ADOBE

COMMERCE DEVELOPMENT

Adobe Commerce provides configurable tax rules that can be applied according to product, customer, and shipping information. This allows merchants to configure VAT treatments across the storefront and checkout. The correct treatment still depends on factors such as where goods are located, where they are sold, the customer's status, and applicable HMRC rules, so the Commerce configuration should reflect the merchant's specific VAT position.

Adobe Commerce provides technical capabilities to handle customer personal information, including workflows for accessing and deleting customer data. However, the platform itself is not a blanket GDPR certification. Compliance depends on how the merchant configures Commerce, hosting, integrations, analytics, payments, retention, and other data-processing activities.

Adobe Commerce B2B includes company accounts, shared catalogues, custom pricing, purchase orders, and negotiable quotes. Company accounts can support multiple users and role-based purchasing permissions, while shared catalogues can provide different product selections and pricing for specific companies. Additional integrations can extend these workflows into ERP, procurement, or other business systems.

Adobe Commerce can exchange product, inventory, pricing, order, and other data with external marketplaces through APIs, extensions, middleware, or custom integrations. This can support marketplace operations across channels such as Amazon and eBay, depending on the APIs and the selected connector. The available functionality should therefore be assessed marketplace by marketplace.

Adobe Commerce provides configurable shipping methods and supports multiple inventory sources, allowing merchants to structure fulfilment around different locations and delivery requirements. Carrier services, additional fulfilment workflows, and options such as collection can be added through suitable extensions or integrations where required. The final customer delivery experience depends on the logistics architecture implemented.

Adobe Commerce Payment Services provides an integrated payment solution, with additional payment gateways available for connection where required. Adobe's current documentation specifically addresses Strong Customer Authentication requirements for merchants in the UK and EU under PSD2. The exact payment methods and authentication flow depend on the payment service and merchant configuration.

Adobe Commerce can connect with ERP systems through APIs, extensions, middleware, and custom integrations. This can synchronise commerce and operational data such as products, inventory, customers, pricing, and orders. Systems such as Sage, SAP, and Microsoft Dynamics can be integration targets, with the architecture depending on the specific ERP, version, data model, and business processes.

A single Adobe Commerce installation can support multiple websites, stores, and store views with different domains, products, categories, currencies, and languages. This can allow businesses to manage multiple brands or localised storefronts from shared Commerce administration. The architecture still needs to account for catalogue size, indexing, performance, and the required level of separation between stores.

Adobe Commerce now offers semantic search capabilities that use AI to understand the meaning and intent behind shopper queries rather than relying only on exact keyword matches. Adobe Commerce Optimizer combines keyword and semantic matching to return more relevant products for natural-language searches. The specific capabilities available depend on the Commerce product and services included in the implementation.

Adobe Commerce is generally better suited when a business needs deeper catalogue customisation, complex B2B workflows, extensive ERP or third-party integrations, multiple storefront structures, or greater control over the commerce architecture. Shopify Plus can be a stronger fit when faster deployment, managed infrastructure, and lower technical overhead are the priorities. The right choice depends on the complexity of the business processes, integrations, and level of customisation the store needs.