Revenue Type (License, Services, Hardware, Support and Maintenance, Cloud)
- 2020 eCommerce Applications Market By Customer Size (revenue, employee count, asset)
- 2020 eCommerce Applications Market By Channel (Direct vs Direct)
- 2020 eCommerce Applications Market By Product
Exhibit 4 shows the enterprise applications market by functional area. The highest growth functional markets revolve around smaller segments like eCommerce, Enterprise Performance Management, Sales Performance Management and Treasury and Risk, where first movers remain less established than those that for decades have been entrenched in functional areas like ERP, CRM and PLM.
eCommerce Win/Loss Analysis As Part Of Enterprise Applications Buyer Insight Customer Database
On the buyer side, customers are investing in eCommerce systems based on new features and capabilities that are expected to replace their existing legacy systems. In many cases, competitive upgrades and replacements that could have a profound impact on future market-share changes will become more widespread.
Since 2010, our global team of researchers have been studying the patterns of the latest eCommerce software purchases by customers around the world, aggregating massive amounts of data points that form the basis of our forecast assumptions and perhaps the rise and fall of certain vendors and their products on a quarterly basis.
Updated continuously, our database features extensive win/loss analysis. Each year our research team identifies tens of thousands of these customer wins and losses from public and proprietary sources.
The research results are being incorporated into regular updates in our Enterprise Applications Buyer Insight Customer Database. You can access the Quarterly Win/Loss Analysis Scoreboard and our Enterprise Applications Buyer Insight Customer Database by becoming a subscriber.
Source: Apps Run The World, December 2021
Further Readings
An expanded version of this report covers the top 80+ eCommerce software vendors, offering in-depth analysis of the market dynamics, vendors’ Strengths, Customers, Opportunities, Risks and Ecosystems as well as their ability to gain Shares (SCORES) within their respective space.
We also offer win-loss analysis of the quarterly wins of these top vendors and whether incumbents and upstarts pose any real threat to their standing amid shifting market requirements and user preferences.
More Enterprise Applications Research Findings
Based on the latest annual survey of 3,000+ enterprise software vendors, Apps Run The World is releasing a number of dedicated reports, which profile the world’s 500 largest Enterprise Applications Vendors (Apps Top 500) and the world’s 500 largest Cloud Applications Vendors (Cloud Top 500) ranked by their 2015-2020 product revenues.
Their 2020 results are being broken down, sorted and ranked across 16 functional areas (from Analytics to Treasury and Risk Management) and by 21 vertical industries(from Aerospace to Utility), as shown in our Taxonomy. Further breakdowns by subvertical, country, company size, etc. are available as custom data cuts per special request.
Research Methodology
Each year our global team of researchers conduct an annual survey of thousands of enterprise software vendors by contacting them directly on their latest quarterly and annual revenues by country, functional area, and vertical market. We supplement their written responses with our own primary research to determine quarterly and yearly growth rates, In addition to customer wins to ascertain whether these are net new purchases or expansions of existing implementations.
Another dimension of our proactive research process is through continuous improvement of our customer database, which stores more than one million records on the enterprise software landscape of over 100,000 organizations around the world.
The database provides customer insight and contextual information on what types of enterprise software systems and other relevant technologies are they running and their propensity to invest further with their current or new suppliers as part of their overall IT transformation projects to stay competitive, fend off threats from disruptive forces, or comply with internal mandates to improve overall enterprise efficiency.
The result is a combination of supply-side data and demand-generation customer insight that allows our clients to better position themselves in anticipation of the next wave that will reshape the enterprise software marketplace for years to come.
