Discover how Elastic Path helps brands embrace a composable commerce approach and launch differentiated experiences. See how Elastic Path’s commerce capabilities compare to Shopify.
Elastic Path and Shopify are both popular commerce providers. But retailers, manufacturers, and distributors should know the differences between Elastic Path and Shopify.
Elastic Path is API-first and composable enabling full commerce customization. In contrast, Shopify is a rigid, all-in-one platform with limited flexibility and control over the experience.
Elastic Path’s Product Experience Manager enables dynamic catalogs, pricing, and regional assortments. Shopify’s single catalog limits B2B, multi-brand, or geo needs without costly third-party apps.
Elastic Path supports multi-channel, B2B, D2C, B2B2C, and marketplaces out of the box. Shopify focuses on D2C and needs custom dev and third-party apps to meet complex B2B or hybrid needs.
Elastic Path offers full checkout customization with granular control over pricing, discounts, and promos. Shopify limits this, requiring Plus for changes and restricting payment gateways.
Elastic Path is fully headless, enabling custom front ends with no templating limits. Shopify’s headless is bound to Liquid themes, limiting flexibility and requiring workarounds.
Elastic Path scales for high-traffic, global brands with custom requirements and large catalogs. Shopify gets costly and restrictive at scale, especially for complex or multi-region operations.
Elastic Path lets brands own their stack, integrating with any service while keeping infrastructure control. Shopify locks brands in, pushing Shopify Payments and making migrations difficult.
Elastic Path supports multiple storefronts from one back end, with regional pricing and business model flexibility. Shopify Plus needs workarounds and apps for complex global or multi-store setups.
Elastic Path natively supports subscriptions, bundling, and flexible pricing models to launch recurring revenue streams. Shopify needs third-party apps for these features, adding cost and complexity.
The first site we launched with Elastic Path didn’t just better support and model complex, information-rich products – it was more than 400% faster than the Shopify sites we had in other markets. It was a no-brainer to move our entire digital commerce operation to Elastic Path’s flexible, API-first platform.Stephen Cope CIO
The first site we launched with Elastic Path didn’t just better support and model complex, information-rich products – it was more than 400% faster than the Shopify sites we had in other markets. It was a no-brainer to move our entire digital commerce operation to Elastic Path’s flexible, API-first platform.
Shopify is an excellent fit for some companies including those who have the following characteristics:
This can be tricky to manage with any significant change. Some surefire signs are you:
If this sounds familiar, chat with us today to see how you can benefit from a composable commerce approach. To learn more about how to identify if you have outgrown Shopify, check out our blog post.
With Elastic Path you don’t have to replatform again. You can Unplatform™ with Elastic Path Composable Commerce. Stick with the core elements of your legacy platform that are working for you and swap in Elastic Path for cart, checkout and payments. Or if you’d like to support a composable frontend solution you can start with our no-code frontend CX Studio.
Composable commerce is an approach that empowers business and tech teams with the agility and speed to innovate by using API-first best of breed technologies to meet their unique business needs.
With a composable commerce approach, you can power the experiences for all of your brands and unique catalog needs from one solution. With Elastic Path, unlike other headless microservices solutions, you can do this all from the same instance of the platform - meaning you don't have to pay for multiple 'stores' or channels if you expand from D2C only into B2B or B2B2C models.
Product Experience Manager offers the industry's only fully de-coupled catalog. That means product, pricebooks, and hierarchies (categories) are entirely separate. You can create an unlimited amount of catalogs, manage variations, and create bundles that suit your customers' needs rather than working around the rigidity of a traditional catalog. This enables your merchandising teams to quickly swap between unique catalogs for sales and build specific catalogs B2B customers, all 5x faster than a conventional catalog.
No, unlike the quarterly updates to APIs from Shopify that require developer hours and constant updates, as Elastic Path is a SaaS solution, we do not depreciate APIs as a rule. Instead, we are committed to the success of your brand and often work with our customers to determine commerce roadmaps that drive the performance of your brand.
Elastic Path’s frontend commerce solution CX is seamlessly integrated with Elastic Path and Shopify so that brands can accelerate composable commerce adoption and drive revenue with personalized turn-key storefronts and shoppable landing pages.
Unlike ShopPay, there are no surcharges or penalties for not using Elastic Path Payments. Select your payment vendor of choice or easily leverage our best-in-class payment process solution Elastic Path Payments powered by Stripe with concierge-level service, price transparency, and no hidden fees.
Speak with one of our experts to learn more about how you can innovate and grow with Elastic Path.