Where is Magento Commerce Heading?
When Adobe announced their acquisition of Magneto in 2018, it was clear the software giant was making a play at becoming the top dog in ecommerce. Now, the final stage of the rollout of the merged product is underway, and Magneto is set to undergo some significant changes, including a fresh rebrand, a permanent move to the cloud, expanded vertical integrations, new payment options, and more.
Rebranding:
Most obviously, Magneto, as it was once known, is no more, and the system is now officially known as Adobe Commerce. That may seem like a simple change, but considering the weight that Adobe’s brand carries and how many businesses already depend on its products and cloud services, the change in name is set to become a huge draw that instills confidence in potential customers that may have never even heard of Magneto before.
Cloud Hosting:
Magneto was traditionally a self-hosted software suite that required users to install, manage, and host the system on their own accounts at a minimum and, for larger users, often on their own servers. But Adobe is all about cloud integrations, and unsurprisingly Adobe Commerce is becoming part of Experience Cloud, meaning users will be able to access and manage all of their ecommerce infrastructure and reporting on the cloud. That reduces the burden and potentially some of the liability on the merchant and will be an attractive feature for many users.
Vertical Integration:
Adobe products have long been the backbone of many websites and ecommerce businesses, but payments were always the one thing that required third-party integration. The company’s acquisition of Magneto was a direct challenge to Shopify, which offers a one-stop ecommerce system with integrations for every module an ecommerce customer could need right out of the box. Adobe Commerce will offer the same type of vertical integration, but to an even larger extent, enabling large ecommerce businesses to roll payments and ecommerce into the same vendor they use for web development, image editing, video production, and more.
Price Hikes:
Adobe Cloud starts at just under $2,000 US, according to Capterra. That’s slightly more than the $1,833 per month that Magneto 2 cost upon release, which was itself a major hike from the original Magneto platform. Unfortunately for small business users, Adobe’s acquisition of Magneto almost certainly means an even greater focus on large enterprise users – the same users the company targets Experience Manager to, which carries license fees ranging from the hundreds of thousands into the millions of dollars. As a result, it makes sense to expect some significant price hikes in the following years.
Payment Integrations:
Part of Adobe’s goal for the Magneto platform was making it as easy as possible for users to accept payments, and they’ve done that by partnering with PayPal to make payment integration a breeze even for users without merchant accounts. However, the price of Adobe Commerce means that it isn’t a likely choice for the micro-merchants that depend heavily on PayPal, and any business warranting an ecommerce system that costs $24,000 per year at a minimum is likely to have their own merchant account. To serve those merchants, Adobe Commerce will continue to offer traditional payment gateway integration for both Braintree and Authorize.Net.
The birth of Adobe Commerce stands to benefit large Magneto users in a number of ways, but smaller businesses that have been dependent on Magneto 1 or that were just barely able to afford Magneto 2 will have some choices to make as prices go up. BAMS merchants can rest assured that, no matter what they choose, their merchant services will continue to offer seamless integration with Adobe Commerce and all other top ecommerce systems like WooCommerce, Big Commerce, and many more.
If you’re looking for a new merchant services provider that can offer you the integrations and choice you demand with the guaranteed-low-fees you need, reach out to a member of the BAMS team or get started with your free five-point price comparison today.
