StoreConnect and Shopify eCommerce Platform Comparison
From the beginning, we took a different approach to eCommerce. We call it Customer Commerce.
The difference? The tools businesses need come built in. The ease and conveniences customers demand come built in. This is Customer Commerce.
We’ve minimized the need for 3rd party solutions, plugins and integrations that increase overall cost, create their own problems, or require time-consuming manual effort.
Native integration with full-featured CRM
Includes many of the features you need without plugins
Problem:
More plugins mean more SaaS subscriptions, reduced security and slower page loads.
Why it Matters:
Every plugin you add to a system is another monthly cost, another failure point and another security risk. But most importantly, it limits and constrains your growth. Your eCommerce platform might be able to scale as you grow, but can your plugins?
Works Natively with Salesforce CRM
Custom Integration
& Regular Monitoring required
Problem:
Getting your data in a powerful CRM means you can USE the data in real time.
Why it Matters:
The elephant in the room: eCommerce is pretty much solved as a problem, but what has not been solved affordably until now is how do you get access to and USE the data in the backend to drive your business growth? Having that data in Salesforce allows you to USE the data, not just have it sit and do the export / import dance via spreadsheets!
Customer Data Structure Alignment
Problem:
One platform will capture customer info in fields like first name, last name, phone number, and email, while other systems use different data formats and fields.
Why it Matters:
Where your ERP or customer support platform might expect separate fields for different types of phone numbers (home, work, mobile), while the e-commerce platform has only one field for “phone number.” This makes mapping inconsistent and complicates customer support workflows, potentially leading to errors in customer identification.
Order statuses match between systems
Problem:
Shopify uses specific order status codes (e.g., “Open,” “Archived,” “Cancelled”) that may not match the statuses used by your integrated platforms (e.g., “Processing,” “Out for Delivery,” “Closed”).
Why it Matters:
Shopify has created a multi-tier status system for orders, payments and shipments. While this is a comprehensive solution, it exists only in their platform and is difficult to mirror in other platforms. Different status terminologies between platforms from integrations can lead to an inability to accurately map the status of an order between systems. It will cause miscommunication between customer service representatives and customers, as service agents might not be able to accurately track or update an order’s status because the systems are not always saying the same thing.
Single Source of Truth
Paid Upgrade
Custom Integrations required
Problem:
The “silo approach” of disparate technologies being forced to get along no longer serves business or customers.
Why it Matters:
If you have multiple stores (perhaps selling the same product in a B2B, B2C and D2C model, or multiple stores in multiple countries) then you don’t want to have to re-create that product for each store! Yet this is how most eCommerce systems work, each store is its own, a completely separate store. What you want is the ability to share that product and pricing information across multiple stores, a single source of truth that allows you to update it once, not dozens of times.
Automatable & Built to Grow with You
Capped fees on transactions
Problem:
Having a capped services fee on orders means upselling customers doesn’t upsell your fees.
Why it Matters:
It is common for eCommerce solutions to take a percentage of each transaction, however only StoreConnect puts a cap on those fees. It doesn’t matter if you are selling flowers or a yacht, you’ll pay a maximum fee per sale.
Create custom flows to trigger events
Plugin Required
Problem:
No two businesses are the same. It’s important that your business processes be automated so you can focus on what’s important to you.
Why it Matters:
We all know that getting the sale is only about 20% of the work. You then have to pick it, pack it, ship it, support it and resell to it. All of these functions require a logic flow and processing control. You don’t want to export this to external systems to make this work, you want to do it on your platform, with clicks not code.
No site rebuild when upgrading
Problem:
No business can afford (and no customers will tolerate) rebuilding in the middle of accelerated growth and sales.
Why it Matters:
You are growing, your business is expanding, you want to take on new markets and BAM, you hit the glass ceiling where you can’t add that extra store, inventory location or currency. Now you have a hard choice, migrate to a new store and reimport everything, reset up all your plugins or replatform to another system entirely! Right in the middle of your biggest expansion period! Get a system that allows you to upgrade without having to migrate!
