Shopify vs. Salesforce Commerce Cloud

Between conversion, cost, innovation, and simplicity, the data all points to one conclusion: Shopify has replaced Salesforce as the leader in enterprise ecommerce.

Join the mass migration

Hundreds of enterprise brands have switched from Salesforce to Shopify.

Kuiu logoPerry Ellis logoPier1 logoBauer logoNixon logoAnastasia Beverly Hills logoReef logoMilk Makeup logoTimex logoJonathan Adler logoDecor Steals logoDirt Devil logoPure Fishing logoStride Rite logoMackage logoKuiu logoPerry Ellis logoPier1 logoBauer logoNixon logoAnastasia Beverly Hills logoReef logoMilk Makeup logoTimex logoJonathan Adler logoDecor Steals logoDirt Devil logoPure Fishing logoStride Rite logoMackage logo

Why Shopify

Four reasons brands are switching

Higher Conversion

Shopify converts better, period

In 2023, a Big Three consulting company released a study of ecommerce conversion rates and found Shopify’s checkout converts 36% better than Salesforce’s. That’s because Shopify has carefully engineered its checkout for throughput, speed, conversion, personalization, familiarity, and extensibility.

+36%

Shopify converts 36% better than Salesforce

Better Conversion

Meet the world’s best-converting checkout

172%

Higher conversion for Mustang Survival after migrating from Salesforce

42%

Higher conversion for MZ Wallace after switching from Salesforce

Shop Pay is paying off

Shop Pay is the best-converting accelerated checkout on the internet. With more than 150 million users already signed up, brands can convert first-time visitors into customers without the friction of a guest checkout.

Buyers trust Shopify checkout

Hundreds of millions of people use a Shopify Checkout every year. Its look, feel, and flow has become highly recognizable, and therefore immediately trusted.

Integrate digital wallets in clicks, not months

Shopify makes it easy to integrate digital wallets like Apple Pay in a matter of clicks. On Salesforce, customers are often quoted tens of thousands of dollars and months of work.

If your checkout doesn’t perform, you’re not making money.

Pre-Shopify we were on Salesforce Commerce Cloud. We just felt limited. We needed the ability to do things on the fly and test new channels quickly without having to go through all these hoops and manual processes that are also costly — it’s hard to swallow that bill when you’re just trying to test something.

Flexible checkout

All the flexibility you need

Shopify’s checkout is extensible, trackable, and more flexible than ever. It’s loaded with features so you can customize it however you want. And unlike Salesforce, it’s simple and designed for performance—leading to a mass migration of brands to Shopify.

Customize how your checkout looks

From fonts and colors to favicons and borders, branding your checkout experience is easy on Shopify. And with the Graph QL branding API, you can push customizations to the next level.

Change how your checkout works

Make your checkout function in surprising and delightful ways with all sorts of UI, post-purchase, discount, and pixel extensions.

Extend or replace the backend

Use Shopify Functions to extend or replace key parts of Shopify Checkout’s backend with custom logic.

Collect rich customer data

Add custom pixels to collect shopper data and track checkout performance. Then marvel at the results.

Lower TCO, higher ROI

Pay less. Get a whole lot more.

65%

TCO reduction for NYDJ after switching to Shopify

22%

ROI increase for MZ Wallace after switching to Shopify

Lower TCO

Slash total cost of ownership

From developer rates to licensing costs, Salesforce customers are paying a premium for a dated product. The good news? Your business can get more and pay less, simply by using Shopify.

Say hello to lower licensing costs

At 1%–3% of Gross Merchandising Value, Salesforce licensing costs are costing customers a fortune. Even the most conservative Salesforce estimates are still more expensive than Shopify Plus, which starts at just US$2,300/month.

Shopify developers are more available, and more affordable

What’s more? Shopify allows business users to be more hands on, and helps brands eliminate their dependence on expensive Salesforce developers.

After a year on Shopify Plus, we’ve been able to reduce our total cost of ownership by 60-65%, and any budget we can save on the tech stack, we can re-invest into marketing that can help drive revenue. It’s a win-win.

We’re spending less and driving sales more efficiently. It’s the best of both worlds.

Next to agility, reducing development costs is one of the main reasons we made the switch to Shopify.

Faster implementation

Cut your implementation time in half

Why take months with Salesforce when you could take weeks with Shopify? Your business can trim time to launch, go to market sooner, and sell out of products faster when you use the world’s best commerce platform.

<6 months

Time to launch for Decor Steals, 3X faster and $300K less than their SFCC implementation

92 days

Time for Mustang Survival to migrate from Salesforce

Higher ROI

See a bigger return

Shopify can help Salesforce customers dramatically increase their sales. All thanks to revenue driving features like POS, Markets Pro, Shop Pay, Shopify Audiences, Shop Pay Installments, and the Shop app.

15%

ROI increase for Slam Jam

22%

Revenue increase for MZ Wallace

Faster innovation

Innovate at the speed of commerce

100%

Focused on commerce, not CRM

200+

Product enhancements and updates in the past year alone

Rapid iteration

Shopify’s pace of innovation is unmatched

Shopify ships hundreds of updates every year

With thousands of engineers, Shopify is shipping hundreds of annual commerce updates—from integrating AI across the platform, to offering omnichannel selling tools. Conversely, commerce innovation has slowed to a crawl at Salesforce as they shift investment away from B2C (Demandware), forcing a migration decision for customers.

