According to the IDC Worldwide Digital Commerce Applications Market Shares report (IDC #US46436521) published in June 2021, VTEX was the fastest-growing digital commerce applications vendor in the top 20 market shares and was identified as one of five vendors who “shaped the year” with the biggest impact on the digital commerce applications market in 2020.
The report states VTEX saw rapid growth with revenue increasing 43.5% YoY compared to the booming industry average of 17.9%, which saw massive demand driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, as B2B and B2C sellers sought to improve their digital commerce tech stacks.
VTEX growth outpaced the market and the top 20 digital commerce technology vendors for the second year in a row based on the platform’s ability to meet the pressing needs of businesses around the world. “In this environment, speed to market, ease of use, performance and agility become the key characteristics for online sellers,” says Jordan Jewell, Research Director, Digital Commerce and Enterprise Applications, IDC. “Bigger-picture features, such as the support of marketplaces, headless commerce, B2B commerce and cross-channel selling will recapture the spotlight for the months and years to come.”
This projection indicates that VTEX is poised to continue its impressive growth in the years to come as the only commerce platform among the top 20 market shares that natively support marketplace, B2B and B2C business models.
In the report, IDC describes five key considerations for commerce platforms that help explain why VTEX is growing so rapidly and becoming the platform of choice for merchants around the world. These are:
To take full advantage of the flexibility, scalability and reliability that public cloud environments provide, it’s imperative that commerce solutions are developed from the ground up for the cloud. Simply moving an on-premise or monolithic solution to the cloud doesn’t deliver the full operational or total cost of ownership benefits of a multi-tenant cloud-native platform like VTEX.
The expectations of buyers continue to be shaped by the frictionless experiences of marketplaces like Amazon, Alibaba and others. Buyers have come to expect choice, price and inventory transparency, and they expect merchants to deliver on the fulfillment promise. Delivering frictionless experiences requires merchants to integrate commerce and fulfillment and expand product assortment to become that one-stop shop for buyers.
VTEX delivers enterprise-grade commerce, marketplace and order management in a single platform. With VTEX, merchants can easily become a marketplace and expand assortment without the cost and logistics overhead of owned inventory by adding third-party sellers. VTEX’s integrated order management gives merchants inventory and order visibility and enables them to orchestrate fulfillment and meet delivery promises.
Many merchants solve customer problems with the same technology solutions, but using the same technology as your competitors can often result in digital sameness. VTEX enables merchants to differentiate as it is the only commerce provider to offer a low-code development platform so merchants can compose digital experiences that represent the values of the brand and the unique elements of their business.
The ecommerce platform is typically part of an ecosystem of systems and applications that businesses rely on for their digital commerce operations. This, combined with the need for composability, is driving the need and increased popularity of API-first architecture.
However, simply offering APIs is only part of the story. VTEX is 100% API-enabled, supports both REST and GraphQL and provides a low-code development platform where developers can quickly and easily build and maintain their own applications, and platform extensions, as well as integrate with third-party systems and services.
IDC points out that buyers are making purchase decisions based on sustainability and company values. They want to know the choices they make and the merchants they choose to do business with are looking out for the environment and supporting social causes that are important to them.
With order management built into the platform, VTEX enables merchants to operate a more sustainable supply chain and fulfillment network by providing inventory visibility and configure fulfillment rules that allow them to identify and offer delivery choices that are more sustainable.
Although IDC was spot on with its five key considerations for commerce platforms, there’s one additional consideration that is shaping the future of ecommerce — the online marketplace. In 2020, online marketplaces accounted for over 50% of worldwide ecommerce sales. Buyers are rapidly moving to marketplace experiences for their convenience, price and inventory transparency, and product selection. And businesses are launching their own marketplaces to grow revenue, streamline operations, simplify channel complexity and build customer loyalty.
For merchants that want to explore the marketplace model in a cost-effective way, VTEX offers a fully integrated commerce, marketplace and order management solution. VTEX powers over 160 online marketplaces around the world.
VTEX continues to invest in these areas to give merchants the tools they need to grow their business, keep pace with rapidly evolving customer behavior and adapt in the face of a global pandemic.
For more information about VTEX and our collaborative approach to commerce, download our Collaborative Commerce Imperative brief.
The CCX Company, in collaboration with VTEX Commerce Cloud, expresses gratitude for having had the opportunity to enhance its understanding of the advantages, trends, and other elements addressed in the current topic. This article was jointly developed and is brought to you by the VTEX Commerce Cloud team.
