Commerce Layer is a headless commerce platform and order management system that enables users to add global shopping capabilities to any website, mobile app, chatbot, or IoT device. It is a CMS that can be used to create shoppable content through its API on a global scale.
$649
per month (annual commitment)
Optimizely Configured Commerce
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Optimizely Configured Commerce is a SaaS, headless, and composable e-commerce platform that helps manufacturers and distributors scale e-commerce growth using as much or as little out-of-the-box functionality as they prefer; saving organizations time to deploy meaningful buying experiences.
N/A
Pricing
Commerce Layer
Optimizely Configured Commerce
Editions & Modules
Growth
$649
per month (annual commitment)
Enterprise
Custom
Startup
Free
100 orders/month included, then $0.90 for any extra order
Real headless solution, fully SaaS. In comparison to all other solutions, Commerce Layer has an integrated order management which is lean, but very flexible. With all other solutions, we would have needed a separate OMS which would have increased both the complexity and the cost …
Episerver is a great product. I have implemented dozens of CMS systems and developed thousands of websites over my career. It is the overlay of Insite's eCommerce that has hobbled Episerver's functionality. Maybe that is helpful for the most rudimentary of users, but it is a …
Optimizely platform is more flexible and easier to administer. Optimizely support is more personal (although often too slow and unresponsive). Optimizely integrates directly with our ERP and external PIM to provide automatic updates.
We selected Optimizely B2B Commerce Cloud (when it was Insite Commerce) as they were specifically focused on manufacturing clients and the storefront and data management were very robust. The business model and cost were more in our price range as well, so an overall better …
I was not very involved with this process. It has been 3 years since we made a decision and I can't even remember the name of the other companies we were considering. I was in a different role then so I was less involved with the eCommerce department. I do remember really …
Optimizely B2B Commerce Cloud was the only solution that had a direct API connection to our ERP from day 1. The other solutions did have API building available but at a larger cost. The built-in WIS/Integration jobs in the Optimizely B2B Commerce Cloud platform are also a …
Commerce Layer is a great choice, if you want to build a tailored system. The flexible API allows to build all kinds of applications around commerce, but you also need to deep dive a bit into the structure. If you want to set up a simple store and sell a few SKUs, you're probably rather a Shopify customer, but if you want to build great customer experiences and tailer the software to your business, Commerce Layer is a very good choice.
I think that there are a lot of companies (us included) that are looking for a solution to fit into their current needs, versus looking for a solution that is going to solve all of their problems. For us, Optimizely B2B Commerce Cloud fits into the former in that situation where we have specific ERP needs, specific data needs, usability and user management needs, etc. and Optimizely B2B Commerce Cloud just happens to fit in there the most.
It deployed with a major bug in Guest checkout. It is now fixed, but we lost a lot of business because of it.
The pricing API is not working.
Support for multi-warehouse product availability would be helpful. If we have the product in stock in any warehouse, we should be able to book the order.
The new apps are great, but in our case, we built so specific functionalities around it that we built our own admin tool. Based on the complexity (especially for after sales processes), no off the shelf tool would have been able to do this.
Quite flexible and easy to use for daily marketing user tasks, like updating page listings, promotions, and copy. More in-depth tasks like managing product attributes, rearranging product taxonomy placement, and CMS editing are not user-friendly and require a careful and detailed process to follow.
It's a mixed bag. The team has been very nice, but there has been an underlying feeling of condescension because we have complained or "caused trouble" over the inadequacy of the CMS component. Also, support for modifications or UI changes has been terribly slow. Understandably, COVID has made life hard for everyone, but there is an expectation that we complete our work immediately, but their team will "put it in queue" when we have a request or find a bug. Further, we certainly feel that we were sold a list of capabilities that we have not seen come to fruition. Finally, the change of ownership 3 times (Insite -> Epi -> Opti) over our implementation period has been both confusing and disruptive.
The Commerce Layer data model is very flexible, which also creates a certain complexity. It's important to understand how the data model works and how relationships between them are built.
Real headless solution, fully SaaS. In comparison to all other solutions, Commerce Layer has an integrated order management which is lean, but very flexible. With all other solutions, we would have needed a separate OMS which would have increased both the complexity and the cost of the solution.
We selected Optimizely B2B Commerce Cloud (when it was Insite Commerce) as they were specifically focused on manufacturing clients and the storefront and data management were very robust. The business model and cost were more in our price range as well, so an overall better value for the solution. The ability for the product data to be updated once on the catalog side as well as on the CMS website side was the benefit we saw with a small team of resources to support the product. However, there are definite drawbacks to having not gone with a more turnkey website CMS.