Pre-Shopify, we were on Salesforce Commerce Cloud. We just felt limited. We needed the ability to do things on the fly and test new channels quickly without having to go through all these hoops and manual processes that are also costly—it’s hard to swallow that bill when you’re just trying to test something.

Shopify Editions

All the latest updates, all in one place

We're constantly evolving our powerful global platform to make commerce better for everyone. Now twice a year, we publish a rundown of everything we’ve built in Editions.

The edge of commerce

Innovate before your competitors

Shopify is continually first to market with innovations, integrations, and capabilities—allowing businesses to quickly adapt at a time when consumer expectations are evolving faster than ever. Conversely, brands on Salesforce are forced to wait longer. Or worse, give up and build capabilities themselves.

Meet savvy shoppers on the newest platforms

From TikTok and Snap to AR and AI, Shopify enables businesses like Slam Jam to sell in the newest channels that consumers are using.

Brands on Salesforce are falling behind

By not prioritizing Commerce Cloud, Salesforce is setting their customers years behind brands on other platforms by making them wait patiently for innovation.

All in on commerce

Shouldn’t your commerce partner be 100% focused on commerce?

We think so too. Unlike Salesforce’s CRM focus, we’re completely dedicated to delivering the best commerce experiences possible. Because our mission is to “Make commerce better for everyone.”

We built our platform. Salesforce bought theirs.

True to our mission, we built Shopify from the ground up to make commerce better for everyone. The same can’t be said for Salesforce. They bought their B2C Commerce solution, and it still uses a completely separate architecture than their other core solutions.

Shopify invested $1.7B in commerce R&D in 2023 alone

We’re standing by our mission of making commerce better for everyone. So much so, that in 2023, we invested nearly $1.7B into the future of commerce.

Everything simplified

Shopify’s where simple meets technical

Customizing the pages without the developer's help was huge for us. Before, we always wanted to do things, but we didn't or gave up because it took too long. Now, non-technical team members can make updates. So that has opened doors to many other opportunities, especially in marketing, like campaigns and promoting products outside our daily deals.

The development costs in Salesforce were very high. I couldn’t go in there and do anything, I needed to rely on the development team. With Shopify, my team can handle routine tasks like changing the homepage every week and trying out new features and sections. It’s been great having the flexibility to do that throughout the site.

Empower business users

Unlike Salesforce, we designed Shopify to enable everyday team members to make simple updates like discounting, theme customization, and app configuration. Cambridge Satchel Company did this, resulting in dramatically lower costs.

Get efficient composability

Choose out of the box, custom, or both. Innovate fast with Shopify's native capabilities, pre-built apps, and integrations. And tailor components to your unique needs by leveraging APIs and backend customization.

Move fast, without friction

Shopify’s pre-built integrations, plug-and-play apps, and strong native functionality allow brands to be more agile than ever before, and do more with less. Compare that to Salesforce, where adding digital wallets like Apple Pay can take months and cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Affordable developers? Check.

Shopify developers are easy to find and affordable. Brands using Salesforce Commerce Cloud B2C require highly specialized developers who know both Demandware and LWC (Lightning Web Components).

Focus your developers on what really matters

With Shopify you can shift your development team’s focus away from plumbing, and onto projects that directly affect your business—from meeting key goals, to increasing revenue.

Analyst validation

The experts side with Shopify

2023 Leader in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™
2023 Leader in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™

73%

Shopify’s market share of the top 800 global DTC brands

83%

Number of rising apparel brands on Shopify, according to 2PM

IDC logo

IDC

Shopify named a Leader in IDC MarketScape: Worldwide B2C Digital Commerce Platforms for Mid-market Growth 2023-2024 Vendor Assessment

This is an evaluation of commerce solutions for retailers from $100 million to $500 million and beyond. The report noted that “Shopify will be particularly attractive to buyers looking for a multitenant SaaS digital commerce platform with a proven track record in DTC, a vast 3P ecosystem, low TCO, and built-in payments.”

Read the excerpt 

January 31, 2024

GARTNER® MAGIC QUADRANT™ logo

GARTNER® MAGIC QUADRANT™

Shopify named as a Leader in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™

In 2023, Shopify was named a Leader in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™, with the highest ability to execute of any platform. We believe this is a testament to our innovation and unique vision for commerce.

Read the report 

August 21, 2023

2PM logo

2PM

2PM reports a surge of brands using Shopify vs. Salesforce

The news outlet 2PM recently audited the technology of 60+ rising apparel brands from around the world. Their finding? 55 of those brands, or 83%, are on Shopify. By contrast, only four of those brands are Salesforce Commerce Cloud customers.

Read the report 

November 2023

Your Basket Is Empty logo

PROMINENT VOICES

Rick Watson says the future of ecommerce is between Shopify and Commercetools

On the Your Basket Is Empty podcast, Rick Watson predicts a two-horse race for commerce platforms, noting that Shopify holds a distinct advantage over multi-cloud companies including Demandware/Salesforce Commerce Cloud. By contrast, Salesforce has been perceived as neglecting the commerce aspect of its offerings, potentially hindering its ability to keep up with the rapidly evolving needs of the industry.

Migration partners

Migrate with the largest commerce partner ecosystem there is

Shopify has more global partners than any competitor — many of them specialize in helping Salesforce Commerce Cloud customers migrate to Shopify.

10,000

App and technology partners

100+

Shopify Plus Certified App Partners

Shopify vs. Salesforce Commerce Cloud

Want better results? Switch to Shopify.

From increasing conversion to lowering TCO, customer results and analyst reports show that Shopify’s the clear winner.