Best of Breed eCommerce vs All in One: How To Choose Your eCommerce Platform
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- Learn more about Storyblok's Shopify Plus integration
- See best in class headless eCommerce website examples
- Download the free content management playbook for eCommerce and retail
Does one size really fit all in eCommerce platforms, or does your website deserve hand-picked tools?
Your choice between best of breed eCommerce and all in one eCommerce is a big one. The consequences have far-reaching implications not just for your store as it is now, but also for how adaptable it will be in the future.
We’ll stack these options against each other to help you understand the benefits, drawbacks, and logistics of each. With this information, you’ll be able to confidently pick which approach is best for your company. Let’s get started!
Powering up your online store: Why eCommerce platform choice matters
Content is at the heart of running a digital storefront. Its creation, distribution, and engagement are pillars of eCommerce success.
How do you display your products where they’re easily found? How do you make sure your presentation is tailored to your messaging? How do you tell your brand’s story?
Content, content, content.
Today, successful content strategy requires a strong presence across different platforms.
Consumers are shopping with different devices now more than ever: mobile commerce sales are predicted to account for $856 billion of commerce sales by 2027.
At the same time, the growing popularity of voice-activated assistants, AR/VR, and social media indicate an even stronger shift away from the traditional website-exclusive eCommerce.
There’s also the issue of personalization and customization of customer experiences to contend with. 73% of users expect personalization from retailers. Personalized, seamless experiences are no longer ‘nice to haves’ – they're the baseline.
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Best of breed and all in one solutions offer different possibilities for different situations.
To meet these elevated customer expectations, eCommerce companies usually settle on one of the two main options in managing their business (including all content-related issues). Some choose a pre-selected suite of tools, while others prefer to pick and choose each tool based on their unique needs.
You’re probably facing the same debate right now: all in one vs. best of breed. So let’s take a closer look and see what each choice can offer you.
What is all in one eCommerce?
Before jumping into the specifics of eCommerce, let’s consider the overall philosophy behind an all in one strategy.
Picture a Swiss Army Knife. This one device provides you with a knife, a corkscrew, a screwdriver, a nail file, a pair of scissors, and maybe even a tiny saw.
This is the all in one in its simplest form, a kit that provides multiple tools that can help you in completely different situations. If you want to slice an apple, you can use the knife, while the same package also provides you with a file for your fingernails.
In the case of eCommerce, an all in one eCommerce software suite aims to provide you with all the tools you need to run an online business. This includes content creation and management, payment processing, shipping, customer service, SEO, personalization, marketing, inventory management, creating websites and landing pages, invoicing, and much more.
These suites come as fixed packages from a single vendor and consist of many different products (depending on the vendor). When you acquire a suite, you are paying for the full package and every tool that is included in there. After all, that’s the selling point: have everything that you need in one pack.
Convenient, right?
Well… maybe not.
Have you ever seen a chef using a Swiss Army Knife to dice vegetables? How about a carpenter using it to file a piece of furniture she’s making? Or a tailor using those tiny scissors to cut a piece of cloth?
Can you already see the problem with all in one eCommerce?
While you have a wide-ranging set of tools at your disposal, none of them will get the job done as well as a dedicated tool. If you are dealing with a small issue like filing your nails or peeling an apple, a Swiss Army Knife is perfect. However, take any case that requires a bit more effort and the tools start to show their shortcomings.
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Best of breed and all in one as principles are not restricted to software
That’s not the only roadblock, either. You’ll have to make some sacrifices to get that level of convenience.
There are plenty of all in one suites to choose from, each with its own prearranged selection of tools – but they are all sold as generic packages, not tailored to your needs. You’ll probably end up paying for tools you’ll never use, and badly missing a few you would love to have.
For a large organization or one with big plans, it’s only a matter of time before all in one eCommerce becomes too restricting.
What is best of breed eCommerce?
best of breed eCommerce allows you to choose the best tool for each need individually. Instead of ending up with a package of pre-set tools selected by someone else, you can make your own package with only the tools that you need.
Going back to our Swiss Army Knife Metaphor, that means Instead of ending up with a tiny knife, a small file, a corkscrew, and a single-head screwdriver, you can pick up a chef’s knife and a chopping board if you are a cook, multiple screwdrivers and a plier if you are fixing something, or a corkscrew and a glass if you are about to enjoy a bottle of wine. Because the tools are specialized, they’ll do a far better job than that little red multitool.
It’s not just about the right tools, either. It can be about who makes it too.
When you get your tools individually, you can go to vendors who specialize in that technology and not a dozen different types at once. This means each product has been thoroughly examined by experts in the field.
In a larger sense, choosing best of breed eCommerce also means separating your content management from your eCommerce platform. The process of creating, updating, and managing your content is fully separate from your payment processing and shopping cart management even though they work as a team. Though this necessitates keeping tabs on multiple vendors, it also unlocks a lot of benefits as well.
Issues relating to personalized customer journeys, omnichannel presence, and marketing in general are vastly different from issues related to the eCommerce platform, such as shopping cart and payment processing. Since different issues require different strategies, best of breed enables you to separate technologies and tools for each case.