Omni-Channel Commerce - Sell everywhere
Fully Featured Point of Sale
Paid Upgrade
Problem:
Point of Sale MUST integrate your physical and your online stores in real-time. Otherwise, it’s pointless and costly.
Why it Matters:
Having a Point of Sale system that is good enough for some casual purchases at the occasional market or event is great, but invariably you hit limits to what a simple system can do. Having access to a complete Point of Sale is critical for any business who wants to grow.
Multiple brands / Stores in one license
Paid Upgrade
Problem:
Duplicating product data, one for every store, is a complete waste of your team’s time.
Why it Matters:
Many eCommerce systems allow you to have multiple stores within an account, but these stores are separate systems, requiring separate management, maintenance and upkeep. What you really want is a SINGLE system that allows you to run multiple stores, so you can have one dashboard with all of your brand sales on one screen, you can implement order fulfilment processes that work across all your stores without having to rebuild them (or pay for them) multiple times. This unlocks growth.
More than 20 currencies supported
Paid Upgrade
Problem:
If you want to grow globally, currency limitations need to be as diverse as the customers you serve.
Why it Matters:
Truthfully, not many people run into this and less than 20 currencies might be enough. But what you don’t want is to have worldwide growth and go to install your 21st currency and now you have to replatform, right in the middle of your biggest growth and expansion ever! Supporting a currency should just be a matter of specifying the currency. So that’s the way we built it.
B2C, B2B and DTC integrated into one system
Paid Upgrade / Replatform Required
Problem:
The fastest growing companies leverage time, assets and output. Just like StoreConnect does, out of the box.
Why it Matters:
Having 3 different stores for 3 different pricing structures and 3 different product selections sounds like 3 times the amount of work! Don’t spend your team’s time building 3 different stores. Build it once, specify 3 prices and have a happy team!
Keeping Data Secure
3rd party processing all done in your system
Problem:
The best business models can be undermined by a lack of security and privacy.
Why it Matters:
An often overlooked and very undermentioned issue with 3rd party plugins is that, quite often, they export your data to their own systems to do preprocessing or postprocessing. Some clients we have spoken to have a dozen plugins which copy ALL of their customer data to offsite servers. This can be a security nightmare when one of those providers has a security breech like this one. What you want is any privacy related data processing done ONLY on your own systems, not exported externally to be processed.
SOC2 Compliant (including approved connectors)
Problem:
Security is only as good as the weakest link.
Why it Matters:
SOC2 compliance is important, but if it only goes skin deep and not to all the plugins you are using, are you really protected? Make sure that all the plugins you are using are SOC2 compliant to ensure they are following best practices in security management. Your security is only as good as the weakest link as these almost 2,000 Shopify Stores found out the hard way.
Configurable Products and Billing
Customisable data model (add your own objects and fields)
Problem:
eCommerce should conform to your needs, not making you conform to how they think you should work.
Why it Matters:
Sometimes what you get is not quite enough. We know the feeling of wishing you could just add that one extra field or record that captures your business, and not try and use a field for something that it was not meant for, but it’s the only place to jam that data. Want to add a “member since” date field? Or perhaps a birthday field? Your eCommerce package should allow that, it should be extendable.
Sell Digital Products
Plugin Required
Problem:
Selling a subscription or an eBook should be easy, not an additional expense.
Why it Matters:
In the modern world, it sometimes feels like we buy more virtual things than physical. Selling eBooks, gift cards, donations and licences are now a common part of our lives. Even if you don’t offer these now, you don’t want to be stuck in not being able to offer them in the future when you want to.
Bookings & Appointments
Plugin Required
Problem:
Customers deserve the option for in-person consultations, in-store demos, or appointments of any sort.
