Category: Blog, Mobile Commerce, Business

Top 7 Mobile Commerce Platforms in 2021 | Guide for Business Owners

Learn what a mobile e-commerce platform is, what are the most popular m-commerce platforms, and why it’s ultimately better to invest in custom software development.

top mobile commerce platforms – article for business owners

What are the fastest-growing, top mobile commerce platforms? As more and more businesses start to take advantage of mobile e-commerce software, providers need to deliver working solutions as fast as possible. That’s why many companies decide to use mobile commerce platforms.

Such platforms deliver web and mobile applications in an integrated environment that helps business owners leverage their digital presence. There’s no denying that such platforms speed up the process of building mobile e-commerce apps. But as out-of-the-box solutions, they come with significant limitations.

Read this article to learn:

  • what a mobile e-commerce platform is,
  • which ones are the fastest-growing, top mobile commerce platforms these days,
  • why it’s ultimately better to invest in custom software development.

In a moment we will explain what mobile commerce platform is. If you want first to learn the basics about mobile commerce, check on mobile commerce definition and m-commerce types.

What is a mobile eCommerce platform?

A mobile eCommerce platform provides specialized mobile functionalities ranging from mobile ticketing and vouchers to loyalty cards, money transfers, delivery, and banking. In-app mobile payments and advertising are other aspects of mobile e-commerce platforms that allow businesses to deliver mobile commerce capabilities directly to consumers easily.

In short, mobile commerce platforms provide features that facilitate mobile commerce app development.

Here’s an example:

Brick-and-mortar store owners who want to take advantage of mobile e-commerce can use such platforms to implement location-based services easily, push notification, or barcode scanning. That’s how they can improve the experience of customers shopping in the store.

To learn more about stats and situation of the mCommerce market, read the article about mobile commerce trends and its future.

7 top mobile commerce platforms

1. SAP Hybris

This well-known platform delivers a number of digital transformation capabilities such as context-driven marketing, customer data management, and unified processes for omnichannel e-commerce. SAP hybrid commerce is a solution that helps companies target engage their customers regardless of where they’re located. It also offers a wealth of customer insights and impressive scalability.

The tool enables businesses to reach customers at every point in their buyer journey. Companies can also respond to real-time data to deliver the best possible customer experience. It also offers powerful API integration capabilities for extending its functionality. Users can benefit from advanced mobile commerce setup and optimization, as well as data management tools that allow tailoring product listings to particular customer segments.

2. Pontis

This platform is one of the global leaders in digital customer engagement solutions. Pontis helps businesses to engage with their individual customer segments. Since the company has many years of experience in driving digital customer engagement, the platform helps to achieve similar business results and improve strategic KPIs, such as boosting customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Users of the platform will find real-time Big Data capabilities, predictive modeling based on machine learning, real-time dashboards, and Business Intelligence reporting, as well as insights into real-time customer statuses.

3. Salesforce Commerce Cloud

Another popular mobile commerce platform is Salesforce Commerce Cloud. It unifies the customer experience and helps businesses to streamline operations from purchase to post-sale. The platform comes with a number of capabilities organized into several categories like operations, experience, and intelligence:

  • Experience is an area that helps users to orchestrate the pricing, products, content, and promotions to engage users best.
  • Operations, on the other hand, comes with capabilities that help to improve the core functions across all the channels – for example, by connecting back-office functions to order fulfillment.
  • Intelligence is all about data-driven business insights and customer personalization.

All in all, these capabilities can be used to power business from practically every channel, be it a web application, mobile app, or a brick-and-mortar store.

4. GPShopper

This platform is used by retailers and brands to build a host of solutions:

  • e-commerce and loyalty integrations,
  • content management systems (CMS),
  • analytics suites,
  • and many others.

GPShopper comes with prebuilt commerce integrations that allow businesses to accelerate their mobile app time-to-market when it comes to delivering both iOS and Android applications.

The software features customizable reporting dashboards where you can see cross-channel metrics and can always dig deeper into the data. The tool is integrated with analytics from providers like Google. It also comes with mobile commerce app features such as push notifications and social media integrations that allow companies to connect with customers in the most profitable way.

5. IBM Mobile Commerce

IBM’s platform is a framework for e-commerce that includes functions such as marketing, customer service, sales, and other functionalities in an integrated package. The unified platform works for the B2C (Business to Customer) just as well for the B2B (Business to Business) context.

By using the platform, companies can send personalized marketing messages and promotions to their customers, let customers carry out side-by-side product comparisons, offer store location information and get an accurate view of all the orders and availability.

All in all, IBM Mobile Commerce focuses on helping companies to provide their customers with an excellent experience.