Going best of breed doesn’t mean you give up convenience. Some tech providers are designed for seamless integration of other technologies. Some, like Storyblok, even offer easy pre-made ways to link eCommerce platforms like Shopify as well. All of the benefits of best of breed, none of the hassle.
Best of breed eCommerce vs. all in one eCommerce
Because of the fundamental difference in strategy, implementing these two approaches can result in completely different experiences. While each case should be examined individually, some aspects tend to be applicable to most cases. Let’s look at these differences in more detail.
| All in one eCommerce | Best of breed eCommerce | |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture and integration | Complex and inflexible. Your access to new tools depends entirely on the provider, with no guarantee of new technology. | Complete freedom over your tech stack. Choose each individual piece of your system. Add, remove, or change tools at any time. |
| Costs and licensing | Fixed cost. These can be high thanks to licensing, leading to charges for tools you never use. | Optimized cost. Build your own tech stack and only pay for what you need. Remove unused tools at any time and save on subscriptions. |
| Onboarding and adapting | Long and slow. The system has to be put into place all at once, meaning it can take months for a new suite to be implemented. Adapting to it can take even longer. | Short and sweet. No time wasted onboarding tools you’ll never use, and not all tools need to be added at once. Pick from tools your team is familiar with for almost zero learning curve. |
| Updates and security | Chaotic with consequences. One vendor means updates come in huge sizes and affect the whole system. Providers may also delay smaller fixes until these massive, occasional ones. A single suite also means a security flaw in one part will compromise the entire system. | Controlled with benefits. Updates come regularly and in small, manageable sizes that won’t affect other tools. A non-directly connected system means if a problem shows up somewhere in the stack, it will not affect other parts of the system. Isolated security risks have much lower risks and are easier to control. |
The verdict: Why best of breed eCommerce outperforms all in one
The questions of customer journeys, omnichannel marketing, and SEO are all related to the capabilities of your content management system (CMS). While a suite includes a CMS as part of the package, a best of breed approach allows you to choose a CMS that is specifically made to address the issues of eCommerce.
In any business where content is an integral building block, or in businesses where the rate of content creation is high, the way content is created, managed, distributed, and maintained is vital to the company’s success.
If your products are to stand out in a highly competitive market, they should be customized and personalized enough to be always in the reach of your target audience.
Likewise, as consumers continue to embrace different devices, from phones to voice-activated assistants and smart watches, your CMS should be able to deliver the same quality of content across all devices and platforms.
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Best of breed software solutions are better suited for omnichannel marketing
What are the benefits of best of breed eCommerce?
Let’s take a closer look at the practical implications of a best of breed eCommerce setup.
1. Customizable, personalized content
An independent eCommerce CMS will give your marketing and development teams unlimited customization options. Each component in your storefront can be unique to your own brand and its needs.
The suite systems usually fall short in this regard, offering a handful of pre-built themes and templates that only support minor customization. Creating a personalized journey is a lot harder when your user interface looks generic – or worse, exactly like your competitors.
Furthermore, since best of breed CMS solutions take advantage of application programming interfaces (APIs), the frontend work can be done independently from the backend. This means you can quickly respond to market demands without having to wait for developers.
Some systems like Storyblok also take advantage of modular content blocks. These blocks can be reused in different situations, either as they are or edited to any necessary extent. Content blocks also open up the possibility to automate a portion of your content creation process by using Intelligent Content.
2. Unlock the power of true omnichannel
A major strength of the best of breed eCommerce content strategy is its platform independence. Since the frontend and backend are separated in headless CMS, the same content can be simultaneously published on any device/platform.
Websites, apps, personal assistants, VR headsets – you name it, you can publish to it. This means a considerable reduction in effort and costs, as each content has to be created only once, and used everywhere!
3. Integrate the newest technologies
A best of breed approach gives you the freedom to incorporate any new technology immediately. Since each tool functions independently, you can choose to integrate whatever tool your company may need at the moment.
In stark contrast, an all in one approach puts the control in the vendor's hands. Since all tools are offered in a package, it is up to the provider to choose a new technology for your pack. Even in best case scenarios, you have to wait for extended periods of time for the vendor to offer the new technology.
Of course in many cases, you won’t even get the perfect tool for your business, as your choices are limited by the vendor’s options. You might even have to migrate to an entirely new suite if the new technology is mission-critical.
In a rapidly expanding industry like eCommerce, the swift integration of the newest technologies is even more important than usual, as they help companies stay ahead of the curve in a globally competitive market. One way to maximize the efficiency of your best of breed strategy is to take advantage of systems that are pre-built with powerful eCommerce connections, like Storyblok’s Shopify integration.
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This integration offers a powerful combination of content management and e-commerce functionality, providing a seamless experience for both store owners and customers. Embrace streamlined, omnichannel content delivery, enhancing customer engagement and personalization across any device or platform – all while enjoying faster development times, improved flexibility, and enhanced scalability.
Check out these real-life examples of headless Shopify eCommerce.
Conclusion
Choosing the right approach always comes down to your preferences and the specific demands of your business. Some smaller, simpler projects can thrive in an all in one suite.
But if you want a flexible, agile eCommerce platform that can grow with you and be optimized for any situation, best of breed is the only way to go.
Learn more about Storyblok’s Shopify integration.