Why it Matters:
Setting appointments, meetings and booking in courses and events should be something you can just configure and sell. Maybe you don’t sell these currently, but is that because you didn’t want to, or it was too hard with too many hoops to jump through? Book an appointment for a checkup, a free evaluation or sell a course, do it all online with the one system.
Recurring Billing & Subscriptions
Plugin Required
Problem:
Be able to offer the same product once, monthly, quarterly, or annually. Already built-in.
Why it Matters:
Recurring billing is no longer “nice to have.” Whether you’re offering regular shipments of your products, split payments or subscriptions for continued service, it should be a standard part of your eCommerce. So we built it in as a configuration on the product - not another plugin. Offer the same product once, monthly, quarterly or annually? No problem. It’s standard.
Memberships & Discounts
Plugin Required
Problem:
Automatically notify your members that they only need to spend a little more to unlock the next discount level.
Why it Matters:
Offering your gold members deeper discounts is a key strategy to offer brand loyalty. Imagine a system that could automatically offer deeper discounts based on purchasing volumes and history? Imagine if you could automatically notify your members that they only need to spend a little more to unlock the next discount level? Yeah, that would be awesome.
More than 10 Inventory locations
Paid Upgrade
Problem:
You need room for growth as you expand, not hurdles to jump.
Why it Matters:
This is one of those features that doesn’t bite you, until it REALLY bites you. You’re going along fine with 9 inventory locations and then BAM, an opportunity arises to open two more. Sad news, you can’t because your system requires an upgrade, or worse, a replatform! Don’t get stuck in this situation.
Packed with Features Out of the Box
Earn loyalty rewards while shopping
Plugin Required
Problem:
Rewarding loyalty works. It should be as easy as configuring a few fields. And it is.
Why it Matters:
I don’t like rewards for being loyal to a brand, said no one, ever. Having to build out and pay for plugins to offer something that every modern eCommerce company is trying to build, just creates barriers to entry that are not needed. Turning on loyalty should be as easy as configuring a few fields. And it is.
Buy products using loyalty points
Plugin Required
Problem:
Using rewards keeps customers loyal and coming back for more.
Why it Matters:
Once your customers have earned points, through purchasing or loyalty memberships, they should be able to shop with them. Making a separate loyalty store, or even offering products that are points only should just be a configuration change, not a massive technical implementation project!
Buy with points plus cash
Plugin Required
Problem:
More purchase flexibility means more ease and more sales.
Why it Matters:
Why limit your customers to just using points or just using cash? What if they don’t quite have enough points? Offering this option gives them the most flexibility in spending their points earned with blood, sweat and (hopefully not too many) tears. Make this simple, they’ll love you for it.
Member-only Products
Plugin Required
Problem:
Membership has its rewards. Here’s how we help you leverage that with your customers.
Why it Matters:
Another way to reward members is to provide member-only products. Driving exclusivity is a proven way to drive growth and sales. Offering these could be a key part to your continued growth and expansion.
Avalara Tax support
Paid Upgrade
Problem:
Lack of tax compliance makes your business a magnet for the tax man.
Why it Matters:
If you have a complex eCommerce environment, or you just sell in the USA, you will know how much of a pain it is to handle tax compliance. That’s why having this support built in is crucial to your growth and expansion. It’s no use making lots of profit if you then spend that profit trying to get your taxes right!
Does it come with Steve?
Problem:
How can you scale your business without Steve to guide you?
Why it Matters:
No business should tackle eCommerce alone. It’s why we have Steve, our mascot for Customer Commerce and a reminder that, “Business should be fun.”
StoreConnect Commerce – Designed for businesses and their customers
StoreConnect is the only affordable, complete eCommerce and Point of Sale system that works natively with the world’s #1 CRM, Salesforce. If you are looking to grow and want a platform that can start small and build as you grow, then look to StoreConnect.
It’s secure, automatable and incredibly flexible. So you don’t have to compromise on the features your business needs and your customers demand.