6. Oracle Commerce Platform

The mobile e-commerce platform from Oracle provides scalable and battle-tested support for businesses looking to deliver an omnichannel experience. It helps business owners to manage omnichannel experiences, deliver personalization, and control promotions, content, and navigation.

All in all, businesses can use the platform to quickly launch sites for new brands, markets, or even individual campaigns. By targeting new locations and segments, it offers companies a chance for international expansion. Users can take advantage of B2B and B2C modules that support different selling models.

7. Kony Mobility Platform

This is an integrated platform for mobile app development, and more. It supports the entire software development lifecycle (SLDC) application and helps businesses to quickly design, build, deploy, and manage multi-as application experiences.

The key strength of this platform is its speed. It allows companies to compete on the mobile scene by quickly delivering applications on a wide range of devices and systems. You can use the platform to get to market faster and reduce the total cost of ownership for digital assets.

The Kony Visualizer is an intuitive development environment for prototyping and building mobile apps that allow creating a single user interface definition for customer experiences delivered on different platforms.

To sum up:

Top mobile commerce platforms

As you can see, companies can choose from many different mobile e-commerce platforms that allow them to quickly jump on the mobile bandwagon and create a mobile commerce apps.

However, out-of-the-box solutions come with significant limitations. That’s why most businesses decide to choose custom mCommerce application development.

Why is a custom mobile e-commerce app the best solution?

The primary benefit of custom mobile development is that you get a fully personalized solution that matches the unique business needs. The app will address all of the requirements and preferences of your target audience instead of catering to a large group of customers who all have different requirements.

Benefits of custom mCommerce app development

  • Integrations with existing software – tailor-made apps take into consideration the business software companies are currently using. You can be sure that your app will be well-integrated with other solutions.
  • Scalability and flexibility – custom mobile applications are developed with future development in mind. That’s why you can scale them up easily and add more functionalities as your target market changes.
  • Higher efficiency – custom apps are perfectly suited to match the demands of your business. Instead of investing in several apps, all it takes is building a single application that supports the customer journey from start to finish. Also, bespoke e-commerce apps will match your working style, enhance the productivity of your employees, and boost the ROI.
  • Outstanding security – a custom-made app will boost your data security system since the provider will ensure that all of the appropriate security measures are in place.
  • Better customer experience – tailor-made applications allow tapping into the desires and needs of your customer base. For example, you can use data analytics to send personalized updates and provide your customers with a range of other functionalities they need, like integrations with social media channels.

Learn more about the best practices in mobile commerce app development, and check out the list of key e-Commerce mobile app features.

Top mobile commerce platforms

Success story: CCC mobile commerce app

CCC is one of the largest footwear companies in Central Europe. To expand its reach and deliver a mobile experience to its customers, CCC decided to create a mobile e-commerce app that would perfectly capture the requirements of its target audience.

At Droids On Roids, we specialize in mobile app development, and our teams delivered a number of e-commerce applications before.

CCC – top mobile commerce app example

In this project, we were responsible for developing a unique UX/UI design for the application, delivering a working application on time, and maintaining the project.

The mobile app comes with a diverse range of features that engage users in different ways. Among others, users can:

  • Order products online and pick them up in the store,
  • Check product availability in CCC stores,
  • Join the CCC loyalty club,
  • Stay up-to-date with promotions and trends thanks to personalized notifications,
  • Find the nearest store easily thanks to the geolocation functionality.

The application won the prestigious E-commerce Poland Awards 2019 in the category Best on Mobile.

Conclusion

There’s no denying that speed and time-to-market matter a lot today. That’s why companies are tempted to use mobile e-commerce platforms to deliver mobile experiences to their customers and start leveraging mobile analytics as quickly as possible.

However, when building mobile commerce applications, businesses need to act carefully. After all, one misstep might lose the trust and loyalty of your customer base.

y providing a smooth, reliable, and engaging experience in your mobile app, you will gain new followers and deliver a fantastic experience on platforms your target audiences spending time. That’s why it’s worth cooperate with a custom mobile commerce app development company instead of going for an out-of-the-box solution.

Need more information about how to build a tailor-made mobile commerce app? Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. Our teams have delivered m-commerce applications to customers across different industries. We have plenty of experience to help you provide value to your target audience.

About the author

Agnieszka Mroczkowska

Agnieszka Mroczkowska

Content Marketing Manager

As a Content Marketing Manager with a deep dive into the tech world, Agnieszka brings over 6 years of experience in the IT industry. She excels at transforming complex app development topics into engaging reads, collaborating with our brilliant Developers, Business Analysts, Scrum Masters, Designers, and more to uncover insights. When not immersed in tech, Aga enjoys outdoor adventures and Lindy Hop dancing.