Adobe Business Catalyst and why it is the solution for most small businesses
April 22, 2016
Adobe Business Catalyst and why it is the solution for most small businesses
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
WebMarketing
Overall Satisfaction with Adobe Business Catalyst
I worked for a marketing company where we built websites for small to medium sized businesses. We built these websites which were generally fairly small in size but often for companies who had very few people with much in-depth computer or IT knowledge. So Adobe Business Catalyst was a great tool to rapidly create websites for these companies that fit their needs and were easy to edit while being a bit more user-friendly than some other platforms like WordPress can be.
- Probably one of the easiest e-commerce platforms to work in, it does take setup, but compared to a lot of other e-commerce solutions, this is probably the best one that I have seen that can be designed and implemented custom.
- Their template system works very well and allows you to create and re-use templates across Adobe Business Catalyst.
- Their pre-built modules are great, giving people a great way to use common web elements without having to use a plug-in or find some solution, it is simply built in and generally works exactly as you would expect.
- Adobe Business Catalyst is more of an all-around solution, providing elements that most smaller companies would have a hard time figuring out, since it includes the ability to build websites, send and track e-mails, analytics. It really is a powerful tool that would typically require a fair amount of coding knowledge and expertise but with the system already built, it can be easily modified and edited by those with limited or no coding knowledge at all.
- They do not have the ability to create and build custom plug-ins for use on websites.
- They do not support every payment gateway, they support the major ones, and most others, but if you have some very unusual payment gateway, it might not be supported.
- The custom web apps were absolutely one of my favorite parts of this system, and it is really a shame that they do not allow them to be used on all tiers of the website, you have to get the web commerce tier to edit and use them.
- Adobe Business Catalyst really allowed the marketing company that I worked for to help manage a fair number of websites for different clients easily. The platform took some time to get up and running and get used to, but after that it was very nice to manage everything in one place, so it definitely increased efficiency and speed of website building.
- Adobe Business Catalyst also has good support as well as having a lot of white-label training videos to help train non-technical users how to access their website and get data such as analytics and even edit parts of their website without needing to constantly ask someone else to do it for them.
- Adobe Business Catalyst is a little less popular than other options like Drupal, WordPress and Joomla, therefore getting into it and getting started can be a bit of a learning curve.
- Adobe Business Catalyst allows you to charge your clients for their websites from inside the managing tools, and allows you to set your own prices and white label everything which is extremely nice!
I would say that all things considered Adobe Business Catalyst is an excellent product. It does have some short-comings, but it is fantastic all around. It has a nice way of tying everything in your digital presence together nicely. If you do not have a ton of money to spend on a company website, and want things like e-mail marketing, analytics, a reliable web-site, then this is probably a very real option that should be considered. If you want a website that can grow with your company, this is also a great possibility. For smaller companies with less technical resources, I don't know if you could ask for a much better all in one solution. If you want something that can be completely customized, then there are better options out there, but they will be more expensive and require more technical knowledge to use well.